The SNT Method

TL;DR

• This page should take about 7 minutes to read.
• I have a personal journey with strength training which has proven useful and relatable.
• I specialise in "helping people become stronger, healthier, and more able".
• The SNT Method describes the approach I take to helping people achieve their goals.
• There are Guidelines which serve as "Minimum Requirements".
• Where we go after that is goal dependant.
• The House of Gains describes how each part of the SNT Method works together.
• The Evaluation Tool is a quiz which will help you find new areas to make progress.

On this page I will outline the particular goals I specialise in, and the approach I take to helping my clients achieve them. This approach is called the "SNT Method" and is comprised of 5 parts. The House of Gains describes how each of these parts work together. The evaluation Tool is a quiz I have created to help you find the gaps in your skills and knowledge so that we can fill them and unlock new areas to progress.

SNT Specialities

Before we get into the specialities, I encourage you to have a look at a little bit of information About Me. It will provide some useful information about me (who'd have thought!), and provide the relevant context to what I do and why.

In short, I found my way to strength training for health reasons and found it quite liberating, and so my goal is to help others to the same. I've done a bit of powerlifting myself, as well as coaching specifically for it, but that's only a small section of strength training. I like it because it provides structure and boundaries, but not everyone feels the same. Because all the same principles are the same I would call it more of a useful interest than a speciality, but if you want to powerlift I am completely capable and completely interested and excited to help!

If I had to sum it up in a single sentence I'd say my speciality is something like "helping people become stronger, healthier, and more able". I can help with fitness and body composition goals, but typically just to serve someone's strength goals. If you want to run a marathon or get stage-lean I can get you a lot of the way there, but I'm not the guy to manage your final prep.

The SNT Method

Below is a table which represents the SNT Method. It outlines the general areas in your life which we can look to modify to achieve the outcomes you want, and then the more specific skills and knowledge which make up that area.

Thinking	Recovering	Training	Eating	Living
Growth Mindset	Sleep and Sleep Hygiene	Movement	Calories	Hobbies
Ownership Mindset	Stress Management and Relaxation	Programming	Macronutrition	Community
Accountability	Passive Modalities	Autoregulation and Load Selection	Micronutrition	Work
Mindfulness		Warming Up	Meal Frequency and Timing	Social Situations
Motivation and Discipline		Safety Methods	Digestion
Goal Setting		Niggles and Injuries	Dietary Approaches
Journaling		Conditioning	Supplements
Self Reflection		Technique Evaluation	Hydration
Habit		Filming Your Lifts
Values		Emerging Strategies
Understanding the Guidelines and Recommendations
Tracking
Flexibility
Self-Efficacy

Notice in the table that Understanding the Guidelines and Recommendations spans Recovering, Training AND Eating. This is because there are Guidelines and Recommendations which form the foundation of these parts of the SNT Method, and are resources we often look to to inform our decisions. They are evidence-based and well researched, and designed to do the most good for the most amount of people in terms of promoting good health and reducing the risk of disease. You should also notice that Flexibility, Tracking and Self-Efficacy span all categories. This is because they encompass sets of skills which can be applied universally.

Keep in mind that it's not always my job to say "Do this, this and this to achieve goal x". In some cases it will be, but in others my role is more like a guide or advisor to expedite a process or self-discovery. Because of this I use "where you are" as a baseline and then start making changes from there.

Guidelines First

At Strength Nerd Tom we take a "Guidelines First" approach. This means that the first changes occur typically in Recovering, Training and Eating to meet the Australian Physical Activity and Dietary guidelines, and the Sleep Health Foundation's How Much Sleep Do You Really Need? recommendations. These are considered the point where your time invested has the biggest return in terms of health for most people, and in my opinion are the "minimum requirement" regardless of your goal.

After meeting the Guidelines and Recommendations we will typically start making adjustments which will see us exceeding them, but specifically how depends on your goals. For someone with a weight loss goal we might spend most of our time with Eating. For someone who wants get stronger we might spend most of our time with Training. For someone who wants to build muscle it might be both equally. Living and Thinking are areas which we tend to only approach if we have issues doing what we need to do in Recovering, Training and Eating. 

Sometimes the adjustments required are self-evident, and other times we will have to refer to the Evaluation Tool. Throughout the whole process, however, we will only be making changes which are as big and as often as you can manage. We don't try to completely overhaul anything, because in most cases that's a recipe for failure. Setting ourselves up for success with ambitious but realistic goals is key to making the types of changes which are going to have a positive affect on you, your goals, your health, and your life.

You might have some of these things where they need to be already, and others might need a lot of work. Some might need more guidance than I am qualified to provide, in which case I will let you know and gladly help you find the right person to help you.

House of Gains

To explain how the 5 parts of the SNT Method work together I have built the House of Gains (patent pending).

The SNT House of Gains (patent pending)

Thinking is the foundation, because it supports everything else. It can be our greatest ally or our worst enemy. It is essentially a permissive and prohibitive force, which determines the degree to which we will be able to take action and implement our plans. Because of this it is responsible for the magnitude of the results we achieve.

Recovering, Training and Eating are the walls. This is where we will be spending most of our time and are directly responsible for the type results we achieve. 

Living is the roof because we want to incorporate Recovering, Training and Eating into the lifestyle we want, in a way that is supportive of the other things we want to do and achieve in our lives. Some examples of this might be related to family, education or business.

Evaluation Tool

Here you will find the Evaluation Tool. It is a simple quiz which will evaluate your current knowledge and find the gaps so that we know where to direct our attention. Where I have resources available you will be provided a link if appropriate, otherwise this will give good insight to direct your own study or ask me better questions.

I want to remind you that you aren't being "graded" and you don't pass or fail. If you don't feel you score as well as you could have, I think you're viewing this the wrong way. Yes, this will shine some light on some potentially negative things, but only so we can turn them into positives!

The tool is embedded below, but you can also access it here if the screen size isn't friendly or you prefer it has its own window.