Tweet

• Jenny Labaw Rocks: First things first – I want to say congratulations to my friend, Jenny Labaw, for finishing 6th in her first Crossfit games.  Jenny is a true inspiration and I am so proud of all her hard work! Obviously the many that doubted you were very, very wrong.

• Amazing Competitors: The elite athletes continue to impress as they improve each year.  Their relative well-roundedness, desire to compete, and willingness to suffer is nothing short of amazing!

• This Is Healthy?: To say that this type of event is for health is complete idiocy – no one claims that any other sport played at a high level is being done for health!  There are those in the Crossfit community tracking health metrics on various competitors and it will be interesting to see how those markers change over time.  I don’t think this means that you shouldn’t compete, but if you do just know there may be additional things that you will need to do to try to buffer that type of workload.  I still remember stories of the early marathoners who were convinced they wouldn’t die because of their training.

• All Training Is Cumulative: Some of the events reminded me that training is always cumulative and your background will have a huge impact on how you handle unknown events.  A former Navy Seal or Triathlete will likely always feel more comfortable with an ocean swim or running on sand than say a former competitive strongman.  Someone that played ball sports (baseball, softball etc.) will likely be better throwing a softball than a former gymnast or competitive 400 meter runner.  I don’t think this invalidates this tests. It just serves as a reminder than your training is more than the last 12 months you spent preparing.  It started long ago.

• The Hopper Is Always Different: I believe the Games have gotten better each year, but the focus of the games has also changed each year.  I think it is unlikely that you will ever see someone that  wins several in a row.  It is more likely that there will be a handful of folks that finish near the top year over year, but the winner will be different because the bias is always changing.  I think this actually makes the sport more entertaining to watch.

• Effective Training Should Improve Your Ability to Respond: I believe really effective training should teach you about your body and better prepare you to adapt to unknown situations.  It is always fun to watch the smart athletes create new techniques on the fly as they solve movement problems that they haven’t faced before.

• How Many People Will Watch This?: I’m not sure how large the potential viewing audience is for this type of event, but the ever-growing Crossfit community provides a built in audience for this sport.  Sure strongman competitions are great to watch, but most folks can’t actually appreciate how hard that stuff is to complete.  Everyone who trains at a Crossfit gym knows how hard those workouts are and can appreciate them.

• Practice Your Skills: The Skills tests weren’t perfect, but they were a great way to test some basic skills without a ton of metabolic demand.  I believe it is critical to test some skills each year if Crossfitters continue to say they are important.  I also think that the difficulty of some of the moves will need to increase both in the workouts and in separate skills tests. I’m really not impressed by watching someone do a bunch of wallballs or kip weighted pull-ups.  Bring on the 1 arm chin-ups!

• More Equipment?: There is some irony in the fact that more equipment keeps showing at the Games.  The Crossfit  movement was once considered minimalist and now has athletes basically spinning during a workout.

• Bring Out The Eliminator: The monkey bars were cool and I thought provided a challenge that is hard to train for, but I was hopping for an Eliminator-type obstacle course where athletes would have to solve new movement problems under metabolic duress.  Maybe next year!

Tweet

The virtual world that we live in is sometimes very strange with all this Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.  My mom always wants to know how many of my Facebook “friends” I actually know and the truth is maybe only about 25%.  Truthfully I will never meet many of them, but a handful of them I later met in person and now count them as friends.  Clif Harski is one of those people.  He and I first had dinner when I was in San Diego earlier this year and had a great conversation about fitness and life over grass-fed burgers and “Paleo” shakes.  I was very impressed with Clif’s background, knowledge, and passion for health & fitness.  It was this conversation that really piqued my interest in MovNat.

Clif was able to beautifully articulate MovNat’s mission and much of it resonated with my view of the world.  I have been searching for a type of fitness movement that isn’t only about competition, counting repetitions, and agonizing over the stop watch.  I have been intrigued by MovNat ever since I first saw videos of Erwan Le Corre moving gracefully and efficiently across a mountainous landscape (barefoot and of course topless).  I am excited to attend my first MovNat seminar this August in Lake Tahoe and thought this was a perfect time to let my readers learn more about Clif and MovNat in general.

Tell us a little about your background – what you studied in school? training experience?

I grew up around the world playing traditional sports, doing martial arts, and actually just playing outside (hide and seek, tag, capture the flag)-I think i am lucky because video games weren’t as engrossing then as they are now.  I had some success in high school with basketball and volleyball and played some jc bball, but decided to become a playground legend instead of continuing collegiate ball. I graduated with a degree in kinesiology from sdsu.  During college I worked at trader Joe’s, and in my last semester took a management position which I held for 5 years.  I feel like that helped me immensely in my personal experience in the fitness industry because it allowed me to experiment with a lot of methodologies instead of specializing becoming the “kettlebell guy” or the “pilates master”.  I’ve done extended periods of traditional bodybuilding, only Bodyweight stuff, yoga, pilates, crossfit, etc. & I’ve tried spin, pure barre, cardio kick boxing, although the last three may of had to do with the cute girls in the class. Trying all these things and more allowed me to see the benefit in each, as well as the short comings, and speak from experience about them instead of just bashing other methods. However, I draw my line at zumba, I’m not doing it. Throughout school and management I selectively trained people who were serious about their goals.

What was your first exposure to MovNat? What initially attracted you to the concept?

My 1st exposure to MovNat was the men’s health article a couple years ago.  I read it and kept it in my brain as something else that I wanted to try out, mostly because it sounded like fun.  Then last year I stepped down from management before I got trapped by a big paycheck and started accumulating acronyms to put after my name to start training people as my career.  I got certified through RKC, ACE pt, UA360 combine trainer, and cross fit.  I also went as a participant to the MovNat 5 day west virginia workshop.

What is your role in MovNat? What made you decide to go to work for Erwan?

I’m one of the MovNat team instructors, specifically in charge of our domestic workshops.  I joined the team because last summer. When I was in WV I was impressed with MovNat in ways I didn’t expect to be. I thought it was just gonna be a new and fun physical challenge mixed with camping.  But instead what we practiced covered so many things that the fitness industry compartmentalizes-prehab, mobility, flexibility, strength, capacity-and MovNat did all of this without targeting each area. Instead we targeted moving, and let those areas develop as a result. This changed the way that I perceived fitness; rather than being overly concerned with how much I can lift or how far/fast I can run, I became focused on how well I can move in a variety of contexts.  Additionally it broadens how you measure yourself-sure you can lift a barbell but can you lift that rock? You can do 30 kipping pullups but can you climb on top of that branch? You can run a nice 400 time with your minimal shoes but can you run through the woods, a city, or a field of play without problems? The scope of what we can do is so much greater than the limited movement typically seen in the confines of a gym. And while that scope is in a sense limitless, it is not aimless.  We always want people to work towards their goals and their weaknesses.

I also went to work for erwan because of his passion. It’s contagious. We want to change the state of health-the way that paleo diets are changing people’s lives, we believe moving naturally, without societal pressures, arbitrary rules and regulations, can change people’s lives too.

How does MovNat differ from other schools of fitness that you have been exposed to?

The biggest difference is the amount of what MovNat encompasses.  Humans have the capability to move in many ways, and, in fact, these capabilities were and still are necessities.  We had to be able to adapt to different and changing demands. Adaptability is the real measure of capability.  Our take on fitness is: be real-world fit.

Yet many traditional/conventional methods are basically reductionist views of what movement is, or they adhere to some arbitrary rules and are impractical for life’s actual demands. For instance you can jump and stick a 40″ box jump, but can you move across a river jumping rock to rock with precision? You can hold a yoga pose but can you help me move my furniture? You’ve mastered hypertrophy but you can’t reach your own seat belt.

I love Gray Cook’s (Read about Gray’s recent MovNat experience here) quote that “fixing muscles doesn’t necessarily fix movement, but fixing movement seems to fix muscles”. Our focus is on movement capabilities-not body image, not work capacity, and not some “total”.  Those things improve, which is nice and can be motivating factors and there is nothing wrong with that, but we are primarily focused on increasing quality of movement in varied settings.  Once that quality is there, we can design the training to work on our goals and weaknesses.

I know from talking with you that you still do some traditional training in the gym (strength work, gymnastics etc.). How does your MovNat training supplement or improve on that training (and vice versa)? Why do you continue to keep up with that type of training?

Because I like it too! The traditional stuff I do in the gym falls under MovNat though- lifting, pushing, pulling, rotating-these are all things that humans do.  An important thing MovNat considers is that we want to focus on movement, not necessarily where movement is done.  For instance doing curls and crunches in the woods don’t make those movements any more natural than doing them in a gym. And from the other way, picking up a barbell is not bad, it’s a natural movement to pick things off the floor-and sometimes it’s just more practical or convenient to go to the gym rather than go outdoors. But getting outside allows for changing stimuli and forces us to be more adaptive with our movement. As far as gymnastics, sports, and other activities-they are fun.  Everyone should do things they enjoy-the best form of activity for someone is the one they will actually do. As far as how it’s helped me: my grip improved dramatically, and so my deadlift went up nicely, so did my kettle work; my confidence and precision in movement is really the highest it’s ever been as I have done all sorts of stuff I hadn’t thought to try before.  It also helps me to keep a sweet tan.

I noticed on the website that MovNat currently offers a few different seminars (1 and 2 day, Expansion and Reawakening). Beside the length can you give a quick overview of some of the differences in these programs?

I travel the country holding 1 day fundamental workshops-these cover the philosophy and principles of movnat and basic technical instruction in walking, balancing, jumping, climbing, running, moving on all fours, lifting, carrying, throwing and catching. Its a lot to cover and people leave with loads of new techniques, principles and tons of ideas on how to apply them wherever they find themselves.  Our objective is that attendees become self-reliant and can get started training MovNat on the basis of efficient, varied and safe movement.

The five day events allow us the time to practice more and work up to more advanced techniques in the previously mentioned ten movement areas, as well as work on techniques in swimming and defending.  The five days also let people sleep peacefully in a tent away from their normal stressors, eat awesome food, and really feel a great sense of belonging to a group/team/tribe for the week by encouraging each other, growing together and experiencing things for the first time.

Is there a typical client you see attending the MovNat workshops?

No. We get nature folk, yoga folk, crossfitters, barefoot runners, chiropractors, physical therapists, personal trainers, people bored with the gym-basically we get all sorts because the desire to move naturally and be in nature is innate in everyone-remember playing outside freely before adults told us what was allowed and what “real fitness” was? We recapture that feeling of freedom in movement.

What can you say to help relieve the fears of folks who might think this is too challenging or out of their wheel house?

Last week we had a gentleman in his mid sixties come out for the week, it was his third workshop with MovNat. Before that we had a five month pregnant lady, her husband and his two teenage daughters.   The goal of the workshops is to be challenging but not to crush people-that is easy to do, just do an assassine amount of volume-instead we focus on the quality of movement. Once the quality is mastered you can safely add intensity. We don’t do anything dangerous or stupid, we are not the jackass of natural movement.

I know you spent a lot of time this summer in the wilderness living in a tent with very few amenities….What was that like? What small pleasures do you find yourself missing?

It was a lot of fun.  What I loved: Going to bed when it’s dark, getting up when it’s light, not being judged for not wearing shirts or shoes, and greatly reduced electronic usage is freeing.  What I didn’t love-my sensitive supple soft skin gets irritated by grass sometimes, Mosquitos loved me the first week and high humidity. What I missed: ice cream and my beautiful mattress.

Every picture I see of you involves you without shoes and a shirt – do you go everywhere like this? Is this part of the program?

There’s that judgement again (Editor’s Note – I like to give Clif grief about always being topless in every picture). My mom tells me that I never liked wearing shirts, and in the dorms I had the nick name of “guy with no shirt on”-so I’ve been not wearing shirts for years. Shoeless is sort of part of the program. In recent years we’ve seen the “barefooting” trend grow, but let’s be serious, barefoot means no shoes. The mechanical benefits of being barefoot is well established. Shoeless increases proprioception, awareness of what you’re doing, mental toughness, foot toughness, and is less whacky looking than five fingers. Now, five fingers and other minimal shoes are great because you get the mechanical advantages without the added real danger that exists with true barefoot training-and I use them when needed.

Are you going to beat me to my goal of a double beast clean and press?

(Editor ‘s Note: I have a bucket list of fitness goals that I’m constantly tinkering with – the double beast clean and press is on this list ever since I saw this video.)

Maybe, that’ll be an interesting goal to try to hit. First my goal is to be a “beast tamer”, which means you can pistol squat the beast, do a legit pull up wit the beast, and strict press the beast with just one arm. I just need the strict press-and I want it because “beast tamer” is an awesome title.

If anyone has any questions about MovNat please post in the comments.  Clif is going to come back and answer any questions we receive in part 2 of this post.  I will also be doing a post about my MovNat experience in August.  You can learn more about MovNat on their website and you can keep up with Clif via Twitter.

Tweet

Last weekend I had the chance to spend 3 days watching the NorCal Regionals for the Crossfit Games.  Crossfit has provided a short video on the spectator experience at the NorCal Regionals, but as always I came home with a bunch of random thoughts so I thought I would put them out into the universe.  Hopefully some of these will be insightful, but some are certainly just silly!

Random thoughts (in no particular order):

• Crossfit as Sport: Attending these events reminds me that for some folks Crossfit is their sport.  This is very different from how I believe the average person should view Crossfit.  A competitive component to one’s training can be beneficial, but training for sport and training to improve your life are two very different things.  Never lose sight of the purpose of your program.

• Olympics of Exercising: I am consistently surprised at how entertaining and engaging it can be to watch people compete in exercising despite the intuitive ridiculousness of the idea.  It is not much different than watching any other sport for me: there is strategy, there is skill, there are some really good athletes, there is suffering and there is a human interest piece to each of those athletes.  I will never buy into the idea that being an elite games competitor is healthy, but watching them is a damn fun way to spend a weekend.

• Event Quality was Great: The overall quality of these events keeps improving from a spectator’s perspective.  Everything from the parking, seating, timing, food options and even the DJ were handled really well.  It turns out that having a DJ at an event like this makes everything better (yes I’m being serious).

• My New Favorite T-shirt: I came across this t-shirt by Rogue and just to had have one (sadly they aren’t available online yet).

• Judging Was Much Improved: I believe the judging was much better overall compared to years past.  Let me be clear that there is still significant room for improvement, but huge strides have been made.  The majority of errors I saw were focused on nuances of movements (ring turn out on muscle-ups or the finish position on the kettlebell swing) and I don’t believe they significantly impacted the final standings in the NorCal region. As always there were a few hiccups as evidenced by Freddy C’s now famous “Am I Being A Whiny B*****?” post and “The Case of AJ Moore“.  I do believe Freddy is whining a bit, but I appreciate the fact that he is willing to put his honest opinion out there.  I think the rules need to be clarified, but for my money if someone in a future event finishes first in every event and wants to sit out the last one I’m cool with that (Full disclosure – I was at the Regionals to cheer on Jenny Labaw so my opinion is clearly as biased as Freddy’s).  I don’t have an opinion on AJ’s situation because I wasn’t there and haven’t seen the video, but I sincerely feel for the guy.  I don’t see an easy remedy to the situation and sadly realize that like many other sports judging will always have a bigger impact on the standings than we would like especially when there is such a high degree of technical competency being judged.
  

• Jack Daniels Burgers: Putting Jack Daniels in your burgers is amazing (as suggested by the culinary geniuses at Epic Meal Time)!

• Athlete Preparation Keeps Improving: The first time I attended one of these events I was honestly shocked at how poorly prepared some of the athletes were for the intensity, volume, and actual exercises there were being asked to perform.  I still have nightmares about watching a young woman’s left knee collapse on all 50 box jumps she performed (both her landing on the box and the return to the ground).  I kept waiting for her knee to explode. Clearly no one ever taught her or her coach what good landing mechanics looked like.   Most athletes movement was pretty good and clearly the message is getting out that proper mechanics are not only faster and more efficient, but safer.
  

• Nike ACG Shoes: Attending a Reebok sponsored event seemed like the perfect opportunity to break out some Nike All-Condition Gear Shoes circa 2000. Classic!

• Exercises Done Poorly: In spite of my overall feeling about the general improvement of athlete preparation and movement quality I have a bone to pick with the performance of 2 particular movements: the american kettlebell swing and 2 DB to overhead anyhow.  These exercises were often performed so poorly that it hurt my soul.  I saw so many examples of poor biomechanics that many athletes appear to have forgotten everything they have learned about proper movement. I’m hopeful that these athletes will go back to the drawing board on these exercises.

• Always Be Mobilizing: What is funnier than capturing the Supple Leopard himself mobilizing while watching the action?

• Twitter friends become real people: It is always nice to meet folks in person that you interact with virtually.  I had a chance to finally meet Badier from The Lazy Caveman.  Badier is a good dude whose writing I enjoy so it was great to be able to chat live and in color.

• Jenny Labaw Rocks!: The primary reason I attended the event was to cheer on my friend, Jenny LaBaw, in her first official Crossfit competition.  Jenny is a hell of a person, coach, and athlete.  Jenny put on an amazing performance and I was honored to be there to cheer for her. Jenny finished second overall and earned a spot at the big show in July.

• Movement is Life: I really enjoy watching athletes and analzying how they move.  This experience is always enhanced when I can watch athletes with folks who have very different backgrounds than mine.  I watched several events with Carl Paoli, the infamous pocket gymnast, from GymnasticsWod. I really enjoyed his feedback on the events from a gymnast’s perspective.  There is always so much to be learned when you see things through another’s eyes.
  

• I Like Rainbows: Deal with it!

Tweet

This post is long overdue, but I wanted to publicly thank Zach Moore for providing me some great training ideas while Carlos was rehabbing his wrist injury.  Zach was interning at IFAST when I visited last summer and now is a full-time staff member.  His insights and perspective were invaluable when designing my plan of attack for Carlos.  Zach also took some time out of his busy schedule after I visited to film his setup on a few lifts.  This made a huge difference in preparing Carlos to return to work.  Thanks Zach – this industry is lucky to have you!

Be sure to check out his blog.  Here are some videos of Zach in action:

Tweet

I received a ton of feedback on part 1 of this post however some felt my take on the fitness industry was overly negative.  I disagree and counter that it was honest and direct.  My purpose it not to discourage folks from becoming trainers – we still need a ton of high-quality trainers in the world.  My hope was to spark some intelligent dialogue about what being a trainer actually means as it relates to my career transition.

In that vein one of my readers, Shawna, shared some feedback on her 10 years in the fitness field and I wanted to post her comment in its entirety as I think she offers some valuable insights.  I will be back with Part 3 soon discussing things I would have done differently during my transition if I was to do it over again. Enjoy!

Hi Andy,
Thanks for the great post! I have worked in the fitness industry for the past 10 years and can agree with what you are saying and thought that I could offer a few other thoughts. After completing a degree in Kinesiology and getting more fitness certifications than I’d care to admit, I’ve been able to navigate an exciting career path. My original plan was to become a sport psychologist until I discovered that my job prospects in Canada as a female were almost nil. I shifted my focus to personal training and “gasp” triathlon coaching, along with presenting and writing articles on various diet and exercise related topics. I’ve had some great jobs and horrible ones along the way and have learned a lot of things through experience that should be considered before making a career shift:

-Being a personal trainer has been glamorized by tv shows- making the job look like it’s easy and fun (this is true, just not ALL fun and games). Most people don’t realize how much time goes into program planning, especially when you first start out. It also SEEMS like you’d be able to work out all day but a) Your body can not handle the beating of working out with every client day in and day out. You will burn out or get injured, fast, and b) As a trainer, your priority should be making sure that your paying client is doing the movements properly, not worrying about how great your own biceps look.

-Your day isn’t just training for 8hrs long like most office jobs. You need to account for travel time between facilities (if like many trainers do, you need to work at several locations to get your hours), prep time, paperwork/ charting, and if you run your own business even more time is spent doing accounting, budgeting, marketing, program development, banking and many more “office” type tasks. This doesn’t include the time needed to stay on top of current info, trends, maintaining your certifications etc.

-Your hours are typically long days with- split shifts. For example, as the Head Coach of a Triathlon Club, I had to coach starting at 6am and finished coaching my last swim session 10:30pm, despite only “working” an 8 hour day. As a full time personal trainer, my schedule wasn’t much different, especially on days when I had to open the gym at 5am. Split shift can be good for doing personal errands in the middle of the day when most other people are working, but then not as a result, you aren’t home early in the morning or in the evening to spend time with family and friends. Often times as a new trainer, you also have to work weekends, because you need build your client base-which takes time.

-Certifications are expensive to get and to maintain. If you aren’t fortunate enough to have the cert. offered in your hometown, you have travel costs such as hotel, car rental, and flights on top of the certification costs. Some certifications may not be considered credible in your area, so you may need to comply with standardized certifications in order to be considered “qualified” to be a trainer. Some of the “credible” certifications aren’t even worth the paper they are printed on, and are taught in a weekend workshop format, instantly making you a personal trainer! Not to say that all weekend workshops are bad- I’ve been to some really great ones (like OPT Nutrition 201 etc) but you can’t quit your day job, take one weekend course and suddenly expect to be the next Robb Wolf.

-In order to be a good/credible personal trainer, you need to look the part and stay fit. It is almost impossible to get in a good workout at the gym you work at because staff and members keep asking you questions or wanting to chat. Consider where you plan to work out!

-The hourly rate for being a trainer is amazing but you can’t base your salary off that. Most clients drop off in the summer months, September (back to school time), and in December then January is usually so busy you can’t keep up with all the resolution-ers. It can be very tough to balance a budget with a constantly fluctuating income, so you’ll need to be good at budgeting your money. Another thing most trainers don’t know until they get in is that some gyms pay on a sliding scale. So for example you make half of what the client pays. They buy one training session for $100, you make $50. But sell a big package (50 sessions) so that their cost is lower, say $40/session, you only make $20 for that same hour. Be very clear on how you are going to get paid before you jump!

-There is lots of B.S. and favouritism in the fitness industry, just like anywhere else. In this industry it’s definitely who you know, not always what you know. I’ve been beat out for jobs by trainers with far less experience or qualifications because of who they know. After all, look at some of the fitness and diet experts on Oprah and look up their qualifications. The Veganist- Kelly Freston (on with Michael Pollan) was a model turned author. Her credibility? Her hubby was one of the exec’s to start Oprah’s TV network!

-For every Robb Wolf, James Fitzgerald etc, there are hundreds of quality trainers out there and thousands of trainers who were certified from online or weekend courses. Similar to being a CEO of a company, you only make money in this industry once you reach a certain level. Can you hack it?

So needless to say, after 10 years of adventures, working for various gyms, running my own business and ultimately maxing out my salary- I realized the only way to further increase my income was to own my own gym. I didn’t have the capital to move forward and ultimately decided it was time to get out. I thought the only way to help people become more healthy was to be a trainer, giving diet and exercise advice. Now, a few months out from finishing my RN program, I’m about to help people change their diet and exercise habits, only this time as a nurse. Being a trainer and a coach was a fantastic gig, and probably something I’ll continue to dabble in for fun for years to come. I do encourage people to really look at their options and figure out why they want to be a trainer, talk to credible professionals in their area and find out what it really takes before they dive in head first!

Cheers

Tweet

Alternative Title: So You Want to Be a Personal Trainer???

In the past year I have received no fewer than 50 emails (plus numerous texts, facebook messages etc.) from folks asking for career advice.  How did you transition to personal training? Do you think you made the right decision? How do I make a career out of my passion for fitness?

A number of folks I emailed or spoke to on the phone directly, but honestly I just don’t really have the time to talk with every single person (even though I wish I could).  I thought it would just be easier if I pulled together a blog post that is a summary of the all the emails I have written plus some additional thoughts.  The short answer is I really don’t know what the right answer is for YOU.  I think it depends on your risk tolerance, current job situation, family status, and actual desire to make it work.  I’m hopeful my experience can be of some value to folks that are considering a career change.  I don’t want to spend too much time on my background, but I think its helpful because for many where you are currently will have a huge impact on the transition.  Starting a career when you are 21 and broke is one thing while looking to change careers when you are 30 and established is something entirely different.

My Background

My original major in college was Exercise Science and I thought I might want to be a physical therapist, but like most folks I changed majors a few times and ended up with a double major in Management Information Systems and Decision Sciences (basically business statistics).  I was a salaried network administrator for the School of Engineering and Applied Science for my last 2 years of school as well.  Needless to say I developed a passion for technology.  The job market was pretty good with someone with my skill set when I graduated and  I had quite a few options.  I interned will Deloitte & Touche LLP in Cincinnati, Ohio my last summer of school and really liked it, but didn’t find the group I worked in technical enough for my liking at that time.  It was recommended that I check out a more technical group in Chicago – I did and liked it and so I started my career in professional services in Chicago.

I spent 4 years working in the Chicago office and then transferred to the Phoenix, Arizona office and worked there for 5 years.  I was lucky enough to have some really good bosses and mentors in both Chicago and Arizona that really helped me become successful due mostly due their fantastic coaching (and lots of long hours on my part).

Overall I would say I was very happy with my time with Deloitte.  I got the chance to travel a ton and spent a bunch of time in Spain and the Netherlands (though I also spent time in town with populations in triple digits that were very hard to get to).  My first few years I traveled way too much.  My busiest year I took 150 flights and my longest stretch on the road without returning home was 92 days.  As I moved up within the company I was able to manage my schedule to a much greater degree and my last few years my travel schedule was very manageable.  Additionally, I had a huge sphere of influence, 6 weeks paid vacation, great benefits, had amazing teams that worked for me, and got to help mold and develop young careers.  I got to work with companies that were as small as 5 people and as big as several in the Fortune 100.  I got to work in all kinds of industries and environments, but there was still a part of me that wasn’t sure this is where I wanted to spend my next 25 years.

I met Robb Wolf at a Crossfit certification in early 2006 and we interacted periodically online.  Due to a weird set of circumstances he and Scotty Hagnas ended up staying at my house in Arizona in 2008.  I really enjoyed the time I spent with them and this is where the idea of a career change probably started (Inception if you will).  After one of many discussions on training I remember Robb asking when I was going to open a gym and my response was basically that is a very hard way to make a living.  I spoke with Robb periodically after he stayed at my house and several times we discussed the idea of moving to Chico to work at his gym.  Ultimately I convinced him to take a leap of faith and offer me a job.  I wrestled with this decision for a long, long time, but ultimately decided it was worth the risk and that even if it was the wrong decision I needed to learn first-hand.

I saved up a bunch of money and in the fall of 2009 I resigned from Deloitte, packed up my stuff, and moved to Chico, CA to try my hand at personal training (please note that moving to a city where you don’t know anyone was a huge tactical error especially since part of my responsibility is to find many of my clients – I will discuss this more below).  My hope was that I would enjoy my day to day work more and have a chance to impact folks lives in a positive way.  Its sounds silly to say, but this has been one of the hardest things I have ever done and has impacted my life in ways I never would have anticipated.  The further I get removed from my previous career the more I realize what a profound impact it had on my life and my world view.

Rather than continuing with what may seem like the worlds longest story I thought I would list some bullet points to address things folks have asked me about related to my career change.  Please note that the examples I will list are specific to my experiences although I will try to add generalizations where possible.

• Compensation (Salary, Benefits etc.) – My first year as a trainer I made less than 10% of what I made the year before in my corporate job.  It definitely wasn’t enough to live on and honestly it was very tough to watch much of my hard earned savings slowly evaporate from my bank account.  This year I will probably make about 20% of my last year in my corporate job.  Enough to live on, but I’m certainly not living extravagantly or taking many expensive trips.  My corporate job included health insurance, short-term disability insurance, and a pretty good 401K plan.  My current job offers none of those and I must pay for them out of pocket.  The tricky part of equation is that I can’t really compare the salaries directly because my corporate salary had a ton of additional benefits on top it that add value to the overall compensation.  My current job also has a fairly variable income that I’m still learning to deal with – this is certainly something that many professionals have to deal with, but I haven’t been paid by the hour since I was 20 years old so I tend to freak out with a big chunk of my client base takes a week off here and there.
• Schedule – My corporate job often involved long-hours and there were periods where I worked at least 6 days a week (although the further I moved up the more control I had over this).  However I got 6 weeks paid vacation and had the ability to balance things out over the year so if I had a horrible month where I put in a ton of hours the next month I would probably be able to lighten the load a bit and catch-up on personal stuff that may have taken a back seat.  An average day for me in corporate America would be 10-12 hours of total work.  In my current job as a trainer I usually have about 35 hours a week doing actual coaching however since I am still building my practice most days begin with me being at the gym between 6 and 7 am while my final coaching session will end between 7:30-8:30 pm.  I have a few days that are very busy and a few that are more manageable, but I’m still basically working in the AM & PM with a break in between.  This can be hard to manage because there is a ton of inefficiency built in – I may have 4 client hours, but they may be spread over 7 hours.  I only get paid when I actually coach and there can be a fair amount of time lost when you are at the gym because I may have an hour break, but I may spend like 30 minutes of that hour just dealing with questions from clients.
• Authority / Responsibility – Over the years in my corporate job I developed quite a bit of responsibility and authority.  Sure I worked for a huge company, but related to projects that I managed I made most of the key decisions and lived with the outcomes.  I was paid by my employer and my clients to have an opinion about everything.  Since I am a first born Type A this suited me perfectly.  In my new role I am a personal trainer.  I am employed to coach group classes and do personal training.  Sure my managers and owners are willing (within reason) to listen to feedback on other business matters, but honestly I realize that isn’t my job anymore.  This can be tough for me b/c ask anyone that used to work for me – I have an opinion about everything. I also spent so long managing people that I have very strong opinions about the right and wrong way to do this that it can be hard to keep my mouth shut.  One of my former bosses warned me that working for a small business that I didn’t own would be extremely challenging because I would be so close to the action, but I wouldn’t be able to make changes the way I wanted if it was my company or my department.
• Flexibility – One of the promises of being a personal trainer is that you can develop your own schedule.  In theory this in true, but it can take a long time to build up enough of a client base to make this happen. Many of the trainers I am friends with still work some sort of double-shift even if they have fine tuned their schedule.  In my old job there were certainly standard hours that most of us kept, but I definitely had a bunch of flexibility about what time I started and ended work and could manage things around doctors appointments etc.  Now if I am sick or need a few hours off to go to the doctor I may have to cancel appointments that will directly impact my bottom line.  The trick is figuring out ways to make your new schedule fit with the rest of your life.  I’m obviously not planning many social engagements for a week night, but have developed a pretty good schedule of lunches with a small group of friends.
• Continuing Education – This is the biggest heartbreaker for me.  I honestly used to attend more fitness CED functions before I was a full time trainer.  Obviously my practical knowledge has increase dramatically, but I’m often farther behind in new emerging areas than I would prefer to me.  There are some facilities I that know of that have a ton of education time built in, but those are few and far between.  You have to work for a pretty large training facility for that to happen.  My employer does provide a CED subsidy for us which is excellent, but taking time off for education cuts into my income and honestly if I am only going to take off a limited amount of time a year most of it will be family related.
• Job Satisfaction – Overall my job satisfaction is probably a little higher than my previous job, but not near as high as I would have anticipated.  I realize now that there are my things that I miss doing from my old job – I miss being a formal (and informal) mentor to new employees,  I miss participating in the employee hiring and evaluation process, and I miss the very high degree of autonomy.  The flip side is that now I have contributed to some amazing life changes in many of clients (some of their stories bring tears to my eyes), but not everyone actually wants to change and that can be a heartbreaker for me.  Additionally your clients will never care as much about this stuff as you do and I probably get more jaded everyday.  I have also had to make some hard decisions regarding going to weddings or vacations with friends I haven’t seen in a long time.  In my old job these would have been a no brainer, but right now taking trips almost counts 2x against me because I lose out on the revenue I would have produced and I obviously would spend money on the trip.  I am also surprisingly much more tired from my new job than from my old one even though I theoretically work less total hours.  I’ve found it is very emotionally expensive to be “on” for 35 plus hours a week.  When clients come to the gym they generally don’t want a cranky, tired trainer – they want someone who is very positive and engaging for their hour of fitness.  I never would have anticipated how much emotional energy that would take.  In my old job I certainly spent a good deal of my time interacting directly with clients, but since I was typically working onsite at their location I had a fair amount of time to myself to catch up on other work or to decompress.  Most of my work hours now take a pretty heavy toll and honestly on most Saturday nights I find myself wanting to go to bed at 9 pm even though Sunday is the only day I get to sleep in.

Hopefully some of the thoughts above were helpful to those considering a career change.  If you are considering making a career change I would definitely spend some time shadowing current fitness professionals and then try to think critically about what things in your life will improve with the change and which things may become more challenging. In Part 2 of this post I will discuss some of the things I would do differently if I were to do it all over again.  I think some of those insights can help better prepare those who are looking to make the jump into the fitness field.  Please let me know if there is anything specific you would like me to address.

Tweet

Over the past few years I’ve noticed a disturbing trend where in our desire to keep clients interested we have been introducing an ever increasing array of new and cool exercises to keep them engaged in their training.  Many of these exercises are harder and more complex versions of the basics.  Most folks have not taken to the time to master the basics so I seriously question the intelligence of giving them more especially when the harder and more complex version is more likely to jack your client up.

I realize there is inherent risk is participating in any type of physical activity. People can and will get hurt doing pretty much anything. This does not however mean that it is okay to be put clients in positions during training that have a high (or even a low) likelihood of injury. It is NEVER okay to get hurt during training.  It is your job to improve your client’s fitness while protecting them from themselves.  Most clients don’t know what they don’t know. If they don’t have the body awareness to do a certain exercise or haven’t met the prerequisites then they shouldn’t be doing it! Yes I realize most clients show up at your door with a laundry list of injuries they sustained during their lifetime and that can make things a bit more challenging.  Tough cookies! If you don’t know how to improve those issues then at a minimum you should be able to improve other areas of their fitness while not making those issues worse.

I’ve had the opportunity to be trained by some really great coaches over the years. I also sustained some injuries while working with some of these folks.  Looking back at my injuries I’ve realized that some of them could have been avoided because I was doing things that I probably wasn’t ready to do yet.  Did I want to do them? Hell yes! Are these injuries those trainers fault? I’m not sure, but I know now when I’m working with my clients I always ask what is the best and worst outcome that could occur from including an exercise in their program. Just because a client can do something doesn’t mean they should or that the risk is worth the potential reward.

Some coaches will complain that I’m being overly conservative, but most clients are not elite athletes and are only training improve their lives.  It is my opinion that part of our duties as professionals is to help protect clients from themselves. Our clients trust us, but sometimes I wonder if maybe some of them shouldn’t.

Tweet

My client, Carlos, sent the testimonial below as a thank you for all the work that I put in to help him recover from his injury and return to work.  I really appreciate the time Carlos took to write this for me, but it also got me thinking that I should be thanking him as well for letting me be part of this journey.

Thank you Carlos for trusting me, for listening to my geeky ramblings, for realizing this is a process, and most of all for allowing me to contribute to to your recovery. Carlos is one of those special clients that gets it.  He trusts the process, works really hard, and reaps the benefits.

It is clients like Carlos that are the reason I have chosen this path.  I am thankful for being able to do what I do everyday and am honored to have the chance to impact people’s lives in a positive way.    Thank you to all my clients for trusting me with helping to improve their lives.

Andy Deas is The Man. His knowledge, experience and creativity set him apart from other trainers.  Working with Andy has been life saving (and I’m NOT just saying this, I’m serious), as well as educational.  His motivation has been contagious and very much appreciated.  He has helped make me a better athlete, both physically and mentally.  I would recommend Andy Deas to anyone who is serious about improving their quality of life.

Now… I live a very active lifestyle and I work for the Fire Department, so maintaining a fit & healthy body & mind is required.  In mid July, I had an accident. 7 tendons & 2 nerves were lacerated in my right (dominate) hand. I had surgery, everything was reattached and rehab began. One month later, I began working with Andy.

I asked Andy to program my workouts, to remove the “thinking” from my part.  So that’s what he did!!! I only wanted to concentrate on a successful recovery but in the meantime I didn’t want my body to turn into jello.   Once my hand is back, I’m expected to return to work and be fit enough to perform.  So, Every time I walked through the gym doors, Andy had a “plan of attack” for the day’s workout.  He gradually took me from, fresh off the couch-hand in a cast type of physical condition. Eased me back into moving properly again. Each week or two, based on my development, he would increase my workload and exercise choices.  He turned me into a confident “left hand” athlete.

Get this… Andy found a way for me to deadlift weight again.  That’s right! We deadlifted with one hand.  He strapped webbing straps around my shoulder and attached it to the bar.  It felt so good to move weight again.  This was extremely creative on Andy’s part!!!

I’ve been working with Andy for over 3 months now, and I’m scheduled to return to work in 6 weeks.  My legs feel stronger than before my injury & my lung recovery is solid.

Andy, Thank you for ALL that you have done.  I cannot put into words, how valuable you have been to my family and me during this “Fight of my Life”.  Thank you for your time, energy & positive words.  You have no idea how much you’ve helped me stay on track! Thank You Brother!

Here is a quick video of Big Los getting his first rope climb 5 months post surgey and one of him working his Lizard Walk the same day. Congrats Los! I am so proud of how far you have come!

Tweet

Back with Part 4 of the series on My Love / Hate Relationship with Crossfit.

Standard CYA Language:

Make no mistake that I have benefited tremendously from the Crossfit concept and it has forever changed the way I view fitness, but I also have some bones to pick with the overall system and its common implementation.  This post is general by nature and is not calling out any specific coaches.   I know that the good coaches out there aren’t beholden to one system.  They pick and choose from their toolbox based on the specific needs of their clients.  Crossfit is a heck of tool and can be a powerful asset in any well-designed S&C system, but it is not magic and is not the answer for every situation no matter what they teach you at your Level 1 Certification. The purpose of this series is not necessarily to provide final answers, but to get you to think about how your training may be improved.

The 2nd thing I Hate About Crossfit – Lack of Periodization

In basic terms, periodization is simply another word for planning.  So to be more clear I commonly see very little short-term and long-term planning in most crossfitters’ programs.  I think folks get wrapped up in the “Constantly varied, functional movements executed at high intensity” and lose sight of the bigger picture.  Workouts then tend to turn into random combinations of exercises performed at blistering intensity without much thought for what they are trying to accomplish.  Periodization is a big box to open so I’m just going to touch on a few dimensions I that see folks dropping the ball on:

1. Intensity
2. Frequency
3. Goals

Intensity

The average fitness enthusiast basically trains with the same level of average intensity.  This is one of the many reasons most trainees at your favorite neighborhood globogym look exactly the same year after year.  The average crossfitter trains balls to the wall everyday they are in the gym.  Both of these strategies have significant problems.  The average gym goer doesn’t see much improvement over time; The average crossfitter sees stunning improvement in the short term.  In addition to the high intensity that most Crossfitters train at I believe some of these initial adaptations are due to being exposed to exercise variants and modalities that they have never seen before (aka “The Novice Effect”).  Over time most Crossfitters experience stagnation and many end up overtrained (and often with adrenal issues).  The only community I see more adrenal issues in is the endurance community which I believe is due to their extreme volume of training and generally poor diet.

The broader strength & conditioning community understands that you can’t push the redline forever without athletes breaking down or actually regressing. Intensity is magic but too much too often is bad news for pretty much everybody.  Smart periods of rest and lower intensity must be programmed throughout the training cycles to achieve optimal results.  I find that many crossfitters chase the white buffalo in the sky as the end rather than a means to their goals.  Elite athletes do not unnecessarily chase fatigue or soreness – they chase progress as that is the only goal that really matters.

From a practical standpoint there are a ton of ways to handle the intensity piece: skill work, deload weeks, WODs done at RPEs.  Elite athletes often need complicated periodization schemes, but I find that the average trainee does not.  An eye just needs to kept on how they are recovering.  For most folks I often find that less is more when training at a high intensity and both the trainer and coach must realize you can’t always be pushing for PRs.

Frequency of Training

The earliest Crossfit Journal articles discuss a theoretical template of 3 days on and 1 day off.  Additional discussion is made of a 5 days on 2 days off program as an alternative that has worked well based on additional lifestyle factors such as employment and family status.  Is it possible that this type of structure would work? Absolutely especially when you consider the earliest templates laid out training days that cycled between conditioning, gymnastics, and weightlifting (and various combinations).  In the early days of the WOD you would often see workouts that were monostrucutural in nature and focused more on skill building (like practice your handstands for 20 minutes).  Depending on your ability workouts like this would often serve primarily as active recovery while improving a host of physical attributes.  Slickly implemented these did an excellent job of getting you ready to train again.  I guess the masses didn’t like these or didn’t think these were important and they largely fell out of favor as Crossfit has grown.  They have largely been replaced with high volumes of metabolic work that take more than they give over the long haul.

Most facilities that I have interacted with run their classes in 1 hour blocks.  Those blocks are used differently at different facilities, but usually include a warm-up and cool down along with WOD.  Some facilities have become a bit more sophisticated and are including strength and skill work.  The problem is that most facilities spend a ton of that time working on the WOD.  I’m unsure if this is due to business pressures (my clients need to the WOD to feel like they got a workout) or a belief that the WOD and its generally blistering intensity will solve all problems.  If the average facility is spending the largest percentage of their training time doing long beatdown metcons and folks start showing up 3 on 1 off or 5 days a week I generally see huge issues on almost all occasions (yes there are exceptions to this just like some folks can smoke until they are 80, but I’m not using that as argument to encourage smoking in my clients).  If you run a facility that allows folks to show up as often as they would like you will eventually see athletes that will basically run themselves into the mountainside.  There is nothing inherently wrong with allowing folks to show up everyday, but you will need to implement some controls to prevent your clients from doing more harm than good long-term.

On an individual level it is really hard to make broad sweeping suggestions on the optimal training frequency because it can vary widely, but let me suggest that you give some thought to how your current volume of training is impacting your level of improvement and the general quality of your life.  Athletes will often need a higher training volume than your average housewife, but don’t fool yourself into thinking that anyone’s recovery ability is infinite.  There is obviously a relationship between training intensity and training frequency.  Many folks would benefit from deleting a day of hard training a week rather than adding one as counter-intuitive as it may seem.

Goals

I often see a huge inconsistency in how crossfitters are training versus their personal goals.  There is usually very little thought to aligning the training program to the individual’s goals  Many have come to believe that crossfit is the silver bullet for every goal under the sun.  This is just nonsense if your implementation always looks the same.  Now you can obviously modify a “standard Crossfit program” to achieve a variety of goals, but I most often hear things like “I just want to be really strong” and then I see clients beating themselves into a pulp with huge volumes of metabolic and strength endurance work.  That doesn’t seem like a real efficient way to just get strong to me.  Irrespective to what type of program you choose to do make sure that it is getting you closer to the goals that are important to you.  There is not one program that solves all problems and anyone that believes that program exists is an idiot.

Any good training program should include a fair amount of planning to make sure that a client’s needs are met.  Ensure that you consider intensity, training frequency, and goal setting as part of this process.  Eventually just doing random things over and over will lead to subpar results.

To Be Continued….

Tweet

Been thinking a lot about this lately and have had some frustrating conversations regarding this with some of my athletes.

The Stopwatch is NOT Absolute. It only provides context.  If you compete in a sport where form is not measured, but is dictated by some simple rules like running or swimming then it is an absolute measure on game day.

It does not provide a final measurement in exercise and I would argue we have become too focused on the watch as a measure of progress. I’ve seen athletes that have improved their form and efficiency, but the stopwatch showed otherwise in the short term.  The smart ones understand that the long term process involves improved form and efficiency, but that won’t always immediately manifest itself in a faster time.  The smartest ones realize that always chasing the clock is a loser’s gambit.

I think the stopwatch can be a helpful tool – just be realistic about what information it provides.