The Biggest Limiting Factor to Your Success as a Trainer
Michael Hughes
Welcome back to the Gymnazo podcast. I’m your solo host today, Michael Hughes, founder of Gymnazo. And a coach on the team. Really excited to dive into the scope of trainers today. And it’s a big topic, something I’m so passionate about that I kind of wanted to do it by myself, because I feel like I’ve had a lot to learn. Still a lot more to learn, but a lot of experience in this field. Going from a lowly personal trainer, ISSA certification back in 2004. Going through my Bachelors of Kinesiology in college, to the point where I am now right would consider myself quite the alternative to traditional physical therapy, and spend most of my sessions dealing with movement pain, or what we call a musculoskeletal disorder. So get ready to dive into this topic, fasten your seat belts, because I made making some comments that may bother some people certainly will bother the industry as a whole. And we feel a scope of practice, and how it limits us movement professionals, and where I believe the industry should ultimately be going. And I’m pretty passionate about that. So let’s get ready to rock and roll. And thanks for joining me on this podcast. Welcome to the Gymnazo podcast where you get to peek behind the curtains of what it takes to create and run a seven figure fitness facility that ranks in the top 5% of boutique fitness studios for revenue. But to be honest, that’s the least important thing about us. Founded by me, Michael Hughes Gymnazo has created an ecosystem of services that blend performance with restoration techniques, and attracts top coaches to its facility hosted by its owners Paden and myself and our top coaches, this podcast shares our best practices on everything, from how to build a sustainable fitness business, to how to program for maximum results to how to build a hybrid training module that’s online. And in person. We have marketing secrets, movement, innovation, and breaking down trends in the industry. If you’re a fitness professional, or fitness business owner, this is where you learn how to sharpen your skills and to see maximum results. So a little context of the kind of the fire that’s burning within my soul here, and it’s always been there. But now it’s really there, because it just got this email from a very known kind of fitness brand, describing that trainers should really stay in their lane, they should really stay with what they know best, which is providing exercises, training and conditioning the human body for better cardiovascular strength, power, etc, etc. Essentially, what they’re saying is that if your client has pain, movement pain, can’t perform an exercise because of that pain, then you need to pass it off, you need to end the relationship with that client in that session, right for that purpose, and pass them off to the next more capable professional. Now, right off the bat, I just want to say this, do I completely disagree with that comment? The answer’s no, I don’t. That’s ridiculous. There are people in this field in the movement, health field, chiropractors, physical therapists, etc, etc, that are very good. And really no more than this is very true, the vast majority of personal trainers, that’s no question about that. But should a trainer say that’s where my education stops, should a trainer, personal trainer movement trainer, say I shouldn’t go any further in understanding the human body its form its function, its capacity, its capabilities, and its ultimate demise of movement, right? If painful movement that’s going to keep doing that painful movement, it’s going to start to tear down joints, muscles, etc. So that’s what I’m really talking about today. And my quick answer is just kind of spoiler alert is no a trainer should know those things the trainer should study those things should focus and dive in to the vast amount of technological knowledge that is out there on the human body. What we knew about movement in the 50s 60s is certainly different than what we know about movement. Now, our ability to understand joint biomechanics, to put sensors on bodies and understand what a joint couldn’t really do. is vastly changed. Has the human body changed? No. We’re actually very slow, adaptive kind of mammals, right? It takes generations upon generations to get genetic changes, you know, in our body. Basically, what I’m saying is that the joint of the of the knee has not changed. in its in its actual truth. Our understanding of truth has certainly changed our ability to To dive in to what’s actually there has not changed, we just didn’t really know it. So that’s what is pretty cool about this industry. And what I firmly believe is the trainer of today should go head into, or headstrong into this fact that we need to understand movement mechanics, when it comes to movement pain, I’m very specific on that pain, when with human movement is where we should be super, super specialized in, or at least know a trainer. That is right. And a lot of trainers out there are just, you know, I just want to burn some calories, I want to really entertain on that spin bike, you know, on that screen, whatever the case is, I just want to push people to make them feel better and feel happier, good for you. I’m high five across the airwaves here. But I believe there’s a gap, there’s a massive gap that we’re we should really be the front lines of the movement health spectrum, truly, and I’m going to talk about a spectrum here soon that we’ve developed as the health spectrum that a trainer should understand where they are in that spectrum. Should we should have trained to be doing surgery and all these things? Of course not no, there’s certainly specialized things for that. But when it comes to movement painting, and I want to emphasize that I think that trainers should stay out of their lane get out of the lane that the traditional industry puts us in and really build a bigger scope. And the reason is, because no one else is doing it. There’s a gap in the movement industry. Let me just back up a bit in the health care system. Right? You can’t you typically people think oh, it this is the doctors world. This is a licensed practitioners world. And though that is a definition of it, I think that’s a limiting definition of it. That’s really unfortunately sick care. I’m talking about the health care system, not the sick care system. I’m talking about the system that was really where US trainers are kind of at the forefront word of the first line where the infantry were first in. And I believe we should be last out. Truly, you know, the trainer, movement trainer should be first in and last out in the health care system, which encompasses the sick care system. So health care is anything that’s preventative anything that is essentially keeping the the daily activities of the human athlete in check. If they do get to the sick care system, great, yeah, they gotta go see that licensed practitioner, they gotta go take care of the physiological changes that need to be happening. But once they recover from that, where do they go? Right back to us, right back to us, because we’re the maintenance system. And with poor maintenance, you will therefore create problems. With great maintenance, we remove all problems. No, of course not. But you’re certainly going to limit them. And that’s what I’m talking about today. So this email that came out to us from some brains or something like like that brand, was like saying stay in your lane. And I’m gonna argue that I’m gonna argue that. So in my early experience, dealing with clients who experienced movement pain, this was a big a big heartache for me as I would program in the big box gym that I was at. And I would say let’s do this. Let’s do this medicine ball throw, let’s do the step up onto a box, you know, the basic things that I was doing them even a bench press, like Gosh, that hurts my hurts my shoulder, hurts my knee or just hurts my back or was so uncoordinated at it that just kind of hurts the brain. In a sense, there’s so many different things that kind of hurt. And as a trainer, then you know, if Okay, let’s let’s kind of just modify it around it. It’s trained around it. Let’s even do a few basic stretches very one dimensional at that time. Let’s put a foam roll on and really just roll back and forth. That’s kind of my that was my approach then. Hurts foam roll it hurts. But the fumble right on that hurt spot, because that’s the problem. And unfortunate that really gave poor results in the client would need to be just kind say, Oh, thanks, appreciate it. And it still hurts or hurts last are the cases to kind of appease the situation. But I always knew that there was something missing. And it was knowledge. It was knowledge in the fact that I didn’t know what to do. I knew how to exercise somebody, I knew how to put them through a calorie burn routine. I knew how to do basic one dimensional one dimensional stretches. Because that’s what I thought you should do. I knew how to run them through different exercise protocols using machines and treadmills and ellipticals, everything that you’re taught. I understood that the basic foundation of you know what’s happens when you really push someone really hard to
do the physiological system, the Krebs cycle elders, things like that. I got those things, but it really didn’t solve any bit about how to problem solve their dysfunctions. Because every single athlete in the world has a movement dysfunction that they bring to you as a movement professional, it’s just the way it goes. And I’ve said it here in this podcast, it’s like being in a relationship and you know, a dating relationship, you bring dysfunction to that relationship from your past, from your upbringing, from your experiences. And as a couple you deal with those dysfunctions, sometimes they get solved. Other times, they just get relatively dealt with in a, in a meeting that’s quite healthy and progresses that relationship forward. Well, movement has no difference, there’s no, there’s no difference in a movement relationship. When they walk into your facility into your session, they’re bringing with them movement dysfunction that you may not even know is there yet. So that’s why we talked about a movement assessment to understand what’s coming into that relationship before you start providing higher intensity performance based programming that will eventually just show up in a lack of capacity in that movement dysfunction as you get to those higher kind of revs. So that’s what I was dealing with, in my early experience, I just didn’t know how to fix it. And again, my journey was finding out how to learn that education without paying $100,000. spending three years in some foreign city, becoming a doctor to physical therapy, nothing against that by any means. But that was not the path this life was going to give me. So what else could I do? Well, you learn from people that know that knowledge that are willing to to share it. And that shifted my perspective, when I finally could understand the scope of what the human body was really capable of. Not saying that trainers don’t know what it is capable. But do you know the full scope now, I’m still learning the full scope, but I certainly know so much more than it did before. And the big takeaways are is that the body is a kinematic chain, it has a process, you move your right hand further enough behind you, you’re going to go through left heel, e-version, pronation of that foot. Honestly, if you’re sitting or standing on one of the cases, you continue to move that right hand further enough to your right rotational side, you’re going to have that foot do that same process. So that’s hand to foot kinematic chain. So that happens through that motion and happens to every other human movement potential that is integrated or functional. Obviously, there’s isolated moves. So understanding that like, Well, wait a minute, so if the right hand can’t go this far, then that could therefore be a limit in the left ankle, and the left ankle could limit how far the right hand can go rotationally. Behind me, the answer is yes, absolutely. So it’s not just the hands fault. It’s not the elbows falls on the shoulders fault. It’s not the shoulder blades fault, the thoracic spines fault, even the lumbar spine, even the pelvis, the two different hip joints, even the knee, that could be the ankle. And that’s a lot of understanding to understand how that process happens, because doesn’t happen in one dimension happens in three dimensions. Because every single joint and every single muscle tissue and connective tissue can move distinctly in three different planes of motion. Now, the ranges are definitely different. But how they can move is all there. And we need to understand that and unpack it. I believe that as a movement professional, we should understand how the human body moves to solve movement pain, or just provide performance. And the biggest problem that we have is that the education out there, the big certification names, don’t teach that. And there may they if they are on this podcast, and maybe say B because it’s super complicated, we just want people to walk in the door. And I’m like, You know what, hats off to you. We need to get people in the door, I get it. But there’s if there’s no distinction between the person who just walks in the door with a basic CPT, and someone who knows the ins and outs of the human body, and there’s no distinction in the industry for that. There’s a problem, because now the consumer doesn’t know the difference between a Ford or Ferrari. And what I mean by Ford is an entry level car. What I mean by Ferrari is a highly specialized killing machine. As a way to put it, the general market doesn’t know the difference. So therefore, we all lumped into the same and I like to say this, and it’s a very poor thing to say, but the used car salesman of the medical, or the health system is the trainer, used car salesman, sorry if you’re listening. But there’s not the highest regard in the automobile sales for those particular type. And we’re no different in the personal training industry within the medical system. We’re the lowest of the low, even though I’ll say it again, we are the first in and the first out. So we should therefore know a whole lot more should we Know how to cut the skin with a scalpel? No, not even close, not even close, close, close shoe understand how to solve someone’s stroke recovery? No, that’s not now that’s certainly for licensed physical therapists, you understand how to manipulate spines and subluxed joints. No, that’s a car practice especially, but we should definitely know how to position train move the human body to manage movement pain. So there’s a spectrum that I think that the industry needs to understand on a greater level. And even though you’re not seeing this, I want you to kind of picture this in your mind. From a health neutral, we’re just gonna call it n, right health neutral, all the way to seven points, high. So plus seven, would be the elite professional athlete, it is their job to do what they need to do. X plus seven, then we have a minus seven, which essentially, medical conditions are medically unstable. They, they’re fighting for their lives. But they’re still living. So that’s the spectrum that I’m talking about. We call it the movement health spectrum. So neutral, two plus seven, to neutral to minus seven elite professional athletes plus seven to medically unstable minus seven, where is the scope of the trainer, which we do have a scope, right, but our scope is too small, as his email said, they said pass off, don’t worry about it, put it to someone else’s hands? And I’m like, no, no, no, we need to learn how to deal with that. So to me, the average trainer, I’m gonna kind of go plus neutral to plus seven here. The basic trainer can manage functional training, that means training for the activities of daily living, right, those particular movement that’s walking upstairs, you know, hiking up a mountain where the case is we’re just call that functional training, that’s that’s neutral. Plus one would be kind of unrestricted activity, meaning that they can kind of do what they want to do relative to their age. No, there’s nothing limiting them from the capacities of what their chronological and biological bodies can do. A plus two takes us into a new kind of way. This we call this the fitness and well being scope, what I just described you from neutral to plus one was kind of the health neutral, and you’re just you’re, you’re a human being who can kind of just do your stuff. So the next scope is going to fitness and wellness. And that’s kind of plus two plus three plus four. plus two is that novice fitness person who goes to the gym on a normal basis or not the gym, rides their bike, you know, cross open land, or you know, mountain biking or other cases, but they’re, they do normal activity on a daily basis that they’re successful in. Plus three kind of goes to that intermediate conditioning, where they they really ride their bikes, they really swimming, they’re really kind of taking fitness to like this is not just something they do, but they they put some effort into it. And they’re successful at it. A plus four would be kind of more advanced training, than someone who maybe does like a Spartan Race as an example, you know, or even someone who doesn’t do Spartan Races, they really, they’re, they’re competitive, they, they will go to a yearly meet, and kind of put their swimming to the test. Someone who will go play pickleball for competitive means it’s fun, but they’re trying to get out of trying to win that game. Then the next year up has the competitive sports, you know, pickleball certainly competitive sport, but you know, we’re going the next level, it’s, it’s really that recreational athlete, they’re in a league now, you know, they’re actually showing up scheduled time, you know, the playing maybe pickleball the the plus for advanced training, you know, the kind of playing field, we’re just for fun, they’re trying to win, but this one’s the league, they’re taking it more seriously. They need to warm up and cool down they need to make sure they got the right gear for the job. All the way to plus six, this is the competitive athletes so beyond recreational athlete now the competitive athlete, this would be the the collegiate. This could be even the little league baseball player who is they this their practice games is on a routine schedule. It’s something that is a part of who they are at least part time.
And then the elite athlete, right, it’s their job. That’s what they wake up train, go to bed for that sport or that activity. So that’s the plus side of this thing’s back to the health neutral. So we’re actually negative one now. So if you follow me now we’re going down the scope. So negative one would be functional impairments mean that they can’t do everything that they would like to do. They can’t really go on hiking because they can’t go down the hill. It just hurts. They can kind of do it but functionally It hurts. That’s good. That’s a lot of the population to be, quite frankly, that’s the vast majority of the population knowing that 56% of the population on a daily basis experiences lower back pain. Now, the scope that’s kind of health neutral still right, and you know, basic people, but then the next scope down is functional deficiencies. Because this is a negative two, that’s functional limitation. So not functional impairments. But limitations, they actually do not hike. Because the downhill is too hard, where the person negative one did hike downhill just kind of bothered him a little bit. So actually, they’re limiting their access to human movement, or human opportunity, or they don’t garden anymore. Which actually takes us to negative three participation restrictions. So they actually don’t garden right, they don’t do those things. They don’t go waterskiing anymore. They don’t go snow skiing anymore. They don’t even maybe play with their grandkids or even kick the soccer ball around. Because the pain, the dysfunction is so great, they actually going to restrict themselves from participation. The next level down, read negative four. And that’s where we would kind of that’s where somebody would probably more likely hire a physical therapist, do rehab, get into an A licensed practitioners hands, because it’s bothering him so much that they actually say I got to work on this. And that’s the functional deficiencies scope negative tutor Nate negative four, and then we go to the medical conditions, this is negative five to seven, this is post trauma healing, you know, negative five, like they had a procedure they’re moving, but it is it is under the guide of someone who knows what they’re talking about. Negative six would be post surgery, they’re actually you know, healing, the scar, the laceration, whatever the case is actually still under kind of guidance and care. And then negative seven is, like I said, medically unstable. So we have essentially five different buckets, competitive sports on the very top of our scopes, fitness and well being the what the scope below that health neutral would be the middle scope, functional deficiencies, that’s negative two to four, and then medical medical condition, negative five to seven. So thanks for listening to that. Where does it trainer play in that whole kind of speech? Well, we certainly play within the plus two to plus four novice fitness to advanced training. And that’s where most training and conditioning teaches us to start people that are capable, that have the motivation and the finances to pay for those things. That’s where most people start, where we realize most of our, our 10 is our total addressable market is is actually in the health neutral. That’s the minus one functional functional impairments, functional training and unrestricted activity. But that takes a specialty certification, a corrective exercise, or maybe more yoga training or something like that, where you can kind of dive into understanding how to get people out of dysfunction. And into that kind of novice fitness, where they can go to the gym on a normal basis and walk out saying, Great, that’s a great workout, my body felt literally fine. But where the biggest opportunity is, in this industry, especially with the baby boomer population, as big as it is as dominant as is and in their prime health focus stage, which they’re only going to be there for the next half decade to maybe decade, maybe decade, before Gen X comes in. And then Gen then Millennials come in and really dominate because it but we’re about the same size as the baby boomers. Not to digress but is the functional deficiencies, negative two to eight, negative four, this is where negative fours physical therapy participation risk restrictions, negative three, negative two functional limitations, this is where the opportunity spaces and if we don’t understand Chain Reaction biomechanics, how the body moves in three different dimensions how to prime tissue to allow it to reengage, how to lengthen it. So it can become more elastic, how to provide the scope of different movement potentials to get people out of that, like I just avoid things but I can actually go to the next level, we have to understand negative four negative three neg negative two, which is starting to encroach upon physical therapy. And that’s where my job is. I’m that’s what I’m doing. In fact, I just left a session right before recording this podcast, which it was basically someone who didn’t want to go to physical therapy. And my physical therapist no I’m not I don’t have that that license, but do I understand the human body in a way that I can approach problem solving in the same way and that is Yes. Am I trying to steal from physical therapy? Of course not. There’s enough to go around Gosh, was enough to go go go around, but I’m really trying to say is that there’s no way that that client who says I have a squat and are hurt hurts, or when I take off my wetsuit, it hurts my hamstring right at the attachment into the pelvis? Should I say stop training with me? Go see someone who knows more about it? Well, if you don’t know anything about it, then I see the answer is yes. But should that limit you from learning and healthy potentially helping that client before they walk out of your doors in someone else’s doors? That’s what I really want to talk about today. Because that client came in today and what we did, I put them through a moon movement assessment. And one of the biggest and most important questions that I asked them was, show me, tell me, demonstrate for me how your hamstring hurts. And he did. And he described to me and he describes basically a hamstring curl with a rubber band attached to his ankle, and that hurts. Basically good old fashioned, isolated hamstring curl. It really hurts when he tries to take off his wet wet suit, but also hurts a little bit more and he walks up more aggressive Hill, because it’s the kind of the same motion ones open chain, the other ones closed chain. And what I do I problem solved. I looked into it. Okay, wait a minute, how does the hamstring actually function? Does it really function in the way that a take you that you pull the wetsuit off your your ankle? It certainly does. But how does it really function more often than not, it’s when the foots connected to the ground. So I assessed him with the foot connection to the ground, saying Can Hampson go through extension? Can it go through even flexion? Which is a job that it does to contract? Does it go through a B and A D? duction? Just see those very clearly does it go through internal and external rotation with the foot connected to the ground under load? And under shortening? And then how do those feel? And what is the range of motion between his left or right hip? And guess what, there was a noticeable difference. And you can see it and you can test it by placing the feet in different positions by driving the pelvis in different ranges of motion, different angulations for backside side spin spin. And it’s really cool to say okay, wait a minute, his hip is not getting the same amount of A B duction. abduction, as his other hip was, huh? What muscles? What connective tissue would therefore limit that? Right? Hip abduction? Simple answer would be the adductors. The five or six muscles that rinse inside that thigh? Easy ones go after? Are they to bounce down? Do they not have enough elasticity to not have enough neural muscular training to just activate? They’re just kind of been dead in the water? Well, let’s test him. So that’s what we did. And we gave the hip more range of motion, more abduction, we lengthen those tissues through soft tissue work through stretching work through dynamic loading.
And guess what? His pain dramatically went away. In fact, it reduced by 80% in one hour. Now, will it stay there? Well, no, the body has this kind of transitory thing, we have to continue to train it, because he’s going to go sit back in his truck back in his car, the cases and he’s going to tighten back down his movement patterns haven’t changed all that much, but just changed his hip range motion is fast spine still moves the same way ankles still moves the same way. So we have to kind of go through the different parts and really reconnect that kinetic chain. So it stays there longer. But we’re also talking about someone who’s later on in life in the 70s and has multiple surgeries and multiple scars and multiple adventurous kind of whims that took that took them down. So maybe this is something he’s gonna have to do for the rest of his life to keep that hamstring healthy, and that’s fine too. So it’s really having that scope of ability to do that those things and versus just kicking that client out saying that you got to go see someone else, when all we did is take him through the things that we know very well as a trainer, how to exercise somebody, how to train somebody, how to provide more flexibility in someone’s joints. We just took all those different understanding all those different buckets of of signs and, and education and just dug deeper to provide more help faster, more efficiently. Maybe even for less of a cost. You know, yes, we he paid cash. He didn’t have any copay for insurance. So therefore it’s more expensive, but how much money you have to spend to even get the value out of insurance. Right? There’s certain deductibles that have to be spent so it’s just that none of us have waived we interesting way to think about it. So it’s basically closing the the gap in our education. And that was amazing. I literally didn’t plan on that. That example to be true, but it literally just happened right before I started recording like you know, that’s a great one to use. Typically, what he’s done in the past is get a cortisone injection right in that spot. And we know that’s a short Short when, you know sometimes it works further for long haul but most part, Corazon just Pacey choose a part tissue. It’s a great, great short term, but not a great long term. Other things to do is like, well, let’s just do a basic one dimensional hamstring stretch. When the hamstrings don’t work in one dimension, they work in three dimension. In fact, they work way more powerfully in rotation and lateral motion than they do in the sagittal. Plane. Do they suffer? Do they curl up? And do they flex the knee? Yeah, but not in function, they actually do way more turning and cutting and driving to a different angulation than where your purpose than you actually going. And if you really looked at the hamstrings as an example, we both know that the both of them misc, I would call those four hamstrings really three in a sense. But they all connect to pretty much the same spot the sit bone of the pelvis, but then they bifurcate was by forgive me and they split up. What goes one way one goes the opposite way. But they don’t just go in a straight line to the back of the knee, they go to the front of the knee joint. So they they not only go left and right but they spin, they have an oblique ness to them, they wrap. So therefore if you’d contract the lateral hamstrings, what is it going to do? What’s going to spin the knee one way? What if you contract the inside hamstrings? They’re going to spin the knee the opposite way. And it’s really understanding oh, wait a minute. If that’s how the hamstrings go, then should I just bend forward and to stretch my hamstrings? I don’t think so. That’s not how they function. That’s not how they rap. That’s not how they glide through the tissue. They need more appropriate, more focused attention. And that’s where I think the training industry really, really is the we need more focused attention with the more focused education. And we can have it, it’s out there. It’s all over YouTube. It’s not mainstream, what’s mainstream is, is bodybuilding. That’s mainstream physique building, you know, how to get your butt to look better how to get your biceps to look better, what’s mainstream is how to do power lifts. That’s mainstream. But that’s not that’s not activities of daily living, that again, the biggest addressable market of the movement industry focuses on but we give a very specialized approach, physique building, compound lift building to the masses, when the masses don’t need that, is that should they not have it? Well, they can certainly have it. But we’re really not serving them. We’re not serving the athlete with those drills, we’re not where there’s a huge gap. That’s what I want to say, do those drills, not help, they certainly help. But they leave a massive gap in the capability in the functionality of the athletes how they move on the court, field, road, etc, etc. So I want your trainers to listen to this scope creep, I want you to push your scope out there, but only when you have the understanding on how to do that. Only when you have the confidence or building the confidence to do that. Because without that understanding, without that knowledge about that relative experience, then yeah, we’re kind of guessing. And sometimes you got to fake it till you make it. But when you fake it, you better be right. Or you better at least know what you’re doing or what the what the outcome can be versus guessing and hoping the outcome becomes something because that’s when we put our trainers or our clients or athletes into danger, and pushing too much. So there is a spectrum of kind of guide and responsibility that everything must do. But we’re in a revolutionary kind of process, at least I believe we are. I believe we need to push the medical system to appreciate acknowledge the preventative care that is really needed in this industry. It’s really needed. It’s missing. And the trainer is not just someone who burns calorie who entertains gets on a spin bike plays some great music and pumps and pedals. Yes, that’s certainly what a lot of us do. Nothing wrong with that. But there’s an opportunity, there’s a marketplace. For those who want to go further than that. To fill the gap that very few people are doing is saying I’m going to not only provide greater capacity, capability and comfort to my athletes and clients, but it would do so in a way that understands the movement complexities of the human body, how to dismantle movement, dysfunction, and rebuild movement performance. And that’s where the industry has very little education that’s organized out there. The only education that’s really truly organized is in well, organizations that have figured it out and are sharing it and it’s kind of on the open market. You know, there’s no license there’s no there’s a certification but anyone can make a search certification. But to make a license let tech state legislators that takes regulation, which honestly, I think is really needed in the fitness industry, we need to make the barrier of entry much higher. Sorry, for all those entry level trainers, you worked hard, you’re changing where you need to go. But the entry level is too too low. In fact, the state of California, the entry level to be classified as a personal trainer, by law is simply having written for this one. General Liability Insurance. If you pay the 150 80 bucks per year, to have general liability insurance, you therefore now can call yourself and train and operate as a professional movement guide. It’s pretty sad. It’s pretty sad. That’s where we’re at as, as an industry. So therefore, yes, stay in your lane. If that’s where you’re at, congratulations for making it here. I started there too. But staying in your lane. But if you want to do more, understand more, then please step outside that lane. Something that we’ve been doing for the past decade. And we didn’t really notice that we were doing just something that was my passion. I shared it with a bunch of other coaches. And now we’re kind of a coaching Collective is stepping outside of our lane respectfully with results that can essentially prove that we know what we’re doing. Respectfully, challenging the status quo,
not stealing from other people, other practitioners know, assisting, guiding, filling the gap. That is really the market that no one is serving physical therapists are not serving it, carpenters are not serving it. Massage Therapists are getting there. But they lack the edge, they lack the the movement side of things. Being a massage practitioner, going through schooling, they lack the AED, the movement side of things. Trainers lack the soft tissue, and the biomechanics side side of things. We know how to produce an exercise, but we’re the why behind it. So what we did is we created this program, and it’s called the multi dimensional movement coach. It’s a mentorship. And it’s really a deep dive into what we believe, should fill the gap in the trainer’s mind. It’s this, it’s it’s kind of like wow, I didn’t really understand that. That’s actually how the body works. Or I really didn’t grasp the depth that goes into training somebody that is unlike you and personality, lifestyle and communication, and still connect and make massive gains. It’s understanding that I didn’t really understand that I could move the body with lengthening and strengthening at the same time. And that’s how actual function works. It’s not one or the other, it’s both. And also diving into the plant, I didn’t understand that that could really modify a drill so many different ways, but not actually change the drill, the intention stayed the same, but was able to work around a limitation of performance, limitations of performance limitation or even a behavioral limitation, but the drill intention stayed the same. And it’s not just saying here’s a course. But here’s a mentorship, here’s something that you can actually follow along with diving deep, because learning off the screen is really tough for most trainers. Even learning out of a book is tough for most trainers, because we’re kinesthetic people, we want to move we want to feel we want to do and a book and a desk. And a screen doesn’t necessarily complete that loop. So though that is the easiest and cheapest way to learn, there has to be a part of a course that allows you to ask live questions, move in real time, feel, and actually demonstrate and be part of a community that allows that learning process in a safe, fun, and uplifting environment. And that’s what the MDMC program does. So I’m pitching it, I’ll be honest with you, but I believe in it, I believe in it. I believe in it. Like Elon Musk believes in electric cars that believes in rockets. Is it a must? Is it a must. Yeah, it is a must. Because in a year’s time, this has to happen. It may not have to happen now. But it’s going to have to happen eventually. So let’s start now let’s not wait until we get this complete epidemic of unhealthiness in this country to just overload our medical system. Now we start now, the trainer levels up now, because we don’t want to wait until it’s too late. We want to Catch the Wave, especially if you’re trying to want to make a business out of this, because like I said, total addressable market. What’s that mean? It means the number of clients that you can potentially reach that will pay for your services. Well, if you’re playing within that spectrum of only plus two to plus four, well, then you need someone who doesn’t have movement pain. And he stay out of movement pain for a long time. And that is very, as a fact, that’s, that’s not even a rarity, it’s an impossibility. Everyone will experience movement pain at some part in their movement journey. And we want you to be equipped to manage that to the level that you feel the most fit, and the most fun and the most passionate. So as to the scope of trainers out there who are in your lane, and have the knowledge to get out of that lane, please reach out, we have this cool thing called the movement collective. It’s a discord forum that we just launched. We’re trying to connect trainers who view themselves as movement practitioners. We call ourselves functional movement specialists. It’s a title we just gave ourselves. It’s not licensed, but it certainly is earned. And we want more of you out there. So if you’re curious about it, you want to reach out check us out on Instagram gymnazo.edu, check out the movement collective, it’s a free discord channel. It’s just it’s it’s in its infancy, but it’s going to grow, I want to have, I want to have 10s of 1000s of people on there, collectively sharing the consciousness of movement potential. It’s a fun way to say that. So check that out, check out our YouTube channel, it’s still fresh still in its infancy Gymnazo. And we want trainers to think outside their scope respectfully, with knowledge driven through results, not just hopes and dreams. Because we believe there’s more out there we believe this industry is is ripe for a revolution doesn’t mean you have to pick up a pitchfork. But you have to pick up more knowledge and more experience and a community that can guide itself to better. And maybe wait until there is regulation. But until then, I’m passionate about it. I’m gonna spend the rest of my career doing it, guiding people showing what I’ve learned from the amazing methodologies and people that have were way smarter than me what they’ve learned. So if that inspires you, great. That kind of pisses you off. Well, great. And I think the message did its job. But it’s so good to hear from you. Because the conversation shouldn’t stop. If there’s a disagreement, then let’s talk about it, please. Because what’s interesting needs more is more sharing and less holding on to like at some special secret. The total addressable market is everybody, everybody, not everybody’s going to buy an iPhone. But everybody will move through their entire life. And we’ll need a guide to take them there. Thank you very much, Michael Hughes here again. Great podcast. I hope it was fun. I had no one else to kind of slow me down or interrupt me. But hope you enjoyed. Thanks for listening. And we’ll see you all next time. Hey all. I hope you guys enjoyed today’s episode. And if you did, please share it with your fitness obsessed friends and peers who are also navigating this world of fitness and trying to succeed the trends and misinformation. As you guys can see this podcast is basically a masterclass for trainers wanting to level up in their coaching skills, and their fitness business model. We launch this in 2020. Because you and your fitness tribe deserve to see an unfiltered look at all the aspects of what it takes to stand out as a next generation coach and build a successful fitness business. So share it far and wide. And please, when you do do me a favor, take a screenshot of this screen and share it to your social media accounts and use the hashtag Gymnazo podcast that’s hashtag Gymnazo podcast that way we can see you and share your posts with our audience. And finally, when you’re ready, go the next level as a coach or in your business. And to reach more people. Please go check out gymnazoedu.com. We have put together the best 90 Day coaching program on the market for trainers wanting to become a masterful practitioner and build a business that gives them the freedom and impact. So let us help you do just that. We have online training and one on one coaching to guide you through a full 90 Day certification. We even get you training our clients live because it’s always better to work out your kinks on someone else’s clients than yours. But we promise you this your clients will be blown away by the transformation our program will help you make you’ll be masterful at a whole new level and part of an incredible community of coaches worldwide, taking their skills to the next level. So if you thought this episode had some fire to it, and inspired you to take action, wait until you see what we deliver on this program. So just go to gymnazoedu.com. And we’ll see you on the other side. Remember that turning your passion for fitness into transformation and sustainable business is critical to reaching the people and lives you were put on earth to help it matters and truly can make an impact in other people’s lives. So, hope you do that. Keep sharing a passion and we’ll talk to you soon.
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