How to Assess and Train Your Client w/ Chris Kelly

What's up, coach? In today's video, we're talking with Chris Kelly all about how to assess and train your client. So you ready? Stay tuned. What's up, coach? I'm Beverly Simpson, the owner of B. Simpson Fitness and the founder of the PT Profit formula and PT Profit Podcast. And in today's video, I'm sitting down with a good friend, Chris Kelly, the owner of Fitness Fitness Rehab. And we are going deep on how you can assess your client and train them based on their movement and help them go from rehab to performance. This is an episode of the podcast that you want to bookmark and come back. Why? Because Chris gave us so many different nuggets of information that you can implement, and chances are you're going to miss some of the things that we talked about. So be sure to bookmark it and go back and review it because it's such a good episode. So, without further ado, let's roll that video. Hey, Chris, thanks so much for coming on the show. How are you today?

I'm doing great, Bev. It's a pleasure to have. It's a pleasure to be on here. You know, so good to, you know, get to. You know, I've been listening to your podcast, and it's so good to actually be on the other end. Thank you so much for having me.

No, really, it's my pleasure and privilege. I'm really excited. Today's going to be an awesome conversation. So as we were chatting in the green room, we were really just talking about how, you know, the reason I started this podcast was so that we could help fitness professionals package their products and services and get it out to their audience, but also sharpening the saw and becoming. I think what happens to so many professionals is that it's either or, right? They're either, like, really immersed in education and then not implementing, or they are, you know, really focused on selling their stuff and forgetting that, you know, the science of training is always changing. So I'm really excited to just get into this conversation because I know that you. I've watched you do both. So I'm really excited to get into this conversation, but can you just share with us a little bit about who you are, who you help, and how you got there?

So my name is Chris Kelly. I have a gym in Lincoln, Florida, called Fitness Rehab. And what we do is, you know, as the name implies, we kind of bridge the gap between fitness and rehab. And that was always kind of my interest. So the way that I got into fitness, like, my dad was a college Football player. Like, for those of you that are football fans, he played football for the University of Florida. Steve Spurrier's Heisman year was his freshman year, so that shows you how old he is. But he was always like both my parents. My mom was an elite triathlete, so both my parents were like, super into fitness. So it was kind of always inevitable that, um, I got into it. So my first experience with training was like, learning to bench on my dad's old weight bench at the age of 13 and, like, getting up to about like 185 pounds and then like, the bench breaking on me. So for the first few years of training, it was just kind of like that. I just knew that, you know, I mean, I just absorbed all of it. I loved it. I was never the biggest athlete. I was not a. I was not, you know, I'm like five, eight maybe, you know, and I was never the biggest or the most powerful athlete. But training really helped me to excel, which is soccer. And so for me, my goal was always to play pro soccer. I absolutely love the game of soccer. It's my passion. And so I fast forward a couple years. I got a college scholarship to your University of South Florida, which is a pretty good Division 1 school. And that was like. I was like, man, I was just, you know, I was so immersed in it. And I played some my freshman year, but my sophomore year, my preseason, we were a preseason friendly. It was like the 93rd minute of the game. I'm a fullback, so I was like up at the other end of the field. I was fatigued. I went to cross and I just missed. And I tore my acl. So it's full ACL tear, which, like, back then was like. And I'm old, so, you know, back then that's like 11, 12 months if you come back the same way at all. And that's. So I had surgery. I had surgery. And my surgeon told me in the consult afterwards, he's like, you know, just be prepared to not, you know, be where you were. Be prepared to not play again at that level. You know, you're probably going to, you know, you're likely going to experience some complications. And like, that's like telling me not to breathe anymore because I'd been so, you know, obsessed with that my whole life, you know. And so I lost my way for a while. And I guess I ended up working with an athletic trainer and a strength coach that was kind of an early adopter of a lot of these principles that we use in my business now. And this was like 2002. And so they were doing things like functional movement screen and applied kinesiology and all this stuff where it just blew my mind. But the main takeaway from that though is that I worked with this guy for like nine months and he taught me about my body. He taught me more about myself and training and just that side of things than, I mean, for me before that it was like bench curl squat, you know, maybe power clean or something like that. And it was just the basic lifts. So once we did that, you know, I was much more intuitive. I, you know, the way that I trained, trained and looked at the body completely changed. And you know, I walked back onto my team a better athlete. You know, I remember crying after I played again for 90 minutes. And it was like this emotional thing for me. Then I felt like I'd been given back something that had been taken from me, you know, and so that always, that stuck with me. And I continued to train. Fast forward a couple of years. I moved to New York City, went to journalism school. I was a writer for like various like, fitness publications. And I ended up buying a gym back in, back in where I'm from because it was the only place I could get a loan. And you know, and since that, since then, you know, I've survived a recession. I've, you know, I've survived all these things, but I've just done that since then. You know, I come from a non traditional background. I come from a master's in journalism. I, you know, I, and you know, that's, it's weird, but I've always just kind of gone to the best places where the smartest people are and learn from those people. And that's, I remember early on, you know, kind of to allude to your point about the being a knowledgeable marketing. Like, I had no idea what I was doing in the beginning. Like, I would just, you know, the economy. I bought a gym that had a bunch of members and the economy just wiped that out after 2008. And I just remember I went to a Perform Better summit like in like early 2008. And I remember Alan Cosgrove, like, I just like cornered him after, like in one of those question things that you do. And he's like, he's like, learn. He's like, that's what you need to do. He's like, study for at least one hour a day and you'll be an expert in anything that you do. And that really stuck with me. And I just remember, and I say to this day, I really do believe that knowledge is power. I still do that. I still study at least one or two hours a day. And I think that curiosity and that interest has kind of kept me learning all this stuff that has allowed me truly to define myself in my own, like, market. I think that, you know, kind of like we were talking about in the green room, it's like the stuff that we are learning. You know, the people that listen to this podcast are high level. You know, the things that we're learning, the things that we care about, breathing, biomechanics, all of those things. Like, those are uncommon in therapy, rehab, and training. And so by learning that stuff, that really is the gilded edge. And even if we all kind of are in the same bubble, that bubble only exists in a small portion of the, you know, the interwebs, you know, that doesn't exist in your town, you know, and that still, to this day is the thing that for me, we still get most of our. We still receive most of our business through word of mouth because of that, you know, because of the things that I'm learning and because people are like, it's weird, but it works for some reason. So I think that the way that I got to where I am now is just through just continuing to get better more than anything else. I mean, my story is just about continuing to persevere and move forward and continue to learn. So that was a long winded answer to your question, but there you go.

I love it. You brought up two things that I definitely want to revisit. One is that you brought up something, and I say it all the time, and it's really important to remember, is that no matter what you're in, whether you are a physical therapist or physiotherapist, rather, or personal trainer, high level is that it's easy to look out into the space and think, oh, everyone's talking about the same thing, when in reality, your circle of friends is really this big. It is a drop in. In the ocean compared to what is out and compared to what people are being taught and being told from a.

Professional level, no doubt, you know, and I guess the thing that I've realized through my learning process is that I, you know, one of the things that I wish that I had more of was kind of like professional mentorship. You know, I put a lot of this stuff together on my own, but since I really started to engage more with other coaches, like people like Alex Zephyr and Katie Sinclair and, you know, all, you know, all of these smart people that are Doing amazing things, the better I become, you know, and the more that, the more I realize that rather than comparing myself to other people that are doing the same thing that I'm doing, I'm like, I don't care. Like, I just want to get better. It doesn't matter to me, you know, I just want to learn from people that are doing great things and just learn why, you know. And so I find that for me, that's kind of been the evolution that, you know, we've taken these systems like FRC and PRI and, you know, all of these things. Bill Hartman's intensive and all that stuff is great, but nothing, nothing really beats peer mentorship. You know, people that have already learned this stuff, that are doing it, you know, looking at their journey, talking, talking to them about it and reasoning through it, because otherwise it takes people a million years to put this stuff together, if ever. Right? So that has been my. That's kind of really helped me, is just kind of getting. Building friendships, building my network, building those relationships, because those relationships are the things that have given me context, you know, and that's been a game changer for me because it makes my process so much more efficient, I guess you could say. So. Yeah. No, absolutely.

And what I really love, because to me, when I'm hearing you say to me, that is the difference between learning something and implement implementing something, because say it all the time. Right. I actually got some hate recently on a. On one of my videos that I posted, which I completely understood, but the thought was that I wasn't saying education's not important, but what happens is that people forget to implement what they're. And I. Part of that will come because part of. Part of learning is the implementing and then talking it with your peers and talking it with. Through and mentors to figure out what happens. Have we tried something that the book said and then it doesn't work?

Yeah. You know, and it's. It's funny because I feel like, like some of the things that I've learned over the past, I'd say for the past probably decade, like, I've gone hard, I've learned, you know, and I've taken. I took NKT and then I took FRC and then I took like all of the PRI stuff. I took everything. And, you know, the biggest thing is it's like I go back now and it's like I feel like early on when people are learning things, they just take in as much information as they can. You know, it's like you're just devouring Information. And that's unfortunate because the problem is that you remember 5% of it that, you know, I mean, if really. And it's. It's kind of like you remember it and it's like in order to really use something, you have to play with it, you have to experiment with it, and you have to kind of make it, put it into what you're doing. And so it's almost like you need a framework before you do that, you know. And so for me, that's why it took me so long to, you know, yeah, I learned all this stuff, but in a lot of ways it just confuses you, you know. And what I find that with myself now is like, I'm going back to a lot of things that I learned like three or four years ago, and I'm like, I'm looking at them with a new context because I have more of an established framework of the way that I operate. Like, for me, I have. One of the really cool things that Kyle Dobbs talks a lot about is just creating, you know, action is creating principles, you know, and having. Having what your principles are, you know, making. Looking at everything within the context of principles, you know, and if I could give a trainer any advice or really any therapist or anybody, it's just create your principles based upon what you learn, you know, I mean, if you could create one bullet point based upon like, for example, proximal before distal, right, you learn pri. That's what it's all about. Influence the position of the rib cage and the pelvis stack things, you know, and if you could just use that lens to look at everything else, then, you know, the way that we put these other pieces together make a lot of sense. I find that a lot of education is tool based. It's like you learn something and it's like, it's awesome. Like, I'm going to do cars. It's great. I'm going to do applied kinesiology. I'm going to do all of these things, but they're not in themselves systems, they're just exercises. So it's almost like getting that framework first, you know, and then looking at everything else. Bill Hartman talks about first principles. Now, what are the first principles that dictate function in every other area of the body, you know. And again, proximal before distal would be for me a first principle. And that helps me to then put into context everything else that I learned and then how I move into everything else. And so it's been. It's been a humbling journey. It's Kind of like, are you smarter than a fifth grader? You know, it's like you learn, you learn all this stuff in fifth grade, all this anatomy and everything else, but you forget it, you know, and it's like you go back later and you're like, man, had I paid attention to that more, like I would be a fifth grader knows probably more about anatomy that year than your average trainer or therapist. You know, it's just, they forget by sixth or seventh grade. So I just think that it's kind of like that. So for me, it's kind of like just going back and relearning the basics and, you know, doing that, that's, that's helps me and it's, it's humbling, but you realize how much you don't know, you know, and just kind of where you start and where everything else emanates from, I guess you could say.

And what I really love about that approach too is I think that that is the approach that helps people from getting dogmatic about whatever they do. Because we're tribal people, right. And the way, you know, especially too when it comes to marketing, we're always thinking of that position of us versus them. But when you're operate from principles, then you are able to look at things through your lens, through a different context and then be able to take things from all different areas.

Yeah, and I guess that's kind of like. And it's funny, having taken a bunch of these different systems, I see that a lot. I see these people that will like, for example, take, you know, a system and they stay, they stay in that system and they become further entrenched in that system. And that's really cool because their 8 system has a community of people that, you know, develop confirmation bias and kind of, you know, pump one another up and support one another and help to grow one another. Social media. And that's really cool. I mean, that's fantastic. But at the same time, it's like I see those same people and it's like they're always talking about the same stuff, you know, and it's. I guess it's kind of just figuring out like, what do you want to. Who do you want to be? You know, like, like, I wish I were more popular online. But the reality of it is I cannot stay attached to any particular group of people too much because they all represent parts of my journey that I use when I as I need it, you know, and so it's just. And you have to kind of decide like, are you trying to just Become better? Or are you trying to use some sort of approach that is going to help to promote you in, you know, through that system? You know, and I've seen that a lot and that's not a. It's not a bad or a good thing. I mean, every system talks in a lot talks about the same principles in different ways. But I think the best, as you say, the best therapists, the best trainers, the best coaches are the ones that are always trying to sharpen the saw within, you know, what they do. You take what is useful, you discard what is not. So and just constantly trying to. And whether that means, you know, biomechanics, anatomy or psychology or nutrition or whatever, you know, I mean, you get to a point, even with this stuff where it's like you're, you're. You get to a point of diminishing returns and you're like, okay, I need to understand people better because I need to get them to actually do what I'm asking them to do. You know, if I get so far off in terms of explaining people like. Katie Sinclair does a great job of simplifying things to. She does one of the best jobs of simplifying complex principles. Back to general population, the general population that I've ever seen. And I think that's the true mark for whether or not we're effective as a coach or a trainer or a therapist is. Can we explain it to anybody? You know, can we explain it back to just a regular adult or a child even that comes to see us because their back hurts or because they have, you know, this itis or whatever? You know, once we can do that, then I feel like it's time to probably move on and learn something else. So.

Yeah, that's a good point. Now, there is something you did talk about that I want to circle back into in part of your story. Because I actually, when I was young, when I was just out of college, I had dated a. I dated a on the way professional soccer player. He was, he was a soccer player. D1 Athlete at Duke, I guess. Yeah. But I remember from years ago back then, like they didn't. He didn't have a training program. Like, he was just focused on running because it was such a, you know, high, you know, running sport, really. And so it's interesting to me and I'm curious, you know, as you have watched things evolve, like, it's surprising to me now when I look back on it, that he didn't have a strength training program.

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's. Well Again, like I'm talking, I'm back, you know, I played in the early 2000s, you know, and back then, I mean that's, that's like really the Stone Age. I mean, soccer, soccer is an interesting sport because it's, it's something that still, there's a lot of, there's a lot of dogma as far as, you know, the role of strength training. You know, the role of training, what it does, what it should do. I mean, the majority of most colleges are going to have a strength coach now and are going to be following a little bit higher level of a program. But still to this day, what I've noticed too, in training a lot of higher level athletes, golfers, swimmers, things that are not involved in the football team, unless you're talking about a really higher level program. There are going to be strength coaches for football specifically, and then strength coaches maybe for a sport like basketball, because those are, you know, major income sports. But then, you know, then they have a bunch of other strength coaches that will like freelance throughout the different sports. And that's kind of like the trickle down. And that's usually what happens. That's what we had, you know, we were kind of like. So we would do like the big three, you know, we would bench, squat clean and we would do, you know, but it was strength training. I mean, we train like football players and that's, and that's fine. I mean it definitely builds power and it gets you stronger. But as far as the specific needs of a, of an athlete for that particular sport, yeah, I mean, it's not, you know, I mean, to this day it's, it's still kind of, and soccer as a whole has come a long way. I mean, certainly strength coaches in MLS and you know, in higher level college programs, I mean they're doing GPS monitoring and they're implementing a lot of amazing things. But I would argue that at your average college, you know, at your average D2 or lower level, D1 school, you're still getting, you know, soccer is not the focus. So, you know, you're not going to have the technology per se, you're not going to have the recovery stuff per se. And it is an issue. And looking back, I know that if had we trained differently, you know, mine was a non contact terrorist, so I can't really say that it would have been different. But at the same time, like, I wonder, like, would that have changed the way that I move? Therefore maybe I wouldn't have been hurt, I don't know. But I do know now that when I get a kid that is a, you know, a college player or whatever, I look at what they're doing and I just try to, I try to compliment what's, what they're not getting. And a lot of the time that is the more specific, like, that is like, can their foot get into these ranges of motion? Can they, can they pull their, you know, can they keep their knee bent as they pull through stance, through the stance phase gate? You know, little nuances like that that'll just complement in a lot of ways offsetting what a lot of the stuff in the weight room will do, you know, so. And it's, it's interesting, but I would say that you're, you're. I guess your, your boyfriend at the time was probably lucky that he didn't get hurt like me, so. Because it was. Yeah, at that time, I mean, it was just kind of like the wild west, you know, you could, you could squat a lot of weight, but, you know, if you're stiff the next day. I remember one time before a game, we went out and I was curling, I was like curling the night before, like in the gym with a bunch of, bunch of the guys and like, I curled so much weight with a bar, I was arching my back so badly that like, I couldn't play the next day. Like, my back hurts so bad, you know, and that was something that our strength coach had us do. You know, he's like, throw some more weight on there, you know, so it's just kind of like, you know, it's just, it's just a different, It's a different animal, different strokes for different people. Right? So. Yeah, it's a different world today, though, so.

Yeah, yeah, it is, it is definitely different. That was back. And he was playing back in the early 2000s, and it feels like a different landscape now.

Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. It's very different. And it's. In a lot of ways it's gotten better. But, you know, and again, I don't know, college strength and conditioning in that realm that well. But, you know, it's, it's something that the more nuanced it becomes, I think the better, you know, the more generalized it is, the more you leave behind the specialty sports like tennis, soccer, things that need a little bit more of a. Like football especially, you know, the defensive positions, it's much more power based. It's much more like high load, high impact. You know, when you start to get into racket and court sports and you know, that kind of thing, it becomes much More technical, it becomes much more specialized and nuanced and biomechanics like apply a lot more, you know, and I've seen a lot more return for those type of athletes with the stuff that, you know, we promote a lot because they need the nuance of movement, they need to change directions, they need to, you know, be able to decelerate, they need to rotate better. You know, all those things are important. Like I would never bench press a soccer player because again, I don't want to stiffen them. I want them to be able to rotate the thorax so they can drop a shoulder and turn on somebody, you know, so that, and that's just not something back then that they did, you know. So training has come a long way in that way.

So, you know, I love that you're also bringing this up because I think that it actually also applies for general population. Right. It's fun to talk about the athletes, but I think that what you, you know, you were talking about looking at what it is, what it is that they do, like as a soccer player, they need to be able to do X, Y and Z. And the same is true for general population. Moms need to be able to pick up their kids. People need to be able to, you know, they, they want to, if they are a working professional, they need to be able to move and they have. We need to be able to train, you know, gen population almost in the same way that we would think through an athlete. Just their, their things that they're doing are different.

No doubt, no doubt. I, yeah. And so our general population and like I feel like, I feel like if you can train a 65 year old with back pain, you can almost train anybody because they move so poorly, they're stubborn and they, they rarely listen to reason, you know, and it's for me, I guess I've been lucky enough to like when you, if you were to come to my gym, like it is unimpressive. Like it's a bunch of older people that are like 50 plus, you know, and I say that if you are 50 plus, then you are, you're amazing. I don't, you know, it's all relative. I'm 38, so again, it's all relative. But you know, they're, but they're doing things that they're squatting, they're deadlifting, you know, they're doing all of that. But a lot of it with that type of individual comes down to more, the honest really falls more on how they move. And because a lot of adults never laid A foundation of that. And then they wait on top of that, like 30 years of being sedentary or, or stop starting their entire life or even worse. Like, my dad is a good example. Like my dad, college football player, like, super athlete, you know, could bench like 500 pounds and like run a four, five and just a monster in college. But then, you know, fast forward 40 years. He's a lawyer. He's been sitting for 40 years. Like, he had major heart surgery a couple years ago. You know, he can barely walk without pain. It's like you. He developed all of these. When he was in his late 30s, he was running and he heard this popping and he just collapsed in pain. And it was. He blew out a couple discs in his cervical spine. And it was just because he was. He just created all this compression from all the impacts and cleaning and stuff when he was in college. And then, you know, it just. Again, it's just things that laid on top of that. And so, like, with, with that in mind, when we're working with, you know, an older person or really any human being, you know, we have to lay a foundation first with that in mind, with the movement piece in mind. And that is not to say that I don't want to get somebody strong, but I've become a better trainer since I've gotten away from the idea that progressive resistance applies equally to everybody. It doesn't, you know, it really doesn't. It for an older client that's over 50 years old. Like, why do they need a power clean? Okay, why do they need to squat twice their body weight? It doesn't matter, you know, like, I have a certain standard. I want to get them as far as what they can do. But like, it's, it's like, can they get off the ground? Okay, can they. Can they shift from side to side? Like, do they have the capacity to tilt and anteriorly pusherly tilt the pelvis? Like, do they have an understanding of that? You know, and really slow cooking that person, you know, taking them and giving them that basic understanding. And I really enjoy that part of it because you take somebody. If somebody is willing to accept the fact that there's a threshold for everything, you know, and within that threshold you can do things. But if you go over that threshold and you start, it's like, you can squat, but what are you squatting with? Okay, what are you using? You know, are you. Are you able to. Are you able to stay straight as you squat? Are you able to bear weight? Or is your body going to buckle as you Move, you know, and it's kind of like if the person is willing to accept the fact that, you know, that exists and they're willing to have the humility to just kind of like build the ground up, then with a lot of the people that we work with, you know, we can get them super strong, we can get them fast, we can, you know, we sprint clients, we have them jump. I mean, all those things are important because you're preventing falls. You know, you need maximal strength to carry things and all of that. But we have to start with the foundation. And so if I'm working with clients, like, we have a foundation program where we're just working on sensory and motor stuff for about four to eight weeks. And with a lot of my clients, that will come to me with back pain, shoulder pain, neck pain, and there's a certain humility that also goes along with that. You have to be willing to realize that I need to start over and I need to drop my preconceived notions of what exercise is and rebuild in a way that is going to be purposeful for my body. And some people are willing to accept that and some are not. But I think for the ones that are, I mean, I enjoy doing what I do because the ones that don't just leave, the ones that do stick around for a long time and feel better. So I think that the biggest thing is just slow cooking people, just like they say. Just like when you talk about working with young athletes, you want to slow cook them. It's the same thing with older athletes. I want to slow cook them. I want to lay a strong foundation. And then, like, once they can do things, once they can control their pelvis, once they can control their rib cage in space, then I'm going to load them, but only at that point, you know, and that might be a week, that might be a couple months. It just depends on the human in front of me, you know. But I would also say that for any trainers working in rehab, it's. If you get those basic principles down, if you teach the basics of that, how to. How someone can stack their body in space and just stand without pain or sit without pain, you're going to give the person so much better quality of life. And you're going to. You're going to give them that understanding is like a light bulb. Once they have that, you know, then we can load them pretty quickly. So, you know, it's just building that base.

Do you think that. Well, I guess I'll speak specifically for you. Have you had Trouble creating, like a client buy in for when you are starting with, you know, the foundations and fundamentals has it. How, how have you, how have you gone from, you know, creating buy in and then also getting them moving so they feel like they have a workout, but it's actually doing something versus, like, let's just lay on the ground all day.

It's a great question. And for those that. And I've heard a lot of people say that. I've heard this a lot. Like people have a lot of people in interviews and different things, trainers that kind of all the same things that we do. We'll say I try to get them off the ground as quickly as possible. You know, I don't want them feeling, I just rehab. Like, I feel the opposite way. Okay. I want them on the ground, I want them to take time, I want them to learn. And the way that I get buy on, buy in with it is that if you ask somebody what they want more than anything else, okay, they're gonna say they want abs, they're gonna say they want arms, and they're gonna say they want like, but okay, like, I hear that all the time. Okay. All the time. Like, I'll have people that will literally come in, in wheelchairs and they'll be like, I want better arms or 90 year old. Like, like, I want to, I want to get my, I want to get my triceps filled for a date I've got on Friday. Great. Awesome. That's exactly what we're going to do. You know, luckily those same muscles are the ones that are going to help to anchor our pelvis in a posterior tilt. They're the same muscles that are going to help us to stack. And so what I do is I have a program called Corey Store that I teach as a class actually. And it's a lot of ground based stuff progressing, the standing stuff. And we call it a core training class. And I just tell them it's core training. I just say, look, putting it the client's terms, like, you need to train your core. Your core is weak, right? They're like, of course, yeah, my core is really weak. Clients understand that. So putting it in terms that they understand, I'm going to be like, all right, so our initial circuit, like a 1, a 2, a 3, we're going to do a hamstring bridge to work on your butt and your hamstrings. We're going to do a standing wall squat to do it in standing. And then we might do like a bear hold to work on your Abs, I mean that is abs and hamstrings, abs and butt. And to be honest with you there, I have had zero issues with buy into that. Zero. Like people understand that. And I also think that, you know, because I get a different population. Like I get people who have had cervical fusions. I have people that have, that are trying to avoid, you know, surgery for spondylolisthesis or a laminectomy, like things like that. Like they kind of come to me with that understanding but with general population clients as well, they just want to move and feel better. Like they get that too. Now I will say that people that come from like, let's say like Orange theory or something like that, you know, like they're already super active, then it's a little bit of a different process. You know, I'll do it a little bit differently. But like in that case you just have to use, you just have to use implements to make it harder. Okay. So I might, for example, I might have them do like a longer split squat hold or I might have them do something like you can take self limiting exercises like for example, like an Aerodyne sprint. Like almost anybody can do that. All right, have them sprint in the Airdyne for 60 seconds, split, squat hold, single leg, hamstring bridge, like things like that, like something relatively safe, like maybe like a sled push or medicine ball slam. Typically what I find is that if somebody has an injured area, the rest of their body, at least some part of their body can exercise vigorously. Okay. So like if I, I'm working with a lot of ankle sprains for whatever reason recently. So then instead of like an airdrie sprain, I might have them do like an Airdyne push. Okay, four dumbbell press. Like look at the part of their body that is uninjured and train that for fitness and then train the other area for health, I guess you could say at the beginning build a base there. So that's the way that I do it with that type of population. But if I can, if I have my choice and I, you know, I'm going to take somebody and I'm just going to put them in that. We actually have a program called Before Fitness that is just a series of core classes that we have people do for a couple weeks before they start with us that kind of provide them the concepts of like tucking, shifting, you know, it gives them an introduction into it. So it's something that you know, a lot of people like because they think it's like a pre core program. So That's a couple ways that I do it. You have to appeal to the person, but that seems to tick the box for most people.

Yes. You said so many important things. Number one, just use the language that they use. Meet them where they're at. It's exactly what I teach. Meet them where they're at. The second thing you said that I think is also important is that just because it's simple or looks simple, doesn't mean that it's easy. When you're challenging a body in a way that they haven't been moving before for, it's going to be hard for them.

No doubt, no doubt. It's just having, I think, as a trainer too, you know, I see what I see on Instagram a lot is all of these. In our circle, right, we're publishing all of these exercises that are like super advanced, but they're for us, you know, they're like stuff that we try and stuff that we put in our own programming. And really the reality is that we market to one another. Like we don't really market to the general population. It doesn't seem like we market our own, like, you know, in our local markets and stuff. But for me personally, like, my goal is to not do that. I want to. I think that we have such a huge role to play in healthcare, but in order to do that, like, we have to take it back to the people and simplify it to the degree that. And so in a lot of cases, like a lot of these complex exercises that we see will never be utilized because we can't do it. You know, like, it's not like, it's like the 8020 principle, right? Learn the low hanging fruit. Like, learn to teach them these basic principles. Learn to teach them to tuck a pelvis. Learn to teach them to reach and retract the rib cage. Like, learn to teach them to laterally shift to one side versus the other. Like move from side to side. If you can do that, you know, through basic exercises, then why do we need anything more than that? You know, it's just how far do we take it? And with a general population client that's 60, like, they don't care. They just want to feel better. Like they don't really care what you do. That's the other part that I didn't mention before. Like, if somebody trusts you and they just want to, they're there for you. They're there to talk to you, they're there to converse with you. They feel comfortable in your environment. So create a really solid program. And then build your environments around that program. Like, if you look at the stuff that we do with clients, it's not, it's very, very simple. You know, I mean, I make up more complex things for some classes that I teach. But like, you know, really, it's just for that. I mean, there's no other reason. So I think that we could all do better, which is simplifying things a little bit more. Just realizing that, you know, learning the basics and then applying the basics has such great value, you know, and it makes you better. Once I, once I learned that, I dropped my ego and I stopped trying to implement some things that, you know, some places that people would never get to. I've been way more successful.

That's really, really powerful. Reiterating the basics is really powerful. Now you talked about some very key performance based exercises and metrics that you measure. I'm curious how you assess movement at least when you are first seeing a client.

Yeah, that's a great question. So part of, and again, it depends on the client. You know, I mean, it's like if they come in with pain, then I'm going to do a lot more stuff on a table than if it just the general population client. But for me it's, it's obviously it's proximal before distal. So I want to look at ribcage position, I want to look at pelvic position. I want to see can they shift from side to side? You know, can they, can they get into their heels, can they get into their toes? Can they, you know, where do they. Early extended gait, all those things. So can a person touch their toes? Okay, that's one thing that I look at. Can they, can they squat below 90 degrees? Okay, that's a big one for, for me, can they put their, can they put their hand behind their back and touch their opposite shoulder? And then can they reach their arms overhead? You know, how far can they get? Okay, those things tell me a lot about what the rib cage can do and about what the pelvis can do. And that's, that's how I started to train them. Okay. Kind of based upon that. Like if they can't, for example, if, if I have them, if they squat and immediately they dump into anterior tilt, I know that they're going to, you know, they're already biased towards that position. So I'm going to work a lot on just teaching the tucking and the reaching action. But again, that just shows me do they have any weight shifting issues, you know, that type of thing. So you Know, I can. I can. I can start to train them off of that, you know, now. And that's also for us in our foundation program. Like, I want somebody to squat below 90 degrees before we start to have them hinge. I want, you know, I want somebody to be able to touch their toes before we start to substantially, you know, wear the posterior chain. It's like stuff like that. But more than anything else, probably those four things, you know, if I break it out a little bit further, I'll look at like, hip supine, hip flexion on a table. That shows me again how. Where they. Where their pelvis is in space. I'll look at things like hip rotation, because that shows me if they're maybe shifted to one side versus the other, you know, And I'll look at things like humeral, internal and external rotation, because that'll tell me, can they fill a chest wall? Can they fill an upper dorsal rostral thorax? Things like that.

That's amazing.

Yeah, there you go.

Tell you that you're the first person I've ever heard tell me that you want them to squat before you want them to hinge.

Really?

Yes. I usually have been taught that we want to. Well, let me rephrase. I am wide, so I am biased to hinging.

Yeah, yeah.

I always have taught hinging first.

Well, yeah, I mean, and that's. And, you know, traditionally, when I was, I kind of like looked at them as either or, you know, originally, you know, as I've gone along. But I guess what I found and I. That was something that I heard from Zach couples, like a long time ago. But for me, it's like if. If you think that as a wide, if you're going to start out in a anteriorly shifted kind of a new tated sacrum position, and you're already biased there, and you start to squat and you can't even get down to 90 degrees. Between 90 and 120, then it doesn't make any sense to do that because you're just going to dump forward. Right. So for me, that's a really good mark is if I can get somebody to about 120 degrees of flexion, then I know their pelvis probably can do. Can both tilt anteriorly and posteriorly pretty well, you know, and then I can start to train them. Now, what I will say is that with that person, and, you know, a lot of. I've heard with narrows, it's like I start narrows with squatting as well. But the difference is that I'm going to start Them with squatting at about 90 degrees. I love box squats for narrows, like box squats with internal rotation. So box squats, like maybe a wide stance, box squat with a band around the knees or something because that's going to internally rotate the pelvis or if I'm. Or like maybe a block between the knees. But I don't like that as much because it's awkward. But teaching them a little bit more of a, you know, teaching them to propel a little bit better even, even for them I find that with a lot of narrows it's like yes, they can get into, into a hinge, but they can't control a hinge. So a box squat is really solid progression to start with that. So yeah, that, that. And that's a big one too because that's kind of like one of our primary lower body things we're going to, we're going to move to. With a lot of my adults, what we end up doing is like we'll move to single leg progressions after they get to maybe like, we'll get them up to like maybe a 50 pound dumbbell or something like that in a goblet squat. But after that I'm going to start doing single leg squatting and split squatting or two kind of pillars in our program. So for our anterior loading progressions, we're going to use those a lot more. And then for hinging, again kind of similar like I use like a hay handle trap bar deadlift a lot for my adults as a primary and I'll also use. But you know, again, I don't, we don't really RDL much. We don't really deadlift from the floor just because of the population that I'm dealing with. But definitely squatting before hinging though, for sure.

Yeah. Okay, so this has been really amazing and I want to be mindful of your time, so I'm going to leave you with this last question. But before we can send people your way is what would you say to a, like a new, new trainer or not even a new trainer, even a seasoned trainer who wants to learn more, who wants to, you know, start building their principles, where should they go to start learning this stuff?

You know, I mean, I think that you just have to ask yourself like, who do you want to be? You know, I mean, if before you. And this really applies to anything, it's like before you want to, before you start to learn things, figure out who is doing what you want to be. You know, I mean, figure that out. Like what, what is the type like, who do you want to work with? You know, what is the population that you want to work with? Who do you not want to work with? You know, and just sit down and write all of those things out. Because once you do that, then you can figure out who is already doing that, you know, like, who is. Who is already performing those things at a high level. Then you go learn from that person or you learn who they learned from. And that's what I did is I just looked at. I mean, one of my early influences was my strength and conditioning coach when I got injured. But for me, I just asked him, I'm like, where did you learn all this stuff? And who would you recommend? And I interned under him. So I would recommend, number one, find somebody who's doing what you want to do and see if you can pay them for their time to learn from them, mentor under them, or at least get a list of people that they learned from and then start there. And all of the rabbit holes that I've gone down have been through things that I've seen other people that I respect do, you know, and once I, you know, from there I, you know, I've learned things and that's helped me to kind of, you know, figure out who I want to be. But in the beginning, you know, don't reinvent the wheel. Figure out who is doing what you want to do, and then from there, you know, learn their principles, learn their mistakes, and then from there, go after what they learned and branch off from there is what I would say.

It's really powerful. This has been a really insightful episode. Chris, thank you so much. So tell me, if anyone wants to learn more from you or mentor under you, where should I send them?

All right, So I Am Fitness 2 underscores rehab at Instagram, and I'm also the. The musical athlete on Instagram. So I kind of have two sides of my business. The one side is like, education for therapists and trainers, certainly, and massage therapists. And, you know, again, it's just how we implement our system. And you can learn more about that on our. On our Instagram for. I also work with professional singers, believe it or not. We do. We work with a couple singers from the Met, opera companies and, you know, stuff like that to help them to improve breath management and all of that. And we offer intensives for vocal teachers. And it's pretty interesting. My girlfriend is an opera singer, so it's been an interesting journey. But we also offer stuff on our profile for the musical athletes, so you can Find all that information there. And if you just want to talk shop or learn a little bit more, feel free to just drop me a DM or click on the link in my bio. Awesome.

I love that. And we didn't really get to talk a ton about the musical athlete, which her really, at all, but it's been really powerful for those of you who are like, wait, what is that? Go and check that out. Because I'm a former singer, I went, you know, that's how I got to New York. And I know that we've talked about this before and I know that the principles that I have learned as a fitness professional, if I had known that back in the day when I was first learning how to sing, it would have changed the game for me. And so it has been really inspiring and awesome to, to watch how you have taken what you do and help singers become better singers and made their fitness about their profession, which has been really awesome. So if you're a personal trainer too, you definitely want to check that out because like you were saying in this episode, it's easy to write for each other, but when you can take what you're learning and write it for your people, go and look at the musical athlete because you're going to be, you're going to see how to do that.

No, absolutely. And you know, they say the, you know, the riches are the niches, I guess you could say. And like, for us, it's been, it's been interesting because like, we're with that population. Nobody's ever heard of anything that we do, you know, so it's really cool to take it and to apply it to a population that is so mindful about their bodies and so grateful for that information. It's crazy working with singers. It's, I mean, it's the opposite of you, your 65 year old with back pain. I mean, they are, they're asking me questions about the larynx and, you know, the anatomy and I love that. So it's, it's really cool. And that's another reason why I say, like, figure out who you want to work with and then just go after that population and make it, make it a niche. Like we have Instagram now. Like, we can, we can go after whoever we want to go after. So it's been really cool. And yeah, I'd love for you guys to check us out.

And singers know about the pelvic floor and they spend a lot of time with their, with their ribcage.

They, they do. And it's funny, they they know about the pelvic floor, but it's kind of like they learn about these things in isolation. That's what I find with a lot of that's what I find with a lot of these different disciplines is it's like they know these words, and they kind of know that the pelvic floor is somehow involved in breathing, but they've never put together the action of, like, when I inhale, my pelvic floor does what? When I exhale, my pelvic floor does what? Like, my pelvic floor. How do I connect my pelvic floor to breathing? Does it act like? How does that actually work? Once you start to explain it to them and cue them with exercise, they're like, wow, that kind of connects. So, yeah, it's nice to put together the pieces, because then they have these aha moments that have been really cool to see.

Yeah, it's really cool. All right, Chris, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.

For sure. Bev, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.

Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. If you like this video, go ahead, Hit, like, hit subscribe, and be sure to share it with your friends. Hit that notification bell so that you could be notified when the next video comes out, and I'll see you on the next episode.

Sam.