Today’s Interview is with Eric Bach of Bach Performance
Eric Bach is my personal fitness and nutritional coach and is helping me reach my personal body composition goals. He is the President and founder of Bach Performance. The renowned Bach Performance Physique Coaching Program is the only 12-month coaching program designed to help busy professionals look great naked without living in the gym. Eric’s work has been published nearly 300 times and can be found everywhere from Tnation.com and bodybuilding.com to CNN, Yahoo, and AskMen. To build a life that’s improved, not consumed by fitness be sure to follow Eric on Instagram @bachperformance.
Let’s get started with the interview:
1.What got you started in the word of health and fitness?
Growing up I was always an active kid. My first love was Football, so I’d do push ups and sit ups while watching games. As I got older, I was one of the last kids to mature. At this point, I dedicated myself to the gym because it was apparent nothing was going to be handed to me.
Through my efforts in the gym for Football, I fell in love with the process and more importantly, what health and fitness gave me outside of the gym.
2. What has your career journey looked like in the fitness coaching field?
After a plethora of injuries left me reeling as a college freshman, I dedicated myself to understanding “why” and “how” injuries happen and how to prevent them. I went full throttle into Kinesiology and luckily, was able to start helping out college teams in the weight room. Within a year or two, I was conducting full weight room sessions with our college wrestling team and training semi-pro baseball players in the summer when I was 19.
Once I graduated, I jumped at the chance to work under Steve Hess, the former Strength and Conditioning Coach for the Denver Nuggets at a private gym in Denver.
Soon after this, I began writing and building my online business. A few years in, I pivoted and worked under Loren Landow at Landow Performance. Loren is still the best coach I’ve ever seen. I learned an incredible amount working with top athletes. From there, I took the plunge into going all in on Bach Performance. My online business continued to grow while I trained a select number of clients in downtown Denver. As demand online continued to grow, I needed to scale back my work in the gym to accommodate the workload. Now at 30, I’m completely location independent, living near family in Georgia, and helping dozens of busy professionals look great naked without living in the gym.
3. I think you do a great job of weeding through the B.S. what are some of the biggest myths that you see that plague the fitness industry?
Thank you! Unfortunately, “powerful marketing” often makes it seem like there is a one size fits all for every problem under the sun.
You have one program that’s supposedly perfect for fat loss, another one for building a huge deadlift, and another one for maximizing protein synthesis for your flexor digitorum longus. (I joke). The problem with this all-or-nothing approach is it’s not true.
There is no best.
There is no one size fits all.
The training itself is really simple. You need to lift for strength and performance and progressively overload your body to improve. All quality programs are predicated on that basic premise. Tweak exercises to fit other activities outside the gym and reinforce proper movement patterns, whether you’re a golfer or just trying to look great naked.
Diet is similar. You can lose fat on high carb, low carb, moderate carb, with fasting, or any number of diets out there. The key is a caloric deficit and quality food.
“Fancy” marketing makes it difficult to see that fitness is predicated on principles that are adapted to your specific goals, not a one size fits all approach.
4. What are the biggest barriers you run into with helping clients to make changes in their habits and do you have any advice for people to help break these barriers?
This may sound harsh, but the biggest thing I notice is a lack of commitment and accountability.
If someone gets a program for free, they’re likely to follow it for a bit, then jump to the next “hot method.” Rinse, repeat. Rinse, repeat. This is a vicious cycle most people fall into because they don’t have any skin in the game.
Coaching changes this. When you have a good coach, they leverage their years and countless hours of experience to help you see what you’d miss when looking in the mirror.
They’ll create the ideal program.
They’ll help you tweak it, adapt it, and understand what it takes to achieve success.
And most importantly, because you don’t want to disappoint your coach and you’ll financially be invested into your success, you’re going to stick it out.
Like it or not, where you spend your money can be a great indication of what you deem to be important. If you deem getting in the best shape of your life, sticking to your goals and staying accountable, then investing in a coach is well worth it.
5. What are the main pieces of advice you would give to someone looking to make changes in their weight and or body composition?
Keep it simple. Follow a proven plan, whether it’s 5-3-1, 5×5, or hire a coach. AIm to get stronger with the basics. The same principles that drove success generations ago will still work today. For body composition, track your food. In the business world, Peter Drucker once said: “what get’s measured get’s managed.” The same thing applies to any goal, such as getting leaner. Track your food for 60 days. DO it once. You’ll gain more knowledge regarding portion sizes, your habits, and where you need to improve.
6. What advice would you give someone who has limited time and resources to work out?
Find the program you’ll do even when life gets crazy. Many times, this means picking a 3x per week total body workout program rather than the “perfect” five times per week workout split. A program is only as good as your ability to consistently finish complete training cycles. In the kitchen, eat a protein source and a vegetable every time you eat. This small habit will help you consume more protein, fewer calories, and more vitamins and minerals.
7. What are the biggest mistakes that most people make when starting a fitness and nutrition program?
Searching for the program their hero does, rather than the workout program that would best fit them.
It’s easy to think, “If I want to look like Arnold I need to train like Arnold.”
Sure, I get it. But this fails to take into account the decades of training Arnold had before competing in bodybuilding. He was actually a solid competitive lifter beforehand. Heck, his initial program (before steroids), the Golden Six was a total body program, not the crazy high-volume workouts he later became known for. Start with where you are. Dominate the basics.
8. What are some simple tips you can give for people trying to make changes to their eating habits? If you don’t want to eat it, get it out of your house. It’s damn hard to stay motivated. Do yourself a favor and add roadblocks between you and your trouble foods. Sometimes yes, this means you have to throw them out of the house. Personally, if you leave a bag of chips in the house, I have no problem devouring the whole bag before dinner. You may have the same battle with other foods. The key point is to know your struggles and remove temptation.
9. As you know, I currently use you as my coach to help me with my current fitness and nutrition goals, do you use other professionals in the same way?
I do. If I had to bet, I’ve invested over $100k over the years on continuing education and coaching in fitness and in business. The way I see it, time is our most precious asset. If someone has achieved what I’m hoping to achieve, they can help me eliminate the biggest roadblocks and pave the way for success, faster. Moreover, because I’ve invested my money, I’m going to make damn-sure I listen and stick to the goals I set for myself.
This applies both in fitness and in business.
10. Any last pieces of advice that you would give the readers out there as it relates to making changes in their health and fitness?
Success comes from the ruthless execution of the basics. You don’t need a fancy program, the latest diet trick or hack. Move a lot. Focus on the big, compound lifts in the gym. Track and get stronger. Eat more foods that had a face or came from the earth.
Sleep 7-8 hours per night and drink more water. Really, the “best supplement” or latest program hack is worthless without these bases covered.
11. Where can people find out more about you and access the great information you put out there?
The best places would be Instagram @Bachperformance and bachperformance.com. We share tactical training and nutritional tips to help simplify the process of looking, feeling, and performing your best.
I want to thank Eric For taking the time to answer these questions and give some advice and insight on fitness and nutrition. If you have any questions for us, we are here to assist you with our wide variety of in-person and online training options, just head to our website below. If you have any questions feel free to reach out to us at johnpaul@guidrypt.com
Don’t forget to check us out at www.guidrygolfandsport.com and find us on social media:
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Also, head over to www.barbellsandbirdies.com to check out our new Golf Fitness and Performance apparel store.
John Paul Guidry DPT CSCS TPI Guidry Golf and Sport www.guidrygolfandsport.com