There is a type of battle going on with the pervasive insidiousness of social media and a constant barrage of 2 second visual advertisement and promises of glorious fix everything with one click purchases though.
So yesterday a close friend asked me about my views on being a valued trainer in today's confused world of fitness and training being sold just to cause a transfer of AFT and funds. The depth of character required today to preserve true integrity and well meaning social activist persona is truly daunting.
The American public craves superficial quick fixes. They dream of fantasy and pay dearly for support of such fleeting and vacuous doses of drug like bottles, pills, powders and tiny intervals of 10-day or 6 week training packages.
I have a favorite eavesdrop story. I overheard a rather fleshy, whining demanding female potential training client stating her requirements to a relaxed attractive well composed young new trainer at what is now a defunct Bally's Total Fitness. The client was saying in that tight pitch of females that are used to complaining a lot and just living with constant frustration that they then spread to their impossible herd of children. She said that if she did not see change within 2 weeks she just KNEW herself and she would quit.
I in my inevitable uninvited way interjected "How long did it take her to achieve her current status of deconditioned overweight and frustration with her body?" She said well OMG she had 3 children and it just happened....
Lets see. 3 children my mathematically obsessed mind calculates is about 2.25 years. With no breaks. Oh, and no birth control. And she wants results in 2 weeks or she will quit her training... She expressed no responsibility for becoming either the mother of 3 or the resulting condition of her physical self. I predicted that she would blame the trainer for a failure to fix everything in record time and that she may never convert her lifestyle or that of her offspring to a sustainable reasonable management of food choices or 3-20 minute boughts of planned exercise weekly. And I left the conversation feeling very sympathetic for the sweet looking girl attempting to close the sale of 10 sessions or whatever she had been told to sell to reach her brutal weekly quota.
So let me get to the solid point before I lose you totally:
A caring coach will instill in a client a vision of a lifestyle that is fully sustainable with basic lifts and then whatever enjoyable form of variety filled movement they will look forward to like a treat at holiday every week.
Food is a tool to be enjoyed and shared that allows for shiny resilient skin, fun exuberant energy generation as well as a maneuverable body composition that allows clothing and movement to be both flattering and fun!
So training is a life long pursuit of fine tuning that must respond to changes in economic wherewithal, geographic location, availability of food supply and the ups and downs of stress and rest.
I would start with teaching basic macro nutrient spot checking, not obsessive tracking or unreasonable constraints that scare people away from even being aware of monitoring or educating themselves. The structural integrity of any human form can be efficiently and over decades maintained using deadlift, back squat and either or both bench press and push jerks.
Auxiliary cosmetic or specialized corrective exercises addressing supporting or weaker sectors of the body can be customized to suit client goals or trouble with balanced execution of basic lifts.
The most important lessons, regardless of exercise selection or sports choices is a comprehensive respect for the wonderful human form and it's operating system the human spirit.
There is an indivisible synergy when food management, weekly exercise, social networking, rest and emotional health surge together to form an energetic person able to inspire everyone they meet to seek baby steps towards this optimal life of joy and love of life. The world CANNOT have too many of these people.
So trainers everywhere, I challenge you to learn these many elements of an optimized life. I warn against giving too much attention to a single element and harming the other sectors by neglect and over sight. I would love to see true fitness shared and spread between countries, between sports camps, between competing gym chains and private gyms.
Good luck to everyone. I cant wait to see how great your good works can be in the very near future. Please write to me and share your baby steps and lessons learned along the way. The world NEEDS you. America needs you. Believe me.
No comments:
Post a Comment