Home Posts tagged "Malcolm Galdwell"

Want to be a Personal Trainer or Strength Coach? Start Here.

It's an email I get at least twice a week from a random reader, and it goes something like this:

"My current job just isn't fulfilling, but I really love fitness and want to turn it into a career.  What certification do you recommend?"

I get these type of inquiries so often that I decided that this bit of writing would be my autoresponse which - as you'll see below - has a bit of tough love that I think these folks need to hear.

A few months ago, Rachel Cosgrove said that about 80% of those who enter the fitness industry leave it within a year.  I haven't seen the statistic myself, but Rachel knows her stuff and meticulously monitors the business side of the fitness industry and I defer to her completely.

Does it say something about the "status quo" that our industry probably has more turnover than a janitorial position at your local zoo?

Why the crazy turnover within the first year?  Well, for starters, I feel like entering the fitness business is an impulse decision for a lot of folks.  They hate their current jobs so much that they have to go to the opposite end of the spectrum to one of the only things in their lives that makes them happy: exercising.

Two months later, they realize that they're working 60-hour weeks on their feet because they have floor hours at their local commercial gym in the middle of the day on top of their only two personal training clients - who conveniently schedule at 5AM and 6PM.  They're rewarded with a whopping $600 check every two weeks, after taxes.  Starting with the 2011 tax plan, it'll probably be $200; take notes, kids.

But you've got passion, right?

Wrong.

Passion (and optimism) might get you out of bed for that 5AM client, but only determination, preparation, intrapersonal skills, organization, and a solid understanding of exercise physiology are going to make it possible for you to get through the rest of the day while being happy and making sure that you're just a little bit better the next day.

And, I will tell you flat-out that every single trainer I have ever met has had days when exercise was the last thing they wanted to do.  For me, it happened in the fall of 2006 every Tuesday and Thursday night - when my football guys came in to train with me at 7:30PM after I'd been training clients since 6:30AM.  Were it not for this kind of energy in my training partners, I probably would have gone home and just gone to bed.

Obviously, that's a worst-case scenario.  However, I'm never going to discourage someone from pursuing what they feel could be a livelihood where they'd be happy and helping people.  I would, though, encourage them to adhere to the following steps (in this order):

1. Go observe a few current fitness professionals who are successful in their crafts. Ask questions and get a feel for whether this is a good fit for you before you jump into the deep-end, quitting your job and investing all sorts of cash in a career change.

2. Wait a year to get a certification. What?  Huh?  This is supposed to come first, right?  Wrong.  Getting a certification without any background experience makes you a liability, not a professional.  Every penny you spend in that first year should be on books, DVDs, seminars, and travel to go observe other coaches/trainers in action.  And, you should be taking advantage of all the free resources there are for you to get educated online.  Don't ignore fitness industry business resources, either; they aren't taught with certifications or degrees, but are tremendously important.

3. Get an internship. This is an extension of #1 - and it still comes before getting a certification.  You need to log at least three months of 40-hour weeks somewhere learning your craft and paying your dues.  Get a feel for whether you could see yourself doing this long-term.

Obviously, this is a concern because it would require you to quit your job, so you'd need to save up for this period.  However, you would be amazed at how many interns are hired by facilities after their internship period is over (all our "hires" at Cressey Performance have been former interns).  And, most facilities will pay for your certification and CPR/AED training, and some will even give you a continuing education stipends on top of it.

4. Get a certification. Yes, it is step 4.  Frankly, I don't really care what certification you get because none of them really wow me, but then again, I have a hard time justifying an undergraduate exercise science degree for $100, let alone $200,000.  If I was 18 today, I'd save all that money, get an internship, and spend the cash on loads of books/DVDs - and taking selective courses (gross anatomy, kinesiology and biomechanics). A lot of folks, for instance, have told Mike Robertson and I that they learned more practical information in our Building the Efficient Athlete DVD set than they did in their entire college careers - for only 0.0015% the price.

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And, I sure as heck wouldn't pay a university fo accept my internship credits; that's one of the biggest scams of all time!  However, before I digress too much on that front, get the certification.  Most jobs will require it even if it is just a small foot in the door.

5. Pay your dues. There is no way around it.  You aren't magically going to have a full client roster on your first day of a job; you have to start somewhere.  I can promise you that you will be better off with the background you've created with steps 1-4.

In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the importance of accumulating 10,000 hours in order to become an expert in one's field.  There are only 8,760 hours in a year - and even if you assume 60-hour work-weeks, it's still going to take over three years to get to that 10,000-hour mark.

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The 80% who don't make it past the first year simply didn't understand that you can't live the life of an established professional, industry expert, or even someone who has seniority if you don't put in the hours.

You've probably noticed that I geared a lot of this toward those in the private sector.  However, much of it will still apply to those looking to go into college strength and conditioning - but keep in mind that you will run into a lot of hurdles in college S&C if you don't have a college degree in a related field.  That's just the game as it's played, so keep it in mind.

A big part of longer-term success will be how you approach continuing education.  If you do it and take it seriously, you'll be ahead of 90% of the trainers and coaches out there.  A great resource in this regard is Elite Training Mentorship, our online education program that helps fitness professionals learn how to evaluate, program, and coach.  Check it out: Elite Training Mentorship.

Do any of you veterans have any tips for the aspiring up-and-comers in the business?  If so, post them as comments.

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CP Internship Blog: Can Circuit Training Develop Mental Toughness? – Part 1

This guest blog comes from current Cressey Performance intern, Sam Leahey. Preface A qualification needs to be made first. This debate often times confuses people because they don't take the time to qualify what exactly they're discussing. The overriding issue here is on the use of exercise or conditioning circuits in training to develop "mental toughness" and/or "work capacity." Both capacities are actually pretty different scientifically and practically, but too often get thrown into the same conversation. When we talk about using exercise or conditioning "circuits" in the weight room, most coaches rationale for using them is rooted in one of three things: 1)    To build "mental toughness" in the athletes 2)    To build "work capacity" in the athletes 3)    To build both. I want to be clear here that this article will focus solely on thoughts regarding the first rationale and not the others. This if for clarity's sake, brevity, and quality of analysis. In future blogs, I hope to delve into the other two reasons why coaches/trainers program conditioning circuits and whether or not it has value and/or a desired training effect.

Before you continue reading, I'd pose the title of this article to you again and ask that you take a moment to think about your answer - can YOU develop mental toughness of YOUR athletes using circuit training in your programs? What is "Mental Toughness"? The first thing we need to establish is what "mental toughness" really is.  Defining the term alone could be another endless debate, so let's keep things neutral and use good ol' dictionary.com as our trusted resource: Type in the term "mental toughness" and the search comes up empty. Hmm, this has implications. It seems that the term "mental toughness" as a whole is abstract and inherently debatable because there is no established definition in the dictionary. Disagree with me? If so, then I'd point you to the example of the term "Mc Job", which is a term referring to a service industry job that is unstimulating, pays low wages, and offers few benefits. At one point "Mc Job" was an abstract concept just like the term "mental toughness" currently is. It wasn't until enough people settled on its terms that it went from being abstract to a concrete reality which is definable and published in the dictionary itself, see: Mc Job - 2 dictionary results Mc - Job [muh k-job] -noun an unstimulating, low-wage job with few benefits, esp. in a service industry. So, in the same sense, I think the term "mental toughness" will take much longer (if ever) to reach a state of clear and accepted definition. Continuing on, though, what we can establish here is that the words "mental" and "toughness" are separately definable: Men·tal m?n tl/ Show Spelled[men-tl] -adjective 1. of or pertaining to the mind: mental powers; mental suffering. 2. of, pertaining to, or affected by a disorder of the mind: a mental patient; mental illness. 3. providing care for persons with disordered minds, emotions, etc.: a mental hospital. 4. performed by or existing in the mind: mental arithmetic; a mental note. 5. pertaining to intellectuals or intellectual activity. 6. Informal. slightly daft; out of one's mind; crazy: He's mental. -noun 7. Informal. a person with a psychological disorder: a fascist group made up largely of mentals. Tough Spelled [tuhf],adjective,-er, -est, adverb, noun, verb -adjective 1. strong and durable; not easily broken or cut. 2. not brittle or tender. 3. difficult to masticate, as food: a tough steak. 4. of viscous consistency, as liquid or semiliquid matter: tough molasses. 5. capable of great endurance; sturdy; hardy: tough troops. 6. not easily influenced, as a person; unyielding; stubborn: a tough man to work for. 7. hardened; incorrigible: a tough criminal. 8. difficult to perform, accomplish, or deal with; hard, trying, or troublesome: a tough problem. 9. hard to bear or endure (often used ironically): tough luck. 10. vigorous; severe; violent: a tough struggle. 11. vicious; rough; rowdyish: a tough character; a tough neighborhood. 12. practical, realistic, and lacking in sentimentality; tough-minded. 13. Slang. remarkably excellent; first-rate; great. -adverb 14. in a tough manner. -noun 15. a ruffian; rowdy. Combining the first two definitions we could say that "mental toughness" via dictionary.com is a strong, durable, non-tender mind capacity or functioning. So now we have a theoretical foundation from which we can work - and we again arrive at the initial debate: can this "mental toughness" be developed by strength and conditioning coaches using forms of circuit training with their athletes? Acute vs. Chronic Here are some classic examples that coaches and trainers (both good and bad) who subscribe to the theory "you can develop mental toughness through circuit training" use in practice. . . (Each exercise done for 1 minute each, circuit done 2-3 times)(*AMRAP - as many reps as possible) "Death Circuit Saturdays" -          Overhead MedBall Slam (AMRAP) -          Tire Flips (20 yards) -          Overhead Sledgehammer Tire Hits (AMRAP) -          Pushups (AMRAP) -          Farmer's Walk (25yards down and back) -          Rotational MedBall Throws (AMRAP) -          Vertical Jump (AMRAP) "Meat-Head Monday" -          Barbell Bench Press (225lbs x AMRAP) -          Barbell Back Squat (315lbs x AMRAP) -          Pull-Up (BW x AMRAP) -          Conventional Deadlift (315 x AMRAP) -          Chest Supported T-Bar Row (70lbs x AMRAP)

"Functional Friday" -          Single-Leg Box Squats (AMRAP) -          1 Arm TRX Inverted Row (AMRAP) -          Front Plank -          Standing 1 Arm Cable Press (AMRAP) -          Side Plank -          Walking Lunges with Overhead DB Press (AMRAP) -          1 Arm Chin-Up (AMRAP) "Strong-Man Monday" -          Farmers Walk (30yards down and back) -          Seated Rope Pull (20yard rope connected to weighted sled - pull to you once) -          Prowler Sled Pushes (30yards down and back) -          Giant Log Lift (AMRAP in 2 minutes) With this list of random circuits in mind, now let's talk about how and when strength and conditioning coaches implement these circuits into their program(s). If you've been around collegiate strength and conditioning for any amount of time, you'll know these circuits usually get placed at the end or beginning of a training week and sometimes at the end of a training cycle. In the private sector of the strength and conditioning profession (training facilities), there isn't that much separation from that either. You'll find these circuits being sprinkled in to the clients (athletes) programs. The biggest point to consider here is that whenever circuit training is used it's almost never done continually, 100% of the time; it's always used sparingly while the bulk of the training is more traditional. Conclusion - The Carryover Imagine if you yourself or an athlete you know did one of the above circuits. How would you feel? It'd be pretty tough wouldn't it? If I told you that you were going to do it again next week, you would be mentally prepared for it, wouldn't you? After doing it every Friday for two months, would you have mentally adapted to the stimulus and find it less of a mental struggle each time? Of course! However, what happens every other day of the week when you don't have that stimulus present? Are you still as "mentally tough" throughout the week as you are on Friday when you are near puking your brains out and have a coach scream at you and blowing whistles? Even more relevant is the perspective of adding up those single exposure circuit days and compare them to all the days in the off-season and in-season you're not doing a circuit. Which of the two sums has the most potential for developing ANYTHING for that matter? In other words, being "mentally tough" is a LIFESTYLE - NOT A SINGLE EXPOSURE TO SOME DEATH CIRCUIT ONCE A WEEK OR ONCE A MONTH! Are we forgetting the fact that many collegiate teams implement these circuits to only end up with losing seasons? Meanwhile, on the other hand, you have teams doing the same death circuits and getting to the championship. Did one team not do enough "death circuits" and needed more exposures so they can reach post season play? Or, did the team who reached the championship lead a mentally tough lifestyle off the field/court/ice and not just get "psyched up" for a death circuit once a week or month? True athletic team success is the result of all the little things added up throughout the week that culminate on game day, not just a mental victory once and while over some weight room circuit. It's performing every exercise in the weight room with perfect technique that fosters CHRONIC mental toughness in athletes. It's not accepting lousy technique for the sake of putting more weight on the bar that makes the athlete mentally tough. It's showing up to train on time, every time, over the course of the entire macrocycle that gives us sustainable and reproducible mental toughness that carries over into team chemistry and cohesiveness. It's going through the full warm-up without skipping steps just so you can get on to lifting heavy weights quicker. It's only doing the prescribed number of reps and sets that's your given and not letting an athlete do his/her own thing. It's not missing workouts or having athlete find excuses not to come in and train because it's a "light day" or "regeneration day". It's a culture, not a single event! Living a mentally tough lifestyle is what produces long term athletic success. If you want your athletes to reach their full mental potential and, in turn, athletic potential, then find ways to change their LIFESTYLE instead of getting them "psyched up" for your weightroom circuit you worked so hard to design. Furthermore, the mental toughness lifestyle you cultivate in your weight room can carry over into the rest of their lives as well whereas some weekly circuit cannot.

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If you develop a culture of mentally tough athletes in your weight room via the little things, their ability to reproduce that (which is the whole point, anyway) can certainly be carried over into the way they approach the sport skills practice and whatnot. If they're showing up to the weight room on time, every time, how much more likely will they be to show up for practice on time, every time? If they're habitually not cutting corners in the weight room and choosing to not take the easy way out, will they make the same decisions on the field/court/ice where they know it has more direct carry over to game day? You can see that the evolution of leading a mentally tough lifestyle eventually can translate into habitual changes in personal character and discipline. I struggle to see how a weekly circuit or once a month event can have even a remotely similar effect. It is the responsibility of the coach to instill this aforementioned mentally tough lifestyle through cultivated weight room culture. So the argument is essentially a fundamental disagreement, but I think the answer is quite clear. Even though the term "mental toughness" lacks a true definition, can we as coaches instill what most would agree on as "mental toughness" in our athletes via the weight room? The answer is "yes," but it's not through doing "death circuits." Doing things habitually RIGHT breeds a lifestyle that makes you mentally tough. This chronic mental toughness cannot be accomplished with a sparingly used weight room circuit of exercises. The Exception I wrote this article/blog knowing full well that someone out there would come up with the question: "What if I have my athletes do circuit training EVERY time we train then, for an entire off-season. This way we're getting the "mental toughness" stimulus constantly. Would that work?" In response, I would say there is only one man I know of on the entire planet who was inherently ingenious enough to implement circuit training EVERY SINGLE WORKOUT and still not have his athletes overtraining. This way, they were constantly pushing the mental envelope and eventually they went from being a good team to the winning the national championship of college hockey. The strength coach's name is Michael Boyle. Unless you have the ingenious capability of.... -          engineering circuit training day in and day out for an ENTIRE off-season, -          having no one get injured doing so, -           have most everyone on the team get stronger, -          and most importantly find a way to have these mentally tough workouts carry over into the players habitual lifestyles, ....then I suggest you don't even both trying. If you've read the book Outliers you'll understand there's only one Mike Boyle for a reason and you're NOT him.

outliers

For the rest of us, I think it's best to stick to the above rationale if we want develop true mental toughness in our athletes that will last a lifetime of athletic competition. Sam Leahey, CSCS can be contacted at sam.leahey@gmail.com.
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Cool Stuff to Check Out: 12/28/09

I thought I'd use a quick blog post here to tell you about three of my holiday gifts this year that might interest a lot of you.  With it being a few days after Christmas, a lot of stores are running big sales, and you could probably pick these up at big discounts. Dragon Naturally Speaking Software - This is a speech recognition software that works with your computer to directly translate what you say into a microphone into a word processing document or email. My hope is that it'll make it easy for me to dictate blogs and emails while in the car on my 40-minute commute to and from Cressey Performance each day.

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Admittedly, I am still feeling this one out, as it takes some "calibrating" to learn how to interpret your voice correctly (I read John F. Kennedy's inaugural address into it the other night).  However, I'm really psyched about how this could improve my efficiency in 2010; check it out for yourself. What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures - Tony Gentilcore (and others) turned me on to Malcolm Gladwell's writing in 2009, and I absolutely loved it (including The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers).  This is his newest work, and it is actually a collection of his short pieces that were featured in The New Yorker, where Gladwell is a staff writer.

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Tony got me the audio CDs for this, and I listened to it on my hours and hours of driving to and from Maine for the holiday.  It's excellent: very entertaining, educational, and thought provoking. Something pretty cool: you can buy all four of these books from Gladwell on Amazon for under $40 right now (including free shipping).  That's a tremendous value. Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow - This book by Chip Conley was actually a gift to me from Alwyn Cosgrove about a month ago, and I'm about halfway through it.  As I've read, it's made me realize several reasons that we've been successful in our business model at Cressey Performance (including 15% growth this year in spite of the "recession").  Regardless of the industry in which you work, if you manage employees, I'd highly recommend it.

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Stuff You Should Read: 5/18/09

It's been a while since I last published one of these guys, and here are a few recommendations: The Don't Squat Recommendation - We've all heard it, but only some of use have questioned it. Inefficiency for Fat Loss - Sometimes, you've just got to get outside your comfort zone. Outliers: The Story of Success - This book got about six recommendations when the panel of presenters at last week's Perform Better Summit were asked what they were reading.  I was one of the six; I'm reading it now and it's fantastic.  And, if you haven't read any of Malcolm Gladwell's other stuff, check out those, too.
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