Several years ago, I had a conversation with a trainer, considered to be one of the top producers at the gym. One of the questions I asked him was, “Is there anything you are interested in learning?” His response shocked me: “Naw, I know everything I need to know to be a trainer.”
It was very odd to me that two people in the same industry, health & fitness in our case, can have such different views & lesson-learned. I believe that education is absolutely essential for growth, not only professionally but personally as well, which is the next lesson I learned from being a trainer.
I still remember walking into a course called BioSignature taught by Charles Poliquin in 2012 and feeling like the dumbest person in the room. That is literally the moment I realized, “Wow, I know nothing. I have WAYS to go just to catch up to what these coaches know.” And you know what? It’s been six years since and I still feel like that sometimes. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve learned so much in those years through books, lectures, mentors, experiences, and courses. With that said, the funny thing about learning is the more and more you learn you are introduced to more and more smarter people, ideas, and concepts. Learning has unfailingly humbled me and it always will.
You’ve probably heard the saying, “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” It directly applies to being a trainer & strength coach as well. It is easier for trainers to run the same program, the hammer, for all their clients, the nail in this analogy. But as discussed in Part 1 of What I’ve learned being a trainer everyone’s different and shouldn’t run the same program for all the clients. How do we prevent that? Learn more to have more “tools” in the toolbox.
I think it’s important to reemphasize the quote from #5 Quote of the Week (1):
“The moment you lock yourself into certainty about your beliefs is the moment you stop growing,” – Jonathan Fields
Just as education is vital to becoming the best trainer I could be I believe the same goes for everything else in my life. I’ve grown so much through education since becoming a trainer. I’ve definitely benefited from conventional learning like books and classes but also have benefited tremendously from some not so conventional methods like traveling and conversations with people. Learning can be achieved through anything and everything but we just have to be aware of those possibilities. Let’s keep learning and growing.
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