December 2024

Knowledge is important, but people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. That is just one of the many important lessons that I have learned over the course of my 25 years in the exercise business. There is no greater teacher in this world than experience, and I have made more mistakes than I care to admit. I have tried my best to learn from those mistakes so that I do not repeat them, and I truly believe that if you have not failed at something, then you haven't tried. It has been an interesting and fulfilling journey, and it is one that I believe is just getting started.

When I began my career as an instructor I was fresh out of college, quite green, and knew very little about what constituted proper exercise. Fortunately, I had a couple things working in my favor: a natural curiosity and a desire to learn. This is how I came across the Super Slow Exercise Protocol, which is what the Total Results methodology is based upon. I worked in commercial gyms for several years attempting to apply this philosophy to the clients I was working with, and what I came to realize is that equipment and the studio environment matter. The exercise equipment should be made with the protocol in mind, and while you can perform the Total Results protocol with a variety of different equipment, the exercise experience is not the same if you are using machines with backward cams and poorly designed movement arms. Working with Super Slow Systems and MedX equipment changed everything. The same holds true for the exercise environment. I struggled for years in trying to get clients to focus while dealing with distractions like mirrors, crowds, music, and warm temperatures. A private and clinically-controlled environment is necessary so that the client and the instructor can completely focus on the task at hand. I developed a much greater appreciation for these aspects of the exercise experience when I went to work at Fairfax Racquet Club and Total Results, and have come to view them as non-negotiables.

After completing a few lower-level exercise certifications, I earned my first Super Slow Exercise Instructor certification in 2004. This involved six months of study and an internship at Exercise Defined in Georgetown under the tutelage of a Master Instructor, and I was an idealistic new instructor who did things exactly as Ken Hutchins did them. In fact, I can still remember the instructional scripts that I had to memorize for my practical exam. Over time, I learned to adopt my own teaching style and verbiage to best fit my personality. I am grateful that my former boss Tim Rankin gave me a lot of independence and plenty of room to make mistakes. Long and drawn out explanations, while appreciated by some clients, can often seem boring and overwhelming to others, so a balance must be struck. This has helped me to still be thorough while also more efficient when performing initial consultations.

It is important to be a good listener; this is something that we often think of as a passive activity, but it is really quite the opposite. Over the last few years I have worked to become a better listener, to simply hear what a client has to say rather than rush in with a response. Clients need to feel that their concerns are being heard, and listening is the best way to learn. There were times when I wasn't such a great listener, when I felt that what I had to say was more important. Consequently, I have lost clients over the years because of poor listening. Asking clients periodically for feedback gives them a feeling of investment, and we want them to know that they have some say in the direction of their workouts. I have learned that conducting regular check-ins and holding brief conversations now can stave off potential problems down the road. There is still a need to occasionally have some tough conversations, but if there is an environment of openness and honesty, clients are much more likely to take on a mindset of ownership and accountability.

Less is more when it comes to exercise instruction. I often tell clients that one of their goals should be to get me to shut up, because it means that they are executing better and there are fewer form discrepancies for me to correct. In turn, this allows me to conserve energy over the course of a long day. When I prepared to take my practical exam I had the tendency to overcorrect and talk too much; in fact, my Master Instructor had to tell me to stop babbling and say less. She was 100 percent right. I have learned to correct only when necessary, and that sometimes pre-emptive corrections go a long way. One of the most challenging concepts that I had to understand is that not everyone is as enthusiastic about exercise as I am. Some clients are very excited about the possibilities of what Total Results can do for them, while most trainees see this simply as a means to an end. I used to grow frustrated when I perceived that some of the people that I instructed simply didn't seem to have the same sense of urgency about exercise that I did. Over time I have come to recognize that every client has their own personality and their own values. It is my job to adapt my approach to best meet their needs, while at the same time staying true to our guiding philosophy.

I am still just as passionate about exercise as I was when my journey began over 25 years ago. If anything, the passage of time has helped me to become more appreciative and realize how fortunate I am to be able to do this for a living. There is less rigidity in my instructional mindset and I am far more adaptable than I was earlier in my career, which has probably gone a long way toward preserving my sanity. At the same time I must continue to learn and grow, and never be satisfied enough to rest on my laurels. Thank you to all the people who have helped me along the way, and thank you to all the clients that I have had the privilege to work with over the years. The best is yet to come!

Hall of Fame basketball coach Pat Riley says that life is a continuous learning process. If you don't strive to get better, you are bound to get worse. I approach exercise with a similar mindset. There is no greater teacher than experience, and while everything that I have learned over the years has come from somewhere else, some lessons have been learned the hard way. After talking with other exercise instructors over the years I have discovered that my early interest in weight training was similar to others that have gone on to work in this profession. The many mistakes that I have made over the years as far as my exercise routine is concerned have hopefully made me a little wiser, and have enabled me to pass along what I have learned.

My first exposure to weight training was in 8th grade PE class, when we did a unit on circuit training. It was nothing too in-depth, just some rudimentary explanation about a series of basic exercises on a Universal machine, but it spurred my interest enough to continue training that summer in preparation for 9th grade football. As I progressed through high school I continued to weight train year-round in the PE class that football players were expected to take. We were supervised by one of our football coaches, but there was no real scientific teaching or much in the way of structure. Even though there was very little record keeping, we managed to become stronger as a by-product of being teenagers going through puberty and having some exposure to weight training. The biggest mistake that I made during this time period was in not having a better understanding of nutrition and hydration. Looking back, I definitely did not drink enough water (this was before I knew how bad soft drinks are for you), nor did I consume enough of the quality protein that is necessary for building muscle.

My football career continued for a few years in college, as did my weight training. I was still as skinny as a rail - maybe 170 pounds - but I did have access to decent food in the dining hall. Once I stopped playing football my weight training became intermittent; some weeks I would workout and others I would not. There were weeks with no activity at all, and I definitely was not getting the full benefit of the gym membership that I was paying for. This was my big mistake at the time - not having a plan, the drive, or the understanding of the benefits I was missing out on. After I finished college I took a job as a personal trainer at Washington Sports Club.

Here I had access to a large facility and what I thought was excellent equipment (it was in short order that I learned otherwise). This was where I crafted an exercise routine straight out of the glossy pages of Muscle and Fitness magazine: four to five days a week of weight training with a split routine and different body parts on each day. Multiple sets of each movement and multiple movements for the same muscle groups. Sheer madness! There were so many mistakes during this period of my training life that it may be difficult to point them all out. I will do my best, though. For one, I am embarrassed at my inability to think critically during this period. I should have known better than to follow the examples of genetically gifted people who did not know the first thing about the way the body adapts to imposed stress. Along those lines, I had a poor understanding of the role that genetics plays in physical adaptations. I was training with way too much volume of exercise and not nearly enough intensity. The speed of movement that I used with each exercise was the standard Nautilus protocol of two seconds lifting the weight and four seconds lowering it. This was better than most of the gym rats that were around me but was still entirely too fast, and I am fortunate that I did not suffer any serious injuries. Because of the insane frequency with which I trained, I found myself getting sick with colds and flu more frequently; I was overtrained and under-recovered, thus stretching the limits of my immune system. Too much variety in exercise leads to an inability to master anything significant. As a result of all of these mistakes I wasted what could have been several productive years in my 20s by barking up the wrong tree. Fortunately, fate intervened.

I was introduced to Ken Hutchins' Super Slow Exercise Protocol by a good friend of mine, and almost immediately I knew that I had stumbled onto something big. This required some unlearning of a lot of the misguided ideas that I mistook for exercise truths. I made better physical improvements more quickly and in less time per week than I did by using conventional bodybuilding dogma. Most importantly I was not overtraining, so I rarely got sick, and because I was using a 10/10 speed there was virtually no risk for injury. Still, there were a few mistakes that I made during this period. The first was not learning about this methodology sooner! Second, it took me longer than it should have to recognize the importance that equipment design makes in terms of the exercise experience, but once I did my first workout with MedX and Super Slow Systems equipment I could not go back to using regular gym equipment. Lastly, even after I embraced a slow-speed, high-intensity exercise philosophy, it took me a while to come to grips with the mental components of exercise: focus, demeanor, and attitude. These are things that I still work on to this very day.

Just because I instruct exercise for a living doesn't mean that I haven't made mistakes along the way when it comes to my own training routine. Mistakes can perhaps be better classified as learning experiences, and I am certainly a work in progress. We grow by learning from mistakes and by working to not repeat them. Learning never stops. In my next article, I will profile some of the mistakes that I have made as an exercise instructor over the past 25 years. Thank you to all of you who have been a part of that journey..