Umm so this whole weather thing…everyone had enough yet?
 
OK done with the obligatory comment about the snow let’s have a quick chat about picking your training days.
 
Let’s just get this out of the way, most days are rarely, if ever, perfect for training, but there is such thing as a more ideal day than other. Have a look at your program, then have a look at your schedule, we’ll assume you’ve blocked off time for the gym in it to get that detail out of the way.
 
That day on your schedule that has 4 meetings and you’ll be running around like a headless chicken, probably not your ideal day to train, right? Maybe it’s one of only day you’ll have any sort of time for yourself (and the gym) so you need to make something happen. Probably wise to not choose this day to do your most challenging for you personally within your program.
 
Perhaps instead you move that workout to the day where you have 1 meeting, your schedule is quite predictable and far less strenuous (I know I’m probably in lala land somewhere, but just go with it). Most of you are saying a day like this does NOT exist in your week, well let’s find a better day just the same. You likely have one that's relatively light compared to others, no?
 
A helpful hint, if you’re usually a person that trains after work and something ALWAYS seems to come up, made up in your head or not, it might be time to consider mornings. Catherine actually had this issue, quite often it seemed there wasn’t enough time after work for her to train, so she switched to mornings. Now her schedule is pretty set and she’s rarely gone off track.

Some of you simply aren’t morning people, well you have 2 choices, no gym and let things tale off until you haven't been to the gym in 4 months, or suck it up until your schedule settles down.

Have you ever seen the venn diagram of the two circles “Comfort Zone” and “Success (or Awesomeness)”? Have you seen how much overlap there is? Spoiler Alert: There is 0 overlap on that diagram.

Who knows? Maybe you’ll like mornings and make the switch permanent. 

More on this in the not too distant future. For now I'll leave you with the above mentioned venn diagram so you can go pretend to work some more.

Dug my way out this morning after hunkering down yesterday. I then got to the studio to discover we had frosted windows installed...OK bad joke, but seriously that was kind of cool this morning.

Enough with the picture distractions, let's see what I've got for you on the return of Thing I've Found this week.

Better Than Crossfit and Powerlifting- Now I'm sure if you've yet to read this article the title might get your blood hot if you're either a powerlifter or crossfiter. Upon actually reading it's not bashing either, but it's basically crossing the 2 disciplines with a new weightlifting total. I love Olympic lifting so any total that involves that has my vote. Go ahead and give this quick one from Glenn Pendlay a skim.

I Tried Something New Today, and I Wasn't Good at It- Even when she's just writing about an experience in a new sport, she still bands out awesome content. Check out Ashley Crosby's adventure into a new sport and what it can teach you.

Healthy, Moderate, Practical and Enjoyable Behaviors > "Perfection," Extremes, Fads and Quite Frankly, Bullshit- Pardon the bad mouth....OK let's be real if you've hung around me you heard it a few times before. Still if that little word turns you away from this quick, but valuable read from Meghan Callaway, you're missing out

SNOW DAY!
 
OK we got that out of the way, I wanted to get a quick post up today, I mean I really have little reason not to right? Over time I’ve seen something that can be fixed quite easily with coaches and trainers programming, especially young fresh pups.
 
When trainers and coaches first walk into their training gigs, very few of them realize they NEED to give their clients something to do outside of their sessions. Unless their client has a money tree and are coming in 3-4 times a week (or your sessions are way underpriced). Most people that are paying for training are only willing to part with their hard earned money for 1 time a week. The catch is, we all know, to see any sort of progress, you're going to need to do some lifting more than once a week.
 
An even bigger mistake tends to be that they try to fit WAY too much in to that one session a week. Trying to have someone do 3 or more big money movements (example; a squat, a deadlift and a bench) are going to be very taxing on even an experience trainee. This does not realistically work, especially for a beginner client in a 60-75 minutes’ session.

Now that doesn’t mean you give a brand new client BB back squats to do on their own. Yes you need to train the movement, but a back squat may not be the best for a novice trainee. They are far more likely to do a Goblet squat or variation of a split squat.

Moral of the story, program the movements you want/need to see for yourself in those 1-2 sessions a week. After that give the client movements they are confident they can complete on their own. Now if you have a client very open to doing something more advanced on their own, you’ve just hit the trainee programming jackpot.

​That's what I got for today, anyone in the snow today, please stay safe. For everyone else, go out there and get after it!