Evolution of Coaching Philosophy

i mean it's the thing like a client comes to you and and you've heard me say this before when i first started out first started out and a girl walks in she's like oh i just want to lose like you know five pounds and i'm looking at her like okay six months i'll have you on stage bikini show and then it's going to be ifbb we'll do nationals and we're going to go pro like that was going on in my head. And that's not what they were asking me for. They only wanted to legit lose five pounds. And that's all that they cared about. And I, that was back in the day when I'd be like, well, let me explain to you the difference between losing weight and losing fat. And I was just this pompous little shit. Like most guys, when they first come into the training thing before, before they have enough experience to understand that you're saying the wrong things and you got You're focusing on the wrong things and you and your client aren't matching up with what they're actually asking you to do. And, you know, you can only get that with experience. You can't read about that in a book. You can hear someone say it, but ultimately you have to basically go through a dozen clients and be like, okay, why do I keep losing clients? Maybe I'm not listening to them. Maybe I'm telling them too much of where they want to go instead of, you know, finding out actually where they want to go. super common thing for uh coaches to do it's a huge mistake as well but we've all done it you know same with the guys you know yeah and i i also think as well like you you might find some of these people not that you would have necessarily gone and wanted the goals you set for them initially but it was that hardwire approach but a lot of that they're they're often guarded by um insecurities not caught up in the gym you know like not sure what they can achieve and you might find if you like that person who they go to another coach that listens to them that asks questions you know that finds out a little bit more about them and then just thinks okay let's lose that first five pounds they may be 20 pounds down in six months they may be a person who's sure maybe i could do like a stage show like i remember when i first started i was very dogmatic about exercise classes it's like you know what the fuck you're doing in the zumba some of the sack of shit like you know you should be doing hardcore weight training i'm just like this guy's like 140 kilos with bad knees i'm just like come on he maybe just wants to dance like yeah yeah yeah you know um i remember doing aqua aerobics have you ever done aqua aerobics no is that where you're flipping around on silks and shit no no that i know that's aerial yoga i've not done that but yeah aqua aerobics is when you're in the swimming pool oh yeah aqua aqua water okay got it yeah like that that one moment might change my thought about exercise classes in my career those old days just like they blew me out of the water doing aerobic stuff i was i'm not judging any class ever again yeah well look i mean you know you know my you know my background you know who you I've had many mentors, but one of my main mentors, massively anti-aerobic, anti-carb, anti all this stuff. And that that shaped me initially until, you know, until later when I kind of broke out of that and started getting into the textbook.

and getting other mentors and figuring out, hmm, maybe we need some aerobics. Maybe we need to have carbs. Maybe we need to have this. Maybe they have that. And so I had a similar experience to your, your aqua aerobic thing. So one of my really good friends teaches body combat, you know, the Les Mills, like they do like the Thai bow shit, you know? And, and I was like, I went to see her and she, we did a charity thing where I trained her for charity and all of her clients got to come and watch and all that. And so I just completely brutalized her. After she goes, well, since I did that with you, come in on Monday and do body combat with me. And I went, nah, man, I'm not gonna do body combat. Like I'm not in that type of shape. Like I'm super out of shape right now. She goes, no, just come in. And I finally went, all right, fuck it. So if Zoe will do it, I'll do it. Zoe and I went and did it. And man, I think it was like a 45 minute class and I'm in the back of the class And I'm doing my punches and my elbows and my knees. I'm super into it, like the first half of it. And I was like, fuck, man, I'm starting to get winded. Shit. And I'm looking around and there's, there are girls who are seriously overweight. I mean, these girls are like 50, 60% body fat and they're just, they're hammering it. They're just, I'm in the back. I'm fucking about to puke. And I'm at the time I was shredded as I was almost single digit body fat. And I thought I was in real good shape. And I'm looking around all these other girls who don't look like they're in shape. They're in massively good shape. And I was in the back going, fuck, okay, it's got to be, it's 45 minutes. I look at the clock, it's been 15 minutes. I'm like, fuck, fuck, I'm never going to make it. And that was one of those things that changed my ideas about that. And I didn't even have solid ideas about no classes at that point. But at that point, I went, okay, maybe this is good for my clients if they want to do this type of shit. I'll fuck it. I'm all for it. as long as we can balance it out with everything else in the program. Yeah, exactly. It's looking at risk reward, I suppose, for these sort of things, right? Like, you know, if someone's coming into you with 20 years of knee pain and it's, you know, it's a big, you know, Les Mills burpee class, then maybe there's a different conversation we had from someone who's coming into the gym for the first time and like, just, they don't really like being there, but maybe a bit of something that might get them started, you know, and get them to go in the right direction. On that same, on that same token, if you get the super hardcore strength trainers, strength coaches, like I used to be, like non-wavering, black and white, bitch, get your ass in the squat right type of guy. I mean, some of those guys that go, well, you shouldn't do aerobics or the aerobics classes because it's bad for your knees. You got a bad knee. But they'll put somebody with a fucking hernia, a bum knee, a peg leg, and a fucking scoliosis, and they'll make them squat 300 kilos, and they don't think there's anything wrong with that. So that's what I don't understand. it's like you don't like that activity because of these things but you'll let everybody squat and maybe like maybe 15 of your clients do you even have the orthopedic profile to even do a deep squat yeah it just blows my mind yeah it's just it's cherry picking stuff but what suits your narrative rather and what doesn't suit your narrative um yeah