Tagged: triathlon
Tuning Up – My Insights from Yoga Tune Up
For the past week here in Ottawa I was a participant in a great course called Yoga Tune Up teacher training, where I got to spend seven full days with a bunch of very dedicated professionals getting tuned in to the yoga world a bit more. While I’m still processing everything that happened during the week, I wanted to share my initial observations with my readers and clients because there were a few things that jumped out at me right away I wanted to share.
The people who attended this course with me were from several different corners of the fitness industry. There were yoga instructors, CrossFit trainers, powerlifters, dance instructors, and even just regular people who wanted to learn more about yoga or had taken the class and wanted to learn how to present it themselves. Why did I take it? It is very rare that courses come to Ottawa, and I have known one of the main instructors for a couple of years and have a lot of respect for his knowledge and what he brings to the fitness world with his intention. To be fair, the course was not entirely what I expected and I would not have taken it if I knew what the days were going to entail, as I have no intention of being a yoga instructor – but here’s some things that I took away that are valuable to me. Even if a course isn’t exactly what I’m looking for, my belief is that even if you just get one thing out of it, then it still has value.
The Concept of Sankalpa
On the first day we had to come up with a Sankalpa, or a basic statement that sets your intention around your yoga practice, or simply your life at that point. It is something you are supposed to repeat to yourself in order to guide your thoughts and what you intend to do. In business this could be called a mission statement (although they are usually a lot longer). In some meditation circles it could be a mantra. The great thing is, the simpler it is the better – one sentence can be enough. Sometimes it can be oriented around something you intend to improve personally or within your practice. It is well established that once you repeat something to yourself enough, your brain and body start to believe it. Coming up with a simple statement allows you to touch base with who you really want to be, even if you have to fake it until you make it for a bit.
I would suggest that everyone come up with something like this. Repeating it to yourself under times of stress or when you need to focus on your real intention can be really eye opening in the moment. I know it certainly was for me once I figured out what it is. If you want to know, just ask me.
People Need to Follow Their Inner Voice
When I was getting to know the other participants, a common theme came up constantly through the week very similar to my own. The people had a regular job that they hated, took a class and loved it and realized that they were doing the wrong thing and decided to do something that they liked instead of something that they hated. What a novel concept. I did the same thing almost 15 years ago when I left my high paced stress filled retail management job.
I’m a firm believer that if the universe is telling you something, then you need to go and do it if or when you can. If you can’t manage it right now because of other circumstances, then start planning to get there. I have a client right now who is already planning for her retirement and what she wants to do with her life, but she isn’t retiring for another five years. Even if it takes a few years, for the rest of your life at least you will be working on your authentic purpose rather than wasting away day by day doing something that you hate. Like Jim Carrey said in a recent clip that has been making the rounds of the internet: “you can fail at what you don’t want, so why not take a chance at doing something you love?”
Mobility and Strength aren’t Mutually Exclusive
With the group that we had in the room, it was a great mixture of both “flexy-bendies” and pure strength people, but the greater thing was that everyone was open minded and listened to all points of view without judgement. The thing that emerged (at least from my perspective) was that the really mobile people didn’t have a ton of strength, and the really strong people didn’t have a lot of mobility. It is almost like a large parabolic curve with the x axis being strength and the y axis being mobility and you should aspire to be somewhere in the middle – but it is really hard to get there. There is also a well known correlation between having too much range of motion and not being able to control your joints at end ranges, which can easily lead to injury (something I address constantly with my clients).
The point there is to have a balance – but the one thing that they reinforced during the course (and quite well) was that you can’t achieve a good position of strength if your position is faulty. This means when you are trying to achieve a strong movement or even just to walk properly it is important to begin with proper spinal alignment. So many of us walk around with massive forward head posture and bound up thoracic spines and externally rotated hips, and then we go to a place where we sit all day staring at computer screens lower than our eyes should be, get into cars where we cram ourselves into seats that push everything forward, and sleep with three pillows.
I came out of this course feeling much more mobile than I have been probably in years, and with a renewed sense of who I am and my purpose in the world. It reinforced my path to me and made me aware of things that I had let slip over the past while. Moving forward through life can only be done properly if you have a sense of where you want to be, so sometimes just getting a bit of a wake up call is really valuable, and that’s worth the cost of ten courses to me. I also had a great time and met some incredible caring knowledgeable people who I’m really happy to now be networked with as possible resources for my clients and colleagues.
If you want to know about Yoga Tune Up, visit www.yogatuneup.com and check out a class in the area, it might just be worth it for you.
A Tale of Three Runners
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…if you understand that reference then you’re probably my age or older (or just enjoy reading). Actually, this weekend it was the best of times for three of my athletes.
Recently in my city of Ottawa we had our annual Ottawa Race Weekend. It is a fantastic weekend for runners where they hold a marathon, half marathon and a 10k and 5k and all events are well attended with over 30,000 people participating. Every year it is run flawlessly for the most part (although they had a bit of a screw up on the ½ marathon course this year) and attracts runners from all over the world. Since runner coaching is a part of my business I wanted to share a story about three of my athletes who all come from different aspects of fitness, but all achieved a level of success this weekend, even though they started in very different places.
RP is a gentleman who has been working with me for over two years, who although he just turned 40 still has the athletic ability of a gazelle and the sparkling wit to match. When he started working with me he had acute Achilles tendonitis and he had 8 weeks to his first marathon. He couldn’t run for more than about 10k without pain. I distinctly remember the look on his face when I told him his mileage was getting cut in half 8 weeks before a marathon, but he went with it and successfully ran his first marathon. Since then he has done several other races including two more full marathons, a half marathon PB and a 500 kilometer bike ride from London to Paris. Last weekend he beat his personal best on the marathon by over 30 minutes by staying consistent and running 4 times per week with a gradual buildup to 65-75k per week over time.
TW is a woman who came to me only a few months ago with another problem – this time ITBS, or iliotibial band syndrome and she couldn’t run at all, but still wanted to compete in the 10k with a restriction of only running 3 times per week (with a holiday mixed in for good measure). She had previously done marathon training so was used to volume, but had to have some adjustments to her speed (I actually sped her UP to give her a proper gait) and work on her IT band issues, which resolved fairly quickly. Her initial goal was to complete the 10k, but then a few weeks out we changed that to doing it in under an hour, which she had never done. She finished in 58:30 with a smile on her face and no IT band issues.
CM is a woman who I have been working with for about a year who came to me because she liked to walk long distances with a goal of completing another ½ marathon walk in another short time line. She is obese and has some other health issues that make it difficult for her to move. We got her through that race, however she continued to suffer from calf and ankle issues and had to restrict her volume so that she could stay consistent with her workouts. She completed another ½ marathon walk last weekend only about 10 minutes slower than the year previous – having never walked for more than an hour in training. For her a ½ marathon walk takes four hours but she got through it, even on a brutally hot day.
These three people all made significant accomplishments last weekend. The point I’m trying to make is that different people accomplish things differently. All three of these athletes came at their respective events from different places, skill levels and levels of progression. However, all had a successful result following a plan – and in CM’s case that plan was simply to get it done even though we both knew she was going to have a hard time. With all the athletes they did what they could to make consistent progress towards the goal they had set – and then those got modified when progress was either better or worse than expected.
Anyone can be successful given the right tools and progression, no matter what you want to do. Want to bench press 300 pounds? Want to run a marathon? Want to climb a mountain? Great. The idea is to set the goal and then work towards it carefully, mindfully towards what your body is capable of at that time and then just keeping moving forward. And you’re never going to get anywhere by trying to not listening and respecting your body when you try to push it too far too soon. The great thing is, it will tell you when you’re pushing too hard and try to stop you – you just have to listen.
Getting hurt doesn’t mean you have to stop – it means you have to learn what caused you to get hurt, and either stop doing it or modify what you’re doing in order to let it recover and not have it happen again down the road. Attack the problem, not the symptom. With a couple of these athletes it was a simple form adjustment and being mindful of what they were doing, which you should be doing anyway.
So today, tomorrow, whenever you start working towards something be smart, progress yourself within your tolerance limits and above all, listen to your body. Oh, and hire a good coach. I happen to know one, and he trains runners virtually as well if you’re interested. Maybe next year you can have the same success that all of these people did, even though they started from completely different places.
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Your Body Is Going to Hate You in 10 Years
Weekly (actually almost daily) on my Facebook feed I see debate and discussion about various fitness modalities and “the best way” to exercise. Wow, that was an awesome leg workout! I almost puked! I can’t walk today thanks to @awesomeharcoretrainer! #feelbeatenup. Inevitably these are posted by folks in their 20’s and 30’s who are getting into workouts that are pretty advanced, and likely in no way appropriate – but they do get the desired results. For a brief time people can have bulging muscles, lower body fat (or nicely flexed pictures) and post pictures of themselves doing things like obstacle races or really heavy lifts, even if they have terrible form.
Then there is the other side of the equation. The majority of my practice deals with injuries, and a lot of these are things like tears of various things, joint replacements, spinal herniation and overuse issues. Most of these people are in their 40’s and older, but this is not a hard rule. My youngest client who had a hip replaced was 46. Knee replacements are fairly common once people who are active get into their 50’s and 60’s. Disc hernation when younger tends to lead to chronic back pain for many people until they decide to either get surgery or figure out a way to manage their lives in order to live without pain. I see this as a really sad thing.
My aunt (who was obese at the time) announced one year at Christmas that she was getting a knee replacement because it was the only solution to her knee pain. When I suggested that possibly losing 50 pounds might help her more there was a bit of an awkward silence in the room. As you all know, holding my tongue isn’t exactly something I do well.
One thing I often say to people is that “I wish I had seen you ten years ago.” My belief is that if people were properly educated on what exercise can do to their body long term they might think twice before getting into hardcore heavy lifting, fast ballistic movements and things like hardcore competition without properly progressing themselves.
The point of this article is very simple: people don’t think about the long term damage they are doing to their bodies and what it is going to be dealing with years down the road. This could also apply to the general population, but especially applies to people in the fitness industry who are supposed to know a bit more about their physical well-being and how to improve others than the average person. Just recently there was a gentleman who during a CrossFit competition actually severed his spine during a heavy lift and will never walk again. Another recent article had a high level runner fracturing her femur – 500 meters from the finish line of a race – but she dragged her self across the finish line anyway, risking her life in the process. She likely will never walk properly again either and she has small children at home. Professional athletes, while achieving incredible things in their careers often have their physical health or even their lives cut short dramatically due to the abuse their body has to adapt to through training. These are obviously outliers, but for every one of these examples, there are thousands of regular people who suffer daily with things that likely could have been either prevented or eliminated entirely given the right amount of care.
There are also people who commit to fitness (for a short time) and do a cycle of working out for a few weeks, then come up with every excuse under the sun why they can’t continue – until the next time. In January these are called “resolutionists”. For a lot of people they will be inspired by something and maybe follow through for a few months, and then go back to the same cycle they had in the past. Then, in five years they are heavier, sicker or get injured and wonder why. Here’s a thought – make a commitment for a long period of time and stick with it. You should be exercising regularly (in whatever capacity you want to) for the rest of your life. Time after time I meet with people, they stick with a program for a few weeks or months, and then something happens in their life so that they won’t continue (notice I said won’t, not can’t) and then a year later it’s “oh, yeah – I should start working out again.” Then I meet with them a few more times, with them fully committed and then inevitably it happens again.
So my simple words to you: look forward. See yourself in 10 years and ask yourself what type of body you want to have. What do you want to be able to do? What do you want to have accomplished? We do this all of the time for our careers, but neglect the one thing that is going to carry us forward for the rest of our lives. And get started. Now. Just do it the smart, responsible way and don’t let your body hate you. It really doesn’t want to, after all.
4 Good Reasons to Fire Your Trainer
Due to the fact that my industry is unregulated and anyone can call themselves a trainer after taking a weekend course, it is generally filled with some pretty interesting characters. What still amazes me to this day is the fact that people will blindly walk into a fitness centre and sometimes invest thousands of dollars, simply under the promise that they are going to lose weight, get ripped or be able to perform like a high level athlete in no time – and not even interview the person properly! Some trainers prey on this like a lion devouring a carcass, and take advantage of people who are emotionally vulnerable as a part of their selling process. You can see examples of this all over YouTube if you just search for “personal trainer sales”.
Other trainers will use a personal relationship to take advantage of their clientele and drop their service level – sometimes to the point of completely neglecting them and what they were hired for in the first place. Because they now see the client as a friend, they allow themselves to forget the professional side of the equation. Trainers generally aren’t good business people, which is why they get into an easy entry profession in the first place, and chain gyms pretty much guarantee that even a totally incompetent idiot can get clients if they just stick around for long enough.
This bothers me. I tend to take my job as a trainer seriously, and what a lot of trainers (and clients) need to learn is that when you a trainer is affecting someone’s body in a positive or negative way they are impacting a lot more than just their physical well-being. Also, I don’t know many people who can afford to waste $60-100 an hour and not get value for it. I know I can’t. Our industry is also rampant with unprofessionalism. Trainers texting, eating, or ignoring clients to chat with other people during workouts. Trainers who talk more than they coach. Trainers who come in to work hung over and brag about it. Believe it or not, this is actually common – and it really shouldn’t be.
So in a nutshell, here are some very good reasons to fire your trainer. If you are a client reading this and can relate to one of these, fire your trainer. Today. If you are a trainer reading this and get fired (or have been in the past) well then odds are you should probably stop doing one of these.
1) They don’t show up for work.
Trainers who constantly cancel, take loads of time off and always make excuses or reschedule should be fired immediately. You are paying someone for a service and they are supposed to be focusing on you and your results. A trainer who no-shows for any reason in this day and age should likely be fired right away. With texting, email, easy ways to communicate there is no excuse beyond a legitimate emergency and this should happen once in a blue moon.
I personally know a trainer who took over 65 days away from work last year and constantly cancelled sessions last minute – but then would charge his clients if they did the same thing. That’s 13 working weeks away from his clients, and for some reason – he didn’t get fired by some of them. Good thing he got paid up front! As a client, don’t let your trainer use a personal relationship to abuse the fact that they are hired to do a job.
2) When they do show up, they act like you are hanging out with a buddy.
If you are talking more than you are working then the session probably isn’t doing you a lot of good. A skilled trainer can maintain a conversation (if you really need them to) while you are doing movements. Frankly, if you are resting too much because you are chatting, why are you paying that person? Most trainers cost over a dollar a minute – make sure you are getting value for your time. Personal training also isn’t a therapy session or a “nutrition consultation” where you pay the person to solve problems that are outside of their scope of practice. Doing ten sets of exercise in 45 minutes isn’t going to get you very far either. There should be a plan, and it should be executed properly. I know that often I don’t even have time to get everything in that I want to do in an hour long session, never mind chatting.
One big test – if your trainer is talking to you about their own personal issues a lot, get rid of them. The session should be about you and what you are accomplishing towards your fitness goals. Be serious about your physical fitness and health and find a trainer who is too.
Oh, and if they ever pull out a cell phone during a session except to use it as a timer or they have an emergency, you might want to think about how much they respect the time they have with you.
This should never, ever happen.
3) They don’t have a plan, long term or even during a session.
“What do you want to work on today?” was a normal thing I heard when I worked at some gyms. Um…it is your job to figure that out and tell me, that is what I’m paying you for. Can they modify or change a workout in the moment if it is needed because you ended up moving furniture the day before and your back is sore? If your trainer doesn’t have a plan for that workout and then moving forward odds are they really aren’t focused on getting you what you want – results. If you tell them that you don’t want to work a particular body part because it is already tired and they give you blank stare, run for the hills.
Part of the skill as a trainer is also being able to figure out what is appropriate for that person in the moment and constantly be assessing ability. This can change even movement to movement. If a client comes in and hasn’t slept, didn’t eat right or has another problem and the trainer just goes ahead with a hard core circuit workout (that they have likely done with every client that day) then they are putting you at risk of injury. Is someone who either doesn’t know better or doesn’t care worth investing in?
I actually heard of a guy who would put a daily workout on a wipe board and have every client do it that day – no matter their condition, age, size, etc. Ridiculous. And not worth your money.
4) They have no experience dealing with your specific issue.
I know you have a personal relationship with your trainer and would never want to leave them, but honestly sometimes if your goals change or something happens you may need to find a new one. An example would be a client who gets pregnant and their trainer has never worked with a pregnant woman before – is that really a good idea? If I suddenly decided to enter a powerlifting competition and my trainer was a marathon runner that might not be a great fit. If I seriously injure myself and my trainer has no background in that particular injury, is it really wise to hope that they learn with you as a guinea pig?
A trainer with integrity will refer out when situations like this come up, not simply wing it hoping for a good result. Don’t be afraid to suggest that maybe they could find you someone more suited to your needs. Likely the money you invest will get you a better result. Personally I’m never insulted if/when this happens and I have a good network of other professionals that I can refer to.
I know that sometimes I am negative on my industry, but realistically these things happen less often than you think. Just make sure that they aren’t happening to you! In order to improve your results, you need to make sure you are working with a top quality professional, and they are definitely out there. Sometimes you just have to weed through them a bit before finding a good one. Let me know if there is anything you would add to this list and feel free to comment and subscribe!
Therapy and Exercise Refined 