Mastering Movement, Coaching, and Life Beyond the Barbell with Pat Barber

Pat Barber brings two decades of CrossFit wisdom to this candid, wide-ranging conversation that delves into the mechanics of movement mastery and the art of coaching development. As a six-time CrossFit Games competitor and Level 4 coach who's mentored countless fitness professionals, Pat offers refreshingly honest insights that bridge technical expertise with psychological wisdom.

The discussion explores what it truly means to progress from recreational fitness to elite performance, with Pat drawing clear distinctions between pursuing health versus sport. "When you expose yourself to higher loadings and complexity for competitive CrossFit, it should all come after eating well, sleeping well, and being consistent," he explains, emphasizing that doing more isn't necessarily healthier—it's simply sport for sport's sake.

Pat's technical breakdown of gymnastics progression reveals his methodical approach to movement development. For strict pull-ups, he recommends slow negatives to create productive muscle damage. For muscle-ups, he emphasizes the importance of understanding the movement as more of a toes-to-bar pattern than a chest-to-bar pull-up. Throughout, he advocates for scaling movements that closely mimic the target skill while varying those scales to prevent plateaus.

The conversation takes a personal turn when Pat discusses his relationship with alcohol and its surprising effects on his emotional regulation during vacations. His vulnerability around these topics demonstrates the ongoing self-experimentation that characterizes his approach to optimization. Similarly, his reflections on his competitive career reveal a profound self-awareness: "I don't think I ever reached my physiological potential. I think I reached my psychological potential of what I was willing to do."

Perhaps most valuable are Pat's insights into coaching development, drawn from his work with Coaches Development and the Father's Guild. He articulates that excellent coaching transcends mechanical correction to establish individualized relationships with athletes. "Set high standards as your North Star and make people love it," he advises new coaches, emphasizing both connection and integrity.

Listen in for a masterclass in movement, mindset, and mentorship from one of CrossFit's most thoughtful veterans.

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Transcript

Meet Pat Barber: CrossFit OG

Venessa Krentz 0:25

All right . Welcome to episode 11 of Squats and Seances . I am excited to welcome Pat Barber he is a true OG of CrossFit to the show today . Pat is a 20-year CrossFit vet who specializes in developing coaches and auditing gym culture . He is a level four coach who still regularly teaches level ones and level twos . He currently resides in the mountains of Santa Cruz where he enjoys building , foraging , running retreats and parenting his four sons . He runs two companies , one called the Father's Guild , where he mentors fathers , and one called Coaches Development , where he mentors coaches . Welcome , pat .

Pat Barber 1:12

I don't know how to respond to welcome . Hello , glad to be here .

Venessa Krentz 1:17

Over the last few months , I've asked the local and online CrossFit community to share with me what questions they would ask a CrossFit expert if they had the opportunity to do so . Today's conversation is going to feature many of their submissions . I think it'll be a pretty fun Q&A . Some of the questions made me laugh when I went through them .

Pat Barber 1:38

So we'll get right into it .

Venessa Krentz 1:39

Yeah , I think this is going to be easy , easy for you .

Pat Barber 1:42

I wouldn't say I'm an expert on many things , but CrossFit happens to be the thing where I'm like you know what . I think I actually am an expert in this specific space . Everything else , fledgling , novice CrossFit it happens to be where I know a lot .

Venessa Krentz 1:56

Yeah , I absolutely believe that to be true for you . It's definitely your niche . Before we get into the listener submissions that I had , I like to ask every first time guest this question Can you describe in your own words what gritty means to you ?

Pat Barber 2:12

Well , that's funny Right now I'm working for street parking , I'm doing some work for their media side as well as some of their coaching stuff , and they're actually doing an entire month which is a grit focused month , and they're actually doing an entire month which is a grit-focused month . So I had to go Google a definition for that and create one that felt right for this space specifically and that kind of boiled down to the ability to pursue , to continue going , even when you face setbacks or when you face difficulty or when you face failure . So grittiness is the ability to kind of continue to push through without necessarily succeeding . Stuff gets hard , stuff doesn't feel easy and you have grit that allows you to push through . That and that is how it was defined there and that fit with my understanding of grit .

Venessa Krentz 3:02

That's great . I'm going to create this huge poster of everyone's answers , so thank you for contributing to that . It's funny because when I launched this podcast , that was kind of my catchphrase . You know , community for the gritty and now I see it everywhere . Maybe everyone was just on the same energy wavelength at the same time , like man 2025 , going to need some grit to get through this one .

Pat Barber 3:25

Yeah , it's an interesting subject though because , like , how you form grit in the different areas of life is , you know , different , right ? So , depending on whether you're talking about relationships , whether you're talking about fitness , or whether you're talking about work , whether you're talking about personal development , like there's a slightly different avenue you would take , depending on the activity that you would , that you would that would make you gritty , and so it's . It's definitely a wide spanning subject and I , I find it fascinating .

Pat Barber 3:55

I , I myself , have never described myself as gritty . I've never felt particularly like , uh , I I think there's like , there's a , there's a , an imagery that invokes in my head of clearly dirt right , like there's like a , a discomfort there , and I don't find myself to be somebody who , like , is in discomfort a lot , you know , like I , but I I wonder if that's because the things that I pursue as comfort happen to be pretty difficult things inherently , whereas I think some people need to lean into discomfort and just look at it and go and be like that's how I'm going to get gritty . So I think it's something that can be done very intentionally , but depending on the area you're working in , it's done in a slightly different way .

Venessa Krentz 4:41

That's a chameleon of a word . Sure , is there a dog behind you ? By the way , I see something moving in the shadow and I'm assuming it's a dog . There are two , okay .

Pat Barber 4:49

There's a big one lying there who looks dead . And then there's one under the . They're like they don't actually get to come inside this room . They want to all the time because it's cooler than outside , but they snuck in here when my my son opened the door earlier , so they're just living their best life .

Venessa Krentz 5:04

I love that . I just wanted to prepare myself in case I saw something large get up behind you and start moving . All right , let's get into it . Question number one from a listener . This one made me smile . They coined it going from street to elite . Can you name the top three components to becoming a successful CrossFitter ?

Understanding Grit and Perseverance

Pat Barber 5:26

Can you name the top three components to becoming a successful CrossFitter ? Interesting the phrasing of the question street to elite to me sounded like going from somebody who was just a normal human being looking to live a quality of life into somebody who's looking to compete in the sport of CrossFit . So that's where my brain went . But then the phrasing of the question was centered around how do you become a successful CrossFitter ? So I guess I'll answer it two ways .

Venessa Krentz 5:48

One I think you need to define- . Yeah , let's start with that first part .

Pat Barber 5:51

Sure , you want to start with the first one .

Venessa Krentz 5:53

Yeah , let's just talk about what . Is it to go from zero to ? I can successfully work out in a CrossFit gym , and then let's go successfully working out in a CrossFit gym to a lead athlete .

Pat Barber 6:06

Got it . I think the first thing you have to do in either of those two cases is define what success means to you . So , in order to actually pursue something with any sort of meaning , you need to define what you're trying to pursue . So , when it comes to going from not like off the street , never doing CrossFit to doing CrossFit , you need to say , okay , well , why do I want to do CrossFit and what is it going to give me and what am I looking to get from it ? And then finding a place that you can get that . So , if you understand CrossFit and you know what it is , the goal of it is to help you live a higher quality of life through physical capacity , so it allows you to perform the tasks of daily life and , as like extreme life , even like , it allows you to say yes to life . So the the things that you would need to do to go from not doing CrossFit to doing CrossFit would be one defining what you want from it , then finding a place that says they could promise to give it to you and feeling like that place is somewhere you fit in .

Pat Barber 7:07

So I would say , when it comes to choosing a gym , successfully is you walk in and you talk to the people and you go these feel like my people , or they don't feel like my people , or these feel like people I want to be around , or these feel like a bunch of self-entitled turds . So I think that each individual gym is going to offer a different thing , and the biggest thing is that you feel like you fit into the culture in the community . The individual program from gym to gym will vary based off of the level of understanding of the coaches and owners who run the gym , and it'll still all be under a CrossFit umbrella for the most part . But some things are more effective or less effective at moving the needle when it comes to human growth , and I don't think that , as a new off the street gym goer , you're ever going to find , you're ever going to be able to evaluate that . So that is secondary , like understanding what the program is , to feeling like you fit in .

Pat Barber 8:04

So I would say , going from like I can't do this to I can is choosing what you want to get from it . I want to lose weight , I want to live a higher quality life , I want to feel more capable , whatever it is . Setting that as your North Star , then going to a space and asking them if they can help you achieve that , and then , if the interaction feels good there , then go there , and if it doesn't , find another gym and then have the same conversation and then go there .

Venessa Krentz 8:29

Great , that's super helpful for somebody that is considering just walking in the door getting started . And then second part to that question athlete that's been in the gym doing really well , feeling like they want to up their game .

Pat Barber 8:44

Yeah , I think the same initial step applies is you want to go , why and what are you trying to do ? So if you're just trying to live a higher quality of life , upping your game would be a matter of refining the things that you're doing to continue to maximize the adaptations you're getting from the gym . So it would be looking at things like the nutrition that you're taking on board , the amount of sleep that you have , the amount of abilities and ways that you cope with stress outside the gym the external factors that play into your gym success as well as your consistency . So if you're just looking to live a higher quality of life , dialing in all of those other pieces are going to be the big focuses for you . I don't think you need anything extra . I don't think you need to do more volume . I don't think you need to do any sort of special program . You need to show up , be consistent and adjust those other things to be successful .

Pat Barber 9:34

When it comes to , if you ask yourself what you're looking for and your goal is to achieve higher levels of competition like I want to go , compete at a local level you need to recognize that the sacrifice that you're making is you are no longer pursuing a higher quality of life per se , but you're looking for a specific goal of competitive performance .

Pat Barber 9:56

So think of it more of like a game , like I'm going to go learn to play basketball or I'm going to go learn to play football .

Pat Barber 10:03

In order for me to do that , I have to go practice that sport , I have to be exposed to that sport , and so in the case of CrossFit , it means being exposed to the sport and what the sport is slightly higher loadings , slightly more volume and higher levels of complexity .

Pat Barber 10:21

So when you expose yourself to those things , if you're looking to pursue that avenue , it should all come after those other things that I mentioned eating well , sleeping well , staying , being consistent . But once you've achieved those and you're looking to achieve a higher level of , like , competitive performance , then it's about adjusting the volume and the overall intensity and the overall complexity that you're hitting on the daily , and that should be done intelligently to build you up in a well-rounded way but is often not and just know that you have a higher likelihood of burnout , higher likelihood of injury , and the idea is to pursue sport for sport's sake , not health . Doing more is not necessarily healthy , it's not necessarily unhealthy , but it's definitely not the place I would go . If your goal is higher levels of performance or higher level qualities of life , I should say that's great .

Venessa Krentz 11:16

I really appreciate the delineation of pursuing sport versus separating out the health benefits of the functional fitness that individual's doing . We're going to shift to the next question . This one came up a lot across different platforms .

Going from Street to Elite

Venessa Krentz 11:38

No-transcript .

Pat Barber 11:39

Yeah , I mean the best way to . We won't even say an aging population , let's just say across all populations , because it's the same general thing . It's just , you have more tolerance for things when you're younger , so as you start to have- .

Venessa Krentz 11:55

Generally speaking .

Pat Barber 11:56

Generally speaking , you have more tolerance for things as you're younger . You can bounce back quicker . So it's the same general thing , which is not overuse and not improper loading . So improper loading doesn't necessarily just mean the improper weights , it means the improper directions and angles and positions . So when we're training , the number one thing we would want to try to look for is not number one thing , one of the number one things , one of the top level things is quality of movement . So making sure we're loading our structure in a way that is anatomically sound .

Pat Barber 12:27

And when you go take courses and you do CrossFit coaching and all that kind of stuff , there's some really big basic points that you need to hit . Things like taking joints through full ranges of their ability , making sure knees stay tracking over toes for the majority of loaded movements , making sure balance stays about the foot , making sure the spine doesn't round out under load . So preserving range as well as function , as well as taking these body through a good long capacity and full complement of its ability , is huge for preserving joint health . The other thing is to make sure you're not overusing it . So , if anything , you would want to error on the side of underuse and then just push capacity as you get better , so move really well .

Pat Barber 13:13

So that's the range stuff as well as the quality of movement stuff . And then error on underuse and not doing too much , especially in things like shoulders and hanging and knees and jumping . As you continue to age , those things take a little bit more of a beating and just stay in your capacity and then just be pushing the threshold here and there rather than overwhelming too much . Days that pop up that have super high levels of box jumps , maybe do a bunch of step ups , days that do a whole bunch of upper body pulling , maybe do ring rows and decrease the overall volume . Using the body through all of these systems is fantastic and it's how we actually stay healthy for longer periods of time . But if you overuse stuff and you move poorly then you lead towards higher likelihood of degeneration , of what's happening .

Venessa Krentz 14:05

Yeah , thank you . And listeners I know you guys will get back to this point because this is so key in my own coaching experience as well . People really struggle with scaling back weight and the volume of the movement If they can't move well , you got to get to basics first full range of motion around the joint , move with integrity , and then we can talk about weight . All right , switch , switching gears . Again we've got some gymnastic movement questions Strict pull-ups , chest to bar muscle-ups so three different things . Could you name one for each ? One element that you feel is foundational to its eventual execution ? So you want strict pull-ups . Do this one thing start knowing there's going to be more right . It's never just a single thing . Strict pull-ups , chest to bar muscle-ups .

Pat Barber 14:55

Well , so as a general rule , when you're looking to train any gymnastics piece or actually any piece in general , when we're trying to get to a place that we're not currently at , you want to pick scales that as closely as possible , mimic the actual movement , but then vary those scales up as you continue to do them . So I think the number one overarching rule that I'd say across all three of these is never get stuck in a single scale . So a lot of times people will want something and they'll just do the same thing over and over again . In order to get it you would want to vary up the different types of scales . So if we're talking about something like a chest to bar pull-up , you'd want to be working really , really good ring rows at varying levels of body position . You would want to do chest to bar slow negatives where you jump up to the top , hold your chest and do a slow , eccentrically loaded position . You'd want to work your kipping pull-up , looking to pull to a higher chest-to-bar . You know like there'd be varying levels of things . We could do bands , we could do different types of negatives , different places that we can do other kinds of bent over rows and pulling , but just making sure you're mixing up .

Pat Barber 15:57

The scale is an overarching piece . So the three movements that you said were one , strict pull-ups , the other was chest-to-bar and the other last was muscle-ups . For strict pull-ups , I think you need damage and the hard part about right . So the way we improve as human beings is we damage a system and we stress it . You should say the body responds by actually healing and becoming better . There's this process of damage to recovery and that's the thing you're always balancing with any kind of physiological training is damage and recovery . So I would say , for chest bar pull-up or for strict pull-ups , slow negatives are my favorite go-to , just like where you're jumping up and doing slow negatives down all the way , hit the bottom , boom and then jump back up to the top and I like to add that bottom piece , hang for a second and make sure you get the full compliment of the shoulder and then jump back up . So do those in classic strength and conditioning sets . You know , uh , like hypertrophy style 12 reps , like three sets even then that might be too much .

Pat Barber 17:03

So error on the side of slightly too little maybe . Sets of six , so like half the rain , half the number of reps , so sets of six for three , sets for the first time you do it and then go to eight and then just see how much damage it's doing to you . You don't realize that eccentrically loaded movements , that lengthening phase of the muscle that you're resisting , do a lot more damage . So you have to do less of them to have the same amount of damage done versus something that's concentric like a strict pull up .

Venessa Krentz 17:30

Right and there's , there's a latency period , right , Like you're not probably going to feel that in that moment .

Pat Barber 17:33

but 12 hours later , you're going to feel it . You're not . Yeah , you're going to be like yeah .

Venessa Krentz 17:40

I feel great I'm going to do another six . I don't know what's wrong . Then tomorrow you're like I can't lift my arms up .

Pat Barber 17:46

Yeah , yeah , I , I , I would say that that would be a thing that you could spend time on is a straight , straight pull-ups there .

Pat Barber 17:53

The next one would be chest to bar .

Pat Barber 17:55

Um , for chest to bar , so chest to bar is generally done via a really dynamic kip and then a high pole right . So I would say there would be two things is making sure your kip is dialed , making sure you're fully using the compliment of the hip , because it's it's . If you're doing a half kip and then expecting to get a good upper body pole , you're kind of scrooged . So I would say , make sure you've got a good gymnastic style kip , big firing of the hip , big closing the hip , big opening of the hip , and there's plenty of drills online you can check for that . And then I would do some ring rows , like a pretty flat looking ring where you're pulling to the chest level all the way down to kind of almost like below nipple line and really holding there for like a second and then doing coming back to straight , so you're getting more of that bottom end pull as you go through there . So the bottom end pull coupled with a really dynamic kip , I think is what's going to really get you there .

Venessa Krentz 18:50

That's great . I appreciate that particular scale for that , or building strength , because in the coaching world I often see that as coaches they just program more pull-ups to try to get chest to bar .

Pat Barber 19:01

Right and so so where do ?

Venessa Krentz 19:03

you get that deep pull , you're right , and you've got to have the full opening of the hip and you need to be able to pull all the way to your sternum , so I think that's great .

Preserving Joint Health as You Age

Venessa Krentz 19:09

Thank you , that's a really good example .

Pat Barber 19:11

You're welcome . And then for muscle ups , are we talking about one thing ?

Venessa Krentz 19:17

Yeah , so what ? What comes to mind for me is the ah , it's a good question . Should we do ? They didn't specify bar or ring .

Pat Barber 19:26

We can do both . Okay , yeah , let's do it . Bar muscle ups and all of these things . When we move on into dynamic like chest bar and bar muscle ups , we're assuming that people have strict pull-ups , we're assuming that they have the shoulder girdle strength to handle a dynamic load through it . That's just a thing .

Pat Barber 19:42

I would say bar muscle-ups . One of the big things that I see working for people is recognizing that it's far more of a toes-to-bar movement than a chest-to-bar pull-up style movement . So making sure your kip is more of a drive down and elevation , where you're doing that big dynamic hip from the chest-to-bar but instead of pulling to the bar to get that chest to the bar , you're doing more of a drive down like a lat pull down that elevates your body up behind it . So doing a lot of these big kips that then , with a lat pull down , more like a toes to bar , so your body is behind the bar that you can then work on diving forward to it . So I would say that that general psychological framework is what tends to get people closer to it , and I've been criticized for this before and I am happy to put it out there .

Pat Barber 20:31

There is a time and place for me where if somebody shows me physiological strength , they show me all these other things and they have this psychological hurdle that you're seeing them just get stuck . I have helped . I have allowed people to do a chicken wing for the first or second or third time , or in , and they're in the open and it's like they're about to get their first one and you do it there . I've heard people have horror stories of this where they tear biceps and they tear pecs and I'm like I've never seen that , I've never had that happen . And I've allowed , I've , and I it's like on the fly a call that I'll make , but if it's not where I , it's not really what I would teach , but if , if someone's having the psychological hurdle , I would head there , um for uh , ring muscle ups , the I mean the progression for the ring muscle up is so good that they do at the level one and having people yeah .

Pat Barber 21:21

Yeah , it's . There's such a kinesthetic awareness that many people don't have of how to stay tight , how to pull to here , how to dive the chest through . So just doing tons of reps on a much strict reps down on really low riddings is huge for me . A unique one that I would say that people can do is a ring muscle up negative , so you get to the top of a dip and then you slowly lower yourself down and then you turn your wrists over so you can get to that false grip and then transition down and then do that again . So you're working that eccentrically loaded piece again and learning how to keep it all tight Cause like , when you're down below you tend to want to pull wide , when you're up above you don't want to go wide .

Pat Barber 22:03

And then you recognize how tight you need to be as you drop through and your body can kind of work it from the backwards to the forwards and then you try it from there .

Venessa Krentz 22:11

That's brilliant . You actually answered a side question that came up the necessity of a full script for ring muscle up . I believe it's necessary , but I'm L3 , you're L4 , you've been doing this at least 10 years longer than me . What are your thoughts ?

Pat Barber 22:25

I think of it as like a tool that , in order for you to do something easier ,

Gymnastics Movement Progression Tips

Pat Barber 22:30

you could use a false grip , which is going to shorten the lever arm and be a grip that you don't need to move . So what happens with a false grip is you go from a pulling position to when you transition . You go to a pushing position and it's the ring stays stacked under the forearm , so you don't need to move your hand to do that because of where it sits on the ring . You just turn your hand around and you're good If you're in the four on your fingertips when you go to transition above the ring . In order to get from your fingertips , or even the palm of the hand , to stacked under the wrist , you have to slide your hand around to do so , which , in order for you to do that , the wrist you have to slide your hand around to do so , which , in order for you to do that , you either need to be obscenely strong in your pull or you need to have a kip . So when you kip , there's a weightless portion where you're transitioning from below to above and you can just go , whoop and slide your hand over . So if you're really coordinated and you know that there's going to be a weightless portion where you whoop , slide your hand through , then you don't need to have it .

Pat Barber 23:24

If you're doing a KIP , but that requires a lot of prerequisites that are like I would prefer you to do it with a false grip and then we learn how to do a no false grip version of it when you're looking for a really dynamic KIP .

Pat Barber 23:38

Because if you have a false grip you can always fall back on that when you start to fatigue , because it's always going to be an easier transition . But if you don't have a false grip and all you have is this dynamic kip , the second you start failing , you're done Like you're not getting any more . So I would say it's like a progressive thing is like you learn the false grip . You do the false grip strict muscle up , before you move on to a false grip , kipping muscle up , where you get a little bit of a hip in there . You realize how easy the transition is . And then you understand coordination and all these other pieces and you're dynamic through the hip and you're competing in it and you can do just like a normal grip and then there's like half grips in between . So it's just like a tool , time and place thing .

Venessa Krentz 24:17

That's perfect . Thank you , I love this . I could talk about this kind of stuff all day .

Pat Barber 24:21

Same Zs .

Venessa Krentz 24:22

All right . Next question I've got is injury prevention . In your opinion , what is the number one thing to do to not get hurt in a crossfit gym ?

Pat Barber 24:32

The number one thing is to reduce your ego , and so the number one thing that I see people getting hurt doing is doing something outside of their ability level . That could be due to a poor direction on the coach's part , like not telling you what's expected , or , more often , what I see is is people who think that they just need to do what's on the board and they just do the wrong thing , like they do too much load or they don't , they don't move particularly well and they use smaller structures before they use bigger structures , and so I think that's if you can let go of your ego and you can be there to learn and you can use lighter load and you can move better and get beaten workouts like you'll have a much lower likelihood of being hurt . Now , coupled with that is you also need to basically have some like how do I say this ? You have to have some like personal , not autonomy , but like a responsibility , like to be like this doesn't feel right . I'm not doing this right . I want to change rather than I'm going to push through , and that is a lot of the coach's responsibility to make sure they educate you on what that should all feel like and the culture that should be there , but I would say that's that's .

Pat Barber 25:46

The number one is drop ego . The other one is don't do too much , and sometimes people don't have an ego , but they'll just they think that more is better and that's just fundamentally not the case . It's like like you have the rest of your life to get fit and the fact that you showed up like you're doing good , so take each day is just like a small piece to a larger puzzle . Don't feel like you need to toss it all in the same day , and I think that that's . That's a failure on some gyms part . They just do too much programming wise . But it's also a failure on some athletes part , where they're like oh , there's three skills here . I'm going to take the one that has the most amount of stuff and I'm just going to hammer it .

Venessa Krentz 26:24

Or they just won't rest , or they're like after class , I'm going to do five sets of five deadlifts , and also to have a coach there that watches that come over and say why don't we chat about what you're doing right now ? What's happening ?

Pat Barber 26:36

Totally , and I think , too , there's also a sense of like there's education that needs to happen there . There's also like a conversation we had of like why are we in the gym ? What are we doing ? What are we training for ?

Pat Barber 26:46

Like is this serving a purpose , Yep , so to not get hurt . There's a lot of things , but also we're human beings and we're doing something that is complex . Is there the potential for injury and you just get unlucky ? Sure , so it's less about like okay , I mean , you try to mitigate it as much as possible , but you're going to get tweaked , Like it's like I know how to move really well .

Venessa Krentz 27:06

I get tweaked . You can sneeze and get tweaked . And where I'm at now , some days I roll over in bed and I'm like , oh no .

Pat Barber 27:16

And you go okay , well , what happened there ? Was that just unlucky , or was there something I could have done ? And you don't dwell on it , you just go . Ah , it's a bummer . Okay , whatever , like I'll , I'll figure it out . I'm going to try not to do that again and I'm going to heal myself and I'll come back and hit it again and that ego component man I was just talking with someone about that this morning at the gym .

Venessa Krentz 27:34

Huge , Like knowing enough to know that I could do more . But I also shouldn't , and I don't have to .

Pat Barber 27:42

Right .

Venessa Krentz 27:43

So let's say someone's already hurt , they already got hurt , whether ego we're just sneezing in my case , what's the most important thing they can do for their recovery ? As it pertains to the scope of CrossFit , Uh , I would say .

Pat Barber 27:59

I mean , all injuries are different but I would say depending , like the vast majority of them , like , movement is pretty good as long as you're moving pain-free , like you come in and you do things that are outside directly eliciting pain , that continued consistency will keep you on track with the other goals that you have . So , whether you have to scale , you have to change , you have to modify whether it be something close to the movement or even something totally different . You have to scale , you have to change , you have to modify , whether it be something close to the movement or even something totally different . Trying to find things that you are able to do and continue to do them is massive for your overall psychology . There's also studies showing like a loss of atrophy , like a decrease in atrophy on sides that are not used when you use the other side . I don't know exactly why or what science is going on there , but like , just stay moving if possible .

Pat Barber 28:46

And then the external things that you can do are you can look to try to take care of yourself . You can eat better , can sleep better , you can try to get massages and body work . You can . You can take care of your mental and emotional health , like . There's all kinds of you can think more positively . There's a lot , there's a lot that you can do to try to like , move you in the direction of just like , hey , this is temporary , I'm going to be okay and like , and just keep doing the things , cause , like we said at the beginning , I mean , failure is inevitable with this . It's it's just a matter of how we cope with that . It's that gritty piece , um , I think some people think of like gritty as like I hurt myself . I'm going to use it anyway . It's like nah , dude , it's like I hurt myself . What can I do ? How can I look at this in the best light and how can I not let that pain happen again ? You know , yeah , show up , keep moving .

Venessa Krentz 29:33

I appreciate that you mentioned those studies on the muscle atrophy versus not losing the muscle mass on the non-injured sides benefits to single arm or single leg training or whatever it might be , depending on the type of injury that individual has . Thank you All , right . You ready for some personal questions ?

Pat Barber 29:52

Sure Okay .

Venessa Krentz 29:54

Yeah , they want to know what nutrition protocol do you follow , or if you follow one and why . I'm curious on this one too , as a nutritionist . Let's hear .

Pat Barber 30:11

Yeah , I think nutrition is such a it's probably the most important subject to understand to some degree , and I think part of understanding nutrition is that by no means is there a one size fits all and the variable nature of the human experience , as well as the seasons of life that you find yourself in . You will be eating different things and there are so many people who have hangups and psychosis around food , whether it be excessive consumption or excessive suppression , or just emotional connection or anything in between . So it's a very broad and dangerous but vastly important subject to consider at all times . And I think for other people , I try to figure out where they're at and what's going on and just give them something , tools that will help them be consistent with better choices . For myself , I've done everything . I like to tinker . I've tried keto . I've done better for you so in general .

Pat Barber 31:26

what I do right now is I will mainly track very not loosely , but I'll track my breakfasts and my lunches , uh , just to know like roughly how much macronutrients and protein , carbohydrates and what , and also also total calories I'm having throughout the middle of the day and then , based off of that , eat a smaller or larger dinner , and a lot of the year I'll just eat . I eat relatively the same stuff all the time and if I find myself making worse choices more often then I'll redial in and do what I'm doing now , which is weigh and measure a little bit tighter , just because weighing and measuring allows you to have some objective data that you can look at and go , okay , here's what's going on . And then the variation in that comes from just tweaking macronutrient content or overall

Injury Prevention and Recovery

Pat Barber 32:18

caloric content , or yeah , that's about it . In terms of avoiding stuff , I I don't do super well with ice cream , like I can do dairy , just fine , but ice cream , sugar combo , yeah , I end up like really feeling it my throat , my and my nose and my stomach the next day doesn't mean I don't eat it , it's just I tend to avoid it . Uh , I've got two cups of coffee in the morning at this point in my life I I can't do more for some reason . Um , it makes me super hyper . I I don't . Let's see what else .

Pat Barber 32:46

I'm not a supplement guy . I don't think any human beings really need them unless they're particularly deficient . But I do currently take creatine . I don't notice a difference , but I've just seen so much evidence supporting that it's a pretty good thing to take . So that's only been in the last , I'd say , year . I currently struggle with getting enough protein in a day because I'm trying to eat a gram per body weight , per pound of body weight , and so I I only because of that do I have protein powder and water once a day , just because I just can't get the right amount of protein . Well , I can , but it's like I'm so full if I'm trying to eat that from meat and other stuff .

Venessa Krentz 33:25

Yeah , obviously , the more , the more mass you're walking around with the muscle mass you're walking around with preserved , the more protein you need to consume to support that muscle protein synthesis to continue . It's just like , yeah , you start looking at how much protein you probably should be eating . Shake is a great idea . Protein supplement in that way , sure ? Next question I have do you drink ? If you do , does it affect your training ? And if you do not , why ?

Pat Barber 33:51

yeah , alcohol is objectively a poison . It's , that's its function . It's poisoning you , so your body responds by becoming drunk to process it . So ethanol , being it's , it's , uh , its its own nutrient , is quite good at what it does , which is get processed first and make you tipsy . I really like the taste of whiskey . I really like the taste of beer . I also really enjoy the feeling of being slightly drunk , not blacked out drunk , but a single beer will slow down my brain enough to where I become quite compassionate , I quite loving , and I'm present in a lot of other things . Now that , all being said , I don't know how much control I have over alcohol . I've never been much of a drinker , but if I'm drinking heavy , it's like probably one drink a night , and there's a marked difference in my capacity to cope with little things in life . Like , if I'm doing that often , even one drink a night . Like I'm not as good at being fit , as breathing well , as staying on sick , as thinking clearly . So parenting .

Venessa Krentz 34:58

For me that was a big one .

Pat Barber 34:59

Yeah , parenting there's a lot . There's a lot that that there's positives . Like there's a social component there's a lot . There's a lot that there's positives , there's a social component . That's amazing to have a drink with friends or go out to the bar Not to the bar , but like a I mean a bar would be fine Birthday party .

Pat Barber 35:18

Birthday party , whatever it is . You have to just watch your relationship with alcohol , and so I'll go through periods of time like I'll go on vacation and I'll I'll drink more heavily because we're in Ireland or something and they've got Guinness and I'm like dude , of course I'm going to have Guinness .

Pat Barber 35:32

And whiskey , all the whiskey , and whiskey , great whiskey , and then I'll I'll get pretty sick of it and you know I'll take a year off alcohol and then uh . Then I'll try to be more moderate , but right now I'm actually I I for the last few months I've had this app called reframe , which is like a daily workout or it's a daily uh alcohol tracking app that basically you just log your drinks , you say how many you want to have and then it educates you daily on different functions that alcohol has . So great app . I highly recommend it as just's just like another tracking software so you can know what's going on . And the other thing that I did about two months ago or no , about a month and a half ago it was like right , when we got back from Ireland is I actually outsourced my drinking to my wife .

Pat Barber 36:18

So I said and I told her . I was like do you mind if I outsource this to you ? She said no and I was like well , I can only drink if you tell me hey , do you want to drink ? The answer is always yes when you say do you want to drink . So if you say it , I'm going to say yes , but I won't ask about it , I won't do anything . It's not on my mind until you say , hey , do you want to drink ? No-transcript . Have a drink ? Yeah , that's interesting .

Venessa Krentz 36:54

Yeah , can I , can I pause here ? Known that did an entire year of sobriety , and this was many years ago and this was really when I was in the thick of some other stuff and I was like , wow , that's amazing and I don't think I'm ever going to be able to do that . It just seems like I would miss out on so much . And I also enjoyed wine and all the things Fast forward . I mean this must have been six , seven years ago , maybe longer . Just over a year ago I found Refrain . I started logging . I was like I'm just curious . You know , I just want to learn about this Completely opened my eyes . How much I was consuming was way more than I thought . I was Learning about the neuroscience behind what alcohol does , the physiology of how it affects the body , me being me . I started reading all the books and everything , but it started with reframe .

Pat Barber 37:50

Nice .

Venessa Krentz 37:51

As of September 4th of this month , I am one year sober from alcohol and . I've recorded it all . I did it and I just like . This is a full circle moment for me , dude . Like you were the first person that I knew in my social circle that did that , and I was like , oh , is a full circle moment for me , dude , like you were the first person that I knew in my social circle that did that , and I was like , oh man , I could never do that , that seems like an incredible thing .

Pat Barber 38:11

And you did , I did .

Venessa Krentz 38:13

And so anyone else that's listening . You guys could do this if you wanted to see . So not dissimilar to you , and I know this isn't an episode on alcohol consumption , so I'll just I'll rein it in . The sobriety factor has completely changed how I train . It's changed my body composition , it's changed my mental outlook . It's done a lot more than I ever thought it would . So I just thought that you know that's a real personal question , do you drink ? But when people think of you know these athletes or these individuals that they look up to , and especially in the fitness industry , like that is kind of a hot button topic and it's one that not a lot of people talk about . So just want to thank you for being vulnerable and sharing , because I just had a moment

Nutrition and Alcohol's Impact on Training

Venessa Krentz 38:54

I wasn't expecting to have .

Pat Barber 38:57

Well , that's great . I mean congrats on your journey . I think it's an interesting one because , like , I actually don't care what people do , I just care that they do it intentionally . So , like and I think that that's important for yourself Like , if you want to drink , have good reasons that you're drinking . Be like I'm doing this because it's on purpose . I'm doing it because right now in my life , I feel like this is the best choice . I feel like this is what I want to do and I feel like so many people haven't evaluated that .

Pat Barber 39:22

And there's seasons of life Like I mean , you're one year right , and I did one year a while ago . I didn't notice any difference in the one year , it wasn't that hard for me and I was like that's not bad . But then I've had these other seasons of life where , like I just I don't feel like I could have gone a week without having a drink , you know , and it was after that one year . So , like , there's always going to be this balance in the relationship . It's just you want these choices to be intentional and something that you can live with and something that you're like I'm choosing this drink because this is what's right for me right now , and I'm going to reevaluate it again and again and again and keep coming back to like is this appropriate for me ?

Pat Barber 39:57

Because there's times where it's just not . And something that hit me recently that's really had a big shift in some of my perspective is I did a bit of an analysis of all of the times in the last three years or four years that I've had a not an emotional break , but like a uncontrollable amount of frustration or anger , or it's like , just like a , it's like a mini breakdown , like I don't I'm not an anxious person and I'm not bragging . I just like I don't have anxiety , I don't have depression , I don't have uncontrollable thoughts . I'm like , I'm very logical , like my brain tends to work that way . It's how I cope with the world . I'm very lucky in that regard . So when I have times where I'm like going I shouldn't be feeling like this and I can't work my way out of it , it's really off-putting to me because I'm like what is this ? And I know that's a more common occurrence for some , but like it was very common for me .

Pat Barber 40:52

yeah , but I do have anxiety , right , but this allowed me to examine . So I looked at all of those times and I realized that every single one of those times was usually on some sort of like it's over a holiday or like on a vacation or something like that . Where's over a holiday or like on a vacation or something like that , where there's been repeated nights where I've had four or more drinks , yeah , and the thing that I I realized it was and this has happened in New Zealand , it's happened in Ireland , it's happened in Hawaii three times , it's happened in , uh , on the American river , most recently when I had a trip there where I'm like I'm in these places that are great and I'm a happy person and I'm generally good at making my life feel great not in these places .

Pat Barber 41:33

And I'm in these amazing places and I'm like why do I feel like ? And I'm logically going like what is going on . And so , so , so something I was . I'm really going back through the beginning stages of reframe because I like to restart when I have had a long period of time off and they redo those educations and one of the ones that's from the early , like first six days , the hedonic set point , yep , and they talk about the hedonic set point .

Pat Barber 41:57

Essentially , this is how you feel pleasure . We all have it , naturally . It gets elevated to a point where , like if you are continually having four more drinks , your hedonic set point goes up , where things that normally make you happy no longer make you happy . And so all of a sudden , you're sitting there just feeling like a turd and you're like what's going on ? This is like not how I normally feel and you , you can't logic your way out of it because there's a a hormonal thing going on that you're like what is happening here ? And then , to double down on this , that helped me like really connect the two was a lot of . What happens in these times is I'll become more needy with intimacy from my wife .

Pat Barber 42:37

So I'll be like and I'll blame it on that Like we haven't had sex or blah , blah , blah . This is bothering me and this is the problem . But it's not , I think , what it is . It's my body being like hey , you are feeling lower than you normally do . What are the things that will get you back higher ? You've got alcohol . What's your other thing ? Oh yeah .

Pat Barber 42:56

Oh , pleasure like sex , like go there , and I'm like , oh my gosh , like it's . It's not that , it's this combination , it's this . So my body is seeking to get back to that homeostasis . I can't do that anymore . I don't think I'll ever be able to justify more than four drinks for more than one day .

Venessa Krentz 43:22

There's a lot of really good research out there on what happens with dopamine in the body and that wave pool effect . So you're just kind of waiting now for the waters to settle , because you're like too much and then not enough and then too much on the other side .

Pat Barber 43:29

Oh my gosh . Yeah , that's powerful stuff , so I outsource my drinking .

Venessa Krentz 43:33

Thank you for sharing . People need to hear about it . I do think that people should know it does make a difference and if you want to live your best life probably moderation around alcohol or for some individuals , if it's right for their season , cessation of alcohol consumption that can really be helpful . I'm going to circle back to the questions here , so we already talked about supplements . The last one I think I'll ask before I want to talk about the games with you was do you even sport ? Do you even sport as in the theoretical hierarchy of an athlete right ?

Pat Barber 44:10

We've got all of those things .

Venessa Krentz 44:12

What's your sport , Pat ? I play everything .

Pat Barber 44:16

So I'm , I'm a . I am a what is it ? Audio file , what's the ? What's the term for many faceted person ? I do all sports I've I've always loved . That's how I got into . Crossfit is like I did every sport and I was like this looks fun and there was so much stuff in it that I was like this is really cool . It feels like I'm getting exposed to a lot . So these days , my main sports are I play volleyball . So I play doubles beach volleyball and I surf , and those are the two things that I'll invest my time into . I still play like soccer with my son , badminton or ping pong , or I'll go bowling or like I do everything , but like my main sports that I actually put time and effort and energy into would be volleyball and surfing .

Venessa Krentz 44:59

Fantastic , all right , you ready to chat about the games ?

Pat Barber 45:02

Easy day .

Venessa Krentz 45:03

I've read somewhere that you've been there six times as an athlete competing .

Pat Barber 45:07

Is that true that you've been there six times as an athlete competing ? Is that true ? Eight , nine , 10 , 11 , 13 , four , seven , no , there's six .

Venessa Krentz 45:17

Six Okay .

Pat Barber 45:18

So you guys got that six times . No , 15 foot . Wait , it's six . Yeah , something like that Six , six .

Venessa Krentz 45:23

I feel like anything over five is like okay , you've already surpassed what 99% of the populace is going to do . They wanted to know . Could you just generally describe what it was like when you were competing ? And I think , if we want to be more specific , because that question is very open-ended how did your nutrition and training differ from sort of life as you know it now , in a maintenance phase , just to be able to do your sport and excel at life in general ? So what was it like when you were training to be a games athlete ?

Pat Barber 45:54

Yeah , I mean , it's like anything that if you're truly passionate about it and it's all consuming and it's kind of your job , you just do it more than anything else in your life , so you spend a lot of time at the gym . I was very fortunate to start this sport when it was very young . So when I initially started , we were just doing one workout a day and we would do that one workout really hard and then the games supported that . You know like they were . There were not that many workouts in a single day and it was kind of a spectacle when there was .

Pat Barber 46:22

But then 2009 really switched that around on its head where it was like all of a sudden it became the survival , the fittest , rather than who is the fittest , you know and it was just so many workouts and the people who won were people who did multiple days of training . So when the sport shifted to having volume , then volume goes up as an athlete and when volume goes up , you need to be more precise with nutrition and sleep and all of the recovery that you're doing . So what it was like in the later years of training was a lot of being in the gym and basically for me , I was always very fortunate that I had really good training partners . I had a group of athletes around me that that I would beat them some days . They would beat me other days , and so every day you're just riding that threshold of beating people in different types of modalities and just doing that over and over again , while trying to eat to maintain a caloric balance and not dwindle away into nothing , which is easy when you're 27 and everything works . You know .

Venessa Krentz 47:28

It's way different in the 40s .

Pat Barber 47:29

Yeah , it is , it is different but and and so it was just . It was just a game of competition is a game of energy management , and training was a game of injury management . I was fortunate enough to not have any major injuries and I was it really enjoyed the act of competing , so it was very fun , all consuming times . But then I grew up .

Venessa Krentz 47:51

Yep , as we all do , ah you say that there's plenty .

Pat Barber 47:55

who ?

Venessa Krentz 47:55

don't that's true . Yeah , I shouldn't eat my words there . That's where you met your wife , right ? Is that where you and Taz ?

Pat Barber 48:01

met . Yeah Taz and I met at the 2009 games .

Venessa Krentz 48:03

And did you compete on a team with her ?

Pat Barber 48:06

I have competed on a team with Taz twice so we competed for CrossFit New Zealand in 2011 , 2010 . We competed for CrossFit New Zealand and in 2014 , we competed for Norco CrossFit together .

Venessa Krentz 48:18

That's awesome . So I guess you kind of answered my next question . Last question on the games Would you ever do it again ? Would you ever try to compete again ?

Pat Barber 48:26

No , I've done what I wanted to do . You know , like I , there was a number of years where I used to go back to the games and I'd sit there and I'd watch and I'd be like dude . Maybe take another crack at it , because like .

Pat Barber 48:37

I'm at the itch . I was very gifted , like I've worked hard , sure , but I've been . There's been a lot of gifts given to me in terms of physicality . I don't think I ever and I'm going to be honest , I don't think I ever reached my true potential of what I was capable of , but what it would have taken . I never reached my physiological potential . I think I reached my psychological potential of what I was willing to do and I think there's a very big difference between those Like I could have . I could have been stronger , faster , more capable , a lot of other things , but I didn't have the psychology to do the things that were necessary to be there . I did everything I wanted to in the sport . I got what I wanted from it on that side of it , and I am 100% contented to compete in other things , like volleyball and bowling and badminton and raising my kids . It's not a competition .

Venessa Krentz 49:28

Well , I mean , maybe just with yourself sometime . Thank you for sharing that . I wanted to talk about coaching , development and leadership . This is something that's really near to my heart . It's so funny .

Venessa Krentz 49:37

I don't think synchronicity is by accident . I had this memory come up on my phone 2016 or 17 . I'm at the ranch little young Vanessa smelling or smiling probably smelling but smiling for my L1 picture and you were there and I was like , oh , I didn't even remember Pat was there , but I remembered you from my L2 . So we go way back , but I think you'd only been in CrossFit probably 10 years before that , if you were already at 2007 competing and so you have mentored more developing coaches than we can probably count , and you run coaches development and I want to talk about that a little bit . So you're offering services because , of course , I did snooping . You've got a coaching masterclass , coaching audits , coaching retreats . You've got a weekly newsletter that you offer . I'm going to include links in the show notes for people to go check out your websites . You spent a lot of time in a teaching position . How did you first get started coaching the coach initially ? What keeps you motivated all of these years later to still be doing that ?

Pat Barber 50:45

Yeah , I mean good question , I think that where I got started . So I'll answer the two separate pieces . But where I got started was the first time I coached other coaches was when I went and moved to New Zealand . So I was in Northern California , it's across at Santa Cruz , and that was where I was a coach and I was on level one staff and level two staff and actually I was only on level one staff at the time and then I moved to New Zealand and they had this like young gym there . I mean , it was a great , successful , awesome gym and they had some great coaches , but they also had a bunch of people they were mentoring and like trying to bring up , and I came in with a lot of experience relative to everyone else , and so it was a matter of trying to be like okay , well , let's , let's tinker with making new coaches and trying it there .

Pat Barber 51:32

So that was like 2010 , right around that time , and it was . It was hard . I mean , like the coaching , coaching athletes , you've got a person who's paid you in front of you , who you're trying to make better at movement , and coaching coaches is different in the sense that what you're doing of you , who you're trying to make better at movement and coaching coaches is different in the sense that what you're doing is you're taking a human being and you're developing who they are and their capacity to teach others . So there's another layer of ego that you're dealing with in , like hey , I'm going to comment on how you relate to the world versus I'm going to comment on your ability to squat .

Venessa Krentz 52:09

You could say that's a form of expression relating it's way more personal .

Pat Barber 52:13

And the variation in ego that you face is fascinating , in addition to just the raw skills of seeing , correcting and knowledge and all those other pieces . So obviously I didn't know all this when I started . It was just like try to do this , this works for me . Try to do this , this works for me . And then it just like developed over time to where , 2012 , I started , we moved back to California and I started running NorCal CrossFit with Jason Kalipa and we were the only coaches at our gym that we opened up and grew really rapidly to about 300 members and we were like we need more coaches , so it was just a matter of bringing people in and teaching them how to be better coaches . And so it was trial by fire and hey , here's what I do , here's this . And then it was those gyms grew to like 22 gyms around the country and we had .

Pat Barber 53:02

We had 80 coaches in the Bay area alone and I got put in charge of coaches development with my wife and we wrote development programs and it was like it was the wild west , though , so like nobody knew how to develop and we just kind of knew what we had done .

Pat Barber 53:16

And you know , like we knew how CrossFit had mentored people and like there was but that was only on level one staff and like that was a real trial by fire sort of scenario where , like you just got broken down and like and then rebuilt every seminar so like there's so much in the space that is very just , it was new and uh , so I was kind of at the forefront of all that and then failed so many times .

Pat Barber 53:42

The same way you fail giving cues as a coach and you say , hey , try this and this and it makes it worse and you're like , oh , okay , and I think that the thing that I , that I the reason that I still do it , and so that was my journey through it and like , to this point I'm , you know , now 20 years into it , more than 20 years into it , but 20 years into the coaching side of it pretty much , I think what still keeps me going is like two things . One is the profound impact that these coaches have on their people right . So if I can make a better coach , then the hundreds , if not thousands , of people that they interact with will have better lives . So I'm like that step back removed . So I find a lot of purpose and meaning in making my job or their job better , like what they do better because it's going to have a ripple effect that transcends me in a way that I couldn't do on my own .

Pat Barber 54:34

So if I can , if I can . It's the same thing as like raising good kids . You have five kids or three kids and you raise good kids . Their ripple effect on the world is far greater than you could do as an individual . So it's a very compelling reason to involve more of those in there , right yeah , so it's a very compelling

CrossFit Games Experience

Pat Barber 54:50

reason to involve more of those in there , right yeah ? So I'd say that's one of the things . And the other thing is like nowadays , like I find all of the basics around scene correcting and movement patterns and all those things . That's pretty straightforward and really easy to do and actually where a lot of people are .

Pat Barber 55:04

But what I really enjoy now is relating with the individual . It's like connecting with a human and going okay , where are they at in their journey ? Where are they at ? Like the same way a coach does with an athlete hey , where are they at in their journey ? I'm going to offer them this . You go with a coach .

Pat Barber 55:17

It's like , where are they at on their personal journey ? Great , what do they need ? Do they need a soft hand ? Do they need to be held accountable ? Do they need to hold themselves accountable ? Do they need more scene correcting drills ? Do they need , like , more emotional development . They need to not take stuff personally Like that . Stuff is still quite fascinating to me and there's like an unending bit of discovery that you can do there with people . So I find the mechanics of coaching these days very , very simple to teach . Hey , find stuff that's wrong and make it right , and that's easy for me to deliver . And the developing of people , the coach's development side of it , I find to be very intriguing and meaningful on a very deep level , and so that's why I keep doing it and still have a lot of passion for it .

Venessa Krentz 56:05

I imagine it's a very nuanced practice . There's no two individuals that are going to be in the same place at the same time . No , everyone's going to need something a little bit different . How would you define an excellent coach ?

Pat Barber 56:20

So they would have to have basically a tiered level of ability . So they would have to have the ability to do all of the mechanics of coaching , which is seeing correcting , presence and attitude , group management , like all those six criteria . They have to have those in spades . But then the thing that takes them from like mediocre to excellent to me , or like good to excellent , is an individualized relationship with each person that they interact with . So whatever type of an interaction that they're having , they're giving that person exactly what they need , on both a fundamental , just movement level . But then , like top level , coach is making individualized movement changes as well as developing who the human being is , who a subtle difference in interaction that you have with each person . So it takes it into a realm outside of just the peppering of cues and more into the relational realm .

Venessa Krentz 57:23

That's really good . Thank you for sharing that . If headquarters brings back the all four , I'll be keeping that in mind , should I try it .

Pat Barber 57:29

Hell , yeah , I'm waiting . It's an interesting thing , though , because I think that there are people who try to jump levels right , so they'll go . Okay , I'm going to relate to the person , but they don't see incorrect and you're like you shouldn't do that . I mean you could , but you're going to be minimally effective at your actual job , which is making them have better movement . You know , like , so , like people will , will , like sometimes they'll just I don't know it's it's finding out where they're there , what they know and what they're doing is like the best thing for me . That's like those are the coaching audits , that like , if I can watch someone's class , I can be like cool , you clearly prioritize relationships . Great , you don't need to work on that . Let's work on these things . Or , cool , you clearly prioritize nothing . Let's start with the basics and seeing and correcting .

Pat Barber 58:18

It's fascinating to see where people are at .

Venessa Krentz 58:21

Just a few more questions I'm going to have to let you go here . What is one of the biggest coaching flaws that you observe ? There was one that you see most often the biggest coaching flaws that you observe .

Pat Barber 58:31

There was one that you see most often , Just not coaching . I mean , I see so , and so I'll define coaching as the difference of making individual change happen in a person . So teaching is just relaying of information . Hey , put your knees here , lift your chest up , drive your elbows out , blah , blah , blah . Like you're just telling hey , on this squat , I want to make sure you go below parallel . Blah , blah , blah . Like those are just statements . Until you go on this squat , I want you to go below parallel A little deeper . That one Good . That a little deeper , that one Good . That was coaching .

Pat Barber 58:58

That was what took it from the relaying of something that you wanted to actually getting what you wanted , and I think that is vacant at a lot of gyms . Like a lot of coaches just misunderstand that , that mechanic of like I'm here to watch you move and if you're not moving how you should move , I will make you move differently . That , that and that is my job , and I'm going to do that through cues , not dissertations on movement , but like try this , do this . It's very quick , little , peppery thing , so I would say that's . That's the number one thing that I see is the lack of coaching overall .

Venessa Krentz 59:33

I would love to have a whole nother episode where we talk about specifically coaching development , gym ownership , programming , those kinds of things . Last question I want to ask on this one someone just starting on the coaching path . Maybe they just got their L1 . What is the single most important thing you would advise them as they start their coaching journey ?

Pat Barber 59:55

Single , most important thing for coaching journey . I'm going to say this because it's because you can actually that . That's interesting .

Venessa Krentz 1:00:11

I don't know it's hard to pick one .

Pat Barber 1:00:15

There's probably it is hard many , many things you could tell somebody yeah , I'm , I'm , uh , I'm like trying to figure out if I want to go like mechanical , like something that's like , hey , do this and and prioritize this , or emotional , right and relational , because , like they're okay why don't you give me your best for both . I'll give you my best for both , because anything you put out there is just going to help people .

Pat Barber 1:00:40

You have to do both of them , okay . You have to create a space that people want to be . So that can be through humor , it can be through success , it can be through relationship , it can be through music choices , it can be through like fun , like you need to make sure you prioritize that people in those classes are stoked , that they were there with you . If they are not stoked , they will not come back and you cannot help them anymore . So , first and foremost , they need to have fun , and it doesn't need to be your fun , you don't need to have fun , and it doesn't need to be about you . It needs to be about them taking what they want from this , which plays that individual nature of what you're giving people . So mess around with making sure that when people leave your class , they got something from it . And again , there's many different ways you can do that . Preferably , you do it in all the ways , but pick something that you're really good at and give them that .

Pat Barber 1:01:39

I would say , on a mechanical level , you need to have high standards , and it is better to have higher standards than lower standards , and that means twofold . One is standards of range of motion , which is more of a quality of . Well , it's a function thing of making sure people preserve function of their body and capability of their body . And then two , then that's more like a judge . And two is quality of movement when it comes to technique and injury prevention and stuff . So just

The Art of Coaching Development

Pat Barber 1:02:09

asking for more when it comes to quality of range of motion as well as quality of movement and having a higher standard at the very get-go , that's huge . Set that as your North Star , I will be strict with standard and then make people love it . So make people love it while being strict with standard would be the foundation that I would work from the two words that come to mind when you're describing this is connection and integrity .

Venessa Krentz 1:02:36

Sure , right . Connect with you , know your community , connect with your audience the way they need to be connected to and then hold them to the integrity of the movements that you know how to teach right . Yep , Yep and you're going to get both of those wrong .

Pat Barber 1:02:52

Yeah , you're going to get both of those wrong again and again , and then you're going to look after class and you're going to be like what went wrong there ? And then you're going to watch old video of you coaching and you're going to be like , oh , that that doesn't actually mean what you think it means . And then you're like oh no , you know , like oh shoot .

Venessa Krentz 1:03:14

Yeah , it's like a . I think of it as failing up . You have to fail to keep building on your skills as a coach as much as an athlete . Wow , pat , thank you so much . I want to be respectful of your time . There's so much more I could talk with you on . I would love to have you back on and talk about the Father's Guild . I had a bunch of questions for you .

Venessa Krentz 1:03:34

My season two is going to be primarily on a lifestyle focus , and I think that that is going to just be really , really potent to talk about as a community place for fathers , because there's a lot of women , a lot of women empowerment , a lot of women , that kind of sponsor things like that , and so it was very refreshing to check out the website , and I'm going to include links for that as well , listeners . So we didn't get a chance to cover it today , but I do want to circle back to that . And again , I would love to talk about gym ownership programming . You know what that looks like too , because I know you and I have had some conversations on that as well . There's so much that we could talk on . Last thing is , if our listeners want to connect with you and all the services that you offer . Where should they find you ? What's the best place ?

Pat Barber 1:04:22

Yeah , yeah . For the coaching staff , you can go to coachesdevelopmentcom All my stuff's there . For the father staff , you can go to the fathers guildcom All my stuff's there . For the father stuff , you can go to thefathersguildcom . And you can find those both , respectively , on Instagram as Coaches , development and the Father's Guild .

Venessa Krentz 1:04:35

Awesome . Thank you , Pat . It has absolutely been a pleasure . Your time and energy are so greatly appreciated . I hope you have a great day .

Pat Barber 1:04:43

You do the same .

Venessa Krentz 1:04:44

Thank you . Thank you for listening to today's episode . I hope you found it interesting , actionable and worthy of sharing . You can help contribute to this growing community by emailing topic ideas , suggestions for interviews and feedback to vanessa at squatsandseancescom . That's Vanessa with an E at squatsandseancescom . That's Vanessa with an E . At squatsandsayancescom . You can find new episodes of Squats and Sayances on all major podcast platforms and the vlog cast on our YouTube channel , squats and Sayances . Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode and leave us a review if you are enjoying the content . Season 1 will be drawing to a close on October 31st . Visit us at squatsandsayancescom and subscribe to our newsletter . While there , you can also check out our weekly blog posts on all ways to optimize your health and fitness . Follow us on social media at Squats and Seances on Instagram , facebook , tiktok , linkedin and YouTube . And until next time , stay gritty friends .