Blog Archives
Practice What You Preach
Recently I’ve seen a ton of crazy hard workouts trainers have given their clients that they themselves could NEVER finish.
And it always irks me.
Because for one, I believe you should never ask someone to do something you can’t do and two, it gives people the perception that if they aren’t absolutely completely destroyed at the end of the workout it wasn’t hard enough (even if that isn’t how the trainer trains him or herself).
I’ve also overheard a lot of people recently preaching different healthy eating strategies when they, themselves, don’t eat clean and follow their own advice.
STOP IT PEOPLE!
Practice what you preach!!!
Especially as trainers we need to practice what we preach.
And that doesn’t mean you have to look a certain way or lift a certain amount to be a good trainer. But it does mean that we shouldn’t ask our clients to do things we can’t and have never done before ourselves.
If you don’t make time for working out with your busy schedule, how can you ask your clients to?
If you don’t make time for meal prep and have never logged your food in a fitness app, how can you ask your clients to?
You can’t. Because you don’t know how difficult it is to do those things or how to overcome the excuses.
You don’t know what it truly takes so how can you help them stay motivated and moving forward.
Sure…You can say the things you’ve read, but you’ve never experienced what they are going through.
Same goes for the workouts we write up.
Yes, we know what muscles are being worked by an exercise. Yes we know reps and sets and rest periods and how they all technically affect us.
But have you ever realized that while certain exercises seem like a good idea together, they end up being complete murder…Even though TECHNICALLY they fit the “mold” or design?
And you wouldn’t know that if you didn’t try them together.
No…You may not be able to try every workout you write up (although it wouldn’t be a bad idea to run through as many as you can), but you should have experienced and experimented enough with different exercises and designs that any routine you throw someones way you know you could complete…Complete at the toughest possible variation.
Ok. So some of you right now may be thinking, but I have some clients that can lift more than me/do more pull ups or push ups.
And I’m not saying that you can’t have them do more challenging variations or lift more weight.
But I do ask you to have challenged yourself as much as they will have to. And to have tried the variations (or even modifications of them) to know how they will affect the person.
We need to practice what we preach.
Because how can you ask someone to do something you wouldn’t or couldn’t do?
Where’s the love? – Practice What You Preach
So I was on the phone with my Mom the other day talking about workout videos. She actually mentioned that she wasn’t very fond of the Jillian Michaels DVDS, which sidetracked us onto the topic of Jillian Michaels.
And my Mom informed me that Jillian Michaels went 7 weeks without working out and actually ADMITTED TO THIS FACT on TV.
WHAT?!!
For one…how could someone whose life supposedly revolves around fitness be ok with not working out for 7 weeks!?!
For two…how could you admit that you didn’t have TIME to workout when we trainers work so hard to tell people, that no matter how busy they are, they have time to live a healthy lifestyle?
And three….HOW CAN YOU NOT PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH!?!
How can you expect to convince people to fit in working out to their crazy busy schedules if you don’t find the time to workout yourself? (And how can she admit that on TV!?!!?!?!)
It also goes back to one of my posts a few weeks ago about the girls who ate all the Paleo baked goods…The girls who claimed they were doing Paleo when in fact THEY WEREN’T!
I honestly believe that there are a lot of different things out there that work for a lot of different people. So maybe that fake Paleo worked for them (but still call it what it is…and it isn’t Paleo…)
I’ve even seen my own diet and exercise habits change over the years…heck even over the last 6 months…Not huge changes all the time, but definitely slight modifications….(I ate more dairy. I ate super super low carb. I tried out some corn tortillas. And now? Carb cycling with some rice and potatoes. Not much dairy. Not much fruit. Barely any nuts…Mostly meat and veggies. YUM!)
But whatever exact program I’m writing about and preaching, I’M ACTUALLY FOLLOWING IT!
This is a HUGE pet peeve of mine when people talk about diets or exercise programs BUT DON’T ACTUALLY DO THEM.
Be it TV trainers like Jillian Michaels or even friends on a new diet and exercise program, I hate when people CLAIM they stand for something or claim that a diet does work, or for that matter doesn’t work, when they haven’t actually even DONE IT.
And I’m not saying that your current beliefs won’t change over time. They actually SHOULD change. You should constantly be learning and self-experimenting and adjusting to make things better as you learn more.
You should never be standing still. And just because you adjust your beliefs over time that doesn’t mean that you are admitting your were wrong.
It just means you are smart enough to always continue learning and GROWING!
You should take pride in the program that you do. You, in fact, should LOVE IT. And that means working always to make it the best it can be.
So whether you’re a trainer or weekend warrior, if you ever tell someone “get enough sleep,” “eat whole natural foods,” “cut out grains,” “lift heavy weights,” MAKE SURE YOU ARE PRACTICING WHAT YOU PREACH!
Man Bicep 