Coaching the Movement

Recently, a friend of mine who is a fellow professional within the field had mentioned to me that he believes I have a number of clients with a higher level of fitness than most. The comment was directed toward the thought that I have my clientele doing things that his cannot. After, I thanked him for his acknowledgment; I spent some time truly letting his remark resonate with me. I began to go through my clientele list in my head and recall where each of them began, where they are now, and more importantly where I see them going.

Like many Fitness Coach’s I have a diverse clientele, all with different body compositions, different abilities, injuries, and of course goals. As I went through the educational process (which in reality never ends) of college and internships I began to find my “niche,” my overall goal for those I work with, which is a healthy range of movement. Spending time correcting imbalances within their bodies and aiding to the best of my ability any injuries all through a mix of strength and corrective exercise and bringing them to a point where they begin accomplishing their goals in a healthy and safe manner.

This mentality led to me thinking of myself as a coach and my clients as my team. A basketball coach may have a team of 15 athletes that can dribble already but it becomes his/her job to teach them the fundamentals and movement of the game. Similar to that concept I may have a group of clients that can run, perform a squat, chest press, but they can’t seem to do it without pain or truly understanding what skeletal muscles they are working and more importantly, why? This is where I begin to piece together my “game plan” for bringing to them to where it is they want to go.

As I begin to address their movement by correcting imbalances, aiding injuries, and increasing stabilization they begin to do things that they could not do prior. When joints become stable they simply can allow for more movement in all planes and I may have someone of two completely different body compositions performing the same movement. This is because once you coach someone to understand their body and kinetic chain they can begin to fire specific muscles when needed, leading them to success in the movement of the exercise.

As I conclude I want to state that I do not have a clientele with “higher abilities” than others, I simply coach/educate them about their own movement patterns allowing them to accomplish things others may not think that they can do. I do not train weight loss, I do not train 5k’s, I do not train speed drills, I do not train plyometrics, I do not train conditioning, I do not train Warrior Dash’s. I train movement through specific firing patterns and when that occurs all of the above will follow. I thank all of the people who have helped educate me throughout my career and more importantly I look forward to continuing to grow as a professional and improving my niche for my clientele. Education never ends…..