👋 Hi! Tell us about yourself and your training
My name is Kyle Spears, I’ve been in the fitness industry for close to a decade now both coaching and training.
I dabbled in sports throughout high school but when I found Crossfit in the military I was hooked. I then started out competing in the sport of CrossFit and that slowly evolved into a career in coaching.
Currently, I’m training about 90 minutes to two hours a day hitting stuff that still relates to the sport, but trying to do things a little bit more aerobically now, vs the crazy intensity needed for CrossFit the sport.
My goals are a little bit more health related now, staying injury free, and in more of a parasympathetic state than chasing performance.
⏱ Describe a typical day of training
Right now, I’m following Blacklisted HQ competitors program for the sport of CrossFit but as mentioned above, it is at a slightly lesser intensity due to injuries and taking a step back from the sport than what I might have put into it in the past.
Currently, I’m training about 90-120 minutes a day, for just one session a day. In the past when I was competitive in the sport and I had my own coach, I would train for two to three hours and often put in another double session for about 90 minutes of work.
The volume was high and the intensity was very demanding. That was when I was training for performance though, and now it’s geared a little bit more towards health! At the moment, I’m training five days a week at a CrossFit Gym Breaking Boundaries.
👊 How do you keep going and push harder?
I had a lot of help along the way though from my parents other coaches, and gym owners allowing me to train at their facility and hiring me to coach at their gyms.
Motivation has never really been that big of an issue for me. I knew where I wanted to go inside the sport of CrossFit and I had goals I felt were attainable, so making sure that I created habits to achieve those goals was fairly simple.
I had a lot of help along the way though from my parents other coaches, and gym owners allowing me to train at their facility and hiring me to coach at their gyms. All of this allowed me to stay focused on what it was that I wanted to accomplish.
Back when I was training for performance in the sport, the biggest challenge was just making sure I was recovered enough to hit the next training session as hard as I had the previous day.
This sometimes meant taking an extra rest day because the intensity just wasn’t there on a given day; Which was frustrating, but it had to be done.
Now that I’ve taken a different approach to training I can be in the gym very consistently and not have to take time off. My sessions aren’t as intense but they are much more consistent now!
🏆 How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
I started my own company called Blacklisted HQ in 2018. We are an individualized coaching company, which means we work with an athlete or individual 1 on 1 to help them meet either their competitive goals, or fitness goals.
Right now, the company is entirely online but the goal is to grow it into a brick and mortar facility as well. probably in the ATL GA region.
🤕 How do you recover, rest and handle injuries?
Back in the day, recovery was super important. Sleeping a minimum of eight hours a night was key but also getting a lot of body work done.
There are a lot of different therapies out there so if you are reading this and looking for some advice from someone who was constantly injured, try them all, and try them all more than once for every injury.
Personally deep tissue massage works well for me and can heal most of my injuries but there are some others that have required dry needling, cupping, chiro, physical therapy to fix.
The biggest thing is learning how to get out of a sympathetic state after training though through having a good cool down.
A walk, stretching, and foam rolling are good also making sure you pay attention to your breath and focus on nasal breathing! That will help you alleviate the tension that is accumulated in the body from hard training, and keeping you going harder longer, before having to take a break.
🍎 How is your diet and what supplements do you use?
Diet is extremely important to training but can be stressful to track.
I’ve never been big on diet or supplements. I used to use a carb supplement and have used protein in the past but have gotten away from them now.
As far as what I recommend to athletes now from a coaching perspective: Creatine, Vitamin D, Fish Oil, Beta Alanine, and Magnesium. Outside of that a lot of supplements are pretty worthless, and you can get most of your protein and carbs from diet alone.
Unless you are at elite levels of sport, you really shouldn’t need to supplement other than things you are lacking naturally or can’t get naturally.
Diet is extremely important to training but can be stressful to track. So I’ve always just kind eaten off of feel, and tried to make sure I’ve gotten enough calories in a day. For me that was right around 4k. Maybe a little less.
👍 What has inspired and motivated you?
When I saw the CrossFit games for the first time, I knew that was something I wanted to compete at and could compete at. So that was the biggest motivation for me initially was trying to get there.
We made it to the Games as a team in 2014 and had a blast so the goal was to once again go back there, and we did again in 2016. It was a pretty fun experience and shaped a lot of why I coach now.
The current motivation for coaching is to bring the joy you experience qualifying for your first ever CF games to someone else. It’s a special experience.
You pour your heart and soul into training for years and when you finally punch that ticket, it’s an amazing experience.
✏️ Advice for other people who want to improve themselves?
Build habits. What ever area of life you want to improve in start to build habits to get you there. More than likely you have an idea of who you want to be so start putting the blocks in place to get you there.
If that’s going to the gym just start going to the gym every day, and just touch the door or walk in and touch a weight. Start small and then build.
Habit stacking is becoming popular, so something like “after work when I get into my car I’m going to set my GPS to go to the gym and have it take me there.” You now stacked the habit of getting in the car after work which is needed and then setting the gym into your gps, and then driving to the gym.
Just the act of driving there will start to form the habit of going. Do that for two weeks if you want to take it slow, and then start to add another habit stack on top of that like going in and performing a lift.
Improvement is relatively simple, it’s creating the habits to improve that is hard. Always start small.
🤝 Are you taking on clients right now?
Our company is always taking on clients! If you are looking for a coach please head to our website, blacklistedhq.com or follow us on Instagram @blacklisted.hq, and shoot us a DM!
📝 Where can we learn more about you?
Please follow me on Instagram @kylespears90
