It’s understandably hard to not have the same mindset as everything else on social media when consuming fitness “education” on it: we want impactful, novel, dramatic information ASAP 🤯
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🥄 We want to be spoon fed rules to follow, so we can pick an ethos and stance to believe in. It’s much easier to push ourselves hard if we’re training with assured passion for how we’re doing so.
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As coaches we look for the shortcut of protocols, as opposed to thinking about the client in front of us when coaching. I get it: it means way more efficient energy expenditure per hour.
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But whether it’s a lack of ability to remove their own biases, the fact that they’ve barely actually trained anybody in person recently, or just their pathetic pandering to the effectiveness of click bait, we MUST question any supposed experts who state anything is “the best” or “the worst” X for Y 🤔
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Anyone who says “never” or “always” just screams of being a researcher or content producer who hasn’t actually worked with people outside of the bell curve of the population. Sure, everything works if one’s only clientele are the genetically gifted, experienced demographic of competitive athletes, but a closed mind will come up short when presented with old, injured, uncoordinated or obese populations.
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📑 Studies serve as interesting sources of information to consider, but they tell you sweet fuck all about yourself or the person you’re coaching. They’re carried out on specific demographics and cannot possibly control all the variables each individual’s situation presents.
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Be discerning of anyone making blanket statements 🧐 All aspects of exercise - from movements, to ranges of motion, to intensities - hold benefit : cost ratios, but do how those relate to people of different structure, ages, tolerances etc? The list is endless and impossible to place rules upon.
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☝🏽Don’t rule anything out, and certainly don’t do so because someone online says it’s “bullshit”, “it causes instability at joint Z” or is “the leading cause of injury”.
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🧠 A knowledgable yet open mind, that questions even it’s own views, is the one that is most likely to find a solution to the most confounding puzzles 🧩