Getting Consistent

Between many hours of working with clients, marketing our gym for fall and weekends of filled with program design and excel spreadsheets, I have somehow managed to begin contributing to a handful of new web sites without the ability to maintain my own blog.

While much of this can be put down to procrastination, I must also admit that it can be easy to be overwhelmed by the quality of information available from my fellow coaches and trainers. I mean what would I have to contribute by comparison?

The answer is what I have learn on a daily basis from coaches/authors such as Bret Contreas, Mike Robertson, Mark Young and Eric Cressey who all address related subjects with their unique thought process and experience. Though I may never know everything about the shoulder, glutes or reading journal articles, it is the thought process and practical applications developed from this amazing information which others want to read.

With this in mind, I can think all of the great coaches and authors I am currently learning from for improving the quality of many lives in my gym. As the owner of a busy personal training studio, I suppose my main contribution is finding ways to make this information applicable to both teaching clients and training my staff.

In my article on Four Things which a Personal Trainer Should Do (call me anal, but I have to capitalize my own stuff!), I talked a bit about the things which separate trainers from coaches and one of the major themes is evidenced based practice. In short, most trainers I know work from their personal experience in gyms and fitness while coaches are guided by science and research.

While I train an assortment of weekend warriors, high school athletes and baby boomers, I view myself as a coach to each one and utilize the same information being applied in top colleges and strength and conditioning facilities around the country. The only difference is that I am usually given roughly 30-50 minutes twice per week to do so!

So for all fitness professionals with questions about how to fit a full session in to thirty minutes, applying the FMS to every day clients and getting our clients to actually take this stuff outside of the gym-- this blog is for you!

In closing, here are a few random facts about myself you may want to know:

Name: Chris Kelly

Experience: Owner of Peak Fitness, Lakeland FL

Top Five Books: "Advances in Functional Training", "Starting Strength", "Diagnosis and Treatment of Movement Impairment Disorders", "Blink", "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People"

Currently reading: Gray Cook's Movement

Other fun facts:
- I became a trainer after rehabbing my ACL with my college strength program. I fell in love with the systematic progress of rebuilding the body from the ground up.
- I still get goose bumps when going to work.
- I became a fitness professional after several years of sitting in a cubicle in NYC.