Top 10 Podcast Episodes This Year!!

As the year comes to a close, it’s time to reflect on the highlights of 2024, especially the most popular episodes of the Garage Gym Athlete Podcast. Here’s a countdown of the top 10 episodes, based on your listens, shares, and engagement. Whether you’re revisiting these episodes or discovering them for the first time, they’re packed with insights to fuel your fitness journey.

10. Tackling a 100-Mile Race with Minimal Prep (Episode 214)

Released in January, this episode features Dave Paskowski’s story of running a 100-mile ultra-marathon with little preparation. With Jerred Moon offering mental toughness advice, this episode is perfect for anyone eyeing extreme challenges.

9. Our Six Fitness Hills to Die On (Episode 221)

Jerred and Joe discuss their non-negotiable beliefs in health and fitness. This episode is a must-listen if you want to understand the Garage Gym Athlete philosophy.

8. Our Garage Gym Equipment Wishlist (Episode 225)

Want to know the dream equipment every garage gym athlete should have? This episode dives into the ultimate gear wishlist.

7. Lose Fat and Gain Muscle: The Unicorn

One of the most desired outcomes in fitness, this episode delivers actionable strategies to achieve fat loss and muscle gain simultaneously.

6. My Top 5 Regrets in Training and Lessons for My Kids (Episode 250)

Published in late September, this episode rocketed to the top with its introspective look at Jerred’s training regrets over 20+ years. Learn what to avoid and what to embrace in your own fitness journey.

5. Interval Weight Training (Episode 223)

Discover how interval weight training (IWT) can revolutionize your workouts. Jerred breaks down its effectiveness and implementation for garage gym athletes.

4. Counting Macros: Struggles, Tips, and Lessons Learned (Episode 224)

Joe and a guest athlete explore the nuances of counting macros. Whether you’re new to the concept or a seasoned pro, this episode offers valuable insights.

3. Embracing Discomfort: Unlocking Growth with the Anterior Mid Cingulate Cortex (Episode 215)

Science meets mental toughness in this fascinating discussion on how pushing through discomfort rewires your brain for growth.

2. 11 Ways to Increase Your VO2 Max (Episode 249)

Published in mid-September, this episode quickly became a favorite. If boosting endurance and aerobic capacity is on your list, don’t miss these practical tips.

1. How to Improve VO2 Max (Episode from 2020)

Surprisingly, a 2020 episode about improving VO2 max topped the charts in 2024. Its enduring popularity underscores the importance of aerobic fitness for garage gym athletes.

Looking Ahead to 2025

As we prepare for a new year, Garage Gym Athlete is taking a brief break from podcasting for the last two weeks of December to rest, recharge, and spend time with loved ones. But don’t worry—we’ll be back in January with fresh episodes, exciting training cycles, and new projects to help you crush your 2025 goals.

Thank you for being a part of the Garage Gym Athlete community. For those new here, explore more at Garage Gym Athlete and join our free trial to see how our programming can take your training to the next level.

Remember: If you don’t kill comfort, comfort will kill you.

 Garage Gym Athlete Workout of the Week

Podcast Transcript

Jerred: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the garage gym athlete podcast. So today is going to be a recap episode. We're here in the middle of December when this is being published. And I want to let you know, two things. The first thing is. We will be taking a break from publishing podcasts for the last two weeks of the year, really just to give everyone on the team, myself included, a break from producing content, focus on the family.

No one has to edit the podcast, publish the podcast, keep up with any of those things. So we are giving, we are taking a break the last two weeks of the year. Hopefully you're not too sad about that. I'm sure you got a lot of podcasts that you can listen to out there that aren't going to take a break, but for us, we are going to take a break and hit the ground running.

And strong in January of 2025. So I say all this to let you know, if you're wondering what happened to the feed, that's what happened. We're taking a break here just at the end of the year to give the team a break, give myself a break. And then we will pick it back up at the beginning of 2025. And I think you should do the same.

Um, also what we've noticed is a lot of people do that. They take breaks from listening to content and from. You know, downloading podcast episodes and all that stuff towards the end of the year. And so we're going to take a break the same way. Um, and then the second thing is just letting you know, today, I'm just going over the top podcasts of the year.

So this, these are the most downloaded episodes in 2024, the top 10. I'm going to go in these in reverse order, and you'll be able to look these up in your podcast feed, whatever podcast player you're listening to. Um, this in right now. So if you know it's popular, that means it got shared a lot, a lot of podcasts, people very interested in it.

So I'm going to go over all of those things and you will be able to listen and enjoy. And if you want to go check it out at the, at the blog, go to garagegymathlete. com and you can go to the blog and all of these would be clickable if you want an easier place to find all these. So I'm going to go in reverse order going from number 10 all the way down to number one.

So number 10 was published in January of this year, episode two 14, tackling a hundred mile race with very little prep. Uh, so this is with Dave Paskowski. He did a hundred mile ultra marathon and I kind of walked him through that. I was like a. I wouldn't say as coach, I was more like a consultant, a consultant in mental toughness for doing something really crappy that you're not very well trained for.

Apparently that's my wheelhouse. So I helped him with that. Um, I had a few podcast episodes leading up to that. He accomplished it. And, uh, this, that was kind of the recap episode. So that's number 10, pretty interesting story from Dave there. And if you're looking to do a hundred mile race, um, with not a lot of prep, you're Maybe check out that episode overall.

I don't recommend it. Uh, the next one, number nine, episode two 21, our six fitness Hills to die on. So this one, Joe and I hash out just things that we believe very strongly in the health and fitness world. If you want to know more about our philosophy on fitness and health, definitely check out that episode.

Now moving on to number eight, episode two 25, our garage gym equipment, wishlist. So if you want to know what, what equipment we have our eye on, what we would ultimately buy, if, uh, you know, we were redoing things or just, you know, wanted to, to buy the most expensive equipment, anything, you can go check out that episode.

Now, number seven is lose fat and gain muscle. The unicorn. This was published in February of this year, and it doesn't have a number on it, but that one is. Uh, was very popular, obvious for obvious reasons, right? We all want to lose fat gain muscle. It's the unicorn to do it at the same time. So if you want to know some strategies behind doing that, go check that out.

So now we are on to number six and the sixth most popular episode was episode two 50, and this one is titled my top five regrets and training the last 20 plus years, things I want my kids to avoid. And I also kind of want to describe something kind of behind the scenes. With podcasting and podcast stats and everything.

Uh, there's something called like download velocity. So some of these you'll hear, like it was published in January of this year. Cause I'm, I'm trying to go over what was the most downloaded just in 2024, not our most popular episodes of all time. Cause that, that might be different, but the most popular in 2024 and typically.

You know, things that have had more time to accumulate downloads are going to be higher on the list. So like if it was published in January. And then, you know, I'm recording this in December. It's had almost a full year to accumulate downloads. People like going back and listening to things, new listeners, listening to older podcasts and all those kinds of things, that's what happens.

And this one I find very interesting because it was only published in late September, almost October, and. We're only about two months from it being published and it's the sixth most downloaded episode this year. So that means there's a velocity, like it's moving fast. It's, it's accumulating a lot of downloads very quickly.

So I could tell there's a lot of interest in my personal top five regrets and training the last 20 years, things I want my kids to avoid. Like people want to hear more stuff like that. It's feedback for me to, Hey, publish more content like that. But also if you want to know someone who's been training, Functionally for a very long time.

And you know, now that I'm training my kids, things I'm avoiding with them, things I ain't doing with them and my ultimate regrets and things that I would change over the last couple of years or last two decades, should I say, definitely listen to that episode now going to number five, episode two, 23 interval weight training.

So. Interval weight training was a big thing that we introduced at Garage Gym Athlete, or should I say more heavily incorporated. We've been doing interval weight training for a long time in Garage Gym Athlete programming. I really break down interval weight training in this episode, episode 223, published in March of this year.

You can go check it out. If you want to learn more about interval weight training, really popular amongst garage gym athletes, also a phenomenal way to just train in general. Then there was episode two 24 counting macros, struggles, tips, and lessons learned this episode. I actually wasn't even on. So kudos to Joe.

Uh, he did this with one of our garage gym athletes, went over counting macros. And it was a really good episode and is actually our fourth most downloaded this year. So if you want to learn more about counting macros, the struggles and tips in doing so definitely check out episode two 24. All right. Now we're getting into the top three most downloaded podcast episodes here at garage team athlete this year.

Number three. Published in January of this year, episode two, 15, Embracing Discomfort, Unlocking Growth with the Anterior Mid Cingulate Cortex. Very interesting. And this one was, um, prompted from listeners reaching out to me about this specific new emerging research on the anterior mid cingulate cortex, which has to do with when you push yourself to do things you don't want to do, you activate this portion of your brain and form new Connections within your brain that make you more mentally tough.

It's, I mean, it's the idea that we all knew, right? Like pushing yourself to do hard things repeatedly, makes you a tougher person, makes you more consistent. It makes you just better off in general, but you can actually change who you are if you do this enough, doing things you don't want to do. Embracing discomfort makes you better.

And now science is starting to back up what we already knew as mental toughness practitioners. Apparently you are exercising. The portion of your brain called the anterior mid cingulate cortex. If you want to dive into that a lot deeper, definitely go up. So go listen to episode two 15 now. Very interesting.

Episode two and episode one, the most popular ones. And I'll talk about why, well, episode two are, I mean, the second most downloaded episode is called was episode two 49 called 11 ways to increase your VO two max, just like the other one I talked about a lot of velocity on this one. It was published mid September and already it's the second most downloaded podcast of the year.

That's pretty crazy. So if you're interested to, in ways to increase your VO two max, Go check out episode two 49. It is a great way to kind of get in the conceptual level of increasing your VO two max. Now, this is what I find the most interesting and, you know, crazy is that the most downloaded episode.

Of all of 2024. And again, I'm gonna have to kind of talk to you about kind of behind the scenes of podcasting, typically in podcasting, your most downloaded episodes are like from that year. So, and it mainly has to do with people listening who are subscribed and they listened to your newer content, right?

And so you accumulate these downloads. You don't typically see an episode from 2023 or 2022 pop up in 2024 as your most downloaded for that year. It might have more downloads overall. Like if I were to just. Map out all downloads on all podcasts. This wouldn't be our top, this top 10, there'd be a different top 10.

It either be a guest we had on, or one specific topic that just kind of went viral, like we've had those kinds of things go happen before. So typically, cause I'm going over my top 10 in the 2024, all nine of the top 10 that I've gone over so far were recorded and produced in 2024, the number one. Was recorded and produced in September of 2020, over four years ago.

And it is the most downloaded episode in 2024. And it is called very similar to the second most downloaded episode this year, how to improve VO two max. So people really are looking for how to improve their VO two max. And all of you garage gym athletes are very interested in that topic. So something we definitely might slice up and.

Uh, attack at a more tactical level, uh, in 2025, but that is the top 10 most downloaded episodes here at garage gym athlete. And I appreciate each and every single one of you. I really do. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast for all of our garage gym athletes out there for doing the training, sticking around, being members.

We really appreciate you, all of you. And for, you know, just spending time with me, listening to the podcast. Many of you have for several years and some of you are brand new here. So we're going to slow down the pace here. Garage Gym Athlete for the last two weeks. It doesn't mean we're We're not training.

We're not gearing up for new cycles. Definitely be a part of the community or part of the garage gym athlete newsletter. If you want to hear more about those opportunities, but that's where we'll be kicking off the new year in 2025 is talking about new training cycles at garage gym athlete and new projects that we are working on, but that's it for this one.

Remember, if you don't kill comfort, comfort will kill you.