Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Training Skeleton

training skeleton This is my first stab at an infographic, welp, I am not a designer. I hope you don't get tired of Mr. Bones, because he's the only graphic I've got around here. He took forever to draw, he'll be working that off for the rest of his natural born life—

Anyway. What this is about. Substance over style, right? I struggle a bit, as you know, with writing about the thing that's supposedly what I'm here for, to train people, yeah, did you know that? Did you think that I was here for the food? Well yeah, food I've figured out; so it's easy for me to write about food. Or maybe I should say that I'm farther along in my figuring out process with food and have used this blog a lot in that process, and have also used this blog to figure out fitness a little bit, too—i.e., my muscles and movement series that was really just me studying for my certification exam; but my point is, generating material for this blog helps me figure things out and vice versa. So if I'm looking to generate fitness material, I should be asking myself what I need to figure out for myself, say, now that I've passed my exam and am training clients. And write about that.

And where I am with that is, so I get a new client. Then what, where do we go from here? I mean, this is pretty much precisely why you hire a trainer—as a sherpa, pretty much. To guide you up the mountain, and I guess carry some stuff. And it should be obvious, but often isn't, that where we go from here has primarily to do with where here is. I mean, geez, I've been certified for just about a year and might be about to get my third regular client, and I've already heard from more people than I can count on my hands who are pretty much lost in a snowstorm, looking up at a very faraway peak and thinking—or indeed saying out loud— that it's too far. And guess what, it is! That is not where I would be going with you today, I would be going somewhere we could get to. And also guess what, once we got there. If we're still getting along and haven't turned into The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Yep, we would go to the next place we could get to. And the closer we get to that peak, well, the closer it gets. And now maybe you get it and don't need to hire me as a trainer, and you can get there on your own. That is great, that is why I blog. Everybody, ultimately, gets there on their own, pardon the subject-pronoun disagreement. And also, now that I'm being groovy, everybody also ultimately gets there with people helping them. So I can help you by blathering in this blog or for $60/hour I can blather on you in person and occasionally bust out a hand puppet show that illustrates how you listen to what your body's telling you and then your body listens to what you have to say like in any good relationship.

Or just to preview a little farther down the continuum, I am, shall we say, exposed to a lot of folks who train their guts out, and some of them are coming to me now to advise them on what they can add to their training to get even better results, and I say mildly, you could sleep more. And believe me, I have more to say about that and not so mildly. Since I'm talking to the air, right?

So anyway, that is the introduction. In subsequent weeks I will be zooming on different parts of the skeleton, and expounding on them in greater detail—whatever it pops into my mind to say, so who know what shape this will take and thanks for being with me. I know I'm a pretty determined introvert and have disabled comments so we don't actually talk, but sometimes I can sense you like Peter Falk in Wings of Desire, compañeros.