Following is a guest article by Andrew Griffin.
I first met Andrew, a Boston based fitness consultant and trainer, at The Fitness Summit in Kansas City in 2012. We kept in touch through to the next conference this year, and when we met again he offered me a couch if I ever came to Boston.
I took him up on that offer three days later and flew over to spend the week visiting some friends on the east coast of the US in the industry (Eric, Tony, Rog and Dick).
Though our skill sets and opinions differ on some things, it was great to bounce ideas back and forth with others so enthusiastic about fitness.
A topic that kept coming up was the increasing frequency of clients paying good money to hire us for our advice and then not taking it. – Concerning when you put results above profit. When Dick told me he was seeing the same trend among the community at Fitocracy.com I knew it was worth writing briefly about. Andrew seemed the most vocal/frustrated, so I asked him if he’d like to do a short guest post. Enter Andrew Griffin…
How To Sabotage Your Coaching Experience
In the current fitness age, with the seemingly overabundance of information and multitude of programs available, it is understandable that fitness consumers might tend to become overly analytical and have a penchant to hop from one program to the next and often back again within the same week.
Social media and Internet forums have made it far too easy to spend hours stroking one’s neck-beard while discussing the merits of one training program or diet over another.
I think questioning and skepticism have a place when evaluating material; however, there are times when this is unwarranted and can be quite detrimental.
A Worrying Trend
In recent years I have witnessed individuals asking people on the internet (reddit forum/facebook pages/ open discussion groups – not necessarily just coaches) to critique the training and diet program provided to them by a coach whom they hired.
While this may seem harmless at first, it illustrates a complete misunderstanding of the process of individualised coaching.
In order to extract the maximum benefit from the coaching experience, it is imperative to understand that a relationship is formed the moment you begin working with a coach.
Individual coaching is powerful because of the synergistic effect that is created when a coach’s objective analysis and program design collide with the client’s execution and feedback. This is the beauty of one on one coaching.
For this to transpire there must be trust and commitment from both parties.
The moment a client disturbs this balance by seeking the opinion of another practitioner this relationship begins to erode.
Attempting to have others interpret and critique the program design, exercise selection, training volume, macro split, and caloric intake of the specific plan designed for you, is an exercise in futility.
Even worse, by looking to have your program validated by another coach you have allowed doubt to enter into your mind regarding the your coach’s abilities. This alone will render the experience less successful.
Coaches are hired for a myriad of reasons, but one of the major motivations is to enlist their established ability to achieve results. The best course of action when working with a coach is to keep all discussion of the plan within the confines of the client-coach relationship.
Do not seek outside opinion while you are in the midst of working with your current coach. Allow yourself to simply work through the plan and enjoy the experience without incessant questioning or analysis of the details. Your job as a client is to do the program and offer feedback as to what you experiencing.
If you can contain yourself to this active role while blocking out the rest of the noise, you will find the process more enjoyable and, more significantly, ultimately far more successful.
I’m not saying don’t ask your coach questions, but definitely don’t post them.
Really, one of the nicest things about hiring a coach is taking the thinking out of things. It stops you second guessing yourself, takes the stress off by knowing you’ve left things in the hands of a professional, and it’s why coaches hire other coaches. Let your coach do their job so that you can get the most out of the experience.
I’d like to thank Andrew for sharing his thoughts. You can find out more about his training philosophy and coaching services here.
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Next up…
I most appreciate the feedback on the Facebook Page and Twitter when asked what you’d like to see on the site next.
On the list is a body fat percentage guide in photos, as well as guides on reverse dieting and bulking. I’m also working on a promo video with all the results, which I wanted to do for everyone. We’ve had a little video introduction logo made so I think I’ll put some training videos together, as well as a few ‘quick and dirty’ cooking guides (nothing fancy, just because I think there are a lot of people out there that think cooking is harder and more time-consuming then it needs to be). After that… well you can tell me in the comments what you’d find useful.
Thanks for reading, and your suggestions, Andy.
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