Corrective Exercises for Bad Attitudes

As the owner of a studio specializing in training the general population, I never know exactly who (or what) will step through my door. But while we develop specific means of dealing with chronic back pain, muscle stiffness and hyper tonicity, undoubtedly the most challenging issue I have encountered is a chronically bad attitude.

Such individuals have an innate ability to find the cloud in every silver lining and will pick apart even the most well composed trainer-- for anyone who has arrived at 4:50 AM to a 5 AM training session only to be bitched at for not arriving early so the client could stretch and foam roll, I know you feel my pain.

Despite our best efforts to put on a good face, it can be difficult to muster the same motivation to train negative people, but every time I find myself falling in to the trap of writing someone off: I ask myself: Why would a seemingly successful and productive individual become jaded? And from a fitness angle, how does this manifest itself in their posture and workout?

For me, understanding the basic context of disposition has become a vital tool in figuring out postural issues and why the client moves a certain way. Often times, we find many underlying problems such back, neck and shoulder pain and stiffness directly associated with environmental causes which also adversely affects attitude.

Understanding your subject:

With the risk of sounding completely sexist, I will preface this article by saying that the majority of bad attitudes I have encountered in clients have come from our female clients.

The reasoning behind this observation is that if men dont like the situation, they will hit the road by session two (or bolt midway thru session one), while most female clients tend to stick around for at least a few months despite certain misgivings.

Looking at the science behind this observation, a study done by the University of Pennsylvania found that men tend to go “fight or flight” mode when they are undergoing stress from a performance-related task. Women, on the other hand, go into a “tend and befriend” mode.

The scientists who performed the study believe that these differences can be accounted for by evolution. In the past, men were the hunters or warrior, while women tended to their problems by nurturing them in a social setting.

Getting back to our workout, one of the major ways women relieve and handle stress is by establishing relationships and friendships with those around them-- no wonder group exercises classes are becoming so popular. And almost always exhibit greater loyality in terms of sticking with a trainer.

The study also found that men and women use different parts of their brain to respond to stress. When men are more stressed, the researchers found that there is an increased blood flow in the right perfrontal cortex and decreased in the left orbitofrontal cortex. In women, the limbic system, the part of the brain that processes emotions, becomes more active.

In practical terms, this means that stressful situations can lead to a longer term physical and emotional impact for our female clients. And while I may describe a "stressful situation" as a man showing up to workout in spandex, this definition is entirely subjective.

Unfortunately, our interpretation of reality is more important to the brain than what is actually going on in the outside world. For example, the threat that you may be embarrassed by speaking in public is just the kind of threat that gets the limbic system cooking and wanting an immediate decision. The limbic system thinks of the least dangerous option - avoidance seems like the right option.

During these stressful moments your higher, creative brain shuts down except for taking orders from the limbic system - the specialist in danger situation solutions.
In this state we do not use our higher functions to respond because they are unavailable to us at that moment. It is because of downshifting phenomena that stress-filled , overwhelming moments are so difficult to deal with - and it may be the cause of you repeating the same self-defeating behavior.

This downshifting phenomenon is part of the general stress response. The physical experience typically includes stiff neck muscles and tightening in many muscle groups of the body. It can also include holding your breath or shallow breathing. There is a general tightening of the joint surfaces of the body: facial tension, neck tension, jaw tension, shoulder tension, lower back tension, locked knees.

Assess the stress:

When assessing a chronically bad attitude in the gym, we must first look at the client's enviornment for additional stressors:

• Where do they work?
• Are they married or divorced?
• Are they heavily in debt (for our sake, I hope not)
• Are their kids in school (or dropping out)
• Do they have a long term injury which has diminished quality of life
• What other issues could this client be facing?

Though I try to keep things professional in the gym, sitting your client down to discuss these basic questions paints a picture of potential dysfunction. After getting a basic idea of the focal points of stress, we will then perform a breathing test to see whether the client has adopted a stressful breathing pattern.

While both of these elements should be a regular part of your normal evaluations and screening, these are the two things which must change first in order to see improvement in muscle tightness, pain and performance.

Because this is often a psychological issue with secondary physical symptoms, the key to improving this client's behavior and success in the gym is relieving the additional stressors which are causing overload in their daily life.

Corrective exercise case study:

One recent virulent case of bad attitude came to us in the form of a fifty year old administrator who had just moved back to our small town of Lakeland Florida from New York City (depressing in itself)

After the economic downturn, she found herself without a job in the financial services sector and moved home to live with her parents and regroup. At the same time, she took a job at a small non-profit at which she is currently under ever changing deadlines.

While she came to me seeking to strengthen her core and tone up, she also revealed an infrequent history of low back and shoulder pain which seemed to alternate in pattern.

Our testing process identified faulty breathing patterns, poor ankle mobility and trigger points in her hips and gluteus medius. But while appropriate mobility and corrective solutions were prescribed, she continued to experience this same pattern during the first several months of training.

In addition, she would go thru bouts of happiness in which she really seemed to involve our workouts, followed by days in which she would say not a word (except to complain about the positioning of an exercise or scream at me for not showing up 15 minutes early)

When it became clear her screens were not changing, we had sort of a "heart to heart" in which we discussed her situation and some realistic changes she could make to improve quality of life. These included:

• Joining a local dance class to get some out of gym activity
• Partnering her up with another early morning client
• Changing around her hours at work so she could go in an hour later
• Deep breathing practice several times per day

What I learned from this experience:

One saying Ive heard related to adherence is that for every one hour we spend doing well in the gym, we have 23 hours to screw that up. And what I learned from this experience is that we must tackle adherence and trust before anything else can be put in to place.

After several weeks of the above, our client seemed like a new person in terms of both attitude and effort in the gym. She slowly began to adopt more of our corrective routine in to her daily schedule and has experienced very little in the way of pain since this time.

Though it can be easy to write off a bad attitude, it is important to realize these are often the ones that need us most. As much time as we spend devoting ourselves to learning about the way the body functions, take a few minutes to get to know your client and their needs and your results will undoubtedly improve.