As Simple as Effective: My Coaching Philosophy

My coaching philosophy is the product of many mistakes. As simple as fitness can be, it can also be incredibly complex. Especially if you are like me and view it through an obsessive lens. In my case, this point of view led me to ignore the most important variable at play, the individual. We do not live in a closed system, one in which it is only us and the weight room. Our day-to-day responsibilities, obligations, and stressors all play a role in our pursuits in the gym. Even if we were to take this “closed system” approach and ignore our lives outside of the gym. Any pursuit in health and fitness must be individualized just to account for your experience and given genetics. As such, “as simple as effective” came about. My method is to look at individuals lives as whole, inside and outside of the gym, and address the training and lifestyle factors that require the least amount of effort possible. Then we stick with that plan until progress stall, only when progress stales do I take the next step and address another variable. With that being said, there are a few ground rules.

1: If a client wants to do something, I work it.

2: I do not chase perfection.

                The first mistake I made early on was one centered around ego. I graduated college with a bachelors in exercise science and desperately wanted to prove that I knew what I was doing. In addition, strength sports have been a life-long obsession for me.  As such, my answers to every question were more so me word vomiting everything I knew about a given topic. Naturally, most of what I had to say flew over people’s heads. I eventually came to realize that I was a terrible communicator. I was trying to look good in an academic setting, not actually help people. The answer? Keep it simple. Nothing I have to say holds value if nobody understands.

                My next mistake was trying to implement too many things at once. Which goes hand in hand with the word vomiting. I was stuck in the perfectionist mindset, a mindset that felt the need to fix everything all at once. I would bombard people with a dozen different things to change all at once, and constantly change what we were doing if things weren’t immediately working. Of course, this mostly led to failure. I realized that I was trying to treat people as if they were myself. As if they have already spent years training and obsessing over their own performance. I treated them as if the gym was the center piece of their lives, as if they had already established the habits necessary to take off running. Forgetting that I was in their very same shoes when I started. Much will be imperfect, but the goal was never to be perfect. It has always been to get better. To focus on fixing everything at once is unsustainable. Even then, nothing has to be perfect to make progress. Once again, the answer was keeping it simple. The road is long, and nobody will magically change overnight. Much will be imperfect, but the goal was never to be perfect. It has always been to get better.

                The third major mistake I made was fundamentally misunderstanding how fitness fits into the lives of those I tried to help. Once again, this stimmed from assuming that everybody was like me. My life revolves around the gym, if not then I wouldn’t have started coaching anyways. I naively assumed this applied to everybody else. To my surprise alone, this is not the case for the vast majority of people. For most, fitness is a means to an end. Although many can and will find enjoyment in the pursuit of their goals. Most do not train because they love to train. They train because the end goal is important enough to begin the journey. This misunderstanding caused a disconnect between how I approached their training and what actually needed to be done. I would often incessantly push them to revolve their lives around the weight room. I was the poster boy for unsustainable advice and burnout. Fortunately, I realized that I was missing something, and as such failing as a coach.

                I was missing the big picture. I was stuck in this “closed system” mindset. That the gym was the most important thing in life, and nothing existed outside of it. Although that would be nice, our lives are not so simply. To ignore our lives outside of the gym is to prepare ourselves for failure. No one’s plan is to train, achieve their goals, and then immediately regress. It is always either to achieve it and maintain it, or to continue getting better. As such, to be effective as a coach I must focus on long term sustainable success.

                After finally realizing this, I went back to the drawing board. In doing so I found a better path forward. One of the hard truths I had to face was that I could not meaningfully help anyone without first understanding them. Understanding their day-to-day struggles, obligations, routines, prior experiences, and most importantly why their goal is even important to them in the first place. Before I would simply ask what their goal was and then have them do everything, I could think of to achieve it. No matter how hard we may try, our lives outside of the gym will play a major role in our success. Most people fail because the plan only accounted for what happens in the gym. Failing to address the greatest barriers to success and build the day-to-day habits and routines necessary for success. Let alone simply account for our responsibilities during the other 22+ hours of the day. In this light, any plan regardless of how well thought out it may be, can become unsustainable.

                Which brings us back to my philosophy “as simple as effective”. My role as a coach is not to just tell you what to do. It is to help you construct a system of living to aid you in the years to come. This process will inherently have to rely on trial and error. Although there are a hundred things you can do, there is only one or two pieces that will fit the puzzle. To entertain everything all at once is to achieve nothing. Although there are dozens of hypothetical optimal interventions. To truly pursue perfection is to cast aside the rest of our lives, crashing and burning as victims of our neglect. My focus is on helping folks get one step closer to their goal regardless of how small or large that step may be. I focus on helping them build the habits and routines necessary to achieve what they set out to do. I focus on helping them strike a balance between their training and their day to day lives. Most importantly, I focus on understanding their why. Helping them get closer to their goal, day after day, month after month, year after year.