May
15
By Coach Andrew
I’ve been working in the fitness industry for about 8 years now. I try to keep learning and developing myself constantly, as much as possible. However, every now and then, I come across something or someone who helps me make a quantum leap forward in my development.
After doing my Personal Training qualification I went and worked in a high street health club for a year in London. I then returned to my home town of Bristol and set up a mobile PT business. At this point my repertoire of exercises was quite limited, my knowledge of how to teach them was not that impressive, and my programming was poor.
I didn’t have loads of work at first, so got in touch with local PT studios and eventually found work with a local coach called Alex Poole. This was my first quantum leap in development. He taught me loads of useful stuff about coaching movements, programming and managing multiple athletes in the same session. He was a good teacher and must have seen potential in me despite my lack of knowledge. He was a fitness geek and inspired me to study more too. I became a better fitness coach.
A couple of years later my next quantum leap forward came. I found CrossFit. At first it was just the crazy workouts and cool videos that attracted me, but then when I signed up to the journal and started reading up on how to do the movements, I started rapidly increasing my knowledge base again. It was truly a revelation, both in terms of programming, and in coaching movements. Since that initial few months of massive change, I have slowly kept reading and learning whilst growing my CrossFit community.
I’ve thought over the last few years that there’s room on the market for a book that covers the basics of functional movements in some detail. A bible for the serious fitness enthusiast which tells them everything they need to know about core stability, functional movements, common issues related to them and the possible fixes. I had been thinking of, at some point, attempting to write that book, as I thought it could be a great seller.
I recently heard about Kelly Starretts book “Becoming a Supple Leopard”. Members were buying it and talking about it, so I thought I’d better get a copy and keep up to date with the current talk. When it arrived, I had an initial flick through. I was expecting a book focused on mobility and was a little disappointed to see that about 3rd of the book was an introduction to how to do the CrossFit movements. I didn’t think there would be much new in there for me. As I started reading it, I quickly realized that this was contempt before investigation, and as I continued I realized the awful truth…..I was holding in my hand the book I’d planned to one day write; the bible of functional fitness training.
The book is crammed full of useful information, essentially his career of built up knowledge condensed into a useful guide. I found new concepts or new ways of describing existing ideas in each chapter, and as I’ve progressed through the book, realized I’m in the midst of another quantum leap in my development.
It is the book I wish I had written. Of course, I now realize I couldn’t have written it as well, because; a) I didn’t have all the knowledge in there, and b) I’m not as good a writer as KStarr.
So, the reason why I hate Kelly Starrett and his stupid book, is that he beat me to it (probably by at least a decade by the time I got around to writing it, and possibly not at all). I guess, because I care about all of you in my community, I would recommend to you that you go ahead and buy it. You will learn loads, and be better athletes and human beings as a result. If you really want to understand the movements that we are coaching you in, want to one day be a coach yourself, or want to try and fix your own movements by improving your mobility, then do it……buy it now.
And as for KStarr…………. I guess I’ll forgive him 😉