Building Stronger: Dean Somerset Shares Secrets to Post-Rehab Training Success

Building Stronger Dean Somerset shares secrets to post Rehab Training Success hi, I'm Beverly.

Simpson, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner and this podcast is where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover how to increase client performance in movement, package and position their products and services and get out of their own way so that they can increase their revenue to live a life that they love without sleazy sales. Welcome to the PT Profit Podcast.

Welcome back to the PT Profit Podcast. My name is Chris. I'm giving you your intro for this episode with the Goat. I call him the greatest of all time because he's local to me, an amazing human being and someone who has had an impact on a lot of careers across the industry. Dean Somerset is the co author of the upcoming book Rock Solid Resilience which will be released in February. We'll have all the links for that in the show Notes and In this episode Dean discusses the focus of the book which he co wrote with physical therapist Dan Pope and the book is aimed to bridge the gap between rehab and strength training, offering practical advice for individuals dealing with pain or injury. This conversation is going to go into the nuances of pain management, the importance of tailored exercise programs, and the value of open communication between trainers and clients. Dean emphasizes the necessity for fitness professionals to gain hands on experience in person before transitioning to online coaching. He also shares insights on building a network of trusted professionals staying motivated in the industry. At the end of the episode we are going to have all of the details on how you can get your copy of the book. Highly recommend it. Hope you enjoy this episode.

What's up Dean? Thank you so much for joining me on the show today. How are you?

I'm fantastic. Thanks. Thanks for having me on this.

Oh I can't wait. Just before we hit record, I know that there's going to be a ton of insight that you're going to be able to share with us. So can you just dive in a little bit more? You were starting to tell me right before I hit record, but can you share with us a little bit more about the book that you have coming out in February?

Yeah, absolutely. The book is called Rock Solid Resilience. Myself and my co author Dan Pope who's a physical therapist doctor in Boston. He does a lot of work with high level athletes but also general population people. But he also has a huge focus on getting stronger and getting people to actually have the ability to take care of themselves in the gym rather than just being stuck in like rehab Burgate board my entire career has been based in post rehab. So trying to get people from, if they've had an injury to getting back into a gym, knowing they might have some limitations, might have some irritation, might have stuff that might be preventing them from doing what they would normally do pre injury by trying to get them just as strong as humanly possible, get them to build their endurance, get back in the game and have the best life possible. So we wrote a book pretty much on that concept. How do you work around common injuries? How do you avoid getting injured when you're training? How do you build a training program that's going to get you the best results you're looking for without beating you up in the process? And then if things do happen to pop up, what do you need to do? If you happen to have something you can't manage on your own or get through, when do you tag out and get them, a medical professional back into the mix? So we wanted to make this a really deep book that a lot of people would be able to use as a resource to be able to say, hey, my shoulder hurts, what do I do? My back hurts, can I still do, my knee is sore, what kind of exercises should I do or what kind of exercises should I avoid? And then when should I actually go to a doctor, to a physical therapist or anyone?

Yeah, so what I'm. I'm curious, you know, as someone who works with a lot of coaches who deal a lot with understanding the nuances between what is pain management that they can address as a coach who's not trained in rehab and when should they, when should they tap out? What are some of the common misconceptions that people have around build, building strength versus managing pain?

Well, a big thing is what is pain actually? And what does that mean to the individual in front of you? So I'm sure you've heard the. There's some people that have, quote, a high pain tolerance. They can deal with a whole lot of stuff. And then there's a lot of athletes that might get injured and they're out for like a week or two, but then they're back in the game. Did they actually have to fix the injury or they just need a little bit of time? And then from my own experience, training myself, training my clients, sometimes things happen and they go away on their own. So do we really need to worry about it at that point? Pain by itself is just a symptom. That's just something that you're feeling at that point in time that tells you, okay, something is happening. Does that mean it's necessarily bad, good, whatever. So typically, I'll go through a process with the clients where I talk to them. Okay, what is your pain? Can you describe it? What does it feel like to you? When does it come on? Are there certain movements that you do that make it feel worse and movements that you do that make it feel better? And then we start trying to break down a process by which we can still train. I'm a big believer that no matter what you're going through, there's always something that you can do in the gym. And sometimes that means we avoid certain exercises or movements that might be problematic. You give them a chance to chill, give them a chance to heal, give them a chance to rest. But we can still hammer some others. If you have a sore knee, you probably still have two working shoulders. If you don't, that's a discussion for another time. But we can probably still do core work. We could probably still do conditioner work. We could probably still do something with that sore knee that's not going to irritate it, but it'll still give you a benefit at the end of the day. So while it might not be something where we're trying to turn from a trainer into a rehab professional, we're still trying to train the body that's in front of us. That doesn't necessarily mean that we're trying to be poor, effective trainers. It means we're trying to figure out how do we work with the person giving us the best that they can, but giving them the best that we have available.

Yeah, that's beautiful. So what I'm curious, too, about when you said. You said with your clients, meeting them with their. Where they're at, specifically helping them identify pain and what pain means. And I'm curious, in your experience, how much of the pain is anticipated pain versus what is actual pain, and how do you navigate those nuances in the conversation? Because sometimes, you know, a client, especially if we're dealing with chronic pain. Right. Someone who's always and especially athletic and active people who are just in chronic movement, like the same movement patterns that they're doing over and over and over again, sometimes there is a fear or an anticipation of pain. As the coach, how do you navigate that with your clients?

Yeah, and that can be very individualized. So some people will be more sensitive to certain types of pain because they've got previous trauma, whether that's emotional, whether that's physical, whether that's a previous injury, and it makes them more sensitive to feeling any kind of pain. So There was people with a high pain tolerance. These are the people on the opposite end. They have a very low pain tolerance. Part of it's also discovering, okay, well is this pain a bad thing or is this a pain that's just there? So if I have somebody who's got like osteoarthritis, their knee is bone on bone. That knee isn't going to feel non painful no matter what we do. So we can work on all of the stretching, all the mobility, all the traction drills, all the everything but that bone on bone contact is still there. The knee is still going to be strong. How much pain are we willing to deal with while still being active, while still doing the things you want to do, while still making progress in the way that you're looking for? And then how much would be considered too much? So if I'm trying to tell a client, no, we can get rid of your pain, that's a lie. For clients like that, I'm not going to get rid of their pain, but I'm going to help them to learn how to do more in their day to day life and manage the amount of pain that they have. So for instance, one of my clients, she's got two knees that have osteoarthritis in them. When we first started training, she could barely bend her knees to get to 90 degrees squatting, she could barely get to like 20 degrees of knee bend. It just wasn't happening. It was really painful. Now she's bending her knees past 90 degrees and squatting to depth. And it's one of those kind of things where it's like, does this hurt more than when we started? No, it's about the same. But she's able to push through it a little bit different. She knows that it's not going to get non painful, but that she understands where her thresholds are for how much pain she's willing to tolerate and also what the type of pain feel is. So for clients, it comes down to very individual basis. How much pain are you wearing to tolerate what pain actually means? Is this the sign of an injury? Is this a sign that this is just where you're at in life? Is this something that we should fix or remedy or get around? It's a very individualized thing. And then part of it also comes back to what's my role as a trainer? Do I make a client hurt? Do I avoid pain and diary? Or do we make sure that we have a network of people that I can tag into to be like, what should I do with this person. So if I have a physiotherapist that I could send that person to and be like, okay, tell me if I'm doing this wrong, tell me what I should do different than tell me if there's something that you would like me to do. I'm going to get that information from them. Most of the people in my referral network know what I do and know who I am, which is fantastic because then they can have an honest conversation with me and be like, yeah, take this person, load them up, push them to what they can tolerate. Fantastic. I can do that kind of stuff really easy. I've worked with other physiotherapists who are like, don't exercise. And to me that's a non starter. I'm going to send that person to a different person to get a different opinion because I want to be able to get them fit. Fitness is going to be a bigger benefit to those individuals than just passive recovery. If I have a client with osteoarthritis and they say don't exercise well, that's not going to make things better. It's going to make things significantly worse over time. We have to move, we have to pump fluid through those joints where we have to know what the limitations are and what we should try and avoid.

Oh, good. Now for you in your earlier in your career and as you have started, like if we go back to when you first started, I have two questions for you. How did you find those boundaries for yourself to determine what needs to, what can I push through, what can I tap out? And what are some of the best ways that you recommend to build that type of a referral system where you actually trust the person that you are, you are recommending your client go to.

So for the first question, part of it was trial and error. Like I'm a meathead, I like to lift weights, I, I do that as my go to, but I also like to try new things and see what happens. So I'll experiment in the gym and be like, what did I feel with this? What did I feel with that exercise? If I push myself on this program, what was the end result? And sometimes you learn certain things just don't jive well with you. For a long time. I had a lot of lower back pain and bending forward was really bad. So I taught myself how to deadlift endeavor pain free just by pushing into that process and learning how to do it properly. It wasn't a haphazard thing. I was filming every set that I did for about six to eight months to watch what my technique was like so that I could break it down and try to make it better for my own education. I took courses, I took fortune of. I'm sorry, you go ahead.

No, I was gonna ask. Right, of course. So, you know, for trial and error, did you ever. Have you ever had an experience where you weren't the avatar, meaning you had a client that perhaps had shoulder pain and you've never had shoulder pain, so you've never tried, had to trial and error it on yourself? Did. Do you have a threshold of what you're willing to trial and error on your actual client?

I'll be honest, every client is a trial and error. Every client. I have an idea of what might work, but I don't know exactly what's going to work just because every individual is different. So I could look at all the research, I could be up to date on every workshop, every course, every methodology, everything that's going on. But then when I come to that one client in front of me who's like, my shoulder hurts when I do this, okay, I'm going to try things with that person and see what we can figure out. I'm going to map the movements that work well for this person, map the movements that don't work well, and we're going to figure out how we can develop a training program that's going to be effective ish or effective enough to get you the results you're looking for. The cool thing about research is it tells you what the averages are and what the outliers are. But every client who's in front of you, they might be an outlier, they might be an average, they might be a non responder. We don't know until we actually tries to. So in every situation that I'm with a client, I'll tell them I have a plan and I have an idea that this might work. I don't know for sure. I want you to be willing to trust me to be able to adapt things as we go forward and let me know and communicate back to me what's going on, what's working, what's not working. We can do this together, but it's something where every finance is going to be a trial and error to a degree.

So. Good. Okay, I will go back to the network question because it's important, but before we move on from this specific question, I, I do have a follow up in terms of your container of time that you're measuring. So when you are trialing and erroring with yourself and or with your, with your client, what is the typical timeline that you're looking at to make a decision whether or not the adaptation that you are trying to achieve is working or not. So another way to ask that is how do you decide, oh, this protocol is working and it just needs more time, or this protocol, we need to change the past, how do you decide that?

So part of it comes down to what the actual problem is. So in terms of timeframe, if it's a structural issue, like let's say that client with osteoarthritis and their knees, that's going to take months. If it's something where it's, we need to rebuild tendon consistency or resilience, that's going to take weeks. If it's something where it's down to like, does this movement hurt or does this movement feel good? That's going to take reps. It's going to take maybe one set, maybe two sets. So part of it comes down to what are we actually looking at? What's the actual involved process and what are we actually trying to change? So if a client comes in and they deadlift with rounded back and they're like, oh, my back hurts when I deadlift, and I say, try deadlifting this way, and they say, oh, my back feels better this way. Great. That took maybe five, ten seconds. Right? So the container on that timeframe is, can I coach the movement better today? And can I make it from one set to the next a better experience for that client? If it's something where it comes down to structural, in order to change structure, that's going to take time. That's going to take weeks, months, sometimes years to get to a point where they physically adapted to the stress we're putting on them to make it so that they're actually able to see that forward progress. And I'll explain that to every one of my clients. It's like, based on what we've seen, here's a realistic timeline to go through. For bone remodeling, we're looking at like between 12 and 16 weeks minimum. If it's tendinopathy type stuff, we're looking like four weeks to 12 weeks minimum. Again, if it's longer than that, we'll at least be able to say, hey, we're making progress. If it's just learning how to deadlift properly or learning how to squat properly, we can do that in a single session. That's not going to be much of an issue. Then it's up to that individual to take that new content and be able to do something with it on their own going forward, or we add that into their training program when we meet regular. So as far as, like the time buckets go, it all comes back to what's involved, what those tissues are that need to be adapted, what the process is looking like for that person. Some people respond really quickly, some people respond slower. Now, to confuse everyone entirely. From everything I was saying, all those numbers change based on our person's age relative to trainings. If somebody is in their 60s or 70s and they've never trained before versus if they've trained a lot, they're going to adapt differently. If somebody's in their teens or their 20s, it doesn't matter. They're going to adapt faster than somebody in their 60s or 70s, regardless of whether they train them. So time frame, age, all that kind of stuff is going to play a huge role in how the body adapts to that training process. And then it's just figuring out and conveying that information to the client in the best way possible to make sure that they can understand the process, buy into it, but also know that this may or may not be something that they can see immediate results for, but they just have to stick with it for a time. Now, at the end of that time frame, if they haven't made any progress, I give them a choice. Do you want to continue doing this or do you want to do something different? Here's my thoughts. Here's what I would want to see you go, but we've invested this much time on the results that you're seeing or the results you're seeing. What do you want to do? I'm here to help you in the best way possible. I don't want to dictate the program, but I want to be the conduit for success to help you get to where you want to.

Yeah. So something I'm also curious about is when you're looking at measuring performance, essentially, do you find that people tend to mistrack and misidentify what the actual issues are? Because I'll give you an example of what. What I mean in this. In this context is that for me, my clients will come to me and say, I did this and it didn't work. But then when I look at that and I'm like, well, how do you know that? I realize that they're actually measuring a performance metric that isn't in. That doesn't indicate that what they were. You know, it doesn't. It doesn't. It's mismanaged. In terms of what it is that they're actually trying to accomplish. So I wonder if that's true in this. In this example.

And part of it comes down to what is the actual measurement that you're looking at. There's differences between a quantitative measurement, which is looking at numbers and data, and then also a qualitative measurement. How do I feel? How much pain do I have? Can I do these activities without any issue? So part of it comes down to what is the actual measurement that that person values the most, and then how often are they looking into that measurement. So if I have a client who, let's say their goal is to lose weight and they are losing weight at a relatively good pace, a pound a week, everything's moving well, and they're saying, oh, I only lost. Or I tried on these jeans the other day and I felt like they were too tight. Even though you've been losing weight consistently. Right. So the qualitative measurement is going in the exact right direction. But their quantitative measurement, where they feel like the rate of weight loss isn't enough, or sorry, the quantitative is going. The right directive, the qualitative, the genes feel tight. They don't feel like they're losing weight fast enough. That's out of whack. So making sure that they can see the forest for the trees becomes important too. Making sure they understand that the progress that you're making is actually good. If somebody is worried about something like tendinopathy, they have no frame of reference of our mind. They don't know what normal is, what fast is, or anything like that. So to be able to say, well, I can do these things that I used to not be able to do, and it doesn't hurt anymore, that's big. That's a major improvement that a lot of people don't give themselves enough credit. If somebody's able to open a jar or go walk downstairs or stand up in the morning and not take three tries to get out of bed, those are all big things that a lot of people don't realize affect the quality of life, then they can't do that. So making sure people understand what those metrics are supposed to be and then focusing on them effectively. So if I have a client who wants to get stronger, let's use this as an example. Great quantitative measurement is how much weight do they lift on that bar? If you're able to lift more weight and you do it for more reps, you're getting strong. If somebody thinks, well, this person over here is stronger than me, okay, maybe they are, but that doesn't mean that you haven't gotten strong. But a lot of it comes down to saying, okay, well, what is important to that individual? And are you focused on the right metrics? And then also do you understand what those metrics actually mean? Right. So a performance metric. Performance metric is fantastic, but it has to relate back to the goal that you're looking for. And then you also have to understand the context of what that metric is related to yourself, related to everyone else, related to so many different features that if you're using that metric and you don't know what that means, it's kind of useless. It's like if you got the Apple watch on, you were counting your steps and you find out that you're only walking like 15,000 steps today. That's way better than 90% of the population. But for you, you might be like, is that good? I have no idea. Maybe, maybe not.

Yeah. What's interesting too, I think, at least for me, and in my experience, is that sometimes there is a communication of expectations from the trainer to the client. Sometimes the client is also undervaluing the things that they are achieving because of, you know, social media, love it or hate it, but there is, you know, there's people get mismanaged expectations of what's supposed to happen, which is what I'm hearing you say throughout the start of this podcast, is effective communication from trainer to client, period. When you have that, then that's going to help you increase buy in. Because all of guessing, testing, and assessing to the best of your ability, in my opinion.

And on that point that you brought up about clients undervaluing their goals, I think that so many people need to walk with a little bit more swagger about what they do. Like, there's got to be so many more people willing to say, you know what, I'm willing to celebrate these wins. That doesn't make you cocky, that doesn't make you arrogant. That makes you able to realize that, yeah, this was something good. And that doesn't mean saying, okay, this is good, but these five other things are bad over here, or this number should be better, even though it's still pretty good. People seem to find a way to find the negative about themselves and humble themselves more than they probably should, rather than being like, that was actually good. I did better than I am stronger than I was the other day. That doesn't make you arrogant, cocky, conceited, anything like that. That just makes you able to actually realize that you're making the progress that you're busting your butt to try to see.

Yeah, for me, I think that's the, that is what I call the curse of the high achiever. Like the high achiever is just always looking for the areas of opportunity to improve and that oftentimes comes at the cost of celebrating what they have achieved. They're just moving the marker. And this is true for coaches and for clients. They're high achieving clients do the same thing like this, this feeling of like it's never enough, but that's just not true. So.

And part of it is like you can be a high achiever and strive for having a higher bar and want to push further or want to get into that higher state, but still celebrate when you've taken a good step.

Yes.

There's nothing wrong with being able to say here's my standard and I'm moving towards it. And I took a bigger step towards that standard than I was at yesterday.

So true. It's the living in the. And I celebrating this and I'm getting better. Like I just. So it's so powerful and important for both coaches and clients. Okay, so you talk, going back to the network, you talked about the importance of having a network. So I'm curious, for someone who was new or starting out, what are some of the best practices that you recommend in building that network that you trust for your, for your clients, for your clients and for coaches?

Big part of it is that essentially every connection that you're going to make is probably going to be a cold message at some point in time. But it's also going to be something where if you have clients that currently go to physiotherapists, chiropractors, massage therapists, reaching out to those individuals and being like, hey, I'm working with your patient. So and so I know that we have different like information legislations where you can't share information one way or another. Just sit. Nursing signs on. Fantastic. Cool. If you can give me any advice, great. But I would also love to come and get a treatment with you, see what you're all about. I'd love to invite you to come to a training session with me so you can see what I'm all about. I'd love to be able to form a network where we can collaborate in a way that's going to help my clients, that'll help your patients and find a way for them. It doesn't have to be anything more complicated than that. And if you go to get a treatment from me and you say, wow, this person's really Good. They did a fantastic job with me. Refer them more clients, say, hey, I have a client who has a similar shoulder problem as this. Boom. I'm going to send you out to this physiotherapist. My client has some back issues. Cool. Here's a chiropractor for. And when they start doing that referral process, come in and your clients get better results, that makes you look better. If they start sending you their patients and their patients start getting great results, that makes you and that referral source of credit. So part of it comes down to just cold contacts, part of it comes down to building relationships, and part of it comes down to finding people who are actually good at what they do by putting yourself out there. If you have a benefits package or else spending account or even just care about your physical training capabilities, you should probably be getting physiotherapy or chiropractic and massage or some sort of allied health treatment on a regular basis just to augment what you're doing. So find people, try some. Go to different people around you and see what your clients are doing. And if you're not good, question them, go to shadow them, say, hey, can I come and watch what you do for four or six hours on a random Tuesday just so I can get a better idea of how you operate that way it might spark new ideas for your own training, but also new ideas for what those people can do to help you out.

That's true. That's a really, those are some really good ideas. Uh, you know, it's interesting because I've had, you know, I work primarily in the online space, so I've had trainers come to me before and say, hey, I'm new to training and I want to build online. I my first inclination and some of the advice that I usually get that I often give is like, hey, actually maybe go get a job at a gym first. Go and get like, go get some like hands on clinical work with people experience. Because I, I'll say for me as a former district fitness manager, being in the gym with other trainers, other coaches and learning from all different types of people, like that really solidified my thirst for wanting for knowledge, to want to get better and as well as like clinical hands on experience, which I think is essential for me.

Yeah. And I've been doing online training since 2008. So I'm kind of old, old, old school. This was around the time that YouTube had just started going and I was using a combination of like a word document with the YouTube length that I was able to film in the gym on my own with one of those old flip cameras. And that was what I was doing in conjunction with my own in person training. So as far as being able to say, like, online training is a better option for scaling, kind of, you can scale online training in a different way than you can in person for learning how to coach, there's no question in person is a better way to go. But the skills that you learn from in person coaching help you to become a better online coach. The way I always say it is. Like in person coaching is reactive in the moment. Online coaching is reacting after the moment. So the person who's sending you videos of their workouts, so do technique redirection on that workout's already happened in duck. You're not going to give them feedback in the moment of that workout to make that workout better. Unless you're literally there doing a virtual session with that client and saying, your back's moving like this. Precede this right now. Okay, now it's better, we can keep going forward. So you're working in more of like a reactive scenario for your coaching. Whereas with in person training, it's more in the moment, you're giving them real time feedback and making sure they're able to do what they need to do. So it's a different skill set, it's a different form of communication, it's a different way of presenting the problem and solution. But also there's some clients that just don't give you feedback, that just don't send you videos, they don't do weekly updates, they don't do the regular stuff that you would expect them to do as part of online, which makes communication harder. And it makes you kind of be like, what do I do for my next program? I've had no data follow up from you to know what we should be doing next. So that communication breakdown becomes a real challenge online. Whereas if I'm watching you in person, I can see when you walk in are your eyes. You're tired today. Are you walking with a slouch posture? You're tired too. Are you walking in with the skip in your step? Are you really bubbly and energetic and all over the place? You're not focused. We need to find ways to deal with what you're doing with those soft skills. And I can make those decisions in a split second just by sitting. Now you watch in. So that kind of stuff I can't do online because I don't get that real time, immediate feedback. So when people are like, I want to go and become an online coach. Cool. Spend a couple of years coaching people first in person, and then get really good at that stuff. So you at least have a frame of reference. And that experience is going to help to dictate what you do with your online coaching. And it might be something where you move entirely online or you do a hybrid model of in person and online, which is a great way to do it because then you stay up with the put in board worlds. But definitely, definitely learn how to coach somebody in person real time first, and then you can learn how to coach people better.

I agree. And I also think, you know, to your point, I think it also. I'm hearing you say two things, right? It's not either or, it gets to be both. And it also comes down to being really clear on what it is that you want. Like, if you're trying to become a better coach and you want to get better at clinical skills and do it in person, you, you want to now take your skills that you've learned and, and have, you know, moved to the online space for whatever reason, and that's going to be a different skill set that you want to work on. But it comes down to being really clear on what it is specifically that you're looking for and what it is that you want and how you're measuring that performance is. You know what I'm hearing you say as well, 2008, that makes me laugh. I remember when we were in Crunch, I was at Crunch at the time and this was like 2000. Oh my gosh, 14. When like Instagram wasn't really a thing and we were starting to put our stuff on Instagram. And I remember the marketing department was freaking out. They were like, no, pull it down from Instagram. And we were like, why? Oh my.

Yeah, I was like, old school. I had a blog. I did like YouTube videos. I actually before videos for my in person clients, I had a camera. So I would take pictures of the before and the after on exercise, like exercise tutorials to show them the start and the finish position. And then I would make a photo sheet on PowerPoint and I would give my clients that photo shoot versus like YouTube links because they would bring paper into the gym and you'd be like, okay, what's this exercise? And they would go through that. Now I have an app, now I have videos, now I have all that kind of stuff. But yeah, back in the like caveman era, using my laserjet printer and make the photo card for my clients workout sheets.

So funny. You know, it's so funny. I was. I'm messing around with, like, some fun editing stuff for my socials just for my own creative outlet. And I was showing my husband some of the work that I was doing, and he was looking at it, and he was like, congratulations, you are now more advanced than people who won Oscars in the seventies.

There you go. Yep. Yep. It's wild to think that we've got a computer, and it's wild to think we got a computer in our pocket that's more powerful than what they used to put somebody on the burner.

It's so true. It is so true. Okay, so, you know, in that vein, I'm curious for you, as someone who's been in the industry for, you know, a minute, what are some of the things that you do to stay enthused about the work that you do in terms of, you know, feeling like you don't have to reinvent the wheel every three seconds every time you have a new client? Like, what are some of the things that you do to stay. Stay enthused about the work that you do?

Part of it is finding just different outlets. So instead of just doing the same thing all the time, even if it's with different clients, I try something different. I do different projects. So I've been fortunate enough that I've been able to write for a lot of major publications like T Nation, Men's Health, Women's Health, Shape, bodybuilding dot Com. I've been able to teach workshops all over North America, Europe, Australia. Myself and one of my business partners, Tony Gentlecore, we've been able to do that pretty consistently. I've been able to write a book, which is great. I've done online courses for continuing education for different trainers, put together different video package products. So there's always something that you can do in fitness. And that's the really cool part about it, is that there's so many avenues that you can do to kind of give yourself a little bit of relief if you have adhd, just to be able to chase different rabbits down different holes. You don't have to do the only one thing that you think there is available. There's so many different options. Now, if that means in person, if that means online, if that means hybrid, if that means something entirely different, if I mean creating your own apparel, that means creating a new product that people can use to get their fitness higher, Whatever you want to do. There's so many different options out there that the best advice I could give to anyone when they get stagnant is try something new. The worst thing you're going to do is be exactly where you are right now. The best thing you could do is change your life entirely. That's good.

It's really good. You know, for someone who is new and entering the coaching space, whether you know, personal trainer, you know, a new someone who's new entering the space, what are some of the biggest things that you would advise them to do to grow exponentially in their career?

Best thing to do is find people doing the stuff that you would eventually want to do and shatter them and find ways to get in front of them to learn how to do things, learn how they run systems, learn how they actually manage people, how they manage groups, how they manage programming, any of that kind of stuff. This isn't something that you're going to take and be like, I'm stealing all of your information. This is you learning what works and what doesn't. I mean, if you look at any profession out there, whether it's doctor, accountants, mechanic, plumber, they all apprentice, they all article, they all have a residency where they learn under people that are good at what they do and have full competency, and they do that usually at a really low pay rate or for free in many cases. If you want to learn more, you shadow people, you humble yourself, you do an internship, you figure out what to do to get better at what you practice. Does it pay right now? No. Most of the time it's just going to be you learning for free until you can figure out what to do with it. But it pays dividends later when you're able to have a faster way of accessing those components, businesses, and a better way of making your clients have better results and have a better environment. So find the people that are doing the things that you would eventually want to do and figure out how they're doing it. That could also come down to just cold emailing something and being like, I saw you doing this, can I ask you about this specific problem? Remember, if somebody's busy, they're not going to be like, yeah, I'm going to tell you my entire life story and dive into like a 3,000 word email or anything like that. It's going to be like, what can I do for you right now? Most people are really gracious with their time to a point. So if you're able to say, hey, I love the way that you did this specific thing. How did you solve this problem? Or how did you start with this? Or what was your inspiration for this? Most people usually be willing to Say, hey, I'm willing to give you an email back or something like that. If you're somebody who's just like, hey, can I take you out for coffee to pick your brain, Most people aren't going to have time for that. That's not going to be a starter, especially if they have a family, especially if they have a business, especially if they have a whole bunch of things. Because now you're just like, keeping somebody else's time. If you send someone an email and be like, hey, can I come shadow you to do your job? And I'm just going to be a fly on the wall. I'll ask a couple of questions here and there, but I just want to learn from somebody who's great at what they do and figure out where I can apply them at the best way possible for my own career. I don't know anyone who would turn that down.

This reminds me of a. Of. This actually jogged my. My memory of a time when I was first learning to become a trainer. I wrote an email to Dan John. I don't even know how I, like, I was like, I probably read an article and I remember I asked him a very specific question. It was like, hey, I just read this book of yours and I was curious about this. And I sent the email again. Remember, this is before social media, so there was no, like, private message. And I sent his email and he sent me a loom, like a, like a video, a YouTube video back that was specifically addressed to, to me, like, hey, Beverly, thanks for the email. You know, I just thought it would be faster if I sent you this quick video. And I was like, holy crap. Like, it totally blew my mind. It was almost like my subconscious mind was like, I have this thought, send. And he responded back with a very concise email. And I remember at the time, it had such a huge impact on me because I wasn't even expecting it. And I got an answer back.

Yeah, some of the best relationships I've formed in fitness have come from stuff just like that, where it's like, hey, I saw you did this. This was really cool. What about this? And that was a jumping off point with a really great professional relationship with so many different people, where it was just formed by me reaching out to them and them being gracious enough to respond back to you.

Yeah. And I do want to point out, because I think it's really important, is that when we're talking about the cold messaging too, we're talking about something that is super specific. Like, I have one specific thing I want to ask you, you versus the like, can I take you out to coffee and kick your brain? Because that is way general. It takes, it's a much bigger, bigger time commitment than just, hey, I have this specific question to ask you. I think is going to yield more results.

If it's an email that I can respond to in less than five minutes, it's going to happen. If you're asking me to schedule something during my day that might take away time for my clients, I can guarantee you that's not going to happen. Unless you're already important to me.

Yes.

And it's not to say that people contacting me aren't important, but if I have to weigh the benefits out, spending time with my wife, spending time with my clients, spending time with other resources that I'm working on versus somebody who I've never met and may not be able to offer me anything similar to those individuals, you're a low priority. And that's just the way life is. And that's the way people are going to view any of the things that you try to reach out for. So a quick five minute response email or a YouTube video from Dan John. Fantastic. You can do that in a heartbeat.

Yeah, it's so true. And then the other thing too, and especially when you were talking about networking and building network relationships, it is really important to look next to you as opposed to just always looking above you. Because the people that are with you that are growing business at the same level and rate that you are will oftentimes yield exponential results. Because there you are together, you're working, you're collaborating. Some of the most powerful relationships I've ever had were sitting next to somebody at a live event that I, that we were both at together. And that proved to be powerful collaborations, huge.

And that's why I'm a huge fan of hosting live events and getting people to live events. Because half of it is the stuff you learn and the other half is the networking, communication, sidebar conversations. If I was able to say to somebody like, if I know people in the room and I introduce them to each other, there's a reason for that and then there's a specific outcome that I know is going to be really good. Because of that process. If I don't know people and I learned who they are and what they do, I can introduce them to other people. I love to be able to connect people. But like one of my colleagues in Edmonton, Andrew Coates, he's become a huge name in the industry. And I remember years ago when I was able to get him to come to a conference in Kansas City and I introduced him to a lot of people that are now his colleagues, his friends. He's had them on his podcast, he's been able to write for their sites. And part of it is just being able to say there's good people in the world and if you connect them with each other, great things are going to happen.

Yeah, so true. Andrew has been on the show, on my show a couple of times, so. Incredible. Yeah. Okay, so, and the other thing too, that I want to say, you know, when we're talking about people like giving, right. There is an ayni. There's a reciprocity. There is like, I'm going to pour into you and we and you pour into me. It's not. It's give and take essentially helps you grow as a person and as a coach. And knowing that, you know, you're doing good in the world to raise industry standards, that's what we're really talking about.

Yeah. I've always been a believer that I don't want to take over the world. I just want to leave a dent in the universe in some way or another. I just want to make enough of a change to say that I was here and create a ripple out of what I've been needed to do. That doesn't mean that I have to change everything, but it means if I can make a couple of people's lives better, if I can make people happier, if I can make people see results they're looking for, show other trainers how to do that and create a larger ripple. A large part of what we do in the industry is that or a large part of what fitness is, is part of being the service industry. We're not really much different than if somebody was to walk into a restaurant, you get greeted with a hostess, you have a waiter, you have a server, you have people that are bending over backwards to make your day better. We should view fitness in much the same way. We have a receptionist, we have trainers, we have cleaners, we have people involved in high level service trying to create an environment that people, people are actually going to love and want to come back to you on a regular basis. So putting forward a service first mentality in the fitness industry changes the game so much that when people are in that mindset, you can't help but to be successful.

So true. So true. Okay, so going back to rock solid resilience. That's coming out in, in February, just a couple weeks. How exciting. What I'm curious Is, you know, what is the biggest impact and intention that you're hoping rock solid resilience will give to the fitness community both for coach's side and for the client.

Part of it is that every book that you read out there that's based on rehab is based on just reading. It's like, here's how your shoulder is supposed to operate, here's the exercise to do with it. Every book that's about training is just about training. It doesn't involve injury. It's like, if you have pain, stop doing what you're doing, go see these nutters. Brian. So there's not really many resources out there for that in between zone where the person's like, well, it hurts, but it doesn't hurt that much. I can still do stuff and want to do more. Should I actually go to a doctor or physio? Should I actually go to get imaging done? Do I need an MRI on everything all the time? Probably not. So what do I do in that situation? How do I adjust the exercise? How do I adjust my training program? What do I do if I don't want to go to see these people or if you live in an area of the world where you can't access that very easily. I'm in northern Alberta outside of the city of Edmonton. There's a lot of rural communities where finding a physiotherapist might be a two hour drive or a four hour drive. So that's not going to be a daily thing for a lot of people. So if that's not possible, what do you do to manage your own training? Can you change your training program up to reduce some of that irritation? Can you adjust the exercise? So there's not many books out there or programs out there that do that in between that post rehab mindset or direct people on where to go. So our goal is to be able to give people resources and tools to be able to manage their own training and manage their own injury history. So if they can do that to their own possible bodies in a way that reduces their likelihood that they need to just avoid training or go into medical all the time and do something about their own training, fantastic. That's accomplished every goal. I was hopeful, so good.

Now you know, people are people and there are going to be different levels of professionalism and expertise across all different industries from physio to personal trainer. Would you say this book is also a guide in helping educate you as someone to evaluate whether or not the relationship you've built with someone is actually effective in moving you towards, you know, performance after, after injury.

Kinda. I mean it's more written for like the general population, so letting them know what's going on. But trainers, physiologists, coaches, everyone is going to be able to benefit from it because it shows enough of the other side of the coin that they're able to get an idea of what's going on. I don't know if my audio just dropped off there, but I just heard a little pop up thing in my earphone bell. If you can still hear me, we're good.

I can still hear you. And I meant more like does this help educate the general population to assess the performance of the professional working with them?

Probably to a degree. But even then, like this gives enough information for that general population to help themselves. But if they get to a point where they need to tap out and get somebody else in there, those individuals are hopefully going to have so much more clinical information they'll be able to say do this, this is the way to go forward. And if it's something that's prone to what the book is outlining, there's a reason for that. It's because their specific problem isn't something that we were able to address. Book one.

Okay, great. So it's, it's, it's, it's to work simultaneously. It gets to work together like hey, I've tried this and now I need to go, I need to go a bigger, better.

Got it, got it.

But what I love, we're hoping to.

Manage a whole lot of the low end stuff that people deal with every single day. But we don't want to deal with the high end stuff like a torn ACL or a disc herniation or anything like all the big red flags that it's like, yeah, you shouldn't train through this today, you should go get medical treatment.

And this is an accessible option so people don't have to drive two hours to go find a good physio.

Exactly. You want to make it easy, accessible and relevant to the people that are working on it.

Okay, amazing. So I, I can't wait. Where are people going to be able to grab copies of this book?

So it goes on sale? It's actually on pre sale now, but it goes on sale officially February 28th. You can pick it up anywhere that you buy books. Barnes and Noble, Indigo chapters, Amazon. I hear that's a big company these days. If you have other places you like to find books, I'm sure you'll find copies of it there too. It's going out Pretty much worldwide.

Will there be an audio version?

I don't think so. Just because we've got about 350 color photos. So having an audio description of a photo is going to be difficult to do. But it's more of like a manual, a how to guide versus an audio. And I know that there's definitely a market for audiobooks and I'm a huge fan of being able to listen to audiobooks but for a lot of the information in here because it's in like picture, graph or table format stuff to peruse patterns when audio. That being said, I'm willing to try. Might be able to get something.

Listen, I have. We're reading Harry Potter out loud right now to our children and it is hard work.

Yep, yep. I don't doubt that. Funny story. I have never read or watched any of the Harry Potter's.

Oh my gosh. I know a lot of people.

Like I'm missing.

You're not, you're not, you're not. I know a lot of people who aren't. Who don't love it or haven't been introduced to the work, but who cares?

That's just an example that I haven't. Yeah, I figure I'm 43 now. I haven't seen it yet. So I don't think that my life has changed in a negative way for not having seen it. So it's almost become like a point of pride. It's like, nope, not this year.

It's so good. It's so good. Okay, Dean, I want to be very respectful and mindful of your time. So thank you so much for pouring into me and into into my listeners. Really appreciate it. So for those of you who want to go deeper with you and to learn more about what it is that you do and get all of the in the best resources from you. What are some of the best places I should send them?

My Instagram @d Somerset1. I've got a YouTube channel, Summertime23. I've got a website, deansummerset.com an email newsletter on the website. Also teachable account, digital products, continuing educational products, free products. So that's all found on my website. And then also check out my book.

Oh, I can't wait. We're gonna put it all. We'll link all of that up into the show notes. Now I'm just out of curiosity, do you still have some of your old first youtubes up on that channel?

I absolutely do. You get to see me without a bureau.

Honestly, I think that's the best I love it when people leave their first stuff that they first created on their websites because it's just a demonstration of living in the end, where you get to be an expert and authority now and continue to grow in your expertise and in your career. I love seeing it.

Yeah. And it's something where, like, as I said, I started doing this all way back in the day, back before it was like a thing that a lot of people did. My first video came out. My girlfriend at the time, who's my wife now, we did just a video showing some of the. Our training we were doing for her training. And that was put up 15 years ago.

Oh, my gosh. And you know, in Internet time that, like, is practically 100 years.

There's people who are celebrities that were born after that video came out.

Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Dean. I really appreciate it.

My absolute pleasure. I appreciate you having me on. Thank you very much.

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