It is our mission as coaches to guide our clients towards autonomy over time.
To educate them sufficiently, enabling them to fend for themselves without us for the lifetime that follows our time together – to be free agents in this thing.
With that in mind, for general health and fitness, we must stretch our thoughts beyond the boundaries and intentions set by current offerings and methodologies when challenging our client’s intentions in their fitness pursuits and practices.
We must teach clients to think critically.
A critical thought exercise to play out yourself, Coach, before posing it to your clients…
Look forward to yourself in 20 years time – your future self – and pose these questions…
How does flogging ourselves daily with unsustainable exercise for a prolonged period of time serve future you?
How do exercise methodologies borrowed from sport – a sport in which you do not compete professionally, where training practices are not conducive to long term health and wellness – serve future you?
How does fast tracking progressions to get to a place you have not yet earned, resulting in a shit-tonne of compensation strategies serve future you?
How does denying yourself critical nutrients and calories in order to look a certain way physically, for an unsustainable period of time, serve future you?
How does foregoing food quality and instead focussing solely on calorific intake for weight loss or performance, serve future you?
How does continuing to stretch the shit out of a body that is already super mobile, and that needs stability not more flexibility, serve future you?
How does trying to force an immobile body into specific shapes – shapes that are borrowed from a sport that was never intended for you or your function, serve future you?
How does plastering over poor lifestyle behaviours, with supplements that provide the illusion of recovery, serve future you?
You get the idea.
Try it as an awareness piece for yourself first – to think critically about your own beliefs and biases here before you challenge your clients.
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