Episode #92 client afraid to lift heavy? LISTEN...

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Transcript

0:35

Hello, and welcome back to the podcast. I'm excited about today's episode because I know that a lot of coaches are going to be able to resonate with this, especially if you are a coach who coaches clients who desire fat loss, body composition changes, and to lose weight and all of that. And I know that's like a majority of who coach is coach. So, Let's get into it. I'm going to be talking about if your client is afraid to lift heavy. I know this is the case for a lot of women out there who are new to strength training or maybe they haven't strength trained ever before and you're coaching them in the beginning of their strength training journey. And you know that as a coach, in order to change your body, you have to gain muscle and you have to lift heavy in order for that to happen. And you know, at the end of the day, heavy is relative, but if you are coaching somebody who literally always sticks with the 5, 10, 15 pound dumbbells and never goes any heavier, it's no wonder they aren't seeing progress on their own. And so this is going to be super relevant for you. So, if you have a client who's afraid to lift heavy, it's probably not a confidence issue. It's a movement issue. So hear me out. You might have heard your client say before, I don't want to go heavier. I just don't want to get hurt. Or I'll just stick with the lighter weights. Or my knees and lower back always feel weird when I do this. And here's what most coaches do. you give them more reps with lighter weight, or you try to pep talk them into living, lifting heavier, right? Kind of like a rah rah thing, or you keep them in their comfort zone so they don't quit. And there's nothing inherently wrong with doing these three things if you are doing them, but it is going to stall your client's progress at a certain point. And Here's the problem. If a client doesn't trust their movement, they're not going to trust the weight. Alright, so it's really not about the weight, it's about them not trusting their movement. So here's what I mean by that. If their squat feels off even a little bit, they're going to be hesitant to add weight. If they feel quote unquote tight in every lift, they're going to assume they're one rep away from an injury. And if their form isn't dialed in, they're going to naturally hold themselves back because they're going to feel wobbly. They're not going to feel stable about it, okay? And this is the root of a lot of people's issue. Like, if you have a client who doesn't really want to push themselves in the gym, and they don't know how to push themselves, and they're at a point where you're like, okay, you really need to be lifting heavier in order to change your body anymore. It's going to be, you know, they're going to stall, alright? And programming for your clients isn't just about programming, or giving them a pep talk, or whatever. It's about getting clients to trust their movement. Trust their body so that they actually feel safe going heavier. Right? I think this is the case for so many women with strength training in general. Because, like I said, a lot of women are newer to strength training when they hire coaches. Or maybe they're strength training for the first time and just now learning. And if you, as a coach, can think back to when you first discovered strength training, it really does feel like You know, you're learning, I have a picture, visual in my head of like a giraffe, right? A baby giraffe on it's new legs, right? Like, that's almost what it feels like when you're learning how to squat and then add weight Or learning how to deadlift and then add weight Or press overhead and then add weight Like, it feels really foreign And it's so important to have that foundation of movement Strong, so that your client feels feels more confident with going caviar so then they can see those changes that they hired you for. And why, and here's why mobility is at the root of all of this, okay, is because when we're looking at the foundation of how a movement even happens, at the bottom. Flexibility. All right above flexibility is mobility, right and having flexibility and mobility is how someone creates a movement in the first place so you have to have mobility and flexibility to be able to do a squat or to bend over and That is the foundation of being able to even do a movement pattern. And so many coaches are missing this. You guys are missing this because you're so worried about skipping steps and getting people right to the movements, teaching them, you know, how to move, then add weight and whatever, and that's fine, but if there are underlying issues in their foundation, like in their mobility, you're eventually going to have to work backwards and peel back the layers to those issues because it's going to cause problems later on down the road. It might be fine, you know, in the first three months or whatever, but Later on down the road, it's going to come to light and they're going to be like, what's going on? they're going to have to peel back the layers and work backwards in order to figure it out, but Anyways This is exactly what I teach coaches how to do is Assess movement movement patterns before they become strength plateaus Creating a program that addresses the things that come up in the movement assessments. So that you fix those underlying issues that make heavy lifting feel quote unquote scary to somebody, right? When you fix those underlying issues Your clients are going to feel more stable. They're going to feel stronger. And then what happens after that? They're going to feel more confident with adding more weight to a movement and they're going to see more progression and more progress so Anyways, that's all I have for you today I hope this was helpful for you if you're listening to this and you're like, hmm I've never thought about that before would love to hear from you. Send me a DM on Instagram. Let's connect. And if you are somebody who hasn't really considered mobility being a huge piece in how your client is actually doing the movements you program, You should download my freebie Big Toe exam Because that is going to give you a little bite sized peek into the joint by joint movement assessment I give my clients and You'll also get a cheat sheet with two corrective exercises You can start implementing if you find that that test is limited. So Grab my freebie Send me a DM on Instagram. Let's connect and I will talk to you next time.