Jason Ferruggia has a new post about what kind of coach he is, and what kind of coach he isn’t.  He’s basically helping to define his own niche for anyone who doesn’t know what it is.

The fitness industry is just like any other industry – it’s a field of specialists who know what they are good at and what they aren’t good at, and then everybody else.  If you look for a trainer and they tell you “I do everything: bodybuilding training, fat loss, functional training, strength training, gymnastics, tennis training, yodeling, etc” … find a new trainer.

If you have a specific problem, go to the guy (or girl!) who specializes in fixing that exact problem.   Now, don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying your coach needs to be so tightly defined that he’s only got ONE focus.  But, anything more than 3 (maybe four), and we’ve got a problem.

One of Jason’s major points about himself is that he is not a “motivator”.

Here’s a quote from Jason:

If you want to sit around and eat donuts all day why would that possibly bother me? And why would I want to motivate you? I’m not Jenny Craig or Matt Foley the motivational speaker who lives in a van down by the river. What you do is your choice. Sure I will make fun of you, laugh at you and encourage others to do the same; but it’s your life, not mine.

If you are too stupid to realize that regular exercise and a healthy diet is a necessary part of life I’m not going to waste my time telling you. Get on some prescription drugs, order a sausage pizza and watch another episode of Friends.

OK, he’s WAY more intense than I am.  As you know, I’m a ridiculously mellow dude.  I meditate, I read books about Zen, I love ABBA and Romantic comedies, have seen every episode of Sex and the City (twice), and have a habit of laughing at all of my own jokes.  But, I am also NOT a motivational speaker.

Someone asked me recently what the name of my strength training company was, and I replied, “PDX Weightlifting.”

“Oh,” they said, “I think that would turn off a lot of people.”

I replied, “Yep.  And that’s the point.”

You see, I’m not a yeller.  I’m not like Jillian Michaels from the Biggest Loser.  I’m not here to call you up on the phone, get you off the couch, convince you that it’s time to workout, force you to work hard, and then nitpick you every step of the way.  There are trainers who do that for a living.  They’re great at it.  You need to be DEAD HONEST with yourself.  If you NEED a trainer to be your external motivator, then you need to hire one of these guys (actually, they’re usually girls).

I ain’t that guy.  I’m almost the opposite.  I’m way too relaxed.  In the gym, I’ll make sure you’re doing everything correctly, I’ll watch your lifts, I’ll discuss any and all topics you want to about your goals and progress.  But, I’ll also be cracking (bad) jokes and being very silly.  I do a great job of keeping the atmosphere exciting and fun.  That’s my personality.  And I expect everyone in my programs to stay positive and have fun while they workout, regardless of how hard it is.  NO whining – period. I have no tolerance for whining.   If you start wimping out, that’s you’re own problem.  And I’ll focus my energy of the folks who are working hard with a great attitude.

I won’t force you to do something you don’t want to.  If you say, “I can’t do it”, I’ll agree with you.  If you say, “it hurts”, I’ll tell you to stop or modify till it doesn’t hurt.  This is because when a truly motivated personal tells me this, it’s probably true! And I’m not going to make you do something that will result in injury.

Unfortunately, unmotivated people say these things as knee-jerk reactions to anything hard and as a result never push themselves hard enough to make any progress.

One of my favorite clients of all time is my client and friend Beth.  She’s been working out with me for a few years now, and in all of that time, I don’t think I have EVER heard her say the phrase “I can’t”.  This woman’s an animal.  She’s more than tripled her strength levels, gone from “skinny fat” to seriously lean, and looks and feels great.  (She regularly tells me about moving couches and other heavy shit up stairs by herself!)  All I do is show her the most efficient path toward her goals.  But, she’s the one who does all the work.  And boy, does she!

When my people tell me “it’s hard” or “what the HELL are you having me do?!”, or “I’m going to kill you for making me do this”,  they’re saying this as a badge of honor.  They do whatever I ask of them, and they work their butts off.  They may be cursing my name in the process … make no mistake!  But, they do it.

If you have no personal motivation, you have no business doing business with me because you WILL NOT get the results you want.  I’m a “lead the horse to water” coach.  You hire me when you want over a decades worth of knowledge, program design skills, solid real-world advice, a fun atmosphere, serious weight-training, and serious results.

Tony Robbins eating Peter Griffin!

If you need more motivation, buy some books by Tony Robbins.  And hey, once you’ve figured out your sh%t and decide you are ready to see the best results of your life and have a blast doing it, contact me and I’ll kick your butt with a big smile on my face.

I found this passage pretty funny from Jason’s post:

People ask me all kinds of questions when they find out what I do for a living.

“How do I lose this?” (grabbing a handful of a 48 inch waist)

“I don’t know.”

“How long should I do the stair climber for?”

“I don’t know.”

“I can’t give up carbs but I want to get lean. What should I do?”

“I don’t know.”

“I only have twenty minutes to train, twice a week. What should I do?”

“I don’t know.”

“I know you’re into all that heavy lifting but I can’t do that. What can I do instead?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m a girl and I don’t want to get too bulky so how should I lift?”

“I don’t know.”

“How do I get motivated to go to the gym?”

“I don’t know.”

By training, I am a competitive Olympic Weightlifting Coach.  THAT is what I do.  I train athletes and people who seriously want to train with an athletic intensity on weightlifting-based programs.  Every program I create is built through the lens of a weightlifting coach.

If you are someone who wants to be able to answer YES to that question box on your job application that says “can you lift 100 pounds?”, and then laugh that that sounds light, I’m your guy.

This can include lots of different people from lots of different backgrounds who have totally different end goals: obviously, competitive weightlifters; athletes in any “power sport” like baseball, football, golf; and fitness folks who want to be in the best shape of their lives and lose 20, 40, or more pounds of fat.  The commonality is clear.  All my people lift weights – hard.  That’s the glue.

If you come to me wanting to lose 20+ pounds of fat, I’m not going to take it easy on you just because you aren’t in a competitive power-sport.  I’m going to hammer you just like I would anyone else on heavy weightlifting exercises and make you ridiculously strong.  As you’re losing that 20 pounds of fat, you’ll keep all your muscle, you’ll in fact gain muscle, become “toned”, learn a bunch of cool exercises like the clean and snatch, front squats, deadlifts, etc.  And you’ll start being able to perform in a way you never have before in all of your life.

The great physicist Richard Feynman once said that he approached every problem with only 6 tools.  Whenever a problem came up, he looked in his tiny little tool box, and tried all 6 of those tools on it.  If that didn’t work, he switched to a new problem.

I’ve found that there are things that I can coach at a high level given the tools that I have and things I can’t.  These are the ONLY things I do – 1) Competitive weightlifting; 2) power-sport training; 3) extreme fitness training.    3 things.  That’s it.  I’m great at these things.  But, if you want to become the most kick-ass marathon runner of all time … you’ll need to find someone else.  That just isn’t what I do.

This particular quote sounds very much like my own way of approaching coaching (hey, that rhymed!):

Often times people will tell me that they want to train with me and that I if they hire me or come to my gym I really need to push them. No, I don’t. You need to push yourself. You’re hiring me for my program design skills which are based on 16 years of experience. I am not a cheerleader. Any nitwit can yell at someone like a drill sergeant. Just because a workout is hard doesn’t mean it’s effective. Just because a coach yells loudly it doesn’t mean he’s smart.

If you can’t find it within yourself and are not driven to excel, there is nothing I can do for you.

I’ll give hard working, motivated, intelligent people everything I have. But for everyone else I have no time or patience. I know this offends many people. But it’s just me being honest.

I feel very lucky.  I have a great set of people to work with.  They all come in, work hard, joke around, have fun, and get into great shape.  Not a bad job.

Bob Takano has a new article up at his blog in which he mentions a talk he gave to a bunch of parents of volleyball athletes about the importance of determining whether your son’s or daughter’s strength coach is qualified to do what it is your child needs done.  Good strength coaching is becoming a serious factor for parents who are hoping that their kid will get a sports scholarship when they go off to college. And if your athlete is on the verge you need to take the choice of strength-performance coaches seriously.

Here’s a quote:

I spent some time discussing the range of abilities presented by people calling themselves personal trainers and how widely those abilities and backgrounds could vary.  I told them to ask questions about prior experience working with athletes, the success levels of those athletes, injury rates of their athletes and what factors would be improved besides vertical jump.  I provided them with an arsenal of questions to help them determine the competency of any strength and conditioning coach or personal trainer they might encounter including whether or not they were certified.

The truth is, it isn’t always easy to find a serious strength coach who has the knowledge of the unique demands that a competitive athlete faces.  These include massive time demands (school, work, practice, girl/boy friend, smokin’ weed with their buddies … but you aren’t supposed to know about that one!), serious risks of over-training due to the overload their already getting from their sport-specific coach, and risks of sport-related injury that could kill their chances at a scholarship.

If you walk into any “normal” big-box gym you’ll be hounded by a slew of “trainers” who look about the same age as your kid!  They’re all excited and jovial, no doubt, but they rarely are going to have a clue what they’re doing (certified or not). Not good.  But, where would you find a qualified coach, and what does “qualified” even mean?

To follow Bob’s lead (again … and yet again I’m using the “5 tips” format! … oh, heavens), I’ve got my own small list of things I’d want to know about a potential coach for my kid (assuming I had a kid).

1. Did you find the trainer in one of those large commercial gyms?  If so, we may have a problem. Not only are the trainers at these places usually grossly under experienced, the gyms themselves are understocked with what I would consider necessary equipment:  platforms, bumper plates, chalk, etc.  If the gym you’re taking your young athlete into doesn’t have at least those three things prominently displayed, then you’re unlikely to find the coach you’re kid needs either.  Sports performance training is a completely different animal then so-called bodybuilding training.  The trainer should know the difference.
2. What certifications does the coach have?  If it’s ACE, turn and RUN.  Trust me on this one. I would only be comfortable with one (or both) of the following:  1) USA Weightlifting’s Sports Performance Coach certification (or equivalently, USA Weightlifting’s Olympic Club Coach certification) OR 2) NSCA’s Certified Strength and Conditioning Coach certification.  That is, the coaches business card should have “NAME, USAW” or “NAME, CSCS” on it.  Oh, and a college education wouldn’t hurt.
3. Was the trainer an athlete?  If they weren’t, that isn’t necessarily a deal breaker, but it could be a sign.  There is not much like personal experience to teach someone what NOT to do.  If the trainer feels they could have been a “champion” if only they’d had the right coaching, then maybe they’ve developed some idea of what “the right coaching” is.  The strength coach Mark Rippetoe once said, “The best coaches were mediocre athletes.”  They know what it’s like to struggle, to suffer, and to be defeated.  Combine those things with a positive attitude and an inquisitive mind, and you’ve got yourself a good coach … which lead me to:
4. Make sure the performance coach is a “thinker”.  OK, this can be hard to gauge in a quick meeting.  But, designing programs (not just routines) for an athlete requires taking into account a large number of variables, all of which interact back with one another.
5. Is the strength coach a “yeller”?  I know that we all have memories of our high school coaches yelling and screaming at us. And in the movies it’s certainly more fun to have a guy like Mickey from Rocky – red faced, spit spewing from their mouths, veins popping out off their forehead. But, the reality is that most great strength coaches can get their point across without needing to yell.  This is particularly important if your kid is a daughter.  Girls rarely respond well to aggressive screaming.  You know that line, “you’ll catch more flies with honey …”

I could come up with a lot more, but this will have to do for now.  The underlying point is to keep your eyes open and ask a lot of questions.  Anyone who is worth it will more than happy to answer any questions you have.

Check out this site written (in english) by a group of Malaysian Olympic Weightlifters called Lift Hard: The Asian Weightlifting Site. They’ve got a number of great articles, including this gem.

As many of you know, I lived in Japan for a number of years as a child (read about my odd food cravings here), and my parents lived there for close to 30 years.  I have a particular affinity for Asia.  My comfort foods growing up were not Mac and Cheese, but Sushi, Sukiyaki, and Yakiimo.

It’s great to see a well-run site by a group of dedicated lifters in Asia.  I wish them luck.

ExRx has an interview with Glenn Pendlay here. In it he covers all kinds of stuff including a discussion about some of his athletes (including a 60 year old masters world champion), his own history, and training philosophy.

Important quote:  “The quicker you are, the less strong you have to be to make the same lift.”

He also discusses how there is no such thing as any one exercise to measure how strong someone is.

Sarah Bertram and Jessica Gee got 1st in the 69’s and 4th in the 63’s, respectively, at Nationals this year.  Both of them are from here in Oregon.

Both are also coached by Tom Hirtz, a legend in his own right.  My club competes against their club all the time, and it’s fantastic to see the two of them doing so well.  They both work extremely hard, and are genuinely cool people.  Congratulations!

Here’s a news story about them from KEZI news Eugene, OR. It includes shot of them practicing, and interviews.