Episode #173 WHY I help people the way that I do

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Hello, hello, welcome back to the pod. Today's a special day because it is the last day to get in your application for the one-on-one coaching giveaway. Okay, and so for today's episode, I'm going to give you a little bit more background into myself and why I coach people the way that I do, because I realize that the way that I work with clients is very different than a lot of other trainers, and so I just want to share a little bit more about that. And ultimately, it comes down to I have so much experience in the fitness industry. I'm in my 13th year of coaching, and the first half of my coaching career, I was entirely in person. So a lot of online coaches have never actually coached people in person. Um, but that is not the case for me. I have so much in-person experience, I still coach people in person, in addition to online. Um, but so I think that my extensive experience with just working with many different types of clients in person and seeing like the majority of people that I train and work with have mobility issues or aches or pains. Like in the first half of my coaching career, like I said, I was just solely in person. I did not have any background in working with people with mobility issues or nagging pains, and they really don't cover any of that in your basic certification. So I just simply like didn't have the knowledge, and I was learning from other coaches, and it was uh really a thing of like, okay, if a movement hurts somebody, you should modify the exercise, swap it out completely, you know, advise them don't do anything that hurts. Maybe they need to stretch that area of their body more, you know, these very like generic answers. And listen, if you're a newer coach out there and you don't know any better, like this is not a dig on you, it's just simply a lack of information that is like easily accessible. I feel like now it's way more accessible to to have more knowledge around mobility restrictions and things like that. But I'm talking like you know, 2013 to 2018. This was like, you know, mobility and helping people move better was not a really much of a thing in the fitness industry. Um, and so, anyways, so that is what I did. I, you know, I had people modify, don't do anything that hurts. Maybe try, you know, to do some of these stretches. Um, maybe come in a little bit earlier before your workout to stretch more, and you know, that type of advice. And what I saw as a result of that was people just staying stuck in like their movement quality and just how they moved in our workouts, they were staying stuck in their movement quality, nothing was actually getting better, and more often than not, they would develop another issue um in their body. So, for example, if somebody had shoulder pain over time, their wrist would also start hurting. If someone started out with back pain over time, one of their knees start hurting, you know, um, things like that, and now I totally understand why. It's because when you have these mobility restrictions or nagging pains or whatever, like your body's gonna compensate in any way possible to get the task done. You're asking of it, and over time, those compensations it can cause irritation and additional pain and all that. Um, because there's a part of your body that's taking picking up the slack for the weak spots, right? I know that now, but I had no idea then, and I was just seeing people stay stuck, like I mentioned, and I was like, man, like I'm seeing these people stay committed to being consistent in the gym, they're showing up, but you know, certain things are not improving, and they're starting to form beliefs around this is just the way my body moves, this is just the way it has to be. I'm just getting older, and I kind of knew in my head, I'm like, really? Like, I don't really feel like that is true, but like I said, I didn't have the knowledge, I didn't really know, so this was just this just kind of bothered me. Um I reached a point where I felt so frustrated with my coaching, uh, because I want to create lasting change in people, and if all I'm doing is just getting them sweaty, and like I was I got sick of that. It was like I feel like I'm not really helping people just by getting them sweaty and their body's still and their body's hurting and it's impacting their life outside the gym, like that feels icky to me. Um, so for a while, or for a couple of years, really, I just uh just did nutrition nutrition coaching because I was really able to provide like a transformation for people. But then after I broke my ankle, I you know did a long certification taught by physical therapist about how to help people dealing with nagging pain, rehabbing an injury, mobility issues, all that. Like me going through my ankle injury definitely um sped up the process of like I want this to be my new niche, and I know that there are so many people out there who are dealing with this type of thing, even if they haven't had a major injury. I know there's back pain, hip pain, shoulder pain, and mobility issues, and I saw it all the time coaching in person, and I'm like, this is the thing. Um, and so that is uh a little bit more behind the why I train people the way that I do, and like once I got more knowledge and education around creating a solid assessment process, how to actually assess somebody joint by joint, how to properly do strength testing, and it became so clear that excuse me, that um I was going to be able to help people on a much deeper level than ever before because I was actually doing assessments, seeing where their body was at, and you can pretty much um you know almost like okay, this could potentially be an issue. You like kind of catch it before you put the client in that position of doing an exercise their body's not ready for, right? Which before it was kind of backwards, where it was like you have a client doing exercise, oh it looks really bad. Why does it look bad? Oh, they don't have full shoulder range of motion. Oh, we need to backtrack. Like, I'm catching, I am able to catch, oh, lacking shoulder mobility, lacking hip internal rotation, like even before I have them do a squat. So it's much more efficient in terms of like once I do all their assessing, all their assessments and stuff, I'm like, oh, okay, this is the what the strength testing should look like. These are what their exercises should look like, here's what their body needs, you know, mixed with the client's goals and making sure that it aligns there. But I'm just able to um help clients feel so much better training because I'm looking at it from a lens of like, how does your body move right now? Where are some potential restrictions or catching those quote unquote problem areas before they even become a problem? Okay, sorry about Murph. I'm not uh really going to edit this out, but um, anyways, I'm able to catch things before they become a problem. And as a result, my clients they their body feels so much better when they're training because I'm not asking their body to do anything I know it's not ready for, and I think that's where a lot of coaches can go wrong is they are giving clients exercises their body might not be ready for, they don't know that until they see them do the exercise and it looks really shitty and they can't figure out why. And giving them all these cues, um, and you know, cues are great, but if somebody's body does not have the range of motion or strength or ability to get in that position, no cue in the world is going to fix that. Um, and so yeah, that is my rant on why I help people the way that I do. And it is a way more fulfilling to be able to help people in a much more complete way doing things this way, starting with the assessments, building the program from there, and really and truly meeting clients where they're at rather than saying you do that, but you don't actually do that. So if this sounds like something that you need, the type of help that you need, if you resonate with what I'm saying, with like modifications, not doing anything that hurts, you're you know, staying in the cycle of rest until it feels better, then go back to the gym, and then it's irritated again. Um, if that is you, you have got to enter my one-on-one coaching giveaway. It could literally change your life if you are stuck in this cycle, you've tried a lot of things, hasn't worked, and you're frustrated and you're ready to be able to get back to the activities that you love outside of the gym: running, hiking, skiing, running a race with your friends, um, etc. So, if that is you, apply for my one-on-one coaching giveaway. The link will be in the show notes. Today is the last day to apply. So get it in. All right, talk to you soon.