Motivation vs Feedback-QUIT PARENTING FROM THE BLEACHERS!

One of the most frustrating topics (I feel) exists in the realm of health, fitness, performance, etc…has to do with the concepts of “motivation” and “feedback”. I visited a local gym last night and during my workout, I watched the personal trainer work a client by doing the burpee exercise. During the session the trainer walked in a circle around the client, telling them various statements such as…

“Get up”

“You can do this”

“Believe in yourself”

…and although these statements are encouraging and allow the client to perhaps partake in activity that would surpass their normal work capacity, what other good is it doing? When I first trained clients, I felt all I had to do was create cool workouts and be their personal cheerleader between 30-60 minutes. I would say similar statements, trying to encourage them to do better and to work harder. I mean, if you grew up like me in the early 2000’s you would have been inspired by the likes of Julian Michaels and Bob Harper. Eventually I would work with a client and notice that they were doing movements in an “odd” manner, making it almost seem like a phenomenon based on my limited knowledge on correcting movement. Sometimes the client would even ask why the movement would hurt and what they could do to perform better. I would get caught off guard, trying my best to answer their questions. I eventually found myself in a place of frustration and felt “I can’t just be this client’s motivator, I have to provide depth and knowledge!”

Even after my undergraduate and graduate degrees, I still had to try hard to figure out what statements would be most effective for my clients. I was coaching football at the high school level for 5 years, and one day it finally clicked. I started to notice the small details of each movement, whether it was foot placement or abiding to the various planes of movement that would require specific detail. Once I could grasp onto this concept of correcting movement, I felt whether my client was a 16 year old defensive end or a 70 year old retired lawyer, I could watch their movement and give feedback to give them better results.

I think that is one of the toughest things to figure out, but once done, can be the biggest tool to growing your business. That’s what Harvesting Strength does with each client, asking for endless footage to monitor movement and instead of simply saying “great job” it becomes a much better in depth answer that requires the athlete to listen, adjust, and could allow yourself to develop a long time relationship or client to be fully transparent.

My advice is for you to stop being that parent in the bleachers, yelling statements that have no effect on the individuals performance (besides maybe pissing off the athlete or their parent as well). We need to understand that feedback is huge in performance, and we need to be more aware of how an individual moves to provide the feedback necessary for them to evolve into a competent mover.

Also understand motivation DOES play a role as well, but when mixed in with the rest of the previous developed concepts in this post. We all have the ability to be a cheerleader, but put that knowledge to use and start impacting lives with more enriched feedback and guidance!