(NOTE: Only one more week before the Boston event!)
This Spring Luke Worthington and I will be putting on our popular Strategic Strength Workshop in both Boston, MA and London, UK.
A hometown switcharoo extravaganza if you will.
The purpose of this workshop is to give attendees a more thorough look into our assessment process and how we connect the dots between that and setting our clients/athletes up for as much success as possible.
I.e., turning them into deadlifting Terminators.
There’s plenty of talk surrounding the traditional x’s and o’s of program design, but we also take some time to dive deep into the soft(er) skills of coaching:
How to improve motivation
How to build better rapport
Learning to meet your clients where THEY are.
You can click the respective links below for more information and to register:
On top of my cameo in London this Spring I am also putting on a BONUS 1-day workshop further north, in Leeds. I’m pumped for this one. I’ve never visited northern England and am very much looking forward to this.
Who knows? Maybe I’ll attend my first soccer football match.
SOCIAL MEDIA SHENANIGANS
Twitter
Note to local baseball coach:
Instead of “punishing” your athletes with endless (and pointless) burpees for fumbling a bunt attempt during practice, how bout, you know…
…more bunt practice?? You know, to actually improve the skill you’re trying to work on?
I’ll be the first to admit I am not a rah-rah coach (and, quite honestly, I find those that are somewhat annoying). There’s this connotation in the coaching world that in order to be an effective coach you have to be full throttle at all times, as if you’ve injected caffeine directly into your left ventricle.
Then and only then will your clients/athletes truly understand.
This is a nice compilation (of which I am part of) that breaks down how absurd this is.
Not because it was revolutionary, but because it was so simple and actionable. If you need a bit of a “jolt” in your training, this may be something you should consider.
There’s only a few more days to purchase this excellent resource on sale. Curated FOR fitness professionals and with over 13+ hours of clinical & research base information available, this course is undoubtedly one of a kind.
What “bogs” down most coaches are suffocating clients; those that seemingly lack motivation and are unable to respect boundaries. This course delves into that and much, much more.
(Plus, it’s actually developed by a doctor who lifts)
In addition, this course contains lectures, case studies, and recorded interviews with some of the industry’s best coaches (Mark Fisher, Dean Somerset, Tony Gentilcore, Georgie Fear, Molly Galbraith, Meghan Callaway, and Kelly Coffey).
There’s only a few more days to get it at the sale price.
It’s not lost on me that some of you reading may be thinking to yourself…
…”Heavy metal? Tony? No, it can’t be.”
Listen, as a strength coach it’s pretty much inevitable a fair portion of your working life will be saturated by the sounds of Metallica, Rage Against the Machine, and Tool.
And so it happened, early in my career (particularly during my Cressey Sports Performance days), my ears would sometimes bleed (in a good way) from such sounds. However, as everyone is well aware, I’d always try my best to bring a little levity to the training environment with a little Wu-Tang or Tiesto.
And while I can’t say I listen to a lot of heavy metal music at my studio in Boston, I do appreciate its ability to help trainees succumb to their inner rage monster for a big lift when needed.
That said, it was a pleasure to be invited back onto The Heavy Metal Strength Coach Podcast hosted by Chris Kershaw
UK Tour, Tacos, and 600 lb Deadlifts
Chris – in case it wasn’t obvious enough – is a strength coach based who likes heavy metal music. He’s based in the UK and was kind enough to invite me back onto his show recently to discuss my upcoming workshops in England (London & Leeds) this coming Spring as well as go a bit into the weeds on the importance of meeting your clients/athletes where THEY are.
HINT: That’s where the taco reference comes from.
And, of course, there’s some discussion surrounding lifting heavy things.
Chris is a natural interviewer and I think you’ll enjoy his laid back, conversational style.
Luke Worthington and I developed our 6-week digital mentorship last Fall because 1) we felt between the two of us, we had a lot of expertise and insights regarding assessment, program design, coaching, brand building, and business that we could offer to other fitness professionals to help build & grow THEIR businesses, and 2) because there’s a fucking pandemic going on that’s prevented us from doing these sorts of things in person.
(Hopefully soon, though)
Nevertheless, we had a great experience the first go round with a stellar group of fitness pros and we’re excited to open it up again this Spring.
Full Disclosure: I have never played a full-round of golf in my life. So you can guess my surprise when I was invited onto Dr. McCullough’s podcast recently. Thankfully, he was more interested in hearing my thoughts on how to train rotational athletes than he was my thoughts on when to choose a 3-wood over a 4-wood.
ANSWER: 3-woods on Thursdays only.
In this episode I discuss why it’s okay to lean into asymmetries, some of my “entry points” to dealing with low back pain, and why there’s no such thing as a “golf specific” program.
Listen via iTunes HERE, Google HERE, and Spotify HERE.
You can now purchase CORE @ Home for whatever you want to pay.
In all I filmed 36 workouts during quarantine last year using nothing but bodyweight, bands, and kettlebells and/or dumbbells. With many people still reticent to head back to their regular gyms (not to mention the scarcity of gym equipment out there to purchase) I figured this would be a nice opportunity to help.
Whether you want to spend $1 or $99 (FYI: the latter enters you to win a 5×7 shirtless pic of me), the workouts are ready and available to start.
One of the best investments I have made in myself over the course of the past several years is hiring my own coach to write my training programs.
As I have said repeatedly:
“Coaches need coaches too.”
1. It helps me get out of my own head. The last person I want to write a program for is myself.
2. It forces me to work on my weaknesses and to have an un-biased approach to my training. I mean, I can’t deadlift and perform bicep curls 5x per week, right?
3. And maybe most important of all: It’s a form of continuing education for myself. I love learning new exercises and different ways & approaches to programming.
Us coaches tend to forget that we’re the minority.
We actually like exercising, straining, DOMS, rear foot elevated split squats.
Okay, maybe not split squats.
It’s important to remember that for many, liking exercise isn’t normal, and it behooves us as fitness professionals to meet our clients where THEY are…
…by encouraging more positivity and inclusiveness.
How Macho Bull and the Word “Should” Can Hold Back Your Training
For the last six months, I’ve been trying to build my squat back up to my previous numbers prior to the pandemic. Not surprisingly, I got a little inside my head and decided I “should” add weight to the barbell every…single…week.
The result of this 100% made up “should” rule resulted in a steady escalation of a pesky back injury every six weeks.
Times were sucky.
Needlessly adhering to silly, arbitrary rules hurt me.
Why Is It Important to Manage Our Relationship With These Rules?
When our mental health becomes defined by our performance in the gym you risk everything blowing up and our head space becomes tethered to whether or not we have a bad session or two.
Good session (hit our numbers) = Everything is hunky dory. Don’t worry babe, I’ll make dinner and wash the dishes tonight.
So the solution is you need to get better forever, yes?
No!
We are all getting older. One day, our performance will decline.
If you are defined by your gym performance, you will eventually run into problems.
Having an awareness of the “should” rules will hopefully keep you on the side of positive unconditional regard most of the time and help you to avoid dips in mental health relating to your training.
Another benefit to understanding your relationship with these “should” rules is better decision-making in training.
If you make better decisions, your training will be less self-sabotaging.
It’s not the answer to all your training woes, but it might allow you to train longer without injury, to be able to do your rehab without much resentment, and/or get you to the gym a few more times a year.
In short, staying cognizant of these “should” rules will give you the ability to perform poorly in the gym, to be unhappy about it, but still be able to turn the page, chill out, and accept yourself as being okay.
“Should” Rules That Aren’t Actually Rules
I should….
1. Lift More Weight Every Week
Macho bullshit.
You can’t lift more every week. You’re not He-Man (or She-Ra).
Most of the time, you’ll lift the same weight or less.
If you train regularly with a solid plan, your numbers will go up eventually. If you try to force the numbers up every week then you’ll likely end up frustrated and hurt.
Note From TG: I couldn’t agree more. I often call this expectation management, and it’s something I have to consistently remind my clients of. Like I always say…easy training is good training.
2. Lift More in Competition Than in the Gym
Some people lift more in the gym than in competition, others don’t. You need to compete a few times before you decide you are going to go for a massive PR in competition.
3. I Shouldn’t Get Injured
You’re not Wolverine.
Injuries are part of this journey.
The idea you’ll never get injured is a misguided idea.
You should do everything in your power to have good recovery, and to limit the risk of injury as much as you can, but it isn’t always possible.
4. Deadlift More Than I Squat
Not necessarily.
Josh Greenfield, (a world-record squatter) has a much bigger squat than his deadlift.
My squat and deadlift are around the same, and that is the case for many athletes around the world.
The difference between the two is decided by many factors, most of which are out of your control. Build great technique in them both, program them correctly, go at each lift with the same attitude, and see how they progress.
5. Front Squat
Unless you are training for a particular sport using a particular movement, you don’t need to do that movement if it’s causing you problems.
After a few weeks of front squatting, my knees want to explode.
What does this mean?
It means I don’t front squat often in favour of safety bar squats, goblet squats, or leg presses.
Trying to include a movement in your plan because you “should” is misguided. Quit banging your head against a movement that is hurting you.
6. Low Bar Squat
“LOW BAR SQUAT OR NOTHING!”
-Low bar squat extremist.
If your low bar squat sucks, and you keep hurting yourself then stop low bar squatting.
Find a squat variation you DO get on with.
7. Sumo Deadlift
If sumo deadlifts ruin your hips then the chances are sumo deadlifts don’t work for you. Don’t worry, you will be able to find a deadlift variation optimal for you.
The same goes for any other deadlift variation people say you “should” do.
If it hurts you consistently and your form looks good, switch it up. Maybe rack pulls or block deadlifts work better for you. That’s ok.
8. Max Out EVERY SESSION
Yes, you should, if you want to: 1) get injured 2) make training so mentally exhausting that you’ll burn out in 4 seconds.
This is macho bullshit hampering your training.
To make maxing out effective, you have to pick your battles. When you are in a competition is a great time to max-out.
When it’s something you do because it’s a Tuesday (or something equally as random and there’s no planning involved) you’re setting yourself up for trouble.
I like having my clients max-out infrequently as it’s hard to recover from and it’s risky.
I’d much rather a lifter got stronger while keeping some effort in the tank for another day unless they are competing.
9. Take Pre-Workout Before Every Session
Pre-workout supplements, when used diligently can work effectively.
When used perpetually to fuel sessions, we often see issues with anxiety, motivation, and other issues because of the knock-on effects on recovery.
Too-much pre-workout makes people need to de-load more often and makes stupid decisions in training more likely.
My personal strategy is to have a black coffee or sugar-free energy drink before training rather than a specific pre-workout supplement.
10. Be Able to Train Hard All the Time
Life happens, we don’t sleep sometimes, we get injured, and we get ill.
Sometimes, you will train poorly, and the cold truth of it all is most sessions are going to be average.
Some sessions will be awful.
Sometimes bad sessions come out of the blue, other times it’s after doing something you wouldn’t usually do.
Often it’s due to things completely out of your control. Which means bad sessions are unavoidable.
You have to be able to cope with that if you are to succeed in making training a long-term habit.
11. Train “x” Amount of Times Per Week
Based on over a decade of working with people like you, can you guess what training frequency tends to work best for people?
6 times a week?
5 times?
The answer is 3-4 sessions of 30-90 minutes.
For most, trying to train more than this is wildly optimistic.
If your favourite athlete trains 18 times a week it doesn’t mean you should.
Typically when people with lives end up training hard more than four times per week they end up under-recovered and over-injured.
For most people, I’d encourage you to train 3-4 times per week with various non-gym walks/steady cardio sessions dispersed throughout the week, with a little bit of HIT training .
12. Train Through Injury or Illness
You can safely train around an injury with careful exercise selection, and the correct application of rehab work.
Expecting to push through a program without factoring in your injury is macho bullshit.
When injury strikes you have to adapt to the circumstances, not steamroll ahead without changing course. The course correction may only need to be small, but a change of course will be needed to accommodate an injury.
With illness, there are times when you have to train, especially with chronic illness.
But with cold, flu, coronavirus, or whatever other short-term illness you have you to rest 1) so you don’t spread it to others and 2) so you don’t end up more unwell.
Conclusion
Good training is built upon hundreds of good decisions. Trying to adhere to rules because you “should” derails those decisions and makes it more likely you will make bad decisions and mess up your training.
When you begin training, many of these bad decisions will crop up.
By avoiding these bad decisions and rules that aren’t rules, your training is likely to be more consistent, more productive, and less stressful.
This is a good thing.
About the Author
Chris Kershaw is a certified personal trainer located in Leeds, England.
Known as The Heavy Metal Strength Coach, Chris aims to show as many people as possible that consistently lifting weights and working with a coach “isn’t that bad.”
He works with clients to improve their lives via the medium of the barbell (and the occasional kettlebell.)
1. I know I am speaking to the choir when I say this…
…but COVID-19 can just go a head and fuck off already.
Some of you reading may recall that earlier in the year I had announced I was expanding my studio, CORE, to a larger space here in Boston. I had found an amazing location (a mere eight minute walk from my apartment) that was going to allow me to expand my current footprint from 550 sq. feet to 3200.
So much room for activities (and fun loving hip-hop rhymes)
My wife and I had come to an agreement on a lease, but hadn’t gained possession of the space because we were still waiting for the town to meet with us to go through a variance in order to get the space approved for a build-out.
Waiting, waiting, waiting….
And then COVID hits.
Massachusetts shut down much of the economy (rightfully so) in order to curtail further spread of the virus. Gyms, of course, were shut down entirely.
Subsequently, we had to press the pause button on the new space because, well, building a new gym under the umbrella of a global pandemic didn’t seem like the wisest financial choice to make. My wife and I decided we’d wait a few months, see how things panned out, and then try to re-ignite the process later in 2020 or early 2021.
I just got word yesterday that I will no longer be able to pursue the space. The lessor felt it too much of a risk for a gym to move forward over given the state of the affairs.
Damn.
Bye, bye Techno Tuesdays, Wu-Tang Wednesdays, and Laser Tag Fridays.
Needless to say we’re bummed. I’m sure we’ll be able to find another location in the coming months, but this one hurts.
2. Oh, hey, have you checked out my newCORE @ Homeplatform yet?
It’s designed so that I can deliver workouts you can perform at home – pants optional – using minimal equipment.
You have two options:
1. Subscribe for FREE and receive one workout per week.
2. Subscribe for $29.00 and receive three workouts per week (in addition to special bonus content).1
My hope is that it helps take the thinking out of things and keeps people more accountable to workout more consistently.
Excellent stuff from Lou here featuring some of the best trainers I know sharing their insights and expertise on how to separate yourself from the masses.
Last week I signed up for Chrissy’s Anti-Racism for Wellness Professionals course. It was two hours of my time that was well spent and I HIGHLY encourage you to check it out.
She provides updates dates/times for her course via her IG page HERE.
In light of the course I wanted to dig into more of her content and I came across this fantastic article she wrote last year.
I enjoy every podcast I am invited on to, but this one in particular was a delight take part in. The Grafters podcast is hosted by Chris Kershaw and Reanne Francis who are both personal trainers located in Leeds, UK.
In this episode we discuss what it’s been like to navigate the apocalypse (COVID-19) and what I have done to “pivot” my business. In addition we go into some of the mental gymnastics surrounding helping our clients/athletes during this weird, weird time.
