Danger in Dependency

How much feedback to give a client while training is an internal struggle most of your trainers deal with on the training floor.

"Sometimes the best thing you can do for someone is shut up." 

I have no idea who said this. Sounds like something Chris said to me, maybe even my human resources professor. Who knows. 

We all as human beings are either auditory, visual or physical learners. Never all three. 

If i talk about an exercise, then demonstrate it, and then poke you into position, you’re basically falling into sensory overload and have a very high chance of immediately forgetting what you just did. 

Basically, and we're all guilty, we start giving answers to questions that haven't been asked yet. 

You probably didn’t ask me how this exercise improves apical expansion or synergistically creates upward rotation of the scapula. So I generally won't tell you, sometimes I do but should I? It depends.

Information overload won’t improve performance.

If you've ever noticed, you will never hear me ask you "did that feel right?" And I'll almost never answer the famous client question "did that look ok?" 

Because, well.. I would say yes or no. But that response does little to progress good technique or help you as the client focus on the most important aspects of the task.

Instead, I'll ask "how do you think you did?"  Or "where did you feel that?" 

That last question is my favorite. Nothing makes YOU, the client, take ownership of your performance faster than self-evaluation. It can be nerve racking at first, but makes everyone’s lives easier down the road toward independence.

If you’re a client, you seek coaching because you want to improve strength, lose weight, get stronger, find a new girlfriend/boyfriend, play with you grand children, look good naked, etc.

We, as the "coach" give you instructions to perform certain tasks, and theoretically, you get better at those tasks with us than you’d get without us.

Don’t get me wrong. Eagerness to learn is extremely important. It makes our jobs a hell of a lot easier.

But there's a very very big difference between being eager and needy. 

Needy may be a strong word, but an over reliance on constant feedback won't make you reach your goals any faster. 

Maybe you’ll perform in the gym, but once we let you off the proverbial leash, your chances of performing well decrease dramatically.

Realistically, at some point. You have to do it yourself. Even working with a trainer, you still receive homework workouts and cardio workouts outside of your scheduled session with use 

You're in the gym more often without us than with us, and we can't be there to babysit all of the time.

That's just the simplest form of self dependency. 

What happens when you go on vacation and we're not there to say “no” to the booze and fried food? { Just pretend you actually listened to us on this one for sake of the blog ;) }

What happens when you get a new job, move to a different gym and part ways with your personal trainer? ( try really freaking hard not to let this happen, we love you all. )

Have you developed the independence needed to continue toward your goals by yourself? 

As your personal trainer, our goal is to make complex tasks, very simple and automatic. This goes for lifting, learning to swim, driving a stick shift, doing algebra, making a burrito ( see me if this interests you, I'd love to school you on burritos. )

The training wheels have to come off. After that, feedback must be very selective on the part of the coach to keep making you better. The less noise there is, the more clearly you can hear yourself. 

The idea of not coaching as the best way to coach is admittedly strange. But much like raising a child who gets whatever he or she wants (I’m not a parent yet[ I hope ] so I’m just guessing.) We build character and discipline through tough love. 

We're a results driven facility, you'll never see a billboard or tv ad, but you'll see new clients in the door everyday. That's partly due to you, the client being able to learn and progress independently outside of working with us. 

To be clear, you absolutely must be hands-on and thorough when coaching someone through a new exercise. 

We want to know that outside of your scheduled time with us, we can trust you to do what you need to do. We want to be able to remove the leash outside of session time, even if we do leave the shock collar on. 

- Patrick Ciera

Sent from my iPhone