I have been in the health and fitness industry for a long time. I have evolved and grown in many ways. Some things I have abandoned and other things have stood the test of time. One thing that has really stood the test of time is my advice on fitness classes

.When I set-up a program with a client, activities outside of the structured workouts are always a part of the plan. Most clients are already a participant in something when they come to me. There have been recreational runners, hikers, bikers, climbers, walkers, fitness class enthusiasts, those that mix it up and serious athletes. All of these activities require a solid foundation of functional movement patterns, but, today's focus is on fitness classes.

Clients would excitedly tell me about the new class they found and then I would proceed to tell them what was wrong with that class. I know. I sound like an asshole. I had good intentions and it never made me feel good to watch excitement get the wind knocked out of it, so hear me out

.My background is in physical therapy. My entire reason for wanting to be in the health and fitness field is to help people prevent insidious aches and pains and to make sure they are able to move awesome and feel good doing the stuff they love for the rest of their lives. Also note, most people don't move awesome unless they are working on it consistently every single day. Fitness classes require high repetitions or long-held postures. Most people do not have a solid enough foundation of healthy human movement.

If they did, they wouldn't have time to notice you because they are too busy demonstrating and leading the class. Plain and simple, this leads to you strengthening your potentially faulty movement patterns. And, I am sorry, but, no, the instructor occasionally coming by to straighten your posture or tell you to press your back down to the mat is not making it any better.

Let's not forget that a lot of the moves are a bad idea even for people with a solid foundation. In my early days, I worked in a health club and a lot of my clientele attended the classes. I found myself having to correct those clients on movement more often than clients that were not attending classes. More than a few came to me because they had gotten injured or started having pain in their classes. A day a week working on building a solid foundation of healthy movement cannot compete with training dysfunctional movement patterns over and over. Volume wins.

I told people to quit their classes. Do you know what I learned? People were deeply and emotionally attached to fitness classes like athletes were attached to their sport. I felt like the devil, but, it was what was best. Was it not?

Yes and no. I truly wanted to help people and yes, for many of them, quitting classes was what was best for their body. But, what about their mind? I evolved to teaching people that they need to train for their classes as an athlete trains for their sport. We worked on a solid foundation that allowed them to participate while preventing injuries and addressing any pain that would come up.

I created what I call the Daily Essential 8 for them to do on their own in 10 minutes a day and kept their workouts with me simple and effective. The time investment was much less than most expected. This was helping people. People could continue to enjoy classes.

At first, I was worried about losing clients to the fun and community they were getting out of the classes. Today, I know my clients like our sessions because I am there to irritate them with my cues to make every single rep count toward their progress. They like it when I explain the importance of the quality of movement of the last rep. They like being reminded that their brain is going to remember the last thing they do. They like going away feeling better, not beaten up. They don't come to me to be entertained. They come to me so that the things they do for entertainment don't cause pain and so that they can do whatever they want with their body and feel good for the rest of their life.

They let you check out which is one of the big draws to them. I totally get it. I recently started sampling popular classes so I could understand the attachment to them. More on this later.

Upgrade the priority of building a solid foundation of better movement so that you can enjoy them without the increased risk of pain and injury being in your future. Get your movement assessed. Prioritize moving better over moving more.

The entire purpose of Ground Zero will be to build a solid foundation of efficient and functional movement so that you can enjoy whatever activities you want to do. Like anything else, if the foundation isn’t strong, it won’t support the structure. It is going to be a 13 week program and fully online. If you think you want in, I am going to be offering a very special opportunity to anyone who gets on this list by December 21st. The best benefit to getting on that list is the free members-only content. The new members-only content is going to kick off with a video series on mobility.

Don’t miss out! Get on the list.