Episodes

This week, Gunnar and Jen are joined by Don Saladino and Ed Coan in Nashville for a mentorship weekend. Don and Eddy are two of the most respected names in strength and fitness, brought together for a coaching combine built on connection over content. Don talks candidly about his 27 years in the industry, the brutal early days of chasing clients with fliers and answering machines, and the deal he still offers every young coach who calls him: work a real gym job for 18 months, then he'll mentor y...

This week, Gunnar and Jen sit down with Brent Yates, founder of Aion Vest and author of The Gravity of Up, to trace a story that goes way beyond weighted vests. Brent opens up about the years he calls his transformation: a divorce, a bout with MRSA, the 2007-2008 financial crisis, a point where he admits he'd checked out on life entirely, and how a chance encounter with a trainer in Phoenix while he was rebuilding both his body and his business became the foundation for everything that followed....

This week, Gunnar and Jen catch up with Dose Khan, the Houston-based trainer and owner of Khango Gym who first got connected to us by cold-DMing Gunnar a decade ago and ended up crashing on his guest house couch after one too many tequilas. Dose walks us through the wild road from getting locked out of his first training space on Christmas Eve, to building a name for himself training pro athletes out of a five-star Houston hotel. The conversation gets real fast: the $20K supplement deal that fel...

This week, Gunnar and Jen sit down with Shane Wallen, who spent a decade as a strength and performance coach in Major League Baseball before walking away this past off-season to open a Nashville location of the iconic social performance club, The Kollective. Shane gets candid about the real math behind pro sports coaching pay across the NFL, NBA, and MLB, the lack of a pension for strength staff after years in the league, and how losing his father last November made him rethink what he was actua...

This week, Gunnar Peterson and Jen Widerstrom welcome Shawn Melland and Bo Sandoval for another special SORINEX Summer Strong conversation that starts with coaching and quickly turns into something much more meaningful. Fresh off an impromptu presentation at Summer Strong, Bo shares what it feels like to step into the spotlight with only hours to prepare and why great coaches should always stay "within striking distance" of their craft. From communicating under pressure to finding flow, the gro...

We’re back this week, live from Sorinex (https://www.sorinex.com/), and pull up our chairs with Jon Heck and Gabe Watson for a conversation that starts with rivalries and ends up somewhere much more useful. Jon walks through his shift from NFL and college strength coaching to his Hammer and Chisel Performance Podcast(https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hammer-and-chisel-performance-podcast/id1835141652) and running his own business full-time built on every coach's favorite training app, TrainH...

Another year, another (https://www.sorinex.com/). Former NFL offensive lineman John Welbourn joins The Kids Table at this year’s SS19 conference for a conversation that goes far beyond football. Alongside Kids Table veteran Ed Streit, John reflects on what happens after the game ends and why the best competitors never stop finding new mountains to climb. The conversation traces John's path from a decade in the NFL to helping build CrossFit's athletic training methodology, launching Power Athlet...

This week at The Kids Table, Jen and Gunnar sit down with Justin Cross, founder of Earn Your Booze and a man whose entire philosophy can be summed up in one simple idea: Earn it. What starts as a conversation about fitness, training, and the early days of bodybuilding quickly turns into a much bigger discussion about confidence, discipline, mentorship, and why so many people today feel disconnected from their own potential. Justin shares stories from his military background, the origins of the ...

This week at The Kids Table, Gunnar, Jen, and the crew sit down with restaurateur and Olive & Thyme founder Melina Davies for a conversation that goes way deeper than food. What starts with stories about childhood Weight Watchers meetings, crash diets, and fitness culture quickly turns into a bigger discussion about discipline, identity, pressure, perfectionism, and the systems we build to survive. Melina opens up about growing up in an immigrant family, feeling like an outsider in her own home...

Trainer and IFBB Pro Colin Schoen sits down at The Kids Table this week for a conversation about what it really takes to build a career in fitness that lasts. From his early days working in physical therapy and grinding through slow seasons as a young trainer to eventually building a loyal client base and earning his pro card, Colin opens up about the reality behind a profession that looks a lot easier from the outside. Along the way the crew dives into the business of personal training, why mo...

Season Johnson pulls up a chair at The Kids Table this week for a conversation that hits home for Gunnar and brings you inside a world most people never see. Working closely with children battling cancer, Season shares what her day-to-day actually looks like, from building trust with kids and families to showing up in moments that carry real weight. It’s not just about care, it’s about presence, consistency, and being someone people can lean on when everything feels uncertain. Along the way the...

Graham Barham pulls up a chair at The Kids Table this week for a conversation that moves from small-town Louisiana to sold-out stages, with a whole lot of real life in between. Graham shares how his career has taken off in Nashville, what it actually looks like behind the scenes of songwriting and touring, and how he’s learning to balance the chaos of the lifestyle with the discipline it takes to keep showing up. From early days figuring it out to navigating success in real time, he brings an ho...

Ivey Childers sits down at The Kids Table this week for a conversation that moves from building a custom cake business in Nashville to launching her own tequila brand. Ivey shares how her journey started with curiosity in the kitchen, teaching herself how to bake through trial and error, and how that same instinct led her into a completely new industry years later. From early days testing recipes at work to scaling a business she eventually sold, her path is anything but traditional. Along the ...

Robbie Kroger pulls up a chair at The Kids Table this week and quickly turns a conversation about a controversial hunting photo into something much bigger. He shares how he found his way into wildlife conservation, why he’s focused on changing the narrative around hunting, and what people often miss when they react to what they see online. From crocodiles and conservation funding to the role hunters actually play in protecting wildlife, Robbie brings context to a topic that usually gets reduced ...

Comedian Hugh Howser pulls up a chair at The Kids Table this week for a conversation that moves from Nashville comedy clubs to the psychology of making people laugh. Hugh shares how he stumbled into stand-up after years in the event world with the help from Leanne Morgan, why open-mic nights can make or break a comic, and how learning to connect with an audience matters just as much as the jokes themselves. Along the way the crew talks about the craft behind comedy, the strange path most comedi...

Welcome to Season 2 of The Kids Table! We’ve settled into our new space over at Gunnar’s Nashville HQ, and we couldn’t be more excited to bring you our first guest, Craig Susser! Craig pulls up a chair and proves that the restaurant business isn’t about food. It’s about people. From his early days getting humbled behind the bar at his first serving job to building Craig’s into one of the most talked-about rooms in LA and Nashville, Craig shares how relationships, loyalty, and emotional intellige...

Part two with Brett Bartholomew leans into the messy middle of communication, the part that shows up in relationships, leadership, and the everyday moments where things either connect or quietly fall apart. The crew talks about why the idea of being “self-made” doesn’t really hold up, how vulnerability can be a strength for A-type personalities, and why so many conflicts aren’t about what’s being said at all, but about power, control, and the fear of accountability. The conversation moves betwe...

Welcome back to The Kids Table, where the conversation starts with fitness and quickly turns into something much bigger. In part one of this conversation, Brett Bartholomew pulls up a chair to talk about the part of coaching nobody puts on a whiteboard: communication. From locker rooms to living rooms, the crew digs into what it actually means to connect with people, build trust, and show up as a steady presence in a world that feels louder, faster, and more distracted by the day. They explore ...

To kick off 2026 at The Kids Table, we’ve pulled the moments from 2025 that still make us laugh, pause, and learn along side of. This compilation episode is a highlight reel of The Kids Table at its most unfiltered, pulling together the stories, side tangents, and conversations that stuck with us long after the mics were off. You’ll hear late-night honesty, ridiculous inside jokes, deep reflections on friendship, fatherhood, balance, and why success is usually closer than people think. There ar...

To send 2025 out right, we grabbed our favorite listener questions of the year and stitched them into one big Kids Table hang. You will hear trainers asking how to turn a side hustle into a real career, new moms wondering how to juggle strength and cardio, and coaches trying to play nicely with high school programs while still doing their job. In between, the three of them unpack sleep, longevity, heavy lifting for women, body composition after forty, and what to do when imposter syndrome start...

Garth Bouldin is proof you do not need a massive platform to be a massive presence. He is Gunnar’s next door neighbor, the owner of Gateway Tire, and the kind of guy who makes you believe customer service and character still matter. What starts as a funny story about Gunnar outbidding him for the property next door turns into a real conversation about trust, relationships, and why people come back for the person long after the sets and reps, or the tires and brakes, are handled. Garth breaks do...

Your questions, our hot seat. In this Q& A episode, we break down HIIT fatigue, why most people are under-recovering instead of overtraining, and how to cycle heavy lifts, isometrics, and bodyweight work when life gets busy. We debate the Smith machine, talk through real paths to “success” in the industry, and show how body composition can change at 40 and beyond with basic habits done well. Expect straight answers, training ideas you can steal, and the reminder that consistency and curiosity be...

This week’s episode starts with fake sick days and somehow ends up in breakups, burnout, and why trainers should stop pretending they have perfect balance. Gunnar, Luke, and Jen talk through the messy, funny, very human moments that actually shape a healthy life. If you have ever faked an illness, questioned a relationship, or wondered why your kid can outsmart you, this feels like the right table to sit at. From travel fatigue to emotional resets to the expectations people place on fitness pro...

This week, The Kids Table takes a step back into the early days of lockdown: the makeshift gyms, the six-foot sticks, the CPR tests, and the cul-de-sac friendships that kept everyone afloat when the world shut down. Gunnar, Luke, and Jen break down how they trained, coped, and kept people moving with zero equipment, no certainty, and a whole lot of chaos swirling around them. They revisit the strange blend of humor, fear, and unexpected community that shaped that year. They also get honest abou...