Welcome to Effortless Swimming, the podcast for swimmers, triathletes and coaches. Join Australian swim coach, Bretton Ford, as he reveals the latest techniques and information to improve your swimming. Let’s dive right in. Welcome to another Effortless Swimming podcast. Today’s guest is a good friend of mine, Andy Anderson. He is CEO of Ultimate U, which is a gym in South Bank here in Melbourne. He’s also editor of Ultimate U magazine. He’s an entrepreneur, he’s a strength and conditioning coach, and he’s also a fitness expert. And what I want to chat with Andy today about is losing weight, shedding kilos and trimming down. Because as a swimming coach, I see that a lot of swimmers and triathletes, there’s a big opportunity there for them to lose weight and drop their times. Because if you can lose a couple of kilos, that’s a lot less weight that you need to be carrying through the water. So that’s what today’s podcast is about.

So Andy, welcome to the podcast. I’m glad to be here and having a chat. Well, yeah, I really wanted to get you on a podcast because I’ve known you for the last couple of months and I’ve started coming down to your gym in South Bank here in Melbourne. And I’ve been going three or four times a week and just absolutely loving it. And I’ve not only been able to lose a bit of weight myself, but also increased my strength and that’s really had a big impact on my swimming. So first of all, let’s get into the three pillars which you sort of focus your gym around. Can you tell me a little bit about the three pillars that you base everything around at UltimateU? Yeah, so basically the three pillar system is something that we’ve created. Obviously, I’ve been a string conditioning coach, a weight loss coach for over 10 years now. I was constantly seeing males and females on this slippery slope of losing weight and then they’d put it back on and on and off and on and off.

And you see it all the time with the fad diets and they just don’t get the long lasting results that they really need all wine. So I saw the issue and I sort of made it my mission to really find out why, what it was and what was the missing piece. And after years of obviously searching for it, I realised that it all comes down to mindset really and the psychology that the client or the athlete has towards their mission or their goal. So the first pillar and the most crucial part of the three pillars concept is the mindset approach. So we’re the only gym in the world that actually has psychology integrated into the health club and into the coaching that we do. We start our clients off and we look at their mindset and their goals and how committed they are to achieving those goals. And we use a whole bunch of different strategies there to get them really focused and motivated. And then from there, we move them on to individual nutrition.

So the nutrition side of it, we look at their body type first of all. So you can sort of break it down into three main body types. And the difference between these body types is going to be what macronutrient ratios or more simple terms, what will be the best fuel for that body type to achieve their goal. So once you know how to arrange your macronutrients and what foods to eat, you’re going to be able to fuel your body a lot better and you’re going to see massive body composition changes within a week or so. It’s pretty incredible once you get the right combination. And from there, you move on to obviously your training. And that’s about programming the right program for your goal and for your body type. And obviously we look at ranges, what the exercises are, the duration of that as well. So that’s basically how we combine the three pillar system together to make it really individualized and achieve some amazing results for our clients.

Yeah, I love that because it’s not… I mean, you can lose weight with, say, just choosing one, you might want to change your diet. But three together has a much more powerful combination because if your mindset’s not right, then it’s going to be hard to keep the weight off and to be motivated to go to the gym or eat the right foods. An example of this is one of my fiancé’s co-workers and she is a fad diet fanatic. She’s got something new that she’s trying, whether it’s the lemon diet or whatever they have. There’s all these different things and it’s just such a crazy way to try and be healthy. There’s no secret really to losing weight. It’s just eat the right foods, do a bit of exercise and have the mindset there that keeps you motivated and wanting to be a healthy person. That’s right, exactly. Obviously, a lot of people are after that quick fix-up, magic pill, the instant results. But unfortunately, it’s not going to give you that long-lasting change

and if you get instant results, usually you’re just going to put it back on a week later because normally it’s a bit of water weight. So yeah, it can be a bit of a pain in the butt, but once you get the right combination, that’s when you can… It’s not about losing the weight. It’s about making a complete lifestyle change and improving your life for the better, long-term. Not just for the five weeks or the 12 weeks or whatever it is. Yeah, exactly right. It’s a good point too. In the last couple of weeks, since going to your gym and learning more about this stuff, I’ve had a big change in my diet. I’ve started having more juices and more salads and all that sort of stuff. Not only feeling better and lost a bit of weight, but mental clarity has also improved and relationships as well because of that. So it is a lifestyle change. It’s not just about losing the weight to look better even though that has good follow-on effects.

It’s really a complete change. Well, exactly right. When you look at it bigger picture-wise, think about every time you go into the gym or every time you wake up early in the morning to get to the pool or to go into your cardio, you’re ingraining a discipline in yourself that’s going to transfer into all other areas of your life. You know what I mean? So every little thing that you do daily is going to affect your relationships and your career and all those sorts of things because you’re ingraining a better quality of discipline in yourself to achieve more every single day. So it’s not just about getting up and hitting the treadmill and getting your cardio in. You’re also going to transfer that discipline into other areas which improves your life all over. And that’s what we constantly teach here at Ultimate U is how to improve all other areas of your life. Yeah, it’s a good point. And I like the quote, how you do one thing is how you do everything.

And I find that to be so true. And for example, when I say last year in winter I took a couple of weeks off training and got slack with it. I put on a bit of weight. I wasn’t eating well. And then everything else started to suffer. And then you get that back on track. Sometimes you go in cycles with your training and you’re eating whatever it might be. But when you are on track with one thing that really flows on to everything else that you do whether it’s your work, your family, all that sort of stuff. Your whole quality of life can improve just by making that change in one area. So true. Yeah, I completely agree. And you’ve had a couple of clients go through what you call the 12-week transformation where you sort of sit them down. You work through what you want to achieve and all that sort of stuff. And then you’ve got the plans for them to get fitter and lose weight and all that sort of stuff. And you’ve just finished with those guys.

And can you tell or explain to the listener what some of the results were? Because I saw these girls who finished the program before the shots. And they look great. And they also have a lot more energy about them when I saw them at the gym. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it’s been an absolutely incredible journey. Just seeing, especially with some of the girls, just seeing their, first of all, the mindset shift in the girls was just insane. Absolutely insane. Just the way they view health and fitness and they view life in general now has been a massive, massive shift. And it was so exciting to see that. And then on top of that, they’ve lost like 10 kgs, put on two to three kgs of lean muscle mass. Some of the girls dropped 10% body fat. We’ve had a couple of guys put on five to six kgs of lean muscle. So the results were incredible. But more than that, it’s about after the program. So the 12 week transformation has been really set up

to educate these guys as much as I can. So when they finish the program, they’ve got all the tools in the toolbox to then use in their lives from then on. And they can continually implement that so they have that long lasting change. And I think that’s where a lot of the programs fail is that there’s nothing after it. There’s no maintenance or they don’t teach people how to think differently at the end so they can sustain those awesome results. So yeah, just to see the change in the girls and the guys has been incredible. And like I trained one of the girls last night. And she was training with the new group of the 12 week transformations. And we’ve got some big guys in that group and she was outlifting all of the guys. And she’s just this little girl, beautiful frame. And she’s lifting all, she’s outlifting the guys by like at least four, five KG. So it was an absolute crack up. But they’re warriors. They’re doing so well.

I’m really proud of them. Yeah. Yeah, that’s awesome. And bringing that back to swimming, as I’m a master’s coach and some coaching athletes, the average age is probably in the 40s, I’d say. But there’s been people from anywhere from 20 up to 70, 80 years old. And as people go through work, they can have a bit more of a sedentary lifestyle because they’re at a desk job, haven’t got much time, they’ve got a family to manage. And it can be hard to, it can be challenging to keep your weight down. But as a swimming coach, the big opportunity that I see is that if you can lose a couple of kilos, increase your strength. You can just drop your time significantly. An example of this is that a friend of mine, he started at 149 kilos. I don’t know how long ago, this is a couple of months ago, he’s now gone to 113 kilos. And he’s just been taking care of his diet. He’s had someone keep him accountable. He’s had a nutritionist keep him accountable.

He’s doing regular exercise. He’s competing in swimming competitions regularly. And he’s just hitting PBs every single time that he competes because he’s increasing his strength and just losing a bit more weight. And just a complete lifestyle change. And it’s just awesome to see. Love it, yeah, I love that. So yeah, so just being able to get into the gym and doing some strength stuff, that can really have a big impact on your swimming. So if you haven’t done any kind of gym work before, then find someone who, you may be a personal trainer or someone who can show you the right technique and the right exercises to do to build up your muscle. Yeah, exactly right. Exactly right. It’s going to help a lot. And obviously that extra strength in the water is going to help. But not dragging all that weight is going to, yeah, it’s definitely going to get your time up. Quick smart. What types of training do you do with your 12-week transformation crew?

Yeah, so obviously with the 12-week transformation, usually we’re looking at dropping body fat and we’re looking at putting on some lean muscle mass. So we incorporate the weight training and a bit of cardio as well. And then depending on how the client’s going, we alter their program accordingly throughout the week. So you might start off on rep ranges of 10 to 12, starting on compound movements and then obviously as we move on through the 12 weeks, we increase rep ranges. We do a whole bunch of different things to manipulate the body and the hormonal system so we get instant fat loss results. Yeah, that’s good. And I was chatting with a friend of mine, Wayne Goldsmith, who he’s a sort of coach to coaches and he was talking about a big change going on now is getting more with less. So not spending two hours on the treadmill and things like that and just getting better results or the same results with less work

because back, say, 20, 30 years ago in swimming, the coaches were looking for, how can I give my swimmers more Ks? How can I get them to swim more? And so they’re looking at, can we do this big set here and then just do a bit of recovery and give them more work again. But now the change has shifted to, can we do a few short repetitions at race pace and the session might take half the time or a quarter of the time of what they used to do. And that’s what I’m starting to see in the gym now. Correct, yeah, definitely. So obviously, especially with cardio, a lot of people are shifting from the steady state mindset with their cardio. Now they’re moving into interval training, obviously on the treadmills and things like that. And yeah, you’re right. It gets brilliant results. And I think that there’s a place for everything but if you want to maximize your time, it’s good to definitely chuck in that interval training and obviously with your weight training as well,

you don’t want to be going over 60 minutes. Usually after 60 minutes, you grow hormone and your natural testosterone start to drop. So the benefits that you’d usually get just aren’t there after that 60-minute period. Yeah, that’s good. And another thing, Wayne Goldsmith was saying that a lot of the elites are now doing the high-intensity interval training, which is they might do 30 seconds, really high-intensity, it might be squat jumps or something and then take 10 seconds rest, 30 seconds on, 10 seconds off. They might do five exercises, take a break and then they might do a few sets of that. And I’ve been doing a little bit of that at Ultimate U and it’s just been great. Like after a 45-minute session, I am spent, I’m ready to throw up and it is such a good way to start the day because it is fun and you really get that good workout, you get a sweat up and it’s really enjoyable because you don’t want to be going to the gym

and just be dreading having to maybe just lift weights and not have a structured routine or have the knowledge about what you need to do in the gym. Yeah, so true, man. So true. Yeah, get it done nice and quick. And you’re right. You’re spent, even with 20 minutes of interval training on the treadmill, for example, that equates to about 40 minutes of walking or a little bit longer. So you do get some brilliant results in those short, sharp intervals. Yeah, absolutely. And what are some of the exercises that you normally go through with your 12-week transformation crew? Do you start with some exercises and then progress to more advanced ones or do you stick with the same ones? What’s your process? Yeah, so we definitely use a lot of compound movements at the start and that’s really about teaching the guys how to use the free weights. Obviously with the 12-week transformation, it’s also about really shaping the body.

So, you know, body sculpting and I guess bodybuilding, really making the figures look nice and complete. So we do a lot of compound at the start, some isolation movements throughout and then we add a bit of cardio at the end to, you know, really burn into that fat stores as we go. But say, for example, we might start off with deadlifts, you know, going into using squats, using bench press, all those big compounds to start off with and then we sort of go into more isolation to finish off the workout. Yeah, good stuff. Now with diet, I’ve had another friend of mine, Steff Lohan, who’s the natural nutritionist. She’s talked a bit about nutrition and it’s just been fantastic and I’ve implemented a lot of those changes that she’s talked about in some of the previous podcasts and you’re also really big on diet. What do you see some of the big misconceptions that you get a lot of people coming in with and you start to educate them about diet?

What are some of the big myths that you see people having when they come into the gym? Yeah, so look, we get a lot of females come in and we sit them down and they’re like, oh yeah, look, I eat really healthy and then when you start to break down their diet, it’s just a lot of sandwiches and lots of sugary treats stuffed in there. They might be eating lots of muesli bars, special case cereal, things like this are marketed as health foods, lots of soy lattes, things that people obviously think this must be healthy because it says on the box, but unfortunately for a majority of people, it’s working against them in a big, big way and we see it every single day. So the quality of food these days is getting worse and worse, especially with your processed foods. It’s not going to get better any time soon. You really need to start looking at eating cleaner foods, just veggies, meats, proteins, stuff like that. That’s how you’re going to start to get really good shifts

in your body composition and your energy. Yeah, you’ve got to sort of stay away from that package stuff. That’s the first move you have to make. Yeah, and when I started moving away from the package foods, like moving away from wheat picks for breakfast, I used to pride myself on how many wheat picks I could eat in the morning. Yeah, when I was younger, for sure. I think my record was either 20 or 25, somewhere along those lines. I felt like crap for the day. I wanted to go back to bed after eating that many, but at the time I was super proud of being able to eat that many wheat picks, but knowing what I know now, I would have stayed well clear of having wheat picks for breakfast in the morning. Yeah, man, and I’m the same. I used to hammer wheat picks, so I used to hammer Nutri-Grain. I wanted to be the Iron Man, but unfortunately they’re just packed with rubbish. It’s packed with heaps of sugar, and especially, I was talking before,

about the body types. And when you’re looking at endomorphs, which are more the heavyset people, yeah, heavyset humans, they’re going to store fat instantly when you’re introducing even some of the low GI carbs these guys can’t handle. And 75% of the population is carbohydrate intolerant. They can’t handle carbohydrates. So, you know, you’re eating these health foods that are just jam-packed with sugar, and you’ve got no chance, unfortunately. One of the best stories that I’ve heard, it’s a little sad as well, I think is that a friend of mine was saying that he was chatting to a mum, and she was wondering about what food she could start to give her a child to help him lose a little bit of weight and keep him healthy, that sort of thing. And he said, oh, what do you give him for breakfast? And she said, oh, I give him fruit. I said, okay, great, what kinds of fruits? And she said, fruit loops. And it’s just, you know, it’s just

not having the knowledge and the education about what foods are good for you, because you get these companies just throwing the word healthy and nutritious and whole foods and stuff at you. But it’s just, a lot of it is just marketing. Just cut back to the essentials, your vegetables, your unprocessed foods, your good meats. And it becomes a whole lot simpler. Exactly right, yeah, so true. And that’s just insanity, isn’t it? Thinking fruit loops is fruit. Yeah, and it’s unfortunate, man. And you see that all throughout Australia, you look at America and Mexico and these countries now, the obese rate is just out. It’s outstanding, it’s incredible. It freaks me right out. I think six to 8% of children are obese now and 60% of adults are obese now in Australia and America. So it’s some freaky stuff and things need to change big time and that’s obviously why it’s great. People like you and me can just educate it as much as we can.

So people can start making these little changes and get massive results. Absolutely. And I started making this change from less processed foods to more natural foods a couple of months ago and it was hard at first because I didn’t know what to buy and how to cook it because my whole thing is if I can’t make it in 5-10 minutes I’m probably not going to make it. Sometimes I will spend more time cooking something but I really like to keep things easy and simple and I know that’s what you do and I’ve seen a lot of your recipes in your magazine, the Ultimate U magazine but when I made that switch to more natural foods it was a challenge at first but now it’s easy. On a Sunday my fiance and I will just go down to the markets and get all of our fruits and veggies and get our meat for the week and we’ll just prepare as much food as we can on a Sunday and that way we’re set for the week sometimes it’s just easier to get a frozen meal

from the freezer and put that in the microwave but if you’ve got your food prepared or you’ve got most of it prepared for the week it’s just made it so much easier. Yeah, exactly right and it really does. It comes down to preparation and making sure you have everything there when we go through teaching our clients about how to not slip up and getting into those cravings it comes down to having the food readily available so you can jump into that rather than getting really really hungry constantly thinking about food and then obviously the closest thing to you is going to be some packaged chocolate or muesli bar or cupcake whatever it is. You need to have your food prepped ready to go if it’s not prepped for example I’ve got the george form for two minutes to chuck a bit of chicken in there top and bottom it’s cooked in two minutes ready to go that’s how quickly it works so having stuff like that around is going to help big time

when you’re starting to get those cravings or throughout the day when you don’t have some food packaged already. Yeah, it’s a good point having the right tools and the right foods just there makes it heaps easier I love chocolate and I’ve had to find an alternative to that if I wanted to make the proper change to eating well and so a good recipe that I’ve been making and on Sunday I made a big batch of it is just it’s basically chocolate but you’re using coconut oil you’re putting in the raw cacao powder and then I just mix in some nuts and chia seeds and a bit of rice malt syrup as well and make that and that’s enough chocolate so to speak for a week and you know if I’m ever getting that urge to have chocolate just go into the fridge pull that out and have a few pieces and it’s actually good healthy food that actually tastes very similar to chocolate if not better Yeah, so true there’s some wicked recipes out there that you can get mixing

some good organic protein powder protein pancakes protein balls things like that, absolutely delicious and you’re not going to put on that extra fat from it a good little snack and a treat really Yeah, absolutely I was in Bali a few weeks ago and I went up to Ubud which is kind of like the hippie capital up there but they’re really into it they’re raw foods and healthy foods and myself and a few friends we just couldn’t stop eating up there because it’s the raw foods so they’re not cooked but they’re made from natural ingredients so the best one I had up there was this cheese cake that was made from cashews and then the base was something like dates and almonds and walnuts or something but all just natural foods not even cooked and the flavours were better than what you’d get from a regular standard cheesecake it’s shown me that you can taste better than the processed crap

Yeah, exactly right and really there’s no excuse when you know how to do it and you’ve got the tools there to go for it there’s no excuse not to get in there and make those little treats so you’re set ready to go and I guess it does come down to that discipline and mindset to be able to reinforce that and make sure that you stick to it Absolutely I want to talk a little bit about habits and what do you see as a good way for people to change their habits so let’s say someone might not be eating great food, they might not be exercising as much as they’d like to what’s a good way for them to get started in the right habits Yeah, so a lot of people are visual so you’ve got to get connected to your goal and you’ve got to get emotional about it, you know what I mean so no one just wants to lose weight no one just wants to it’s not just about dropping a KG like what’s a KG it’s got nothing to do with that it’s about what dropping that KG

is going to give them emotionally you know what I mean so it could be dropping these two KGs is going to make me confident because I know that I’m going to be able to attract that man in my life that I really want or that wife, that partner that I want, you know what I mean you’ve got to break down why you actually want to lose that weight or want to be healthier, what’s that going to give you and once you can really break down your goals into more emotional reasons, you’re going to be able to connect to it a lot more from there having a lot of visual aids is going to help you big time it’s one thing I do with my clients is I set them up with vision boards so it sounds a bit wanky but they’re just so effective, it’s unbelievable the results that you get when you start goal setting every day and have vision boards there putting out body types that you really want to look like fitness quotes and clothes that you want to fit into

all those things that are going to excite you and when you start to weigh in off your goal and start to feel like you’re giving in you go back to your vision board you go back to your why the big why of why you’re doing it you know what I mean why you keep going and that’s a really good way to keep motivated yeah I love it I think we’re the same that we’re not really into the airy ferry sort of stuff but having a vision board or putting up photos and pictures of what you want to achieve whether that’s you want to look good for a holiday that you want to go on or attract a partner whatever it might be I’ve got pictures up and I’ve got goals up around my my study of all that sort of stuff and of you know events and of swims that I want to hit certain times it’s just I’ve done that for the last I’ve done that for the last sort of 10 to 12 years and it’s funny pretty much nearly 90% of the stuff that sort of put out there it’s happened

and I put a lot of that down to just having the constant reminder of a being in your face with the pictures and the photos exactly right and what you think about most it’s going to drive you towards that goal if you’re constantly thinking about it it’s constantly in front of you you’re naturally going to progress towards that goal and that’s why it’s really important I interviewed Jamie McIntyre a few months ago and we’re talking about goal setting and he was saying the difference between millionaires and billionaires is the billionaires goal set every single day continuously and it’s because they’re getting so connected to their goals that they’re just thrusted forward that momentum builds up and it carries them and it’s the same with you know anybody if you want to get somewhere you have to plan it you have to put pen to paper do your goal setting get visual about it and have anything there that will get you to that

destination yeah absolutely and I think it really helps if you’ve got someone there to keep your cannibal or you’ve got a coach of some sort I think that’s a big difference and that’s what I like about your 12 week transformation program is that you’re there along the journey with people and it’s much harder to slack off if you’ve got someone there who’s not judging you but who’s not going to be happy if you don’t turn up to the gym because you’re going to almost do it for them as much as you are for yourself because you want to you want to please your coach you want to show them how how good your results can be yeah exactly right and exactly right and then over that few weeks it just ingrains that confidence in them to keep going from there on out which is awesome yeah and then they get that drive within themselves and they don’t need as much that that accountability exactly by the internal drive yeah yeah and it’s awesome

to see it happen man it’s really really cool yeah I was chatting to a girl who’s just started the 12 week program in your gym earlier in the week and she’s just she’s so motivated she was just on fire and she was just I think it was her third week or second week and she was hitting the gym six times a week and she was just loving every moment of it and that kind of energy from someone only it only comes from someone who’s who’s got this sort of big goal in front of them and they really want to achieve it for whatever reasons but it’s those people are so much more fun and inspiring to be around than the people who are looking to go back and sit on the couch and watch TV for three hours after work every night exactly right yeah and that’s it they’re adapting to a new lifestyle and that’s what’s so awesome about it you see them like you saw the energy in that girl it’s not for her it’s not just about getting into the gym anymore you know what I mean

it’s about what does that mean for every year of her life she’s really living a healthy lifestyle and that’s what excites her because she’ll be able to carry that forever which is great yeah that’s awesome well yeah man I want to thank you so much for jumping on the podcast with me today for anyone who’s in the Melbourne area I highly recommend going to check out your gym ultimate you down on City Road in South South Bank or South Melbourne I go there South Bank is it yeah so I go there a couple of times a week and I just love the place it’s a great gym which you’ve set up not too long ago with really good equipment if you’re a swimmer or a triathlete you’ve got the the battle ropes and the sleds and all these sorts of stuff all these sorts of equipment that swimmers can get a lot of use out of which I haven’t seen at a lot of gyms so I highly recommend going there for any effortless podcast listeners if you want to go down there

Andy’s kindly set up a deal for anyone who’s listened to the podcast which is $7 for 7 days so you can go and check it out try out the gym and see if it’s what you’re after so where can people find out more about you where can they keep in touch with you so I guess it’s going to our website www.ultimateu.com.au and also checking out our magazine so we’ve got a lot of great free content on the magazine website and also you can purchase the magazine so jump on the magazine which is www.ultimateu.com.au forward slash magazine and just get educated have a look at what we’re up to our podcast our articles and hopefully it can inspire you to make some great changes yeah awesome and for those that don’t know that’s an electronic magazine so it’s in the iTunes store and the podcast as well so it’s the ultimate year podcast if you want to look at that in your iTunes or on Stitcher you can get Andy’s podcast there and he’s got some

really good guests as well so highly recommend checking that out mate thanks so much for chatting with me today and thank you mate I’d love to get you on for another one a couple weeks or a couple months down the track because this has been great awesome mate it’s my pleasure now looking forward to it alright thanks mate see you bye bye thanks for joining us on the effortless swimming podcast to get transcriptions bonus videos and to be the first to hear about new episodes go to SwimmingPodcast.com