I can never figure out if Online Coaches are a good thing this week or a bad thing this week but I'm going to go ahead and write this before I cruise through the Facebooks to check. I guess it is better to beg for online forgiveness than to ask for permission to be able to get results through an online connection. From what I've seen, it is only possible for one to express their political and negative opinions via online connections and impossible to actually make a difference in someone's athletic awesomeness...so I won't tell you about how I've made a huge difference in the life of someone else. I'll tell you how someone made the difference in my life today!
Most people would say that their day has been horrible if they stepped in my shoes. I've spent all day at The Emergency Room surrounded by people who were complaining to their nurses, doctors, and other health care providers. I watched a woman seriously complain because she had to pay a whole Ten Euros and wait one whole hour in the waiting room to be seen and she was wondering why she even paid if she had to wait. One man pulled out a knife in the hospital and looked at the police and said he would start cutting people if his wife wasn't seen immediately, and the police nicely smiled and said that if he didn't put the knife back in his pocket that they would escort him to jail. I've determined that working in The Emergency Room here is very similar to working at Lost Baggage at an airport. Literally YOU did nothing wrong but in the process of trying to help everyone else who has a problem somehow you become the bad guy!
This got me home this afternoon with the idea of "It doesn't matter if you work in The Emergency Room or Lost Baggage, you don't get to have a good day in customer service!"
But what is it that I do exactly? Every week I will hand out a Weekly Program to each and every client of mine based towards getting them one step closer to their goals. They email me back with a full review (typed and video) and I break all of the bad news down for them. You suck at bench press. Your cardio sucks. You have no hamstrings. You train like a child! Yeah, I've said all of those things to paying clients TODAY! It is the truth and they need to hear it!
But let me tell you about two clients that changed me today.
Client 1: He is very upset about his bench press. He is doing great with reps but when the weight gets heavier he gets stapled to the bench. Finally last week I programmed a heavy single and I knew what would happen...he would get pinned down to the bench and miss something that he thought would be easy! So I get an email and he is crushed mentally and ready to give up on bench press, yet I'm excited! Why? Because finally he sees that the heavier the weight on the bar is the less he drives with his feet, that the little mistake of dropping the bar below his elbows really does matter, and that his butt is still coming up off of the bench BECAUSE he is relaxing on the way down till he has to actually press. Yet I think he should be THRILLED by this because what I also see is that all he needs to do is to be able to JM Press 255 x 6, go through his rotator cuff exercises with the 60's, and he needs 90 sessions of scapular retraction exercises to turn what he can 3 board bench into his full bench press off of his chest! THAT IS IT!
Client 2: I love working with this guy and I'm pretty sure he is about ready to choke me if I keep pushing him in the gym! From my best guess he is somewhere between mid 30's and mid 40's and I'm guessing that he has had a problem with alcohol and drug abuse at one point or another in his lifetime (probably recently). I'm betting that he has owned one or more of the following cars: El Camino, Camaro with T-Tops, Trans-Am. All of those are guesses but I'd bet on them being true (and freaking cool if you ask me!). I've asked him for nearly 4 months (seriously FOUR MONTHS) to get me videos of his box squats and Glute Ham Raises. This week was the first time he has ever sent me video of either one and you know what...HE IS HORRIBLE AT THEM! I mean bad...can't even do one GHR and he is sad and embarrassed because he can't. I saw this and went wild with excitement! Man...the only thing we have to do now is build his GHR and his box squat will take off. If we build his GHR then his deadlift is REALLY going to fly! If we build his GHR then just wait till you see him move with Strongman Implements then!!!!
Here is the thing...I'm in Customer Service and when I discover what the problem is, all we have to do then is work! The worst feeling in The World is knowing that something is wrong but not having any idea what actually is wrong, much less how to fix it. Tonight I hit the jackpot and all we have to do now is WORK!
And these two guys can freaking work! If they have put up with me this long and if they can be driven for a little while longer...lifetime records await these guys!
So, for all the online coaches out there...we all say Thank You to our customers. I've found your luggage!