EP9, Unlocking the Power of Personal Training with Dr. Lis Rosencrum

In this episode of 'Unstoppable By Design,' host Matt Terry and guest Dr. Lis Rosencrum, head coach at Juggernaut Fitness, explore the transformative benefits of personalized training. They discuss how individualized coaching can accelerate progress, reduce plateaus, and boost confidence. Dr. Lis shares her journey from academia to coaching, the distinction between personal training and corrective exercise, and the qualities that separate elite trainers from the average. Whether you're a novice or a seasoned athlete, learn how personal training can be tailored to meet your specific needs and goals. Discover the long-term health benefits of consistent training, myth-bust common fitness misconceptions, and get actionable advice for maintaining your edge as a coach. Tune in to understand why personal training can be a game-changer for your fitness journey.

00:00 Introduction to Unstoppable By Design

00:36 Meet Dr. Lis Rosencrum: The Strategist Behind Your Fitness Goals

00:55 The Benefits of One-on-One Coaching

04:21 First Personal Training Session: What to Expect

06:39 Corrective Exercise vs. Personal Training

09:14 Traits of an Elite Trainer

12:30 Long-Term Health Wins with Personal Training

16:03 Rapid Fire Myth Busts

18:26 How to Start Your Personal Training Journey

19:19 Unstoppable Challenge and Conclusion

Transcript

Matt: Let's Goooo. Welcome to Unstoppable By Design, where we talk all things fitness, mindset, and what it means to truly be unstoppable inside and outside the gym. I'm Matt Terry, and today we're unlocking the secret sauce behind faster progress, fewer plateaus, and sky-high confidence. That's personal training.

Joining me today is Dr. Lis Rosencrum, our head coach, PhD, ATC, CSCS, and the strategist who turns I kind of workout, into I crush PRS on purpose. From first day novices to seasoned athletes, Lis tailors training that fits like your favorite pair of lifters. Stick with us through this episode and you'll discover why one-on-one coaching can shave months off your learning curve.

What really happens in that first personal training session? Spoiler, way more than a weigh in the telltale traits that separate an elite trainer from a clipboard holder. So grab your notebook and let's dive in. Lis, how are you? 

Lis: I'm doing all right. How are you doing? 

Matt: I'm good. 

Lis: Good? 

Matt: I'm good. Welcome. So Lis, you've had many hats, athletic trainer, professor at Plymouth State University, to head coach here. What has pulled you into head coaching and one-on-one training? 

Lis: Well, for me, really kind of what took me away from what I was doing before was just the change in, uh. How higher education was during COVID. Right. And so, I was struggling a little bit then and I started coaching here part-time 'cause I was a member.

And I absolutely loved it. And then I really felt a need for a change. And we were in a place where I had a couple of clients. Here and there, and I was seeing more from my athletic training kind of side of things, and it felt like there was an opportunity to make it something more. And so really we all kind of collectively jumped on that and made it happen and turned it into a full-time gig and stepped into the head coach thing. So 

Matt: I love that. Now you're just helping people all day. 

Lis: It's, it's awesome. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. 

Matt: Was there a client moment that convinced you personal training can outperform a cookie cutter program? 

Lis: So not necessarily one in particular, but I mean, I think every time you see one of your clients do even the seemingly tiniest of things better than they did it the last time you see them because you're looking at them in every minutiae of their movement, every time you see them.

Is really impactful, you know, and I think especially being able to share that with them that you're seeing it is really important. Um, and so yeah, I have a number of clients who, every time I see them I'm like, Hey you couldn't do that before. You know, like even when I saw you three days ago, you couldn't do it the way you're doing it now. And that means a lot to the folks that we work with. 

Matt: Celebrating wins. 

Lis: Yep, exactly. 

Matt: For someone who's only done group classes, what's the biggest benefit a personal training session delivers that a class simply can't. 

Lis: I think if we're speaking specifically to people who have done group classes only, I think everybody in a group class environment has had.

At least one, I hope aha moment, where like the coach gives them something that just makes sense and clicks and then it unlocks this new thing they can do. Right. Or new nuance to the movement that they're doing. And that's pretty much all of what personal training is, which is really cool because like your, your coach is spending all of their time in your session with you, you know, so they don't have to do that with you and then move on to the next member in class. Like it's all you. 

Matt: Yeah. Like in a group class the great thing about it is the community. You get to work out with a lot of people, but you're all splitting the coach's attention. Yep. Per se. And then with personal training, it's just very undivided attention. 

Lis: Exactly.

Matt: So walk us through your first session with a brand new client. What do you test? What do you track maybe, what do you talk about? 

Lis: So my first session, actually I had a first session with a client last night, so this is perfect. So I generally try to tailor it off of what I know about them from any conversations they've had with, you know, our sales team.

Any consult I've done with them, uh, if they're people that I know from before. You know, I try to pool as much information as I can and tailor the sessions to whatever it is that they need and what they're looking for. You know, like I actually had a client who started with me a few weeks ago who needed a very different approach than I often take, and so I kind of regrouped my usual first couple of sessions to strictly testing because I knew he needed really specific.

Data points. I knew he was a data guy and so I can't just tell him like, that was way better than last time. You know, I need to be able to point to numbers for him, you know, and I care about movement quality, obviously, but that's not gonna be as meaningful to him as seeing those numbers improve.

Right. And then like yesterday I had somebody who started with us and had her first session with me and she is coming back from a remarkable story actually, but this is literally the first time she's exerted herself since a really, really major surgery and time away. And and so I just did a cardio, you know, like short cardio, but kind of looking at her her baseline, you know, where you say you're out of shape, but what does that actually mean, you know?

And and so I think the important thing is that it. Tailored to whatever the person, where they're at and where they wanna go. 

Matt: I like that. So you, for example, you're talking about that gentleman that's very data driven. Mm-hmm. Some people want to see performance increase, and some people just want to feel better overall, which is something you can track. Like how did that work out feel? 

Lis: Yep. 

Matt: And then you try it again at the end of a progression or in a few weeks. 

Lis: Yep. Absolutely. 

Matt: All right, so jump into the next one.

How do you decide when a client would benefit from corrective exercise instead and what is corrective exercise? 

Lis: Sure. So I think there is a very subtle, for some of us difference between. True personal training and true corrective exercise. I know at least for me, it's kind of hard for me to turn my corrective exercise brain off.

But the big difference in my mind is if you have somebody who's coming in with not just like your run of the mill aches and pains, 'cause who doesn't have those? You know, but somebody who has a pretty significant injury history or they're coming back from a surgery or they have a really complex.

Or specific medical condition that they're working through. You know, like I have a few clients who are pretty medically complex, like they really do need corrective exercise and somebody who understands how all of the systems involved in their in their medical conditions interact with each other, you know, and impact exercise and performance.

Whereas personal training, I think is a little bit more like. People wanna get fit, they might have some specific goals. And it's still very much tailored to them, but it doesn't quite have that same borderline therapeutic kind of angle. And so what is corrective exercise, I guess, is the, you know, the next thing it's not quite what you would see in like a physical therapy clinic by any stretch of the imagination because a lot of folks who do corrective exercise are not.

That don't have those kinds of credentials and experience in education. That said, uh, it can interact really, really well with a healthcare team. And that's kind of the, the point of having the delineation, I think, between personal training and corrective exercise is that folks who do corrective exercise have that, they kind of have that link to the healthcare side of things and can bridge between true.

Physical therapy or therapeutic interventions. Mm-hmm. And what we do in a class or in a true, like a traditional gym setting. 

Matt: That's awesome. It kind of helps layer the coverage and layer the help. 

Lis: Yep. Absolutely. I think it's a big, sorry, this is another aside. I think it's a big or a really important link that is missing in a lot of spaces for folks who have suffered some type of. Injury or illness, and they are trying to get back into fitness. And a lot of places don't have good access to that. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Matt: You mentor our entire coaching team. What separates a great trainer from merely a good one? 

Lis: So I'm gonna go to a couple of things. One that's very Juggernaut-y, uh, is growth mindset.

We talk about growth mindset for all of our members, and it's absolutely the case and necessary for a good coach. You know, you can't, you can't show and go, you can't just expect to be better than you were the day before with, without putting any effort in, right? It's just like training in the gym, you know, we expect a lot of our coaches, and that's because we expect to deliver.

Really well for our members and our clients. And so I think the growth mindset piece is really important. And the other piece is that I always, and I, I know I've said this to you in other conversations, like I always try to find ways to encourage our staff to make the step from being a technician at something.

And Oh, kind of a whiteboard jockey, right. Class manager toward actually truly coaching and mentoring the people in class, you know? 'cause that's part of why people come to a gym like ours and come to our gym in particular is our, the quality of our coaching. 

Matt: Yeah. And you do a lot of work. We have constant evaluations on the coaches.

You talked about, you know, making sure when you show up. It's not enough just to show up for the class. You're not just gonna automatically get better. Yep. So kind of like you drew the parallel to training, it's not enough just to get the reps, you have to get the good intentional reps to get better.

Lis: Exactly. 

Matt: And we really really focus on that. 

Lis: You gotta have a plan. 

Matt: Yeah. 

Lis: And hold yourself accountable to progress in that plan. 

Matt: What continuing education habit do you recommend for every coach to keep their edge? 

Lis: Ask questions first and foremost. I mean, I think it's really that simple. There's so much ask questions of your colleagues, ask questions of the random stuff you see on the internet.

You know, uh, I think there's so much information out there and there's so much varied quality information out there. So anytime you see something that is of interest or you're not sure, ask questions, that's literally all it is. 

Matt: I think I asked you a question most recently about a movement, I think it was Adductor Rocks.

Lis: Yeah. Yep. 

Matt: And I was like, uh, is this the movement? And I'm 10 years into coaching. Yeah. I'm still double checking information just 'cause there's so much out there. 

Lis: Yep. Well, even when I'm. I'm reviewing our team's programming for their clients. There are so many times where they put the name of an exercise down and I, okay.

I go and I try to search it first, right? I look for the answer myself first, but then I'm like, I don't understand what this means. Can you please tell me what this is? You know? Um, 'cause you know, all of us have things to learn and questions to ask for sure. 

Matt: But I love that. Yeah. Be curious, ask questions.

One of our core values, like you said before, is growth mindset. I think that goes hand in hand. Alright, so beyond ABS and prs, what long-term health wins do you see most with consistent personal training? 

Lis: Consistent personal training. I think the big one is, again, kind of going back to how individualized personal training should be.

Is that it can also be agile with your needs. Right. Again I, as an example, I have a client right now who in her daily life jacked up her back over the weekend, last weekend. Guess what? We abandoned the progression I had planned for her this week because that's not what she needed, but I still got her in here three days this week.

She still moved her body and she felt better leaving than she did coming in every single time she was here. And so it's really the matter of like keeping people moving in ways that are meaningful for them in the long, in the short term. That will then also translate to them being able to move long term.

Matt: Yeah. So pivoting, could you share a story, if you could think of one off the top of your head, where a client's confidence or maybe their mental health shifted first and then the physical results followed? 

Lis: Absolutely. So I have a client right now, I've been working with her for a few months and she. Is a later in life amputee.

She had, um, a medical condition that required an above knee amputation and she wanted to use her prosthetic better. She wants to get fit 'cause her daughter's getting married next year, so she wants to be able to walk down the aisle and feel good, and look good in her dress, you know? And and so we're not necessarily seeing yet.

The body composition changes or anything like that that she wants. But I'm really focusing more on her using her prosthetic well, so then we can start really advancing. And one of the things that really scared her out of the gate is managing curbs. And she, gosh, this was now probably about a month and a half ago, she came into a session like.

Practically screaming at me that she stepped over a curb and she hadn't even thought about it until after she got over it. 

Matt: Oh, that's so great. 

Lis: And so it's, it was a really, really to us, right. It seems like not a big deal. Right. But for her, that was life changing, you know? And totally helped her buy into the process and see the changes that she's making and feel them, you know? 'cause it's tough when you're living in your body. 24 7 to feel some of the changes that are taking place. Yeah. 

Matt: So you were building trust there. 

Lis: Mm-hmm. 

Matt: That's great. For our desk bound listeners, what single two minute Movement break will pay the biggest dividend during the workday? 

Lis: Stand up.

It sounds so silly. But quite literally, stand up and try and put your shoulder blades in your back pockets. You know, and I'm sitting here and I need to do the same. 

Matt: I'm very hunched over. 

Lis: So, so literally just standing up can be a major change to your day. But I mean, even, even just literally anything where you can kind of stretch out your, your hip flexors, which is honestly just standing up. That's as simple as it is. 

Matt: Yeah. So throw in some standing breaks. 

Lis: Mm-hmm. 

Matt: Be a quick stretch. 

Lis: Yep. 

Matt: But All right. Jumping into the next section, we've got rapid fire myth busts, so I'm gonna throw some questions your way. Uh, just try to bust these myths as best you can. 

Lis: Okay. 

Matt: Personal training is only for beginners fact or fiction.

Lis: Fiction, 100% fiction. We all need coaches. I don't care where we're at in our journeys. We all need a coach 

Matt: a hundred percent. If I'm not sore, the session was a waste truth or trash. 

Lis: Trash, 100%. We all need to, our bodies need different things at different times of life, but also different times in our targeting cycles and. It doesn't always need to make you incredibly sore for it to have been effective. 

Matt: Couldn't agree more. Crunches are still king for core, yay or nay? 

Lis: Nah. No. They, they, uh, can be effective at making you sore and can be effective at helping you with spinal flexion in your lower back. But other than that, they're not necessarily super functional for a lot of the stuff we use our core for throughout our lives.

Matt: All agreed. Favorite under $20 piece of home equipment. 

Lis: I was really excited for this question. Resistance bands, this might go back to my sports medicine side of things, but when I think about when I travel, what's the thing that I bring? I have a little drawstring pouch that has a set of mini bands in it.

Mini loop bands, and I only pick a few, but like of the bigger bands, because I can set those up literally anywhere. I can stretch, I can do I can do a light resistance band workout. I can get literally anything I need done, done. 

Matt: I've got a friend that's probably listening to this podcast. Yeah. And he travels a lot has to be working out in on the road and he takes resistance bands with him just to make sure he's still able to get that fitness in.

Lis: Yep. 

Matt: So it's really, really good recommendation there. Looking ahead, what excites you most about the future of individualized coaching? 

Lis: So I try to make this as quick as possible, honestly, just all those individual gains, right? But also I think for our team, specific to us, like seeing our coaches grow in those one-on-one interactions I think is really fun as well. And just getting more people into it and helping them. 

Matt: That's awesome. 

Lis: Yeah. 

Matt: All right. So where does a listener start if they want to train with you one-on-one? 

Lis: They go to our website. They can hit up juggernaut-fitness.com and we have some interest forms on our site there that they can enter their information and a member of our team will reach out and get you started.

We get started with a free. Get to know you session for, regardless of what folks are interested in, and and then we kind of guide you from there what we think, where we think might be the best program. 

Matt: Yeah. So let's say you, you have a goal of maybe changing some body composition, you head over to juggernaut-fitness.com, you submit like Lis was talking about a form.

We'll be in touch with you and then we'll just try to map out a path on how to change that. Or if your goal is just strengthening certain parts of you. That's a good place to start. 

Lis: Yeah. 

Matt: Alright. Unstoppable challenge this week, audit your training. Ask yourself, am I guessing or am I progressing?

If you're guessing, head to juggernaut-fitness.com and schedule your free personal training consult. We'll map out exactly how one-on-one coaching can move you from stuck to unstoppable. Tiny investment, massive clarity. Remember, progress doesn't happen by accident. It's engineered rep by rep. You're unstoppable by design.

Hit follow drop. A quick review if today's conversation sparked a new training idea and keep notifications on new episodes land every Tuesday and next week, Lis returns to throw down, HIIT or high intensity interval training versus traditional strength training, which wins and when Bring a sweat towel because we're crunching the data and debunking the hype.

Until then, be well, be unstoppable.