To do that, I had to commute from the north shore in Massachusetts, to Boston. Surely, success at a high end club serving high end clientele would prove I was as good as I thought I was, right? Wrong! The realization of what it meant to be a great trainer was was both exhilarating, because science really can tell us what works, and terrifying, because what it took was nothing short of clear, concise, attention to detail. Great trainers have sharp kinesiological skills, think fast on their feet, and look for clean, compensation-free movement. And if there isn't, they back up, regress the movement, and find compensation-free again.
And that was not me.
It was like a cold, hard, cupped hand slap to the ear. In this new club, I heard things like external rotation, lateral flexion, and anti rotation. I nodded along like I was in Mexico, trying to navigate on the four words of Spanish I remembered from Breaking Bad. If you had knee pain, they found it before you even set foot on the weight room floor. And if you had knee pain during any movement, they knew how to fix it, or they referred you to someone who could.
Any member who wanted it received a Functional Movement Screen and I wasn't allowed a single client until I was cleared to use this seven pattern assessment of mobility and stability. I did what they asked, learned how to perform the assessment, but I didn't understand how to apply what I learned from the FMS. I tried to use the results as a selling tool, but the clients were too savvy. Type A's who smell BS for a living, and I was a fraud, afraid to ask for help learning how to do what the great trainers did. I went back to the books, the dry, unrelentingly boring, matter of fact, dusty science that's bored us for 150 years. There was something missing, a connection between what biomechanics told us was proper movement, and what I saw in the lab (Club floor).
Out of frustration, I hired the company's number one trainer. I didn't want the training per se, I just wanted a forum. To lay down my ego and open my mind and truly listen. I paid $2400 for twelve sessions because we were close in age, too old to be struggling in a business full of twenty somethings, so I respected him.
He did a thorough assessment, and pointed out my winged out shoulder blades. Shoulder blades I thought looked that way because I was huge!?
Then the master schooled the student. Putting my back against a wall, he asked me to bring my arms up, keeping my wrists and elbows in contact with the wall. He then asked if I could slide my arms up without losing contact. No sir, I could not. Years of heavy pressing had left me unable to externally rotate my shoulders enough to complete this simple task. I had no ability to contract my rotator cuff muscles, meaning when I put my shoulders under load, they were unstable, ripe for injury, not just to the shoulder, but to the elbow and wrists. He found my weak links, connected them to losses in mobility and/or stability, and fixed what wasn't working so that he could make me better. By the end of our sessions I learned this:
A good trainer will never put you in harms way. A great trainer thoroughly assesses, so you never even see harms way.
I didn't know it then, but that trainer put me on a path. I started looking for answers to the movement problems my clients presented by stepping back and eyeing how the whole body moved, because it was clear it was far more than the sum of its parts. I listened to everyone who presented themselves as an expert and could back it up with science. I loved the blowhards, the geeks, the clinicians, because they all added value to the understanding of improving the way we move. Even when they're wrong, they get us thinking, and I realized there are a few absolutes in fitness:
- Pain site is rarely pain source.
- Short of blunt trauma, the joint above or below the symptomatic joint will show dysfunction.
- Assess and remove dysfunction, and function improves.
- Wanna be slow, train slow. Wanna be fast, train fast.
- It begins and ends with strength. All fitness goal are dependent on staying as strong as possible.
In fitness, you can't just keep adding positives, expecting results. Meaning, don't keep doing more and getting less. Take away any and all negatives like asymmetries, past injury compensations, synergistic dominance, and lack of motor control, and you become exactly what it is you train for: you become your best.
I want to be remembered as a scientist, applying what greater men than me used to treat their respective clients. I want to innovate and continue to closely monitor new research. I'll dig through the abyss for you, test it, retest it, and retest it again before passing it on to you. Please remember, I'm not a physical therapist, nor do I claim to be. My certs are up to date and verifiable. Always check with and follow your doctor's orders. The rule is always: First, do no harm.
I'm grateful everyday to walk into work and move my clients one step closer to what I consider to be the greatest fitness goal of all; the goal that encompasses all others, and to me, that goal is DURABILITY.
A great point made by Mr. Grodin on Louie:
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