19 Jan
Blog

Move Well First: A New Path for Coaching Fitness

Mass information in the fitness industry is a beautiful thing; It allows trainers and the general population to learn at high speed. But mass information can also lead to mass confusion. Figuring out how to train yourself and others can be a rollercoaster ride — and not always a fun one.

Man holding a loaded barbell in the front rack position

Luckily, the intentions behind this industry babble are usually genuine. Coaches want to help clients get results, and the general public just wants to feel better. Amid the confusion, however, there is a growing need for the fitness industry to develop a common language that both professionals and consumers can understand. And that common language should focus on helping society move better and more often over the long term.

Changing the language of the industry may feel like an impossible task, but two principles are undeniable:

  • Put motion quality first.
  • Help people move more.

Regardless of your goals (muscular hypertrophy, strength, power, etc.), these two factors are critical for the industry to move in the right direction. A movement-based approach to training has magical potential and must begin in children's physical education classes. The lack of a proprioceptively enriched exercise lifestyle for children is a major societal concern.

However, it's never too late to restore what Gray Cook calls "movement competency." Here is Gray's definition of finding movement competence:

We test this with motion screening. If the screening reveals pain or dysfunction in the form of limitations or asymmetries, there is a movement competence problem. Alternatively, there's a basic motion problem – choose your term, but make it point. Adequate competence indicates an acceptable basic movement quality.

Achieving movement competency becomes difficult when we focus our fitness programs solely on looking better. I'm a bodybuilder at heart and have been working to build bigger muscles and look better since I was 15 years old. Fast forward almost 20 years and I have found that my pursuit of aesthetics has resulted in flawed movement patterns. I'm now forced to work on improving my movement skills instead of working on looking good.

That doesn't mean I can never train for aesthetics, but I must earn the right to make that the sole focus of my training. Muscle building becomes more and more important with increasing age, but you can still have a high level of movement competence at any fitness level. Building muscle and getting stronger should be your main goal once you start moving well.

A catalyst for change

This was my catalyst for developing a movement-based approach to hypertrophy training. In the past, bodybuilders might do light static stretching, five minutes on a cardio machine, and a few warm-up sets before jumping into a 25-set chest and triceps workout. Young lifters without a lot of miles on their bodies can get away with this method for a while, though Ultimately, this approach can lead to asymmetry, injury, pain, and frustratingly slow progress.

You don't have to be in your fifties to have a high age of education. As Dan John says, "It's not the years, it's the miles." I've been training hard for almost 20 years, taking a week off here and there, but not often. The miles are deep in this young body.

If you're going to be a long-term weightlifter, endless sets of eight to 15 reps per body part may not be what your body needs. So what should a person aiming for a bodybuilding-like physique do instead of the typical splits? Rethink and master basic human movements and execute them with realistic sets, reps, and loads. If you first focus on moving better, you'll be surprised at how quickly your body can often lift heavy objects again.

A collaborative design

Like any other trainer or strength coach, my philosophy has evolved over the years. Today I follow philosophies of various proven methods.

Functional Movement Systems (FMS) is a useful approach to understanding movement baselines and exercise modifications. Most people would benefit from an FMS screening. Along with a detailed medical history of intake, FMS provides a solid basis for program design. For the beginner or veteran, the basics are the beginning and the end.

Any strength and muscle hypertrophy program should include a variation of the following movements depending on the individual's goal. This list is largely inspired by the legendary Dan John:

  • To press: Push-ups, bench press, overhead press
  • Draw: Dumbbell rows, reverse rows, pull-ups, pull-ups
  • squatting: Cup squat, front squat, back squat, single leg squat
  • Hinge: Deadlift, kettlebell swing, single leg deadlift, Olympic lift
  • Loaded transport: Farmer stretcher, suitcase stretcher, overhead stretcher, sandbag stretcher
  • Basis: swaying, rolling, crawling, crawling, Turkish getups
  • Core/Rotation/Anti-rotation: Ab wheel rollouts, cable press outs, chops, lifts

The new age bodybuilding template

Below is a basic hypertrophy template, which consists of lifting 3 days a week for 6 weeks. Breaking up your strength and conditioning into four to six week phases keeps your body fresh and resilient and improves overall physical readiness. This length of time seems to be the sweet spot since most people have what I call "exercise ADD."

Program components:

  1. corrective
  2. movement preparation
  3. lift weights
  4. finishers

1. Corrections

Correctives are based on FMS and health history. For example, a perfect score for an active straight leg is 3/3, 0 for pain. Your goal should be to achieve symmetry (a score of 2/2 or 3/3). If your score is 2/1, The following corrective exercises will use core and motor control to improve alternating hip flexion and extension.

Man performing lower body flexibility exercises on floor with band

  • Alligator Breathing: Lie down in a comfortable position for 2-3 minutes. I prefer to feel the abdominal wall on my stomach. Breathe in and out through your nose. Focus on drawing air deep into your stomach. It can be helpful to imagine drawing air down into your feet.
  • Assisted lowering of the legs: 10 repetitions per leg
  • Cook hip lift: Each side lasts 5 x 10 seconds

2. Movement preparation

Before you start exercising, spend 5-10 minutes on the following movement preparations:

  • kettlebell handle bars: 5 on each side
  • Half kneeling kettlebell halos: 10 repetitions
  • Cup squat with curious knees: 5 repetitions
  • lunge matrix: 6 repetitions
  • plank to down dog: 10 repetitions (not in the video)
  • customs Service Worm: 10 reps (not in the video)
  • Leap rope: 2-5 minutes (not in the video)

3. Lifting weights

Below are the rep counts for the three days of training. Organize your week so that you don't lift two days in a row.

  • Monday or Tuesday): 5×5
  • Wednesday or Thursday): 8×3
  • Friday or Saturday): 3 x 8-12

The following exercise options are based on the basic movement patterns:

  • To press: One-arm kettlebell press, one-arm bench press, push-ups
  • Draw: Reverse rows, pull-ups
  • squatting: Goblet squat, single leg squat, front squat
  • Hinge: Deadlift, single leg deadlift, kettlebell swing
  • Loaded transport: Peasant walk, carrying suitcases
  • groundwork: Turkish get up, crawl and roll
  • Core (rotation/anti-rotation): McGill Big 3, rollouts, anti-rotation press-outs

4. Finishers

Choose one conditioning finisher per session:

  • Airbike Sprints: 6-8 rounds of 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off
  • Concept 2 rowing machine: 1,000 meters
  • Ski Erg Sprints: 3 rounds of 1 minute, rest 2 minutes between sprints
  • Push/pull slide: 5 x 50 meters
  • battle ropes: 8 x 20 reps for 2 arm strokes. Rest 30 seconds between sets.

cooling down

Proper rest will give your body a better foundation to build muscle in the long run. Before you leave the gym after your workout, perform this cool-down routine:

  • Alligator breathing: 2 minutes
  • Head nod: 10 reps up and down and 10 reps side to side
  • Bird Dogs: 10 reps/side
  • Rock backs: 20 reps
  • Egg rolls: 20 reps
  • Rising and descending from the floor: 5-10 repetitions
  • Baby crawling, Spiderman crawling: 30-40 meters each

The change is here

I will always be a meathead at heart. I love bodybuilding and am amazed at how much weight powerlifters can lift. But the "Pedal to the Metal" workouts eventually take their toll.

If we continue to steer the general public toward endless sets of body part split workouts, people who aren't ready, and may never be ready, to impose Olympic lifting, and making the most of the squat, deadlift, and bench press, the transport may never come. Instead, let's focus on keeping people moving.

22 Nov
Blog

Get in the Zone (of Proximal Development) in Your Coaching

The community aspect of physical activity is important for several reasons. Our sports communities provide support, reality checks, and useful information about appropriate behavior. And in particular, our community connections are also critically important to our actual learning.

Since I've been practicing Jiu-Jitsu, from my earliest, finest experiences until today, my teachers and training partners have helped me achieve more in partnership with them than I would be able to do on my own. Nowadays, for less experienced practitioners, I do what my teachers have always done for me: use my knowledge to make them successful. For example, let's say we drilled a triangle sequence in the tech part of the lesson. If my partner has significantly less experience than me during the rolling part, I can purposefully put myself into a situation where he can perform the techniques that we worked on earlier in class.

Sometimes the athlete sees the opening right away and takes advantage of it, sometimes I just ask, “What do you see here?” Does the trick, and sometimes it requires an open comment like, “This is where you can do the techniques we worked on today “, Accompanied by verbal cues at every step. In this way, depending on the athlete's needs, I can provide assistance to help him achieve more than he would be able to without that help.

In learning theory, the role I play in this scenario is called the "Knowing Other" or "More Capable Other" and the mental and physical space in which the athlete and I interact is called the "Proximal Development Zone." . ”In his seminal 1978 book Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes, psychologist Lev Vygotsky defines the ZPD (as it is known by educationalists) as "The gap between actual level of development, determined by independent problem-solving, and the level of potential development, determined by problem-solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers."

So what's the "so what" here? That probably sounds like what many of us are already doing as trainers and teachers, doesn't it? We help our athletes and students so that, with our support, they can do more than they would otherwise be able to do.

Well, how many of you have had a coach-athlete interaction that went something like this: “Okay, Athlete X. I'll walk you through this sequence of movements. Let's start by placing your left foot on your partner's hip. No, your left foot. Your LEFT foot. Left foot. No, your LEFT FOOT. No, YOUR left foot. Okay relax I'll take your left foot and place it where it belongs. AU! I know you didn't mean to kick me It's OK. Let's take five. "

Sometimes, I hate to admit, I shook my head after such an encounter and wondered what in the world was going on with the athlete. Well the answer is: nothing. What is wrong is what I am asking of the athlete. It turns out that Brazilian jiu-jitsu is very demanding on a cognitive, neurological, muscular and emotional level, especially for beginners right zone with them.

proximal development, zone of proximal development, learning theory, bjj

When I've been teaching or coaching lately, the concepts of ZPD and the more knowledgeable / capable others have helped me understand that sometimes I can ask too much of someone even if I think I'm scaffolding them effectively (another term, the one with learning theory with the ZPD). Maybe they're just not in that particular zone yet. That is neither good nor bad. It's just useful information that can help me tailor my coaching to better prepare athletes for success.

Understanding the learning process in this way helps me as a coach in several ways. First, it allows me to be more patient than I otherwise could because I understand how it works. I know that the athlete is not dull and certainly not uncoachable. Second, it gives me useful feedback on how I can more effectively adjust my expectations and wishes for the athlete towards a more successful result. I can reposition the ZPD to make sure the athlete is sitting right in it. Finally, it reminds me of the nature of socially effective learning; If we want to make sure we are helping our athletes do more than they believe, we must believe it for them first and demonstrate that belief in every interaction with them.

How can you implement the ZPD concept for you, be it as a trainer or as an athlete? Post your observations in comments.

Photo 1 courtesy of Shutterstock.

BJJ pPhoto courtesy of David Brown Photography.

22 Nov
Blog

The Coaching Manifesto: 6 Rules for Achieving Excellence

As in any career, people become coaches and trainers for a variety of reasons. Some reasons are nobler, such as surviving cancer and wanting to help others. Some are more practical, like coaching as a career, because you've always been an athlete. Some more ambitious, like seeing yourself as an entrepreneur and a small gym as a path. Regardless of how you got into coaching, now you are and it's time to make yourself a good one.

As in any career, people become coaches and trainers for a variety of reasons. Some reasons are nobler, such as surviving cancer and wanting to help others. Some are more practical, like coaching as a career, because you've always been an athlete. Some more ambitious, like seeing yourself as an entrepreneur and a small gym as a path. Regardless of how you got into coaching, now you are and it's time to make yourself a good one.

As with your own training, there is no point in coaching half-heartedly. There are far too many bad and mediocre trainers and coaches in the world. The following six rules are not easy, but they are simple. If you accept them, you are ahead of the game.

You will become a better coach and, as a result, your clients will be happier. I call this the coaching manifesto. I've learned these rules in pieces over the years. I'm introducing them to you here as a whole because when I put them together it made all the difference for me.

1. Find out more

This is the first rule for good reason. This rule takes effect the day you decide to become a coach and continues until the day you hang up.

There is not a day in between that you should stop studying.

Attending courses, attending seminars, reading books, watching other trainers, watching videos – learn, learn, learn. New information emerges every day from magazines, from researchers and from working with your own customers. Learn something every day and never stop.

2. Know your customer

Your customers are a resource for your learning, but in order to learn from them you must know them.

How can you teach people until you understand them and their goals? You can't tell them what to do until you know who they are and what they want.

What are your clients' injuries, histories, and motivations? You know your stated goals, but do you know your real goals? Do you know what drives them? How great if you could see your customers so clearly that you could help them see themselves.

Do you know your customer – better than they know themselves – but without judgment. Know their body, know their mind and show them the mirror. Then share your knowledge and show them how you are going to help.

3. Know yourself

We can't really ask others to look in the mirror and make changes unless we're willing to look at ourselves in the cold, harsh light. To really know others, you have to know yourself.

Communication also becomes easier when we know ourselves. When we don't see each other clearly, we take a lot personally. We think a customer's anger is with us when it really comes down to their own frustrations.

When you know your customer and yourself, you know the real root of the problem and its solution is easy.

Knowing yourself also means knowing your weaknesses and solving your own problems. If we educate ourselves every day, we need to know what we don't know. That means recognizing the gaps in our skills and steadily closing them.

Coaching manifesto, coaching training, becoming a better coach, coaching

4. Get over yourself

This is a consequence of "know yourself". Once you know yourself, it is time to conquer yourself.

Yes, it's great that you can do a one arm push up. Do you have to do them in front of your clients for no reason? No. Let go of your ego and need for attention as you coach.

It's not about you The less it is about you, the better you'll be a coach. It's not about you when your customer is upset. It's not about you if your customer is happy. It's just not about you.

You did it. Not you. You are just a channel. The ego adds impurities and makes you a poor guide in learning and progress.

5. Don't be married to the method

Learning and progress are possible with almost any training method. In the fitness industry, it goes without saying that your system is better than others, but it usually isn't. Coaching is good or coaching is bad.

You're a good teacher or a bad teacher whether your dumbbell is pink, you're wearing an undershirt, or you're using sandbags.

If someone says their system is the best, they are probably trying to sell you something. Don't worry about the best system; Just be the best coach in everything you do. In general, people should work a little harder, pick up a little more, and move a little faster.

You should exercise strength, cardio, and flexibility. Call it what you will, but the body is the human body and there are only a limited number of useful things you can do with it and with it. Be committed to the results, not to a guru or method.

6. Do no harm

Everything you do with your customers should lead to something productive and positive. People don't come to you to hurt themselves. They come to you for higher goals – sometimes these goals look like world championships, and sometimes they look like they're going to run a mile without stopping. Regardless of their fitness level, it is your greatest responsibility to your customers to protect and train them.

When you know your customers, you know what to do and what not to do. If you know yourself, if you are honest with them and they get upset, you won't take it personally. When you let go of the method, you will find ways to customize the workout for you. Further education can help explain why this is the best path for them.

Not only can you follow one of these rules and be an excellent trainer or coach. If you follow them all, you will be excellent, your customers will be excellent, and you will be the health and fitness channel you want to be. Try to take number one to heart now and see how it works out for you.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

17 Feb
Blog

How to Develop a Coaching Career Doing What You Love

In this episode, Joe Bennett, AKA the Hypertrophy Coach, comes to me. Joe has built a thriving fitness business focused on his passion for building muscle and working with people he loves to exercise.

During the show, Joe records his journey from young Meathead to expert status.

If you want to build a career around your passion, find your niche, work with people you like, and have some time for family life, this is the episode you need to listen to.

Joe doesn't offer any short cuts or hacks, but his advice is full of real advice that can help you develop the business and lifestyle you want.

Joe covers these key topics to help you improve your fitness business:

  1. Use your passion
  2. Learning by doing
  3. Continuous professional development (CPD)
  4. Social media strategies to get buyers, not just followers

You can also find this podcast on top of all of my other Six Pack of Knowledge podcasts (curated discussions with the world's greatest hypertrophy experts).

Or search for Breaking Muscle's channel and podcasts on the following services: iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, Stitcher, PlayerFM, PodBean.

16 Feb
Blog

How to Develop a Coaching Career Doing What You Love

In this episode, Joe Bennett, AKA the Hypertrophy Coach, comes to me. Joe has built a thriving fitness business focused on his passion for building muscle and working with people he loves to exercise.

During the show, Joe records his journey from young Meathead to expert status.

If you want to build a career around your passion, find your niche, work with people you like, and have some time for family life, this is the episode you need to listen to.

Joe doesn't offer any short cuts or hacks, but his advice is full of real advice that can help you develop the business and lifestyle you want.

Joe covers these key topics to help you improve your fitness business:

  1. Use your passion
  2. Learning by doing
  3. Continuous professional development (CPD)
  4. Social media strategies to get buyers, not just followers

You can also find this podcast on top of all of my other Six Pack of Knowledge podcasts (curated discussions with the world's greatest hypertrophy experts).

Or, search for Breaking Muscle's channel and podcasts on the following services:

iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, Stitcher, PlayerFM, PodBean.

09 Jun
Blog

There is no CrossFit, Just Good and Bad Coaching

Most people are now aware of the backlash against Greg Glassman, the founder and CEO of CrossFit, for speaking deaf, insensitive, and dismissively about George Floyd's death and COVID-19.

We don't have to reheat all of this here because it has killed everywhere else. However, we have to deal with one thing, the future of boxing gyms, especially since they struggle to open up in a post-pandemic and, as it seems likely, in a post-CrossFit world. The simple fact is that there is no CrossFit.

CrossFit is a brand. It is a name and an ideal. It was once a proponent of a process that organized high-intensity interval training (HIIT) into a methodology for functional fitness and general physical readiness (GPP).

It has made Olympic weightlifting, kettlebells, tabata, EMOM, gymnastics and weight training popular in group training. They either loved or hated CrossFit. For many personal trainers and strength and conditioning trainers, it was the entrance ticket to a gym, many of which started in their own garages.

CrossFit enabled boxing gyms to find a mainstream audience. It also helped private training studios find an identity and tie them all to the brand.

For this, the boxing gym owners paid participation fees for certifications, affiliation and finally for CrossFit Open and Games. The certifications went from Level I and Level II across all disciplines like a CrossFit Strongman approach.

Affiliations was a simple startup kit for aspiring fitness entrepreneurs. Simply log in to CrossFit and wait for customers to log in. The Open and the Games were recruiting tools, aspirations and community building.

CrossFit always sucked

While the CrossFit community was and is a real thing, CrossFit HQ (CFHQ), the governing body, was anything but collaborative. CFHQ has always been brutal, aggressive, insecure, controversial, and just disgusting to anyone who ticked it off. For many people who got caught in the crossfire, CrossFit was an organization. For some, it seemed more of a cult than a fitness company.

While CrossFit flourished worldwide, opened markets everywhere, and became synonymous with crazy-intense workouts that made you vomit or have to lie in a deep pool of your own sweat, it never took responsibility for individual partners and never really had a hand in it Hand providing training and programming instructions that are not provided through certification.

In fact, CrossFit transferred everything to the affiliates, although they were supported by their own lawyers when they felt their brand was under attack and never really committed to defining a CrossFit training or method that they are responsible for the liability.

In other words, there are no CrossFit workouts because the brand is legally defined. Sure, there are CrossFit workouts like Fran or Murph. We all know them.

However, no partner could claim to have offered CrossFit training, especially if this training harmed someone. Affiliates offered their own workouts under the patronage of a CrossFit box.

It didn't matter because the world did everything it wanted to do with the CrossFit name. It became mythical training for the general press, and it became a confusing mess of inconsistent quality for consumers who went to affiliates who didn't really know what they were getting.

The Darwinian CrossFit Box Gym

Glassman had always expected the subsidiaries to rise and fall due to market forces. The good would survive and the bad would fail. It was supposed to be libertarian or something, but ultimately it only caused inconsistency, unreliable coaching, and poor programming because there was no oversight.

And it didn't matter when the brand took off. There were times when in some densely populated areas three or four CrossFit boxes were within a few blocks of each other. From a business perspective, this didn't make sense, but everyone passed the same money on to the CFHQ, so it didn't matter.

Sure, over time it became clear that you can't build a business through wear and tear, especially if you ask your business partners to go to war with each other and pay you for the privilege.

But that didn't stop Glassman. When the US CrossFit market started to stagnate and shrink, international markets picked up. The United States was three or four years ahead of the rest of the world.

Whether CrossFit made good or bad business decisions pales in comparison to what happens to CrossFit partners when they make bad decisions. If the separation becomes a thing and CrossFit, like any other fitness fad or fitness trend, loses relevance, the question arises as to what replaces the workout.

Anything that is not CrossFit could be and vice versa

CrossFit box owners must recognize that they are the brand behind the workouts. Consumers should be aware that a CrossFit partner's head coach or trainer is the person responsible for the training, not the CFHQ.

Once you do this, you will find that CrossFit is irrelevant despite what it has done. It was irrelevant, and thinking differently is exaggerating his ability to do great coaching and training.

Sure, maybe CrossFit is an acronym that everyone can understand. But box gym too. Box gyms are also an abbreviation. CrossFit partners are all boxing gyms, which means that they are not globo-gyms or orange theory or SoulCycle or gyms. There are pull-up bars, barbells, kettlebells, rowing machines, rings, sweat and chalk.

If anyone wishing to cancel their membership agrees to call themselves Box Gym, we at Breaking Mucle would like to standardize this terminology.

Let's face it, box gyms do HIIT, Tabata, EMOM, AMRAPs, weight lifting, personal training, deadlifts, handstand walks, burpees and, as much as we hate, wall balls. What else do you need?

09 Jun
Blog

There is no CrossFit, Just Good and Bad Coaching

Most people are now aware of the backlash against Greg Glassman, the founder and CEO of CrossFit, for speaking deaf, insensitive, and dismissively about George Floyd's death and COVID-19.

We don't have to reheat all of this here because it has killed everywhere else. However, we have to deal with one thing, the future of boxing gyms, especially since they struggle to open up in a post-pandemic and, as it seems likely, in a post-CrossFit world. The simple fact is that there is no CrossFit.

CrossFit is a brand. It is a name and an ideal. It was once a proponent of a process that organized high-intensity interval training (HIIT) into a methodology for functional fitness and general physical readiness (GPP).

It has made Olympic weightlifting, kettlebells, tabata, EMOM, gymnastics and weight training popular in group training. They either loved or hated CrossFit. For many personal trainers and strength and conditioning trainers, it was the entrance ticket to a gym, many of which started in their own garages.

CrossFit enabled boxing gyms to find a mainstream audience. It also helped private training studios find an identity and tie them all to the brand.

For this, the boxing gym owners paid participation fees for certifications, affiliation and finally for CrossFit Open and Games. The certifications went from Level I and Level II across all disciplines like a CrossFit Strongman approach.

Affiliations was a simple startup kit for aspiring fitness entrepreneurs. Simply log in to CrossFit and wait for customers to log in. The Open and the Games were recruiting tools, aspirations and community building.

CrossFit always sucked

While the CrossFit community was and is a real thing, CrossFit HQ (CFHQ), the governing body, was anything but collaborative. CFHQ has always been brutal, aggressive, insecure, controversial, and just disgusting to anyone who ticked it off. For many people who got caught in the crossfire, CrossFit was an organization. For some, it seemed more of a cult than a fitness company.

While CrossFit flourished worldwide, opened markets everywhere, and became synonymous with crazy-intense workouts that made you vomit or have to lie in a deep pool of your own sweat, it never took responsibility for individual partners and never really had a hand in it Hand providing training and programming instructions that are not provided through certification.

In fact, CrossFit transferred everything to the affiliates, although they were supported by their own lawyers when they felt their brand was under attack and never really committed to defining a CrossFit training or method that they are responsible for the liability.

In other words, there are no CrossFit workouts because the brand is legally defined. Sure, there are CrossFit workouts like Fran or Murph. We all know them.

However, no partner could claim to have offered CrossFit training, especially if this training harmed someone. Affiliates offered their own workouts under the patronage of a CrossFit box.

It didn't matter because the world did everything it wanted to do with the CrossFit name. It became mythical training for the general press, and it became a confusing mess of inconsistent quality for consumers who went to affiliates who didn't really know what they were getting.

The Darwinian CrossFit Box Gym

Glassman had always expected the subsidiaries to rise and fall due to market forces. The good would survive and the bad would fail. It was supposed to be libertarian or something, but ultimately it only caused inconsistency, unreliable coaching, and poor programming because there was no oversight.

And it didn't matter when the brand took off. There were times when in some densely populated areas three or four CrossFit boxes were within a few blocks of each other. From a business perspective, this didn't make sense, but everyone passed the same money on to the CFHQ, so it didn't matter.

Sure, over time it became clear that you can't build a business through wear and tear, especially if you ask your business partners to go to war with each other and pay you for the privilege.

But that didn't stop Glassman. When the US CrossFit market started to stagnate and shrink, international markets picked up. The United States was three or four years ahead of the rest of the world.

Whether CrossFit made good or bad business decisions pales in comparison to what happens to CrossFit partners when they make bad decisions. If the separation becomes a thing and CrossFit, like any other fitness fad or fitness trend, loses relevance, the question arises as to what replaces the workout.

Anything that is not CrossFit could be and vice versa

CrossFit box owners must recognize that they are the brand behind the workouts. Consumers should be aware that a CrossFit partner's head coach or trainer is the person responsible for the training, not the CFHQ.

Once you do this, you will find that CrossFit is irrelevant despite what it has done. It was irrelevant, and thinking differently is exaggerating his ability to do great coaching and training.

Sure, maybe CrossFit is an acronym that everyone can understand. But box gym too. Box gyms are also an abbreviation. CrossFit partners are all boxing gyms, which means that they are not globo-gyms or orange theory or SoulCycle or gyms. There are pull-up bars, barbells, kettlebells, rowing machines, rings, sweat and chalk.

If anyone wishing to cancel their membership agrees to call themselves Box Gym, we at Breaking Mucle would like to standardize this terminology.

Let's face it, box gyms do HIIT, Tabata, EMOM, AMRAPs, weight lifting, personal training, deadlifts, handstand walks, burpees and, as much as we hate, wall balls. What else do you need?

04 Jun
Blog

How Online Coaching Made Me Better

"I can't wait for the gym to open so I can get the right coaching from my computer."

If that's you, I can tell. This pandemic was a massive nail on the street that blew out the air tires of our routines and force a detour from the route we had planned for a successful career. Your makeshift online practice is like the donut you install to keep your car rolling long enough to repair and get back on the road with a real tire. When your gym reopens, you may think about putting this online exercise back in the trunk, forget about it until you need it again.

I invite you to think again. The best trainers will keep at least part of their practice onlineNot how a side business or gimmick, but because effective online practice makes you a better coach.

The facts of online coaching

You've heard the big pitch for switching to online or hybrid coaching elsewhere:

  1. It enables flexible working hours from anywhere in the world, whether at home, in a café or in Fiji.
  2. This allows you to reach a broader – even global – audience and scale with existing templates and intelligent systems as large as your creativity and industry allow.

And everyone knows the costs:

  1. Distance work requires a different discipline to combat distraction.
  2. The primary advertising channels are overwhelmed with FitPros, most of them spit out nonsense, and transmitting your signal through the noise is a full-time job.
  3. Establishing a personal connection, evaluating and correcting movements in real time is more difficult, and coaching in states, provinces and countries is a unique logistical challenge.

What you probably haven't heard is how online coaching can improve your coaching skills on the platform, in the field, and at the gym.

I have been training online since 2016, programming and offering video reviews of work sets for every lifter I train. As part of a team, we help each other with video evaluations and when working on projects. I've reviewed hundreds of lifters, thousands of workouts, and over ten thousand videos, and these practices have improved my platform coaching skills in ways I never expected.

You are not a wizard, Harry

In the art of clear thinking, Rolf Dobelli shares the effect of a banal truth: "Extreme performances are interspersed with less extreme ones." In other words, when things are bad or average, they get better. When things are great or average, they get worse. This reality, called regression to the mean, deceives trainers every day in every sentence.

Every repetition you observe lies on the lifter's bell curve. Some new lifters happen to have great reps, and even masterful athletes occasionally slip in complex movements.

With the right coaching and focus, this curve shifts to the right and narrow over time – the average improves and the performance becomes more constant until real mistakes disappear. If you train the movement in real time, you will see a bad movement, call it up and the next iteration will look better. Pat yourself on the back – you've fixed it. At least that's how I felt after fixing people through seminars, workshops, CrossFit courses and face-to-face meetings. Online coaching freed me from this delusion.

I am a pretty dense stone, so the lessons took some time. I check the video of a lifter, see a mistake and try to start typing so that the mistake disappears in the third iteration and never returns. Sometimes they were set up incorrectly and I tried to reach through the screen to avoid the inevitable error that often never occurred. Maybe they corrected themselves. Maybe it was coincidental – a below-average repetition for her bell curve – and the next repetition just happened to be better.

Online coaching has taught me to look for trends through repetitions. To develop the lifter's self-confidence on the platform, step out of the way. You leave with the intention of going to the next session and not with a list of clues that need to be implemented long after your body has forgotten the feeling of your last exercises.

Most importantly, it taught me humility. In a class of 20 people, I was able to bark clues and correct mistakes like a manic poodle playing in one go, but the credit for change was not by chance, time and the lifter.

The screen requests results

The environment and friendships of the class as well as the energy and personality of a trainer often determine the experience in the small gym. This experience is part of the value – the most important part for some lifters – but if it does prevail, accurate feedback on your performance will be tarnished.

When I asked a customer if their training worked for them, the inevitable answer was almost always yes. If the customer does not know his past and present performance, clearly defines his goals and routinely takes into account the costs and benefits of training, he is not ready to give me a clear answer.

I wanted to improve my coaching skills. But I asked, "Do you still feel good when you come to the gym?"

Every trainer has to achieve results to be successful. An informed customer can find thousands of diets, programs, and forums to receive form checks online for free. If we show no value and do not establish a personal connection, the customer will leave.

There is no fitness culture online to hide behind. Each day gives your customer the opportunity to log in, view the progress on the screen and decide if the cost is worth it. This accountability refines coaching skills in a way that constant variance and high energy classes cannot.

The internet never forgets

Movement coaching, especially in multi-event sports like CrossFit, suffers from memory gaps. At the beginning of each session, we have two vivid memories of the lifter's movement – how we remember them when they first trained with us and how they are moving. They will inevitably improve through the session as a result of warming up, practicing and (hopefully) our coaching.

At the end of the session, you can honestly say to the frustrated lifter, "I know it's difficult, but you're getting better." But are they? Do you remember the quality of your movement in the past sessions, especially when it is spread over weeks?

Checking videos revealed my amnesia. A lifter felt stuck when it was first pulled up, and I went back and did a montage of their videos to show their real progress in an encouraging way.

Another lifter was frustrated with its clean strength, but I knew it had improved. His first video was certainly a mess, so I looked for newer posts to show the chain of progress. Unfortunately, he was right. His elbows hadn't gotten faster in weeks and it was my responsibility to improve my game to provide tools and exercises to help him solve this problem.

Online videos provide concrete progress indicators that can overcome almost all lifters' doubts as to whether they are improving. It also shows reality very strongly if the movement has not changed.

I have occasionally started filming my personal lifters and making a selection of videos of their movement over time as this feedback that was easy to collect on the web was simply not available during coaching.

Same street, better tires

In Oceanside, California, where I live, state and county officials are already reopening restaurants, public services, and fitness centers. Trainers have to overcome the inevitable hiccups, but many of you are already starting to think about life after the shutdown. The long wait is over – the mechanics have finally fitted the new tire – and you really want to get back on the road to help people get stronger, fitter and happier.

You may have seen online coaching as a way to make ends meet and add value despite the loss. If you are, you may feel ready to throw the video conferencing, online coaching platforms, and email check-ins into your mental box with shutdown problems that I'm just glad I'm done with.

Before you do this, I invite you to consider the following:

  • As a trainer, we learn best when we face different perspectives and challenges.
  • Solving difficult problems in an unusual way not only shows our coaching spectrum, but also broadens our perspective and deepens our understanding of the strategies that we are already using.

Online coaching did that for me. Even if the interaction and the community of coaching on the platform, teaching a live workshop or leading a CrossFit class are the focus of my work, I will continue to train online whether pandemic or not and I invite you to do the same. You could just be a better trainer for it.

03 Jun
Blog

How Online Coaching Made Me Better

"I can't wait for the gym to open so I can get the right coaching from my computer."

If that's you, I can tell. This pandemic was a massive nail on the street that blew out the air tires of our routines and force a detour from the route we had planned for a successful career. Your makeshift online practice is like the donut you install to keep your car rolling long enough to repair and get back on the road with a real tire. When your gym reopens, you may think about putting this online exercise back in the trunk, forget about it until you need it again.

I invite you to think again. The best trainers will keep at least part of their practice onlineNot how a side business or gimmick, but because effective online practice makes you a better coach.

The facts of online coaching

You've heard the big pitch for switching to online or hybrid coaching elsewhere:

  1. It enables flexible working hours from anywhere in the world, whether at home, in a café or in Fiji.
  2. This allows you to reach a broader – even global – audience and scale with existing templates and intelligent systems as large as your creativity and industry allow.

And everyone knows the costs:

  1. Distance work requires a different discipline to combat distraction.
  2. The primary advertising channels are overwhelmed with FitPros, most of them spit out nonsense, and transmitting your signal through the noise is a full-time job.
  3. Establishing a personal connection, evaluating and correcting movements in real time is more difficult, and coaching in states, provinces and countries is a unique logistical challenge.

What you probably haven't heard is how online coaching can improve your coaching skills on the platform, in the field, and at the gym.

I have been training online since 2016, programming and offering video reviews of work sets for every lifter I train. As part of a team, we help each other with video evaluations and when working on projects. I've reviewed hundreds of lifters, thousands of workouts, and over ten thousand videos, and these practices have improved my platform coaching skills in ways I never expected.

You are not a wizard, Harry

In the art of clear thinking, Rolf Dobelli shares the effect of a banal truth: "If things are bad on average, they get better. If things are good on average, they get worse. This reality, called regression to the mean, deceives every day Coach in every set. "

Every repetition you observe lies on the lifter's bell curve. Some new lifters happen to have great reps, and even masterful athletes occasionally slip in complex movements.

With the right coaching and focus, this curve shifts to the right and narrow over time – the average improves and the performance becomes more constant until real mistakes disappear. If you train the movement in real time, you will see a bad movement, call it up and the next iteration will look better. Pat yourself on the back – you've fixed it. At least that's how I felt after fixing people through seminars, workshops, CrossFit courses and face-to-face meetings. Online coaching freed me from this delusion.

I am a pretty dense stone, so the lessons took some time. I check the video of a lifter, see a mistake and try to start typing so that the mistake disappears in the third iteration and never returns. Sometimes they were set up incorrectly and I tried to reach through the screen to avoid the inevitable error that often never occurred. Maybe they corrected themselves. Maybe it was coincidental – a below-average repetition for her bell curve – and the next repetition just happened to be better.

Online coaching has taught me to look for trends through repetitions. To develop the lifter's self-confidence on the platform, step out of the way. You leave with the intention of going to the next session and not with a list of clues that need to be implemented long after your body has forgotten the feeling of your last exercises.

Most importantly, it taught me humility. In a class of 20 people, I was able to bark clues and correct mistakes like a manic poodle playing in one go, but the credit for change was not by chance, time and the lifter.

The screen requests results

The environment and friendships of the class as well as the energy and personality of a trainer often determine the experience in the small gym. This experience is part of the value – the most important part for some lifters – but if it does prevail, accurate feedback on your performance will be tarnished.

When I asked a customer if their training worked for them, the inevitable answer was almost always yes. If the customer does not know his past and present performance, clearly defines his goals and routinely takes into account the costs and benefits of training, he is not ready to give me a clear answer.

I wanted to improve my coaching skills. But I asked, "Do you still feel good when you come to the gym?"

Every trainer has to achieve results to be successful. An informed customer can find thousands of diets, programs, and forums to receive form checks online for free. If we show no value and do not establish a personal connection, the customer will leave.

There is no fitness culture online to hide behind. Each day gives your customer the opportunity to log in, view the progress on the screen and decide if the cost is worth it. This accountability refines coaching skills in a way that constant variance and high energy classes cannot.

The internet never forgets

Movement coaching, especially in multi-event sports like CrossFit, suffers from memory gaps. At the beginning of each session, we have two vivid memories of the lifter's movement – how we remember them when they first trained with us and how they are moving. They will inevitably improve through the session as a result of warming up, practicing and (hopefully) our coaching.

At the end of the session, you can honestly say to the frustrated lifter, "I know it's difficult, but you're getting better." But are they? Do you remember the quality of your movement in the past sessions, especially when it is spread over weeks?

Checking videos revealed my amnesia. A lifter felt stuck when it was first pulled up, and I went back and did a montage of their videos to show their real progress in an encouraging way.

Another lifter was frustrated with its clean strength, but I knew it had improved. His first video was certainly a mess, so I looked for newer posts to show the chain of progress. Unfortunately, he was right. His elbows hadn't gotten faster in weeks and it was my responsibility to improve my game to provide tools and exercises to help him solve this problem.

Online videos provide concrete progress indicators that can overcome almost all lifters' doubts as to whether they are improving. It also shows reality very strongly if the movement has not changed.

I have occasionally started filming my personal lifters and making a selection of videos of their movement over time as this feedback that was easy to collect on the web was simply not available during coaching.

Same street, better tires

In Oceanside, California, where I live, state and county officials are already reopening restaurants, public services, and fitness centers. Trainers have to overcome the inevitable hiccups, but many of you are already starting to think about life after the shutdown. The long wait is over – the mechanics have finally fitted the new tire – and you really want to get back on the road to help people get stronger, fitter and happier.

You may have seen online coaching as a way to make ends meet and add value despite the loss. If you are, you may feel ready to throw the video conferencing, online coaching platforms, and email check-ins into your mental box with shutdown problems that I'm just glad I'm done with.

Before you do this, I invite you to consider the following:

  • As a trainer, we learn best when we face different perspectives and challenges.
  • Solving difficult problems in an unusual way not only shows our coaching spectrum, but also broadens our perspective and deepens our understanding of the strategies that we are already using.

Online coaching did that for me. Even if the interaction and the community of coaching on the platform, teaching a live workshop or leading a CrossFit class are the focus of my work, I will continue to train online whether pandemic or not and I invite you to do the same. You could just be a better trainer for it.