Craig Ballantyne Interviews Erik Ledin (Part 1)

CB: First, start with some background info on you and your business ...

EL: Well, back in the day I was a student at McMaster University (I think you might have been a year ahead of me) and I used to do a little bodybuilding contest prep on the side for a few friends of mine; nothing big. I did an undergraduate degree in Kinesiology with plans on heading to a chiropractic college in Texas after that. I ended up changing my mind as I really didn't want to put my parents on the hook for that kind of money. So I decided to apply to the Toronto school, but given there's only one school in Canada, it's quite hard to get in, and well, I didn't. Fast forward through some more schooling and I found myself with an opportunity (courtesy of Dr. Stuart Phillips from McMaster) to work for one of the big supplement giants of the industry for a few years. I had the title of 'strength and conditioning specialist' but there really wasn't any strength and conditioning as part of my job description. I basically was involved with some of the technical writing projects, but my main focus was doing the training and nutrition for the before and after campaigns. My job was to get people in shape.

During that time I also started to get involved in the online bodybuilding/forum world. I was still doing a little contest prep work on the side during this time as well. Still though, nothing overly significant. I ended up preparing a female friend of mine on a now defunct board who did a photo journal of her entire prep. She ended up taking the show. Written testimonials are one thing, but pictures are worth a thousand words and the next thing I knew, I had a growing list of clients. Since that point, my business has basically grown by referral. I've got some really great clients who are basically walking, talking billboards for me. Produce results, get more business. It's a pretty simple formula.

These days, the majority of my distance-based coaching clientele is made up of females from all over the world - from beginners all the way to high level competitors and everything in between. I work with a fair number of males too, but given I really don't do any advertising and work on a referral system and the fact that women are more likely to tell their friends who helped them achieve their fitness goals, it just so happens that I normally have more female clients than male clients.

I've been very blessed to be able to make a decent living doing something that I am very passionate about.

CB: Erik, your website features incredible before and after transformations of your clients. Now many of these clients of yours have competed before and made great progress, yet do even better when they come to you - without giving away too many of your secrets, what mistakes were they making on their own?

EL: Well actually, a number of the competitors showcased on my site are first time competitors. They were clients who had the simple goal of getting in great shape and then decided to take it to the next level and do a show. I think there's something to be said about competition as it relates to goal setting. While it's obviously not the only way, a competition serves as a 'deadline date' of sorts and really gives you something to train for. Contrast two people, both who obviously want to get in shape, but one has set a deadline and it's getting closer every day. The other, their goals remain someone undefined in terms of a time line. I think more often than not the person with the deadline will have better results.

But to answer your question, I think it really just comes down to the fact that there's just so much misinformation out there - much of it created by the old school dogma of the bodybuilding and fitness industry. How many times have we read in muscle magazines over the years about high reps for fat loss and definition and ... tone? I hate that word. Or about session after session of low-intensity steady state cardio? We're still seeing this in various popular publications and it's a practice very alive and well in the competitive side of the industry. I just read an article where a figure competitor says she does 1-2 hours of cardio twice per day. That's just ridiculous.

Generally speaking I have found that the most common mistakes being made out there are:

1. An over emphasis on low intensity steady state cardio - It's just an inefficient form of exercise for fat loss and quite honestly, it doesn't burn that many calories anyway. Does it have its place? Sure. But there's a reason some people have had to resort to steadily increasing their cardio to as high as 60-120 minutes per day - it doesn't burn that many calories, so you have to do a ton of it to get any significant results. There's also the issue of increased efficiency. When trying to lose fat, we don't want to be efficient. We want to be inefficient. The more steady state cardio you do, the more efficient you become at it and the more you generally have to do. Why else would subscribers to this theory have to keep on doing more and more of it? Now, I'm not so sure the increased efficiency adds up to much in the way of lost calories burned, but something is happening for people to have to do progressively longer sessions. I don't know about you, but my time is a bit more valuable than that. So the first thing I do is cut that nonsense out, introduce some interval training and take the fat-loss focus off cardio.
2. Too much volume and an emphasis on lighter weights - I'm not sure where this idea came from originally, but I think I'll just blame the bodybuilding/fitness industry again. There's this idea that when you're dieting and trying to lose fat, that your training needs to be based on high reps, really short rest intervals, isolation exercise (to carve in the cuts right?) and set after set after set after set. I can see a place for the shorter rest intervals during parts of the program, but the high reps, light weights, isolation exercise emphasis is just way off track in my opinion. And the volume? Crazy. I don't understand why people increase volume and do more work when they're eating less. It just doesn't make sense. Your ability to recover from training is lower when you're calories are reduced, and yet many people are doing more work. Most if not all would be far better off keeping some heavy strength focused lifting in their programs while emphasizing multi-joint compound exercises and lowering their overall exercise volume.
3. Undereating - I can't tell you how many times I've had to tell people that they need to be eating more food if they want to lose fat. On the surface it seems counterintuitive but you've got people, women especially, out there, that are basically starving themselves on these super low-calorie diets and wondering why they've plateaued and their physiques refuse to improve. The more is better mentality is alive and well when it comes to training and cardio, but the less is better mentality is just as alive and well when it comes to nutrition and caloric intake. I find that often I have to do some corrective damage control in situations like this. I'll take them to maintenance calories for a while, up their carbohydrate intake, etc., all in an effort to 'reset' the metabolism so to speak. Then when they resume a caloric deficit, and a sane one at that, fat loss resumes. I think planned diet breaks where you eat at maintenance are one of the most underused fat loss tools out there.

When you put all that together - tons of low intensity cardio, too much exercise volume and misdirected volume at that, and unnecessarily low calories, you can see how correcting these variables and doing things properly can result in some great physique progress.

CB: Looks like having a coach to be accountable to is a big deal for competitors. Is it also helpful for regular people to have a fat loss coach?

EL: It's as important as the individual makes it, but that said, yes, I personally believe that being accountable to someone can make a big difference. I know for a fact that for my clients, having someone to be accountable to, keeps them focused on what they're doing more often than not.

Sure, we all slip up on our plans every now and then, but knowing that you have to take updated weights and measurements, 'report in' and be honest with your dietary or training indiscretions seems to help people avoid them. People don't want to have to report failures. I've had a number of clients tell me that before working with me, they had a real hard time sticking to any plan. Having that person monitoring and working with you seems to be a very beneficial element for many people.

I've been using John Berardi's dietary compliance grid for a long time and I've found it to be a great accountability tool. People don't want to have to mark down zeros for missed meals or asterisks for changed meals. They want those Xs. Of course 100% would be great, but it's not exactly realistic week in and week out, so I underscore that I expect dietary compliance to be no less than 90%. But I've also started looking at compliance not just in the context of off plan meals, but off plan calories as well. You can be 95% compliant in terms of meals eaten, but if your cheat meals are 2000 calories each (not that hard to do) and you're having two of them, and you weigh 125lbs, you're overdoing it. That's not 90%. People don't want to have to submit something that shows 70% compliance and highlights their cheats, missed meals, etc. And if they do, I'm typically going to remind them that 70% doesn't cut it if they want real results. It's not just their goals at stake, but their time, their money and even my time for that matter.

On the flip side, and I think these people are rarer, you have those highly motivated and self directed people that need no external accountability. They do just fine without it. They're accountable to themselves.

CB: Do most of your clients also enjoy a great deal of social support at home from spouses and family and friends?

EL: It seems support at home varies from person to person. Some have the luxury of total support from their family and friends, while others unfortunately don't. And some get some of that much needed support from me. It's definitely ideal if the home life supports an individual's new fitness goals. Having friends and family to help motivate and encourage you to stick with your nutrition and exercise program is invaluable. Maybe they notice and comment on the positive changes in your physique, maybe they even go as far as training with you - these things can be the difference between achieving your goals or falling short for many people.

I'd like to think that I can play a positive role here as well for those I work with as I try to acknowledge good work, provide guidance and some tough-love motivation when needed. Another interesting thing I've found is that many find that the various online fitness forums serve as a great social support network. I run a board that has a big journal section and there's no question that being surrounded by so many like-minded supportive people striving for similar results has benefited many, many people there. These online communities become that much needed support structure, and can help make up some of the lack of encouragement received at home.

Stay tuned for Part 2