My Top 10 Podcasts
Ten educational podcasts covering topics such as strength and conditioning, philosophy, and personal finance.
I was never much of a podcast person prior to 2020, when the Army moved me to Texas and my ten minute commute grew to half an hour or more–not to mention the two hour drive I’d make to and from Fort Worth to see my girlfriend most weekends.
I no longer have a commute, as I work from home, but I still regularly listen to podcasts while working and traveling. They are, in my opinion, one of the best ways to consume entertainment or educational material. 90% or more of my podcast intake is for self-development. Here are my top ten in no particular order.
While most fitness companies leverage content to sell equipment, apparel, or supplements, EliteFTS does quite the opposite. Founded on Dave Tate’s mission to live, learn, and pass on, EliteFTS sells top notch strength equipment to fund their free educational content on strength and performance. On each episode, which are pretty lengthy, Dave hosts top tier athletes, coaches, and others who have devoted their lives to sports performance–usually in strength sports such as powerlifting, bodybuilding, strongman, etc. They talk training, nutrition, and life in general. If you’re a coach, athlete, or someone just looking for some inspiration, this is a great resource to find gold nuggets of training wisdom.
I would hardly consider myself a stoic, but listening to author Ryan Holiday’s message of philosophy each morning sets the tone for my day. Based on the virtues of wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice, modern stoicism provides profound, uplifting, and actionable messaging. The episodes generally range from five to twenty minutes; his longer weekend editions sometimes run an hour or more as Ryan interviews interesting guests of all professions. I also have his Daily Stoic book on Kindle, which I read each morning on my phone following my Christian devotional app.
With episodes lasting around an hour in general, this podcast is a virtual trail run that is devoted to sharing training wisdom and encouragement with the trail running community. TRN covers all sorts of interesting topics such as strength training for runners, nutrition, and race strategy. Most episodes feature an impressive endurance athlete or coach as a guest.
Uphill Athlete is another phenomenal community in the endurance world. Uphill Athlete’s books, articles, and podcast provide a wealth of information on high-altitude sports from ultra distance running to ski mountaineering and ice climbing. You don’t have to be an alpine athlete to benefit from their content; Uphill Athlete provides a lot of great reader-friendly information on conditioning and endurance for athletes and people in general.
#5 In Between Sets with Sam Brown
Sam Brown is a powerlifter, strongman, and strength coach in New England. Prior to his current position at the University of Rhode Island, Sam spent time working at EliteFTS creating content to include the Table Talk podcast. Although shorter in length, In Between Sets has a pretty similar format to Table Talk. Outside of Sam’s own expertise, the podcast features knowledgeable guests who are passionate and proficient in their performance craft.
#6 The Strong AF x Well-Conditioned Podcast
Jason Brown has an interesting background blending his military service, years of experience as a CrossFit athlete and coach, and his devotion to conjugate-style training. Jason’s primary audience is generally middle-aged men who are looking to transition away from the intense demands of CrossFit but still want to push themselves. Regardless of training age or experience, this podcast provides short, educational episodes that help coaches and athletes better understand how to build strength and work capacity through conjugate strength periodization and a number of conditioning modalities.
Barbell Logic is a fantastic resource for those who do barbell training, but with less of a focus on actual strength sports (such as powerlifting) than some of the other podcasts mentioned here. Barbell Logic content specifically targets coaches, but can be useful to everyday folks who enjoy managing their own fitness programming. Barbell Logic touches on a variety of relevant topics and constantly preaches the benefits of a minimum effective dose approach to training, a philosophy I wholeheartedly agree with for general population lifters.
If you’re not familiar with Cory Gregory’s Lunge and Learn protocol, it’s pretty interesting. Cory G and the Old School Gym crew lift at 4:00 AM Monday-Friday. Cory immediately follows with a session of 800 meters or 30 minutes of lunges, which serves as his conditioning or general physical preparedness (GPP) work. G always uses this time to listen to an educational podcast or audiobook, hence Lunge and Learn. His Coaches Clinic podcast includes other coaches from his circle encompassing experience in sports such as wrestling, soccer, baseball, powerlifting, and bodybuilding. Like the rest of Cory’s content, Coaches Clinic podcast is not only educational, but will light a fire under your ass.
This is probably the most valuable podcast on the entire list. Fiduciary advisor Michael Policar hasn’t recorded any new episodes in a few months, but there are dozens of short, intuitive, and actionable episodes to work through. With episodes ranging from 5 to 20 minutes, Go Out and Live! is the best personal finance podcast I’ve listened to. Michael touches on topics from market volatility due to current events to handling debt. Regardless of education level or financial literacy, this is a great podcast that we can all learn from.
If you like to nerd out on research and you find yourself making a lot of evidence-supported decisions, the Barbell Medicine Podcast is the show for you. Hosted by two medical doctors who also compete in powerlifting and other sports, Barbell Medicine discusses topics such as strength, hypertrophy, conditioning, nutrition, injuries, illnesses, rehabilitation, and more. In addition to their podcast, they put out great (free) articles and sell training templates.
BONUS - #11 The Late Kick with Josh Pate
My bonus podcast is not necessarily for self-development like the ones above, but Late Kick is certainly educational. Consuming college football (not just Clemson, of whom I am a fan) is one of my favorite hobbies. Simply put, this is the best show for college football.