Ep 44 | Host: Trev Warnke | Guest: Andrew Pollock

🔥 Why This Episode Matters

Most guys don't think about their health until something forces them to. This episode is a reminder that you don't need a rock bottom moment to start paying attention, but if you've had one, there's a way through it.

Andrew Pollock, owner of Outside the Box Training in Prescott, AZ, built his entire career out of a hard stretch in his twenties. Prescription drugs, mental health struggles, and a slow, unglamorous climb out of it through exercise. No overnight transformation. Just consistency, stacked over a decade.

If you're a business owner running on stress, skipping the gym, ignoring your blood work, or telling yourself you'll deal with your health "later," this conversation is for you. Andrew and Trev get into what actually builds strength, why intensity gets misunderstood, and why hiring a coach (in fitness or in life) usually beats trying to figure it out alone.

This episode also gets honest about hormones, testosterone, weight loss, and where AI does and doesn't help with training programs. Practical, no fluff, straight from two guys who've lived it.

🎧 Listen to the Episode

👤 Meet the Hosts

• Trev Warnke—Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn | Profile

  Trev Warnke is an entrepreneur, coach, and co-founder of Brotherhood Beyond Business. Through the Brotherhood community, Trev works with male entrepreneurs who want to build strong businesses without sacrificing their health, faith, or family.

• Andrew Pollock— Instagram | Facebook | Profile

  Andrew Pollock is a personal trainer and owner of Outside The Box Training in Prescott, Arizona. After moving from Northern California in 2020, Andrew built his business from the ground up, drawing on a decade of experience across powerlifting, corrective exercise, and functional training.

  His own journey off prescription medication and into fitness shaped how he coaches today: incremental change, real intensity, and teaching clients the skill of pushing to true failure.

• About Outside The Box Training— Website

  Outside The Box Training is a personal training business based in Prescott, Arizona, operating out of All Athletes Welcome Gym. Andrew works with clients on strength, pain reduction, and long-term consistency rather than quick fixes or trendy programming.

  The business focuses on building strength and resilience for everyday people, drawing from powerlifting, functional training, and corrective exercise to build programs that fit the individual instead of forcing people into a one-size-fits-all mold.

📌 What You'll Learn in This Episode

• Why Andrew's own struggle with prescription medication led him into personal training

• The power of incremental, subconscious habit change over sudden willpower-driven transformation

• Why clients who are "too gung-ho" on day one often quit faster than steady, consistent ones

• The real difference between training that stimulates growth and training that just beats you up

• What true muscular failure actually looks like, and why most people never reach it on their own

• Why a coach or training partner is often the missing piece for real progress

• Where AI genuinely helps (and badly fails) when building workout or nutrition programs

• How Andrew and Trev both used blood work to uncover hormone issues that changed their health

🧩 Episode Summary

Andrew opens up about moving to Prescott in 2020 to set up his business on his own, ahead of his parents' planned retirement there. But the real story starts earlier, in his twenties, when a mix of injuries and prescription medication for anxiety and depression sent him looking for a healthier way to regulate himself. That search led him to running, yoga, and eventually a career helping other people do the same thing that helped him.

Trev and Andrew dig into a theme that runs through the whole conversation: real change is slow and often subconscious, not a single dramatic decision. Andrew explains why the clients who show up "not that gung-ho" tend to stick around longer than the ones who come in ready to overhaul their whole life overnight. The conversation ties this back to business and leadership, comparing it to how habits, not motivation, actually drive long-term results.

From there, the two get into the mechanics of training itself: why true muscular failure is a skill most people never learn on their own, why a coach or training partner changes everything, and why Andrew avoids programming like CrossFit in favor of stimulating growth without unnecessary wear and tear. They also cover where AI tools fall short in building smart training programs, and how both men used blood work to catch hormone and nutrient issues (testosterone, ferritin, vitamin D) they never would have found otherwise.

The episode closes on a personal note, with Andrew sharing that he recently got married, bought land in Prescott Valley, and is looking to grow his business through online coaching while keeping his in-person client base strong. It's a conversation that blends business, health, and life in the grounded, practical way Brotherhood Beyond Business is built on.

🕒 Episode Timestamps

• [00:27] Andrew introduces himself and his move to Prescott

• [02:15] From prescription medication to fitness as a way to regulate himself

• [05:19] Slow habit change over quick transformation

• [06:06] Why obsession and quick fixes usually backfire

• [09:52] The difference between stimulating growth and beating yourself up

• [19:09] Why a coach or training partner gets you to real failure

• [22:28] Where AI programming falls short for real training

• [27:02] Nutrition guidance and knowing when to bring in a specialist

• [34:41] Hormones, TRT, and lessons from Trev's own health journey

• [35:00] What's next for Andrew, Outside The Box Training, and starting a family

💡 Quote Highlight

"I don't work out and eat healthy because I have to. I do it because I enjoy it. Because that's how I feel good."

🚀 Next Steps

👉 Get our weekly Build the Business, Build the Man., Build the Edge, playbook to get one actionable task to implement into your business and life each week --> Sign Up

👉 Download our Your Circle is Your Ceiling eBook

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📚 Resources & Links

• Follow BBB on: Website | Instagram | YouTube | X | Facebook | Buzzsprout

• Watch the full episode on YouTube

• Listen to the full episode: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Buzzsprout

🚀Full Transcript

Trev Warnke (00:27)

All right, guys. Welcome back to another episode of Beyond Brotherhood Beyond Business Podcast. We're here with Andrew Pollock. And today we're going to talk about him, his business, and get to know him a little bit better. Andrew, go ahead and kick us off with who you are and a little bit about you.

Andrew Pollock (00:38)

so I am my job is a personal trainer. and I get people stronger. That's you know, that's what I do every day for a job. I'm what else? I grew up in Northern California, moved here to Prescott, Arizona, six years ago in twenty twenty. had a lot of odd jobs through my twenties and around the age of

twenty seven or twenty eight, I decided to be a lot more serious about life and got into personal training and kinda it's been a journey for about that long now, about about a decade. and yeah.

Trev Warnke (01:10)

So what Brighty of Prescott specifically?

Andrew Pollock (01:13)

my parents planned on retiring here and I needed to get out of California, so I just went on my own in twenty twenty. Before they had moved here, they were planning on moving here and I moved here first and kind of just set up shop all on my own. It was it was definitely it was definitely a leap. So it was good. It's been it's paid off. It's been I love Prescott. Prescott's my favorite place. Yeah.

Trev Warnke (01:37)

Yeah, I mean it's definitely a place for me and Erica when we first visited here. We only made one visit before we moved here, moved here. And we made that visit like this is it's instantly became home before we ever moved here, which is the cool part about this whole area is it's you know most people, especially if they've lived somewhere for a long time, they kinda know why they don't want to live there anymore and they kinda know what they're looking for in their next place. We saw this obviously coming from Illinois, maybe the same stuff you were dealing with in California where it just wasn't the culture of people we were looking for. And then when we moved out here, it's like this this is I grew up in Iowa.

So in Iowa, this this is a lot more like Iowa people, but just not where there's no mountains. At least there's mountains here and stuff to do. Yeah. so you're how old are you? Thirty-eight, okay. So in terms of so you've been doing fit I mean you've probably been doing fitness more than 10 years, but what kind of brought you to personal training itself?

Andrew Pollock (02:15)

Thirty eight.

Not really. I've been always interested in like health and wellness, I would say. but so I had some injuries, you know, late teenage years, early twenties, was prescribed a lot of prescription drugs for mental, you know, anxiety, depression, pain, all that kind of stuff.

So the twenties was kind of a dark time in a lot of ways. and fitness definitely became the way of dealing with things in a healthy manner. and it was kind of a slow process. I gradually started coming off of all the prescription drugs and all that stuff that I was on, kinda on my own. The doctor didn't help much there. And started running, doing yoga.

just kind of balancing myself with exercise, you know, like just trying to trying to regulate myself with exercise. It seemed like the only thing that I could do to regulate myself. And yeah, so I got my personal trainer certification, just thinking that that would be something I could do for other people. You know? It's like I could help other people get well, because I got well. And yeah. And

then slowly kind of transitioned through different forms of training to just now I focus mainly on getting people stronger and also getting people out of pain because everybody, you know, as personal trainers, it's not in our scope of practice to practice to like treat pain like a physical therapist or a doctor, but everyone has pain and we prescribe exercise. So I kinda look at everything through that lens of how I can, you know.

alleviate some pain with the exercises I'm prescribing 'cause ev everybody's got it. yeah.

Trev Warnke (04:05)

Yeah, I mean, this is my my world is is been strengthening conditioning since I was sixteen years old. So I definitely get that. My the the thing that you were kind of talking about there is Erica when she was young that fitness got out her out of a dark time. She had an eating disorder and that really affected her and then medication that she's on for a long time for the eating disorder kind of stuff. So that kind of resonates with that same idea that like a lot of people it can be, you know, when you're going through things, you can get over medicated and then but fitness is a great tool.

get out of a lot of that stuff. I love how kinda how you like slowly took yourself off medication. I'm working with Erica on some of her stuff to slowly h bring her off the stuff they were on 'cause it's like you just have to be on it forever, even though there's nothing that shows her.

Andrew Pollock (04:45)

I was told that. Yeah. Yeah, I was told that. and I've never been the I guess some people can take a leap of quitting cold turkey off of things and jumping right into a fresh exercise routine, becoming a different person. But I've never been that person and I've never seen that so much with my clients. I'm always trying to just incremental change, trying to get everybody to look at the long

long, long picture. so yeah, it was a it was a slow, slow journey. And then one day I just woke up and I was a different person. And it's been really good.

Trev Warnke (05:19)

Yeah, it's that the atomic habits concept, right? Where you just slowly change habits over time. Yep. have you ever read the book Chop Wood G Carry Water?

Andrew Pollock (05:28)

No, but I like that saying.

Trev Warnke (05:29)

Yeah. So it's an awesome book. It's a parable about a a Samurai archer. and so it's just a really cool story about how they teach the habits kind of stuff. But the conceptual side is what you're saying there is like you there's there's really no quick path off because you might be able to jump off you might be able to jump in get away from something quick by jumping into something else. But usually that person then let's say they go from a medication or or something they're addicted to, then they go into like CrossFit and then become obsessive CrossFitters to the point where they're so obsessive because they never learned how to like cope with different

So I love your long-term concept that's like, hey, you've got to build skills as you continue to deal with the things that you're struggling with.

Andrew Pollock (06:06)

Yeah. Yeah, no, there's the the obsessive component of I'm not dealing with my emotions, I'm using this other thing, you know, to escape, you know, so exercise becomes that, like in early sobriety. and then there's just the fact that humans are subconscious beings, you know, it's like you can't choose to change. You can't I mean you can, and that's part of it, but you have to slowly build the habits of your behavior becomes who you are.

Over the course of a long, long time. And it's like we think if you think that you are just your conscious decisions, like it, I don't think so. You know, it's all under the surface. It's all like, you know, these subconscious kind of motives and patterns and behaviors that like I just and that's why I just want people to show up at the gym and do the work. I don't care what their motivations are, I don't care so much about their conscious, I like the conscious decision to change.

But we're I was talking about this the other day with the gym owner at the gym I work at. and she was saying that when she gets people who are coming in super hot to change, just like so gung-ho, it's almost like those are the people that drop off quicker, you know? because it's not so much a conscious decision. It is that like all the you just show up when you don't want to, you do the things you're supposed to, somebody else tells you what to do, and you just do it, and then a year later.

You're like, I'm now I'm riding the wave, it's not riding me. And I'm feeling you know, I'm feeling good. I'm a different person.

Trev Warnke (07:33)

Yeah, it's the client that I referred to to you, I was talking to her daughter the other day. We they came we went to Oceanside with us and we were on vacation with them for a few days. And she was telling me that she's like, my mom said she's like, you know, Andrew's expensive for her, but she's like, I just can't afford not to not to have him. And that's an awesome thing to have because for her, she's never had health and fitness ever a part of her routine in her whole life. And so now at this point in her life, and I don't know, I'm not sure how old she is, but somewhere probably in her sixties.

and so that to be able to like that idea that like she she wasn't gung ho for sure to get started. and it's one of those things I think she's somebody that would last a long time just because she's like, you know, I I'm not all in, I'm not this like not what I want to do forever, but I see the benefits of working with Andrew, the stuff he's teaching me, and he's like my expert that I need to go to consistently, but she's not gung ho, and I think that's why when I was talking to her, I like, I think you're gonna do great at this consistently because you're just realize this is what I got part of my life now. So

Andrew Pollock (08:28)

Yeah. And she's also, what was I gonna say?

Trev Warnke (08:32)

A drink real quick.

Andrew Pollock (08:33)

she's also the type of person that, because she's never exercised all that much before, she has an idea of it over the course of sixty, seventy years and her idea of it is that kind of pain and suffering and somebody barking orders at you. So when I just kinda, you know, talk and we laugh and have fun and then like I tell her do another set, how does it feel? You know, like and it's not that big of a deal, you know.

She realizes that it's not this whole this thing that she's built up in her brain is not the reality. Like the reality is that it's just yeah, it's moving your body feels good. It can feel okay. It's not not something that has to be pain and suffering, you know?

Trev Warnke (09:15)

think a lot of people run fitness specifically because of all the culture trends and stuff is the people that you've seen they built good bodies they've they built themselves up to be muscular things of that nature it's just a lot of years compounded on top of each other is never one intense effort over a three-month period you know yeah and that's why I always kind of tell people is like hey I mean you just have to become a person that works out consistently that's all you need to do and just need to and whenever somebody talks to me about like well how long do I need to do it like forever like this is just like part of life now.

But like don't go too intensely about it. Like you're saying, don't go too intensely day one. It's like we're just gonna slowly build these things and over over time you will achieve it by the consistency that you keep showing up.

Andrew Pollock (09:52)

Yeah. And if you're miserable, you know, it's like y there's a certain amount of misery that's necessary or productive, you know, to embrace a little bit of it. But it's not like you have to be miserable the whole time. Like you should start to enjoy working out and like you don't have to push yourself into misery, you know, you don't have to beat yourself up in order to have a good workout. especially when people are just getting started,

Yeah, like I'm not even teaching them like I'm not working them out. I'm teaching them how to work out. You know, I'm not beating them up. I'm teaching them the skills, you know? so yeah, it I think there's a big like a false reality that people have about working out, just being this beating yourself up, like this muscle damage causes muscle growth, which we know now, like it

doesn't like the main driver is not muscle damage. It's not like you have to damage your muscles in order for them to grow. You just have to stimulate them enough. And sometimes that's not you know not as hard as people think it is. And you should get to have fun. You know, it should be something that you can find things you enjoy, you know, and that's something that you're gonna stick with because that's the dopamine hit that's gonna keep you going. That's where the behavior change really starts to happen. Like I don't work out and eat healthy because I have to.

I do it because I enjoy it. Because I it that's how I feel good. That's why I don't that's why I'm sober and I don't drink or do drugs because I know that that wouldn't make me feel good in the same way. It wouldn't serve me like this is serving me, you know?

Trev Warnke (11:29)

So what's the name of your business? Did you just outside the box? Okay. So what is I'd call a mentors. Who's who's the who's maybe the person that you follow the most? You've taken the most experience in your training style from? Like for me it was like Charles Paulquin kind of stuff. I was big into that. I was big into some Alan Cosgrove stuff back in the day when we did training. Is there anybody that like you kind of model your fitness around or somebody that you follow consistently?

Andrew Pollock (11:31)

Outside the box. Yeah.

No, I mean I think there's been lots. 'cause when I first started training, I didn't really know anything. I shadowed a bunch of trainers at my gym and it was all about like corrective exercise and posture. I was doing a lot of yoga at the time too, so it was all about like posture and this perfect form of biomechanics, you know. so I did that for a while. I got my NASM

Corrective exercise certification, I followed that. And yeah, so I mean trainers that were more functional, kettlebell, you know, I would do that kind of stuff. And then when I started working here, I started running some power lifting programs and just focusing on getting stronger. so yeah, definitely I like all the

You know, the seventies powerlifting, the old time strongmen stuff, like the you know, I've I've yeah, I've been influenced by a lot of that stuff. I don't I don't really have like any, you know, coaches or mentors that really stand out as like the one that like that inspired me, I gotta do that, you know. that's really why like my training is I mean, well it's outside the box is like outside the box gym.

Outside the box thinking. and a lot of what I like to do is really jack of all traits. Like I want to make sure we hit everything. There's something to learn from everything, you know. There's something to learn from powerlifting, bodybuilding, even you know, a lot of the functional stuff or Pilates and yoga and stuff like that. Like there's a reason that these things are popular and people do And, you know, like so I I I like to draw from everything that I can that I'm drawn to.

Trev Warnke (13:25)

But you're and you're saying that in a way that you're using components from it, but you're probably n I'm guessing you're not doing like CrossFit where you're mix mixing all stuff together in wads or

Andrew Pollock (13:33)

No. Okay. No. I don't think that's a so I think that like a CrossFit circuit based training,

can be an effective way to get a beginner to have decent conditioning and decent strength, but also they're gonna get beat up a lot in the process. Again, that goes back to the philosophy as of working out as beating up versus just stimulating. so I think most people go into a CrossFit class and get beat up more than stimulated. I think overall training qualities of strength hypertrophy and conditioning and aerobic capacity all kind of separately is the way to go.

But I mean there's a lot of overlap there. So like if someone's super deconditioned and super weak, like, you know, we can kill a lot of birds with one stone by doing something kinda circuit based, but definitely not in a CrossFit way. Yeah.

Trev Warnke (14:25)

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I I wasn't sure 'cause sometimes when the people talk about mixed modalities or whatever, then they the people start imagining CrossFit and I didn't think you really trained that way. Not nothing like everybody has their own modalities and stuff and how they train, but I agree. I the older I get, so I just turned forty this year, and the older I get, the less not intensity is the wrong word, because I still think intensity in my workouts is a c important component. Yeah. but it's more like

The less I want to be beat up for my workouts. I literally want to leave most workouts feeling really, really fresh. You should. So that the next day I'm coming back, I'm like, I can do this again. You know, whereas when my early 30s, definitely late 20s, just didn't do that often enough. And man, I was like, but you're just grinding through it. Cause like that was definitely the days of the CrossFit. And we didn't CrossFit. Our training gym isn't CrossFit. But it was that idea is like, hey, push the maximum former I used to be a football player, former football player, like just like just push and push and push. Yeah. I mean now I'm close in the forties, I'm like, man, I I want to push.

for the forty five minute like training sessions I have and I'm good until the next day. So

Andrew Pollock (15:23)

Yep. And I think that's what all good training and coaches kind of come come to in the end is that you do want to stimulate just enough and then go home and recover. you don't wanna just keep pushing and pushing. But there's a time to push and push and push, and that's where like if you're doing a competition or you know, tr like that once in a blue moon opportunity, but you shouldn't be doing that every day. You should be

Thinking about what adaptation you want to occur, like do I want my muscles to get bigger? Do I want to get better at this exercise? do I want to get faster or you know, more endurance, whatever it is. And then you should do that enough to stimulate that adaptation to get you a tiny and it's gonna be a tiny bit. Like, I saw a quote that I didn't fact check the other day about muscle growth that said that we gain about, you know, five grams of muscle in a good day.

You know, so it's like you're not gonna push yourself and beat yourself up into growing a pound of new muscle, you know, in in a week or two. So you may as well just kinda stimulate just enough with whatever capacity that you're trying to whatever adaptation you're trying to accomplish, and then go home, you know. and I think it takes a lot less than people think. I've been doing like two sets on a lot of exercises a lot of days, and I think that

The research has shown that there is diminishing returns after that. Like you still will get benefit at three, four, five sets. but I think for most people the diminishing returns don't outweigh the detriment of that muscle damage and beating yourself up, inhibiting your recovery. Like you could do two sets and do them really hard and do a few exercises and then go home and you're gonna get plenty of work.

Trev Warnke (17:09)

Yeah, I don't remember who I was watching or what I read the other day. I saw that as well, where it's like once you get into true working sets, right? Two really good working sets are all you really need. The problem is a lot of people just they play around with their first you they might say they're doing four sets, their first two sets they didn't

Andrew Pollock (17:23)

The important caveat is that you two sets like close to failure, like hard, you know. Yeah.

Trev Warnke (17:31)

I do think that muscle building is a whole a whole different category for than most people really think about because they think that the sets the sets of failure is a really important thing. And so I think people don't realize like getting close to failure is a lot. That th that's where intensity is. Intensity isn't getting close to failure. Yeah. And so a lot of people don't really know how to get there. They're like, I did my three sets of ten, but never really like they were burning, but they didn't really feel what failure is. And that's where a lot of people lack on muscle growth. It's like you really haven't done enough work.

True work to be able to make that muscle gain you're looking for in a short enough, like if you want quicker gains, you gotta keep hitting that that failure.

Andrew Pollock (18:05)

Yeah. Clients will ask me, how many reps do I have? Constantly. How many reps do I and I'm like, how many can you do? How many can you do? because it doesn't matter so much the rep range as the intensity. It is, yeah. so yeah, for sure. Like that's another thing that just like teaching people the skill of doing the exercises and showing up to the gym like right at the start of of training, I also have to teach them how to go to failure because

I have people that even after they've been training with me for a while, I'll tell them go to failure. And they stop before I'm like, that's not failure. I see you're still moving your your mu your your movements are still quick. Like you're not out of breath. Like that's not failure. It's not when you get uncomfortable and the muscle starts to burn, it's when you physically cannot move the weight anymore. You know? And it's I don't know if it's because people are used to feeling that as like a potential injury.

they've just never felt or been ab like done that intensive work before physically. but a lot of people cannot go to failure until they learn that as a skill.

Trev Warnke (19:09)

And that's so there's a lot of important things for having a personal trainer for. But for me, the more experienced I've been over time, that is the most important part of having a personal trainer is a person that can get you to failure because on your own, the average person does not get there. Yeah. I mean, it's like I I train all by myself all the time. And the amount of times that I really hit to failure versus like let's say I'm working out with a buddy. Yeah. When I'm working out with a buddy, I can truly achieve failure because they can get me just that that intensity of the pushing. Yeah. Also somebody that like, man, I'm getting close.

You you're in certain ways you hold yourself back, especially if you're doing a non cable based machine, right? You hold yourself back thinking, I don't want to get injured because of this. Yeah. When you have somebody there spotting you or watching the kind of stuff, you can go to failure. And I think that's that it can under cause I get questions especially over the years of coaching people, like why do I k why would I keep working with a personal trainer? And that's one of my biggest things I've always told them is like you're not going to get to the end result of the failure component that you need consistently enough to get really good games without either a partner to train with and you need a partner that's in

that's intentional to train with not just a talking buddy, an intentional training partner. Yep. but you that that's where personal training comes in. Their job is to get you to sit to tell you're not the type of personal trainer, at least from my experiences, that's just gonna sit there and count their reps. You're trying to help them get through that component. Whereas a lot of personal trainers have been people that are like, I'm just counting to twelve for you. Well so I could count to twelve myself. Yeah. I need you to get me like, man, I'm we're really close to the end rep here, how much do you got left? So I think that's important.

Andrew Pollock (20:32)

Yeah. Yeah, I think like you said, having a training partner, having someone there who you're competing with. I mean that's a great thing about CrossFit is that the classes lend themselves to that comp competitive atmosphere and a lot of people love that. so if you're working out on your own I don't know. Like maybe like I work out on my own. Did I reach failure on like maybe, maybe not. The other thing about working out on my own is that I get used to what I can do. Yeah. I know that I can do

245 for five or whatever it is. And so it's like that's just what I c and I don't know how much of that is a mental block. Like another thing, if you tell yourself, like I'm gonna do ten reps on this, all of a sudden like you can only do ten reps. So yeah, I think having a trainer for that, the mental part, pushing it, the com the competitive part. for me the biggest thing about having a trainer, why I

Trev Warnke (21:11)

Stop for ten, yeah.

Andrew Pollock (21:22)

why I benefit from having a coach is to give me exercises that I wouldn't think of doing, to give me programs that I wouldn't think of writing, to give me things that I don't think I can do. like the last coup like the last program I ran from a coach was a four-day a week full body. And I thought, no, like that's gonna beat me up. I can't do squats one day, Bulgarian split squats the next, and then like, you know, hack squats or leg press the day after that. but he said no low enough volume.

You will get acclimated, and I did, you know. so yeah, seeing what other people's brains are doing programming wise, exercise wise. because we can't think ourselves out of it. It's just like with sobriety or addiction or whatever. The first step is giving yourself over to a higher power because you can't do it on your own. So it's the same thing with programming for yourself. Like, I do it, but I don't think it's the best way to do it, you know.

You need someone else who can see you in a way you can't see yourself, see your blind spots, give you things you've never thought about before. and you might, you know, like you might not think it's the greatest idea, but if you follow it and they're a good coach, it'll work.

Trev Warnke (22:28)

Yeah. Well that's something that so I've been playing around recently with ha having AI help me do my programming. And AI is so so far down the road before it actually understands what good programming is. 'Cause me I think programming is something I I'm pretty skilled at. so I wanted to test it against can it help me build faster? And it is so off on

Andrew Pollock (22:48)

For instance, like what is it off on?

Trev Warnke (22:50)

So so we'll let's say we're doing a four-day a week program, and I want to let's just use a simple example of like I want to grow bigger shoulders, right? I want to get bigger delts. It will be way too repetitive with the same movements. It's not hitting enough heads of the other delt. It's might be just be we're gonna do lateral raises all four days. Yeah. Right? And it's like, well, an intelligent programmer knows we're not gonna be able to do that. AI doesn't take that into account. the other part is is so exercise very variation is a is a struggle with it. It doesn't do a great job of creating tempo.

Based workouts. So I'm Charles Paul Quinn, one thing that he was big on is temple based, right? So we're gonna go down two seconds down, or let's say elaborate, two seconds up, we're gonna hold for a second, come back down two seconds, right? Yeah. So temple based for time under tension, really. Yeah. Doesn't really understand those philosophies. Way, way overdoes quantity. So it's still like volume metrics. And now if you really know how you're programming, if if you know how to program and put it in, that's totally fine. But the average person's not gonna be able to do that, they're just gonna have it build a program.

But that's why you pay for personal training and stuff like that. You somebody's intelligently programmed for you. Now me, I can go through, make the adjustments, give it all the feedback. I want this rep range. I want this many days. Don't replicate these programs when it sends it. Exactly. And it didn't honestly speed it up any faster. The only thing that it's helped me do a little bit is like I will throw in like, hey, I'm thinking of a lateral movement exercise. Give me all the list of ones you can think of based on the tools I have. That's about the fastest thing. It's it's helped my brain think outside the box a little bit.

But it is one of those things where it's people like, I'll just have a have AI build me a program. Like it's just it's not there and I don't know how long it'll be to be there, so

Andrew Pollock (24:16)

So I think that it it's highly dependent on the information you put into it. So if like I I did I ran two different experiments where I put in there like, hey, like I'm a postmenopausal woman wanna tone, not bulk and whatever. It was like basically what a what a a typical potential client would say. And it gave me a garbage program. But then I said something like

You know, I want a high intensity powerlifting style program for building strength and muscle or and if I input exactly what I want, it'll give me good good information. but yeah, that's where like, yeah, it it's not gonna write you the best program for you because you don't have all that information to feed it, you know, unless you've been like really down these rabbit holes studying this stuff for a decade like we have, you know. I it's

It's it's gonna give you it's not gonna pull from the right sources. AI is just it's pulling from whatever sources you're kinda feeding it. So and that's yeah, I mean, I guess that's true with all technology.

Trev Warnke (25:17)

It is really. And that's where I use AI a lot in our businesses. And so it's one of those things, but like the most important thing for all the d things that we do is we require everybody to prompt it a very specific way. Prompting AI is really important, right? But the fact is I know I'm using AI to speed up how fast I'm doing things. I'm not using it as the builder of the thing really. Yeah. And so it's the important that prompting like is is like how we prompt it in. And if and if you're trying to build your own program, even nutritionally, if you're trying to have it build your nutrition program.

There's so many other factors that it needs to be aware of. Now it could possibly speed some of those things up if you really knew where you were going around it.

Andrew Pollock (25:50)

If you

input your blood work and your entire health history, like yeah, you might get some good, you know, specific information for yourself, but if you just put in like, Hey, I'm a thirty eight year old male who, you know, wants to hit the gym, it's not gonna give you the best program for you, you know.

Trev Warnke (26:08)

Yeah, it his funny part is is it the programs the first few times I was doing it, their programs are gonna beat you up. Like really beat you up in the way that I'm like but it's also taking from a variety of stuff, it's taking CrossFit workouts. It's it's got this such big variety of volume of exercise. There's so many one thing we've learned over the years is there's so many training styles. And I don't know exactly which one is the right one or wrong one. It matters on person's goals. But if if the thing out there just has all these training styles available, it just doesn't know how to like take the minutiae of like this is why we choose to do

possibly before you do a big squat, we're gonna do some activation beforehand, maybe some corrective exercise beforehand to get into that big squat to make sure things are going right. Also knowing that man, you might have a history of lower back issues and we're doing a back squat and we're gonna put you in a position where you maybe need to use a safety bar. You know, there's so many little little things that we know to put you in a position to be really safe.

Andrew Pollock (26:54)

Yep. Yeah, a hundred percent. There's no what

Trev Warnke (26:57)

I was gonna just I was gonna dig into the idea. Do you do anything with nutrition with your clients?

Andrew Pollock (27:02)

So I give people I have a basic plan I've written out, you know, that has a breakfast, lunch, dinner and kind of which foods like basically like it has like a Greek yogurt and a fruit and then like a meat and a potato or rice, you know, like just how much people should be eating of each one. I'll give people I'll I'll kind of guide people on how to count their macros, count their calories.

in general which foods to go for, which I I I try to just get people eating, you know, basically fruits, vegetables, meats, dairy as like the the biggest part of their diet. I don't give specific nutrition plans because I feel like it's a little too prescriptive, but I may do that in the future. yeah.

Trev Warnke (27:41)

That could be something for you in the future, like AI could be beneficial, like hey, I'm gonna get a list of like here's what macros and stuff I'm prescribing for this person. I'm gonna get a list of roughly the foods they like, put together you could as a as a technician side, throw that into there and spit out for them. We thought about that with clients a little bit too is like, hey, if they want to do like high level personal training, we we offer a nutrition coaching platform in our in our business. And so we we thought about that on the AI side, like can it we're just helping it speed up the spit out that they need 'cause

Well, individual nutrition pregnancy is very is very time consuming to do it right. And then somebody might not like a food. And then all of a sudden that becomes an obstacle. So we don't really do that, but we've considered the AI side of that.

Andrew Pollock (28:20)

I will give people meal plans and and general food guidance. help them count their calories and see if we should try to take up, take down. I don't try to get too prescriptive because I would rather someone get their blood work done and go see a naturopath, a dietitian, because a lot of times people have thyroid issues. They have gut dysbiosis and microbiome issues and I can give them

basic guidance there, but I would rather them see like a professional, you know. yeah.

Trev Warnke (28:50)

Yeah, and one thing for me as I've aged is hormonal profile is mu way more important than I ever thought it was. twenties, you don't ever worry about your hormonal profile really. Now at forty I just I recently have b I'm on TRT for because my testosterone is just crazy low for no real reason. and so the hormonal profile has been like you're saying is like and that's helped me figure out a better nutrition plan.

things of that nature, going through all that kind of stuff. My vitamin D, even though I live in the sun, I'm in the sun all the time. Vitamin D was super low, so I've had to start supplementating supplementing with that. Yep. So it is interesting that people need to like I mean, just starting with the the basic nutrition stuff that you said, like we're eating fruits and vegetables, get that stuff kinda in place, I think, first. Yeah. And the reason I say that is like your all your numbers are gonna be bad if you eat like crap. Yeah. You're just gonna be bad. Yeah. But if you get a few months of eating correctly, then you get a hormonal profile. Okay, maybe maybe my vitamin levels are back to can be stabilized so it's not like all your vitamin levels are off. So

Andrew Pollock (29:41)

It's kind of a feedback loop because you know if if people are eating poorly or stressed out, then they're gonna stop absorbing nutrients so well, stop creating all the hormones so well. so yeah, I mean, if you just treat one side of it, you know, you might be leaving something on the table. It's best to really I think get your blood work done, get it looked at, maybe supplement with hormones, maybe not, and then also get your diet in order. But yeah, you just don't know what you don't know.

like I had a client yesterday who was saying, I don't want to be on drugs, I don't want to take anything. And I said, like, well, I got my blood work done and I have super high ferritin. I never would have known that. So now I'm giving blood every two months. I'm getting rid of some of this iron, some of this ferritin, getting rid of some inflammation, I'm getting my free testosterone up all from giving blood and changing my diet around a little less red meat, more salmon. I never would have known that if I didn't just get like a three hundred dollar blood test.

You know. so yeah, there's I think everybody should do that 'cause you just y again, it's just like hiring a coach. Like we do it because we don't know what we don't know. And you know, that's why you hire people.

Trev Warnke (30:46)

Yeah. Well like on that idea is like it's it's all is just like you said, it's just feedback with like what's the big deal? If you have an issue with this, what's the wrong wrong with taking some pills for it? Like I've I've never been a person that's huge on like I'm not gonna take a lot of medications and stuff. But the idea is if the medication can really benefit me, if there's something like that like T R T, never thought I would, but I never thought I had testosterone issue. Get the test back and and I was I was actually feeling personally miserable comparable with what I thought. And man now I've you know, about

almost three months on TRT and I feel like a whole nother human. You know what I mean? Just like it's amazing how far that was off. Never would have thought I would have been on something like that. However, it's like I didn't as long as I knew it'd make me better, I didn't care. It's like, this is gonna make me feel better, let's try it out. Feel amazing. I'm like, okay, at least I have an issue and maybe down the road my testosterone will correct itself somewhere based on something that I'm changing, but right now it's not. So

Andrew Pollock (31:35)

Sure. Did you change anything like diet wise, sleep wise, anything before that?

Trev Warnke (31:39)

So before

that so I had low testosterone. I got tested in August of last year. Testosterone was super low. So I went on a natural testosterone, which is enclomophene, which is just to bo boost up your natural testosterone. but I also from l and I did that for three months to kind of see and that that took my testosterone up to like twelve hundred. So I was like crushing it on it, right? I was like top level. and so I was doing great, but also during that time

I got on a small dosage of a GLP one because I was really s I I'd gotten up to two ninety five, never been that heavy in my life. just running three businesses. I was a little stress a little stressed out, just trying to like manage a lot of things. Got but I was really struggling with binging. My normal me and Erica's normal eating routine is very like people like, that's a really clean eating routine. But I'd have like a weekly binge where I wouldn't control it and I'd no reason other than probably stress, honestly. I couldn't it. I'd have a small dosage of GLP ones, whole nother conversation on GLP ones, but conceptually like

I don't believe that you everybody needs to keep following this huge dosage, like 12 milligram dosage or whatever you're on. It's like smaller just to sh I just need to shut off the food noise. Sure. Once that was shut off, over from August till March, I lost 75 pounds. Damn. Not doing anything but a s the smallest dosage of GLP one to shut off that part of my brain. Yeah. All my training and all the other stuff was just that and increased testosterone during that time too helped. so it did help out a crazy amount by being on a us mil but I just need to shut off that that part of my brain that was like, you've got to have this food.

Once that disappeared, it was like my normal eating routine was really good. Yeah. I didn't even have like change I didn't have to track macros or anything. We just eat pretty clean. Yeah. Testosterone was helping too, energy wise. But then I stopped the testosterone and went off of that from November until April. Got retested in April. And my testosterone went from twelve hundred and dropped all the way back to two forty eight again. So it was one of those things like even with a natural, I just couldn't keep it up. Yeah. And now it's the size like, well, we're not looking to have kids. So since we're not looking to have kids, I don't need to worry about the test the T R T negative impacts of it.

So and I don't really care about balding because I'm pretty much balding anyway. So it's not one of those things I worry about. So that's why I like, Okay, I'll try T R T, see how I feel on it. Feel great again, way cheaper than enclomophene is. So I'm like I'll probably just do T R T for the time being. So

Andrew Pollock (33:44)

I think that's where the the feedback loop I was talking about comes in too is like it might be more ideal if you were to be like, I'm gonna take my stress levels down, I'm gonna manage everything naturally and I'm gonna take you know, get my diet in ch but it's like not everybody can do that. Like you're running businesses. Like you you can't just not run your businesses. You know? So you know, yeah, like sometimes you

maybe have to take something for a while in order to get yourself regulated and and it helps feed into and like now you can you can get your stress is kind of better and you can manage it better and you can manage your diet better, you manage the food noise better, and now you can eat healthier and like it's this positive feedback loop. so yeah, I definitely think there can be benefits there, but I always try to think about like what what is the root cause here? Like why are we so

You know, whatever problem we have, you know. I yeah.

Trev Warnke (34:41)

Yeah, that's exactly. So I want to make sure we're conscious of your time because I know you gotta get going. Got about probably about seven more minutes. Sweet. I wanna kinda go into so, you know, you're living in Prescott, you're loving it here, right? Yeah. what's kinda like what's it look like for the future of the business? What does it look like for your future? What do you kind of when I say future, I'm not looking like thirty day years down the road. Like what's the five or six years like what do you what are you going towards?

Andrew Pollock (35:00)

So I just got married two months ago. I just got married two months ago and we bought a small chunk of land in Prescott Valley. So we're gonna hopefully build a house in the next year. hopefully raise a family. And she is has a construction company. So that's awesome. That's yeah, my dad's a contractor, my uncle's a contractor and

I you know, so hopefully we will get that house built, you know, we have all the resources. and business wise, I have a full schedule now, in person and I would like to I spent, you know, thousands of dollars on continuing education last year trying to better help my people. you know, programming around pain, and just learning how to build muscle better and stuff like that. so I'm hoping that I can keep

investing in myself and get better and better and better at my job. And I'm also hoping that I can have a significant amount of online clients and online programs so that I can yeah maybe I don't know maybe have the wife not work at some point, you know? That would be great.

Trev Warnke (36:01)

Yeah, the and scalability too, right? It's like the one thing about personal training, physical therapy is you're trading time for hours and there's it's just you and the the only way for you to scale is really like, okay, more time, which is becomes hard with the family, right? Especially if you you guys end up having kids. And the other component that becomes hard is like otherwise gotta you gotta start charging more per client, which is always doable, then it becomes th it makes it harder for people to afford

Andrew Pollock (36:08)

Just me.

Yeah.

Might be a luxury service, yeah.

Trev Warnke (36:25)

So I do think like it's it's a good concept to go to that and be able to get people in a good position. And when you get down that route if you need any help, like we've done a lot of online stuff. So I'd love to be able to yeah, you can pick my brain all you want about But yeah a lost I didn't know you got married, so congratulations on that. How long have you guys been together?

Andrew Pollock (36:33)

Yeah, we'd love

I would love that.

Yeah, yeah, super stoked.

Couple years. Couple years. Yeah. Married a couple of months now. She's great. And yeah, man. Just trying to live life and do all the things you're supposed to do. Yeah. You know?

Trev Warnke (36:52)

so where can people find you? Like what what's

Andrew Pollock (36:55)

So outside the box personal training on Instagram and Facebook. Find me at All Athletes Welcome Gym in Prescott, Arizona. And Outside the Box Personal Training dot com. And yeah, that's I'm on Google there at Outside the Box Personal Training for Prescott.

Trev Warnke (37:11)

Yeah. Awesome, man. All right guys. Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Brotherhood Beyond Business Podcast. Talk to you later.