PODCAST · health
Todd Nief's Show
by Todd Nief
Quick Note: I'm currently doing a Master's degree in Computer Science, so my release schedule will be intermittent depending on my coursework.Todd Nief is the owner of downtown Chicago's #1 CrossFit gym and the coach to multiple CrossFit Games athletes. He has been featured by Men's Fitness, WGN Radio, and NBC Chicago among others. His background in chemical engineering and as a musician in multiple death metal bands gives him a unique lens with which to unpack the models that people use to solve problems in complex areas like fitness, business, nutrition, music, economics and psychology.
Episodes
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Paul Bearer (Sheer Terror | Joe Coffee)
Paul Bearer is the vocalist for one of the most influential and underrated New York Hardcore bands of all time: Sheer Terror. Sheer Terror came out of the very strange New York Hardcore scene of the 80s — before the music became codified into the metallic, bouncy mosh parts we think of as NYHC...
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Christopher M. Russo (Mercatus Center) on Monetary Policy, The Fed, and Inflation
Monetary policy is confusing. What even is The Fed? How do they control interest rates? Is The Fed different than the Treasury? Why do different cities have different feds? And, most importantly, do people with laser eyes on Twitter actually know anything about inflation? These are all things…
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Spenser Mestel on Voting Rights, Election Reform, and Writing a Book with Mat Fraser
I first encountered Spenser's work through his writing for the Morning Chalk Up, and at some point I clicked on enough links to realize that the majority of his work is on voting rights and election reform. I've been a subscriber to Spenser's voting rights newsletter, so I wanted to get his take…
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Dave Bland (Full of Hell | Jarhead Fertilizer)
Dave Bland is one of the most creative drummers currently playing extreme music. While technical wherewithal with blindingly fast blast beats is always appreciated, the ability to adapt to the varied styles present on Full of Hell records as well as the more straightforward death metal of Jarhead...
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Matthew O. Jackson, PhD on Human Networks and Microfinance
Humans have an intuitive sense for who is important and well-connected. We like knowing "movers and shakers," and we regularly engage in complicated social machinations — conscious or otherwise — to position ourselves close to the seat of influence. But what about the formal study of the spread…
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Kayhan Vaziri (Yautja)
Yautja plays lurching, uncomfortable music, so it is fitting that their new album is called "The Lurch." I first met Kayhan back in approximately 2010 when I was on tour with Weekend Nachos and we stayed at Kayhan's place in Birmingham, Alabama. At the time, Kayhan was in a band called Legion...
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Simple Solutions to Complex Problems [Solocast]
I've often spoken on the Legion Strength & Conditioning podcast about the desire for "simple solutions to complex problems." I figured I'd reframe and refine that discussion for a solocast based upon the cynefin decision-making framework, Julia Galef's great new book "The Scout Mindset," and some...
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Bryan James, PhD on Alzheimer's and Epidemiology
At some point in the last year or so, I started listening to the Epidemiology Counts podcast. I was thrilled to learn that the host, Bryan James, is a Chicago local at Rush University — and he's a CrossFitter at Goose Island CrossFit. Bryan and I recently collaborated on an article for BarBend...
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James Pligge (Harm's Way) Round II
James Pligge is back by popular demand. This time, we talk about some of the many misconceptions that people have about James and Harm's Way — as well as James's ill-fated attempt to make a protein shake with Coca-Cola. To be honest, talking about making a protein shake from Coca-Cola probably...
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John Caution (Weekend Nachos)
I feel like I say this about a lot of my friends that I have on the podcast, but John Caution is one of the weirdest and funniest people I know. I'm happy to talk to John endlessly about funny things that people we both know did 15 years ago, but, in this interview, we talk about the legacy of...
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Matt Parlmer (General Fabrication)
Speaking with Matt is like being blasted with a firehose of information. He is entwined in the worlds of politics, database engineering, and 3D printing, and he speaks in dense, reference-laden paragraphs. This is thrilling to me, since I love information. I also feel empathy for folks who have...
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Andy Nelson (Bricktop Recording | Like Rats | Sourmouth)
Andy is one of the most talented musicians I know. Some people think of musical talent as a preternatural gift for shredding through neoclassical riffs on guitar or ripping through Chopin concertos as a pre-teen. In Andy's case, this talent manifests itself as incredible taste and intuition for...
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Jeff Kolar
Jeff edits many of these podcasts…and now it is time for him to speak! Jeff is a prolific musician and artist — creating in a variety of genres and formats. His works appear as stand-alone albums, as complements to performance art, and on pirate radio stations. I've long been a fan of Jeff's…
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Preston Weippert (Of Feather and Bone)
Of Feather and Bone put out one of the best records of 2020 with Sulfuric Disintegration, so I was really excited to speak with drummer Preston Weippert. Like Rats played with Of Feather and Bone in Baltimore a few years back, and I was very impressed with them. Since then, they've released two...
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The Sloshing Social Information Ecosystem
Like many, I am deeply concerned with the impact social media has had on our brains, our attention, and our society. I have a slightly different take on what the root of the problem is, though. While those worried about distraction, polarization, algorithms, and censorship all have a right to be...
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James Pligge (Harm's Way) [Repost]
This episode with James from Harm's Way is one of the most consistently downloaded episodes of the podcast, so figured this would be a good time to revisit it. If you haven't seen the Harm's Way Running Man memes that offered a much needed moment of levity this summer, then spend some time…
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Juliet Starrett on Excellence in Operations at San Francisco CrossFit [Repost}
This conversation is a repost from the From Coach to Business podcast that I did with my friend Brandon last year. With the recent announcement that San Francisco CrossFit is closing their doors, I wanted to revisit this conversation since there were several key takeaways on operational…
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[Repost] Scott Young (Author of Ultralearning)
This is a holiday repost, which pairs very nicely with the recent episode with Cedric Chin discussing tacit knowledge, expert intuition, and deliberate practice. If you enjoyed that episode, you will hopefully also find Scott Young's work fascinating—since he distills research-based best…
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Cedric Chin (Commoncog) on Tacit Knowledge and Learning from Experts
Certain clusters of nerds on the internet can find it very frustrating when successful people say a lot of incorrect stuff ("Just focus on your passion and be yourself!") about how they found success in their field. To be clear, I am such a nerd. Cedric Chin has researched and written extensively...
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Leonard Suryajaya on Humor and Confrontation in Photography and Growing up in Indonesia
Leonard Suryajaya creates lush, harrowing, and hilarious images in his photography, and I was fortunate enough to be a part of his process for his recent work with The New York Times. While I initially wanted to talk to Leonard about his creative process, I couldn't help but indulge and take a...
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John Nerst (Everything Studies) on Decoupling vs Contextualizing and the Tilted Political Compass
John Nerst, in some sort of bizarre ascetic practice, enjoys studying people disagreeing online. While online discourse is a cesspool of bad intentions, bad faith, and, of course, bad arguments, John is able to divine some deep insights about the fundamental nature of human disagreement. In this...
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Albert Kao, PhD on the Wisdom of Crowds and Hyperconnected Networks
Albert Kao of the Santa Fe Institute has been researching collective behavior in animals — including really crazy things like using their own bodies as a bridge to invade a wasp nest. As we mention in the podcast, this absolutely needs to be made into a horror movie if it hasn't already. In...
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Todd Talks: Productivity and Prioritization (2020 Edition)
I'm often asked "how I handle it all," and — while I think the true answer may have something to do with several deep flaws in my fundamental personality, I do think I have a framework that helps me get a good amount of stuff done. I tend to manage too many projects at once pretty much all of the...
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Ethan Lee McCarthy (Primitive Man | Many Blessings)
It doesn't always work well to try to corner artists who you like and make them explain how they do the thing that you enjoy about their work. Sort of like getting a comedian to explain their jokes. Maybe not the best thing for your ongoing enjoyment of humor. Still, I will not be deterred, and I...
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John Murphy (Young Horses Games) on influences and innovation in video game design
As I mention in the intro to this podcast, I know John Murphy as the pilot of a 90s era Pontiac Trans Sport — aka the "Egg Van." The world, however, knows John as co-founder and gameplay designer at Young Horses, the indie games collective responsible for the much beloved hit Octodad. As a lad, I...
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Dirk Verbeuren (Megadeth)
Dirk Verbeuren has played drums on more extreme metal releases than is reasonable or appropriate for any single human. He took over for Chris Adler as the drummer for Megadeth in 2016, but that hasn't stopped him from continuing to release underground release after underground release — including...
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Courtney Kelly (Strength Ratio | Ethos Alchemy) on optimality theory, trade-offs in fitness, and copywriting
Figuring out how to prioritize in any sort of complex system is really, really difficult. We see this all the time in working with athletes. A simple, linear mindset results in athletes trying to do more, more, more training — and expecting to get more, more, more results. In reality, there are...
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Todd Jones (Nails)
In this episode of "Between Two Todds," Todd Jones discusses his songwriting process for Nails and why he thinks of himself more as a "music fan" than a "musician." Todd has a public perception that is often totally out of alignment with his actual personality. Some of this is likely a side…
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Sarah Sentes (Manager Tools) on managing in industries that resist management
Every small business that has any level of success hits a tipping point where the fact that business is going "kind of well" becomes the most stressful thing to the founders. I vividly remember hitting this point with South Loop Strength & Conditioning several years ago. The gnawing worry that we...
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Wayne Banks (KIPP Academy) on remote learning, protests, and race in CrossFit
Wayne is the principal in residence at KIPP Team Academy in Newark, New Jersey. I've wanted to have Wayne on the show for awhile to talk about education since I'm endlessly fascinated with learning, learning about learning, teaching, teaching others to teach, and basically every other possible...
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John Wooley (Make WODs Great Again) on the essentialness of CrossFit gyms
I recently wrote a controversial oped for the Morning Chalk Up on why my CrossFit gym isn't an essential business. John Wooley, from the regularly hysterical CrossFit satire account @makewodsgreatagain, wrote a thoughtful response disagreeing with my claim that CrossFit gyms are not essential. I...
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Jeff Wang (Modern Asian Kitchen | Yum Dum Truck) on COVID-19's impact on restaurants
When people think of the culture of a country or a city, food is one of the first things that comes to mind. But, with the economic disruption caused by COVID-19, a lot of folks - myself included - have serious concerns about the ability of restaurants to make it through to the other side of an...
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Brad Stulberg (The Growth Equation)
Brad Stulberg has a list of accomplishments that would make most authors drip with envy. Hundreds of thousands of books sold. A regular column in Outside Magazine. Contributions to publications like The New York Times, Sports Illustrated and Wired. A blue checkmark on Twitter and tens of…
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Jon Callahan (The Great Unlearn)
Cal spent a long time chasing money, social status, and all kinds of external validation. And he didn't just chase it. He was good at getting it. As an interest rate trader in Chicago, he had checked a lot of the boxes that people think will make them happy. (Including playing golf with Michael...
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Ian Kaplan (Hybrid Performance Method)
So, what's the deal with chiropractors? Are they all just full of it? Ian Kaplan is the COO of Hybrid Performance Method (Stefi Cohen's training company) and soon to be doctor of chiropractic, and he's also one of the most thoughtful and skeptical people in the fitness space. In this…
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Jason Collins, PhD on Loss Aversion and Ergodicity Economics
People are predictably irrational, right? We have a poor intuitive understanding of statistics, we leap to drawing cause and effect relationships where none exist, we don't understand exponential growth very well, and we gorge ourselves on junk food and junk television. We're broken! While there...
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Joshua Becker, PhD on Polarization, Collective Intelligence & Social Tipping Points
Joshua Becker studies computational social science - particularly collective intelligence and tipping points. Joshua has recently published some papers on polarization showing that the grim headlines about an increasingly fractured society unable to agree on basic facts about the world might not…
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Jason Crawford (The Roots of Progress)
Jason Crawford studies the history of innovation on his blog The Roots of Progress with detailed case studies on things like the invention of the bicycle, the invention of steel, and how we decided between alternating and direct current. In this conversation, we discuss why my skeptical and...
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Brian Speronello (Accelerated Conversions)
Brian Speronello is a copywriter who runs a boutique copywriting shop called Accelerated Conversions. He works closely with a handful of clients - including The Ready State (formerly MobilityWOD). Brian was recently involved in the rebranding of MobilityWOD to The Ready State, so he shares some…
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Jessica Danger (Morning Chalk Up | A Fresh Cup of Fitness)
Jessica Danger is a creative writing professor, an editor at the Morning Chalk Up, and a co-host of the "A Fresh Cup of Fitness" podcast. I've been writing #content for well over a decade now - starting with a polemical high school zine - and I haven't put too much thought into my writing other...
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What I've Learned About Learning
I've put a lot of thought into learning over the last year or two - both in terms of learning things myself (like coding, improvisation on guitar, and assorted wide reading into too many different interests) and in terms of teaching coaches who I work with. Learning is a super power, since...
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[From Coach to Business] Will Hoekenga (Copygrad)
This is a cross-post from the From Coach to Business podcast. My friend Brandon and I both often get questions about starting and growing a coaching business - either online or in the brick and mortar space - so we put together a season with answers to some of the most common questions we get as...
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Gretchen Leslie (GrowthLab)
Gretchen Leslie is the Director of Operations for GrowthLab and I Will Teach You To Be Rich. I recently attended a live event that Gretchen and the GrowthLab team put on in New York, and I wanted to talk with Gretchen about her management philosophy and how she manages an entirely remote team....
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Evan Peikon (Training Think Tank)
Anyone who has coached or competed in CrossFit for awhile sees things that kind of don't make sense. Athletes with 15+ unbroken ring muscle-ups and a 6:30 2k row who are surprisingly bad at "metcons." Athletes who can only do 5-10 unbroken strict handstand push-ups who are able to quickly chip…
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[From Coach to Business] Juliet Starrett (San Francisco CrossFit | The Ready State)
This is a cross-post from the From Coach to Business podcast that we just launched. My friend Brandon and I both often get questions about starting and growing a coaching business - either online or in the brick and mortar space - so we put together a season with answers to some of the most…
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[From Coach to Business] Tiago Forte (Forte Labs)
This is a cross-post from the From Coach to Business podcast that we just launched. My friend Brandon and I both often get questions about starting and growing a coaching business - either online or in the brick and mortar space - so we put together a season with answers to some of the most…
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[Repost] Adrian Bozman (Head Judge of the CrossFit Games)
We're going back in the archives this week to last year with a repost of an interview with Adrian Bozman - the Head Judge of the CrossFit Games. You can check out the full show notes from the episode here. I've been hard at work finishing up the first season of From Coach to Business, which will…
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Chris Mills (Harm's Way)
Chris Mills is the drummer for Harm's Way - and he's also a clinical social worker for an addiction and mental health residential program. Many folks who are touring most of the year piece together random part-time jobs or have their hands in a few different pieces of the music industry...
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Todd and Friel on Fundraising
Fundraising for your business is often a stressful, opaque and time-consuming process. I've gone through it on a minor scale in order to take on a lease and build out a building for South Loop Strength & Conditioning - but my good friend John Friel is currently in the process of attempting to…
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Jason Leydon (Conquer Athlete | CrossFit Milford)
Jason Leydon is an elite-level CrossFit coach - and, much like myself, a continuing education junkie. I'd been looking forward to this conversation, since Jason is not just very successful in his ability to develop athletes, but also very self-aware about his process and how he's developed his...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Quick Note: I'm currently doing a Master's degree in Computer Science, so my release schedule will be intermittent depending on my coursework.Todd Nief is the owner of downtown Chicago's #1 CrossFit gym and the coach to multiple CrossFit Games athletes. He has been featured by Men's Fitness, WGN Radio, and NBC Chicago among others. His background in chemical engineering and as a musician in multiple death metal bands gives him a unique lens with which to unpack the models that people use to solve problems in complex areas like fitness, business, nutrition, music, economics and psychology.
HOSTED BY
Todd Nief
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Todd Nief's Show have?
Todd Nief's Show currently has 100 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Todd Nief's Show about?
Quick Note: I'm currently doing a Master's degree in Computer Science, so my release schedule will be intermittent depending on my coursework.Todd Nief is the owner of downtown Chicago's #1 CrossFit gym and the coach to multiple CrossFit Games athletes. He has been featured by Men's Fitness, WGN...
How often does Todd Nief's Show release new episodes?
Todd Nief's Show has 100 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Todd Nief's Show?
You can listen to Todd Nief's Show on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Todd Nief's Show?
Todd Nief's Show is created and hosted by Todd Nief.
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