Professional Coaching
What is professional coaching?
There’s fitness (trainers and coaches, ass and abs), and there’s healthcare (doctors, insurance, and the healthcare system).
Between those two things, there is a HUGE gap.
In that gap live people who doctors don’t have time to help (because we are asking them to do too much), and fitness trainers who don’t know how to help (because they can work around “it”, but they can’t fix “it”).
In that gap are people who went to therapy for their back pain, and when it got better and they eased back into activity, it came right back.
People who went to therapy week after week, month after month, for their knee pain, and still can’t run.
People who have shoulder pain, and are told “just stop lifting overhead”.
People who want to say “yes” to being active. “Yes” to all the activities they enjoy.
These are my people. The people I want to help.
This is why I invest time, money and energy learning from companies like @activelifeprofessional.
Those people in the gap are worth it. If you are one of those people and are still struggling, I am here to help.
Solutions Without Information
Have you been offered a solution without that person knowing anything about you?
A proposed solution without information is not a solution. It’s a guess.
This story comes from a Facebook group of a very popular CrossFit programming company.
Someone posted that they had developed tendinitis in their elbows during the 13-week strict pulling cycle that they had just completed (as per the group programming). They were looking for advice.
The first comment is from a coach and gym owner.
“Smash scapula with lacrosse ball leaning on the wall, don’t do any movements that are more than a 5/10 for pain. Don’t take anti-inflammatories. Don’t ice. Do get a voodoo band and then message me when you get it”.
So far the only information from the person experiencing pain is that they just did 13 weeks of strict pulling. They say they have tendinitis. We do not know if that is a diagnosis from a professional or a self-diagnosis.
There is very little information.
So I ask this coach why he chose the scapula. I thought it was a more professional question than my alternative of “why are providing solutions without knowing what the problem is”.
The answer: “Anatomically I can’t tell you. I just know that where this is pain it’s often upstream or downstream causing it.
So what is NOT downstream from the elbow? The scapula.
But he’s going to send me some magical video of how to “fix” elbow tendonitis. I’m really looking forward to it.
To offer advice you need information.
Without information, anything is a guess. Guesses have a low likelihood of success. It’s ok to not know.
Information that would be beneficial:
What was their training volume like before the 13-week cycle? Especially with pulling movements.
Is the pain isolated at the elbow? Anything in the shoulder or wrist? Does it get better or worse with activity?
Do they have the mobility to get into the positions they need for the movements they want to do? Especially in the shoulder and wrist.
Any previous injury history?
What is their recovery like? How much do they sleep? What is their stress like?
These are only a few questions. There are plenty of others that could come up with a potential client.
Listen first. Get the information.
We Are Doing It Wrong
Training should not consist of pain.
If you are consistently working out in pain we are doing it wrong.
Maybe it’s the volume.
Maybe it’s the intensity.
Maybe it’s the technique.
Maybe what we are doing isn’t addressing your problems.
Maybe what we are doing isn’t the best path for you at this time.
I say “we” very intentionally.
Because it’s not only the responsibility of the client/athlete/member.
It’s also the responsibility of the coach/gym/program.
It should be a team effort. With all parties held accountable.
You do not need to tolerate pain.
Fitness should augment your life. Not leave you in pain.
Pain Isn’t Funny
Is pain a laughing matter?
If you have been dealing with pain for weeks, months or even years, it’s not funny anymore.
Sure there are videos all over the internet of painful experiences that could be objectively funny. Search for fail videos and I’m sure you will find a good laugh. That’s not the pain I’m referring to.
Consistent pain is not funny.
Maybe it’s the pain you feel when you walk up steps.
Maybe it’s the pain you feel in your wrist when you are at work.
Maybe it’s the pain you feel when you deadlift.
This pain can be addressed. Unfortunately laughing is not the answer.
It takes a coach and/or clinician willing to listen instead of laugh.
Trust The Process. If There Is One.
What process are you trusting?
It’s hard to trust something that doesn’t exist.
This idea comes from a recent @aocoaching podcast episode about cliché fitness advice.
Trust the process is a big one.
You tell your coach that you aren’t seeing any progress. Trust the process.
You tell your coach that your knee hurts. Trust the process.
You tell your coach that you ate some really bad Taco Bell before the workout. Trust the process.
Trust the process would be great advice if a process actually exists.
If there is no process there is nothing to trust.
Saying to trust the process would be a way to escape accountability.
When there is a process, trust is very important. Results don’t happen overnight. The process takes time.
As a coach, it is my job to develop a plan and a process to get you to where you want to be. And to communicate it well so that you can trust that it will work for you.
You Don’t Need To Spend Hours In The Gym
How much time should you spend in the gym?
Unless you are a competitive athlete you do not need to spend hours in the gym multiple days a week to see results.
These are the physical activity guidelines from the World Health Organization for adults age 18-64:
1: should do at least 150–300 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity;
2: Or at least 75–150 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity; or an equivalent combination of moderate- and vigorous-intensity activity throughout the week.
3: should also do muscle-strengthening activities at moderate or greater intensity that involve all major muscle groups on 2 or more days a week, as these provide additional health benefits.
That's a minimum of 2.5 hours and a maximum of 5 hours of moderate intensity activity. A lot less as your intensity increases. They say you can increase those activity levels for additional benefits, but that isn’t elaborated on.
You can hit the minimums with 30 minutes of activity, for 5 days. Or by going to the gym for 2-3 days at an hour each session.
If you want to dedicate more time to the gym, that's great. But eventually there will be diminishing returns.
Maybe the additional time you spend in the gym could be spent on your recovery. Take a nap :)
Maybe the additional time you spend in the gym could be spent engaging in other enjoyable social activities that contribute to your mental health.
Maybe the additional time you spend in the gym could be spent preparing a nice meal. @hellofreshca sponsor me.
Just because you see someone else spending 2-3 hours a day in the gym, doesn’t mean you need to. Maybe they need to based on their goals. Or maybe they need another hobby.
Low Back Sore After You Deadlift?
Are deadlifts the problem?
Does deadlifting leave you with low back soreness the next day?
Deadlifts get a bad reputation for low back pain and soreness.
I often hear things like “I deadlifted yesterday and now my low back is sore, I must have done something wrong with my technique”.
Sure it’s possible that your technique could have been improved, maybe recruiting other areas of your body to assist you. Maybe leading to less soreness.
But soreness also doesn’t need to be bad. We don’t always want to be sore, but soreness is a normal response to training, including with deadlifts. I have yet to hear “My biceps are sore from pullups yesterday, I must have done something wrong with my technique”.
Deadlifts are a posterior chain exercise (back half of your body). Your low back is included in that. While we want your glutes and hamstrings driving the majority of the activity, your low back is absolutely involved.
Here are some things you could look at that could influence that soreness:
Recovery: How has your sleep and nutrition been? Are you adequately fueling your body? Were you giving yourself adequate rest between sets?
Training loads: Did you increase your training loads to volumes that your body has not experienced yet?
Movement quality: Was your movement quality better at different weights or reps?
Areas of strength: Is your low back simply not as strong as other areas of your body? Maybe it just needs time to catch up.
Soreness is normal and ok. It doesn’t need to stop us from progressing.
If It Sounds Cheap It Probably Is…
You don’t deserve cheap solutions.
You’ve been experiencing pain for years.
Maybe it’s the pain of not seeing the progress you want.
Maybe it’s physical pain.
You’ve tried so many things.
You’ve bought the gadgets.
You’ve read every article you can find.
Then someone comes along and says they have the solution for you!
And it’s cheap!
It sounds too good to be true!
And it probably is.
This isn’t to say that solutions can’t be affordable. They most definitely can.
But no one can say that they have the solution for you unless they can accurately understand your problem.
Pain is a broad subject with an incredibly broad array of factors that could lead to a solution.
Find yourself someone who is willing to listen to you first, before offering up a plan to solve the problem.
No Pain No Gain
Do you need to go through pain to get results?
No pain, no gain.
This sentence is on the All Star team for dumbest sayings about exercise. It's up for MVP.
It implies that to see progress you need to feel pain. That it’s inevitable.
It started in 1982 with Jane Fonda. She would say things like “no pain, no pain” and “feel the burn”. It’s led to some people thinking that we need to push past muscle fatigue and that delayed onset muscle soreness is the sign of an effective workout.
It’s been frequently mentioned in high level sports and athletics.
And it’s seeped into everyday life and gym culture.
And it’s false.
To see progress in your training in the gym, pain is not needed. Sure you want to challenge yourself. That is important. But there is a big difference between challenging and painful.
All the Solutions
No one has all the solutions.
Someone has told you they have all the solutions to your problems. How is this possible?
I don’t believe it is.
I believe there's more power and trust in saying “I don’t know” than there is in saying “I have all the solutions”.
Sure someone may have some solutions. But do they have every solution?
That can’t be possible. Eventually, there will be a problem that they cannot solve.
Chronic Intensity
Are you experiencing too much intensity?
If everything you do is at high intensity, where is your variety?
I used to coach group classes where consistently everyone would be so exhausted that they would drop to the floor, unable to form a complete sentence. I will no longer do that.
If every workout you do leaves you rolling around on the floor, is that variety? Or is it just different versions of the same thing?
Sure maybe there is variety in the movements that you do. But where is the variety in intensity?
You probably don’t need as much intensity as you think. Absolutely not every training session.
High level athletic teams don’t even constantly practice or train at high intensity. They have optional days. They have walk-throughs. They have film sessions. They have deload weeks. They even have rest days.
To make improvements in training we need to recover. If you aren’t feeling recovered from the previous day's training, you would probably benefit from reduced intensity. Especially your training is affecting other aspects of your life, like your mood, energy and sleep. And absolutely if your training is leaving you in pain.
Cost-Effective Movements
Are you getting the most bang for your buck in your training?
What movements in the gym give you the most bang for your buck?
What movement in the gym requires a lot of time and effort with minimal reward?
I want cost effective movements.
There is very little that is free.
Your training likely costs you time, money and energy.
I want to squeeze as much out of that as possible.
With that investment you deserve to be rewarded.
Maybe you only have so much time for your training.
Is it cost effective for you to spend 20 minutes of your training session learning the Snatch and Overhead Squat? Or would it be more time effective to work on the squat and press in that same time period. Two movements that you are comfortable enough with to effectively challenge yourself with.
The time, money, and energy you put into training should be cost effective.
This isn’t to say it should be cheap.
This is about returned value.
Any movement could be functional. But sometimes the investment into a movement may not give you the return you are looking for.
A good coach will assess you, learn about your goals and find the most cost effective program with movements that provide you the most benefit.
What Comes First? Pain Or Posture?
Is posture the source of your pain? Or is your posture the result of pain?
This is a chicken or egg scenario.
Did you get injured because of your posture?
Or is your posture because of an injury?
This concept comes from @greglehman. He originally mentioned the thought process from leg injuries.
Basic idea is that people start to limp due to a lower limb injury. They don’t get a lower leg injury from limping.
So why do you have the posture that you have?
Maybe it’s because you’ve adapted to a specific way of moving.
Or maybe it’s because of a response to an event, and your body has now adopted a new position (or posture) in response to it.
Do You Need To Fix Your Posture?
Is your posture wrong?
This is a question I hear a fair amount. It’s often brought up as a source and cause for pain.
What is good posture for you?
Why do you believe your current posture to be the problem? How have you isolated that to be the main cause?
In 1952, a standard reference for posture was created for what would be considered a normal posture. 2000 people were evaluated for their posture.
The “normal” posture was created using an ideal from the 2000 people, not from the average postures observed. Meaning of the 2000 people, none of them demonstrated what was considered to be a “normal” posture. They were all abnormal by their own definition of normal.
That was 1952.
There are now multiple sources of research showing that postures often viewed as bad (like forward neck posture) are not independent causes of pain. @aaron_kubal has multiple posts on the topic.
So does your posture need to be fixed? (being “fixed” is an issue on it’s own).
Or could you just benefit from more variety and movement?
Overuse is a thing. It can happen in many areas of your body. Maybe you could use some more variety in your positions to let things calm down.
More Difficult ≠ Better
How difficult does training need to be?
You can see this all over instagram, facebook, or even the gym you train in.
Just because an exercise looks more challenging, doesn’t mean that it is better for progress or results.
Maybe it’s a super high box “jump”. See this week's post on that.
Maybe it’s an unstable surface squat. Like those silly bosu ball squats that people fall from.
Maybe it’s a heavier weight on the barbell. We’ve all seen that really bad looking deadlift.
Challenging yourself is absolutely important.
But so are the basics.
Have you developed basic jumping and landing mechanics?
Are your squat mechanics consistent?
Is your lifting technique consistent at light loads?
If you can answer yes to those things, then yes you may be ready for a more challenging variation.
If not, then the basics are your low hanging fruit.
The Monitor Says You Burned “X” Calories…
Are calories burned accurate? Or important?
The monitor on the exercise machine says you burned 30 calories, is that true?
Probably not.
Unless you and the conditions of training fit a formula.
A common question people have when using exercise machines that display a number of calories is if that equates to calories burned.
Concept2 (popular rowing erg manufacturer) states that their formula for calculating calories on a monitor is based on a 175lb individual.
Are you exactly 175lbs?
Probably not. And that's ok!
It’s also ok to not think of calories when doing a workout. I would encourage that.
Because why do calories need to be a metric of effort? When programming for clients I have largely stopped using them. There are other metrics like distance, time, watts, perceived effort etc. Calories are just another option for a unit of measurement. Sure there can be some different performance outcomes when training using different units of measurements but that's a different discussion.
You do not need to look at “burned” calories to feel successful in your training. This idea can lead to the feeling that you need to “burn” calories to earn the calories you consume. Which is an unfortunate mindset. Because calories aren’t inherently bad.
Miss Monday
Will the world end if you miss Monday’s workout?
Never miss a Monday is a bullshit “rule”.
Miss it.
It’s one day of the week. 1/7. 14%.
You have 86% of the week left.
I don’t know where this never miss a Monday “rule” for fitness came from. But it’s dumb. Probably from some “fitness” magazine that says you can lose 15lbs in 5 days. All you have to do is eat air.
You just had a really stressful Monday. You haven’t eaten much. Are you going to ruin your progress by missing Monday?
Nope.
I would argue you can even improve your progress by missing it and reframing the situation.
You aren’t missing Monday. You are preparing for Tuesday.
You use the time you would normally use to exercise to prioritize other aspects of your health.
Maybe you take a nap. Maybe you take care of some tasks that have been stressing you out. Maybe you cook yourself a nice meal. Or go out for dinner. Treat yo self.
You are ready for Tuesday.
And then you crush it.
Maybe over time you realize Monday just isn’t a good day for you to start your training week.
If the day ends in a Y, it’s a good day for you to start your training week.
What Is Your Perfect World?
What is your perfect world scenario?
If you could snap your fingers and make anything happen, what would your perfect world look like?
This was a question I asked a client recently as we discussed goals.
Sometimes people have very specific goals with their training. Maybe it’s to do 10 pushups, squat their bodyweight, or to not experience pain when they deadlift.
But if you wanted to make anything happen in your training would that be it?
Or is there more to it? What is the reason for those specific goals?
I have found that people can sometimes set really small goals out of fear or uncertainty of what a bigger goal would entail.
Maybe they are afraid that a bigger goal would cost them more time, money or energy.
Or maybe they lack confidence in their ability to execute on a plan for a big goal.
Maybe with a snap of a finger those people actually want to be as strong as their mom. Or to be able to say yes to activities with their kids without the fear of pain. That’s their perfect world.
Those may be big goals. They require a plan.
A knowledgeable coach can help you plan that process for you, while addressing any uncertainties that you may have.
Could Vs. Should
Should you lift that weight?
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
The day's workout has some strength movements in it. The workout instructions call for you to build toward a heavy set of 3. Maybe it's back squats. Maybe it’s bench press. Maybe it’s an olympic lift like a clean and jerk or a snatch.
When you are feeling great you would feel confident about lifting 100lbs.
But last night you didn’t sleep well.
You are sore from the previous day's workout.
You had a stressful day at work.
You can lift 100lbs. But should you?
What’s the risk and what’s the reward?
Are you a competitive athlete who will be rewarded with trophies, medals and money?
If so, there would be many situations (not all) that I would say yes, go for it.
But that’s 0.0001% of the population.
Here’s a guideline you can follow:
Is it Instagram worthy? Would you be proud to send it to a coach?
Some days that weight will be 100lbs. Other days maybe 90lbs, maybe more, maybe less.
And that's ok.
The weight you should lift is the weight that you can be proud of for your effort that day. It’s not the weight that matters. It’s the effort and quality you put into it.
Feeling Good Isn’t Enough
Does rehab stop when you feel good?
Rehab doesn’t end when the pain stops.
I’ve been that coach that heard someone was pain free after an injury and let them load a barbell with pre-injury weights. That’s not who I am now.
You strained your hamstring playing soccer on the weekend.
You are eager to get back to what you normally do in the gym. You want to get back to deadlifting, squatting, running and anything else your workout could bring. And of course you want to get back to playing soccer.
You are in pain so you go to get some rehab work done. Maybe that’s physiotherapy, maybe it’s chiropractic, maybe it’s massage therapy. Through a combination of manual therapy techniques you are able to be pain free, which is fantastic!
You can go through your day pain free now. You are back in the gym doing your normal activities.
So are you done? Are you back to 100%?
The healing time of a muscle strain can range from 1 week-6 months. Maybe you feel great at 4 weeks but your tissue healing still needs more time.
You need more time to heal and a graded return to sport or activity. You need measurables to assess your strength levels relative to your pre-injury state. This likely doesn’t happen by feeling pain free and then jumping in on a fitness class and going 100%. But this can happen with a team approach in your rehab (that includes knowledgeable coaches).
Rehab doesn’t need to be an endless loop. You don’t need to always bounce between injured and pain free.
It may take more time than you want it to. But the results will last longer too.