Some of what you want, some of what you need,
and some of what you hate.
This thought/motto is one of the things I
think about when designing a training program for my clients. Below I
will talk about WHY I believe this is helpful for making a well rounded program.
1. Some
of what you want:
We
all have fitness and athletic goals even if you cant think of any off the top
of your head, they are in there! As a trainer, it is not my job to decide
what your goal should be but rather open your world to the possibilities and
allow you to decide. This is the most
important question to ask a client because it will help them remain consistent
in the beginning if they know they are working toward a goal that THEY
PERSONALLY CHOSE AND DECIDED UPON!
There are two main ways people go
wrong when deciding what they want:
1.
Not having a
performance based goal.
2.
Having a trainer
who is unrealistic with you about how difficult or easy your goal is.
As
I’ve preached many times before, losing weight is more about nutrition and
lifestyle rather than working out. So
instead of setting this as your goal, think of a performance based goal. Examples of this are doing so many reps of
pull-ups, running a certain distance, becoming proficient using a barbell
etc. Remember you cannot out-train a bad
diet and weight loss is about simply creating a calorie deficit!
So if you tell me
that you want to be generally healthy, in my head I think we should be working
on general strength in all ranges of motion, cardiovascular endurance, and work
capacity/general physical preparedness (think about if I asked you to move a
pile of bricks from one end of town to the other how quickly could you do it). Once we start working on some of this stuff
your goals will manifest themselves upon getting a better understanding of your
likes and dislikes.
Someone with a
more focused goal like, I want to run a half marathon better start getting
their heart and lungs in top shape, their legs in shape for long cyclic motion,
and their joints healthy and enough to bear the impact of running (most people
focus on the first two but neglect the third leading to injury…more on this
later).
The second point
about the trainer being able to give you a realistic timeline is more
difficult. Everyone adapts
differently. Everyone has consistency
and compliance issues. There will be
unforeseen issues and injuries along the way need to be dealt with. Here is a rule of thumb though to guess how
long it will take you to anything:
Step 1: take an
educated realistic guess
Step 2: multiply
it by 3
2. Some
of what you need:
What
you need is basically the stuff that the trainer and you know will help you
accomplish your goal in a quicker, safer manner but it is boring or
tedious. It could also be something that
you may not realize has a connection to your goal but the trainer knows the
connection.
Lets
go back to the example of a runner. Most
runners when they start a program just start running. Seems pretty obvious and understandable that
this is how one would get into this because after all, humans were “Born to
Run”. Well unfortunately, you’re pretty
far being human if you’ve worked a sedentary 9-5 job for 10 years after being
in school for 15 years. Your body didn’t
evolve to be treated the way we treat it.
Its meant to move and unfortunately our lifestyle habits take that away.
So
if you want to start a running program you should probably start by assessing
whether your joints can handle the new impact of all your body weight slamming
into the ground over and over again. Can
your legs propel you forward efficiently? Can your tendons and other connective
tissue adapt to the stimulus of starting a running program or are they so
fibrotic (thickened/scarred tissue that doesn’t move well) that they don’t
absorb force well?
So
what you NEED, is to probably start with strength and mobility stuff in a less
load bearing situation than running. A
more controlled situation like a fitness center would be better. At the same time as dealing with the things
you need you can certainly still work on running as a skill but a good trainer
would monitor the volume to mitigate injury risk.
3.
Some of what
you hate:
And then there is
this…… some of what you HATE! I struggle
with this part when dealing with my clients because at the end of the day I am
a service provider. However, I continue to program it because I believe we
learn life lessons in the weight room by doing things we hate.
What
do we learn by programming what we hate?
First
and foremost, we typically hate what we suck at. For various reasons, what you suck at also
falls under the category of what you NEED because it displays a weakness. You
are only as strong as your weakest link and your weakest link is most likely
the part of you that will get injured.
The biggest culprit here is stretching and mobility work. Its painful, slow, and longggg but it is
necessary for any athlete or person with any goal to continue to maintain (and
sometimes expand) end ranges of motion in every joint in their body!
Another
reason we tend to hate things is because we are fearful of them. I program things people hate to help them
overcome fear. Sometimes they are so
fearfull that I trick them into doing something they aren’t aware of. For example, I had a client with a knee
replacement. 11 weeks post op it was
time for her to start squatting again (this is not a universal rule but rather
an individual who made steady progress under my eyes and my expertise and her
pain level told me her body was ready).
However, I knew she was scared to try squatting which is completely
understandable.
So what did I
do? I told her to sit on the bench. She obliged.
Then I told her to stand up, which she did. Then I told her sit again and I asked her how
her day was going and she started telling me about it. While she was talking I signaled for her to
stand up and then sit back down again.
She kept talking and I repeated this until she had sat and stood up
about 8 times. After this, I interrupted
her and asked her how her knee felt. She
said fine! I replied, “Great, you just did 8 squats!”
The final reason I
will program things people hate is because I believe what we do in the weight
room is metaphor for life. It has
certainly taught me so many life lessons!
In the weight room, the trainer controls your movements. In life there will undoubtedly be things that
we must do that we don’t want to do but another human forces us. So when a trainer tells you to carry a
sandbag up a set of stairs 10 times and you complain about it, maybe just power
through with all your might it will be easier!
Wasting time and energy complaining about it never helped anyone. (Plus
carrying a sandbag up a flight of stairs 10 times has carry over to literally
every living human being’s current lifestyle so it’s not a complete waste of
your time!)
Programming what you
want will help keep you coming back for more.
Programming what you
need, will help you keep doing what you want.
Programming what you
hate will help defeat your greatest enemy… yourself.
-Stephen J Cornely
Triad Wellness Philly
steve@triadwellnessphilly.com
@stephenjcornely – instagram
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