Exercise Instruction and Coaching = Teaching

Teaching involves putting across concepts and information to another person in a manner that they can understand. There is an old saying: "If you really want to learn how to do something, teach it." Try it sometime, and you'll be amazed at how much you have to absorb and grasp before you can communicate it to someone else. I think you will also find that breaking concepts down and making them simple will produce a faster rate of absorption on the part of the person you are teaching. I gain a tremendous amount of satisfaction from both instructing exercise and coaching high school football. While the settings in which each takes place are very different, the two entities are a lot more alike than one might think. Whether you are coaching a sport or instructing high-intensity exercise, it all comes down to one's ability to be an effective teacher.

At my core, I have always considered myself a teacher. Whether I am coaching a 16 year old quarterback or instructing a 60 year old entrepreneur, at the heart of it I am building relationships. We are in the people business. It is important to connect with the person that I am working with on more than just a superficial level, and they need to know that I have their best interest at heart. I must not simply demonstrate my competence, skill, and knowledge, but also earn their trust. This means that I must do what I say I'm going to do, every time, and also acknowledge mistakes when they inevitably occur. It is also critical to communicate expectations with both client and player right at the beginning of the relationship; this way there are no surprises. I do this with clients during an initial consultation and with players at the beginning of every season. There must be a buy-in on the part of the client and player; in order for success to occur they have to want it just as much as I do. Whether you are in the exercise studio or on the football field, you must have focus; if you are distracted it will not work. All of this is explained at the beginning of the relationship.

One of my coaching mentors, Al Thomas (who won eight high school state championships as a head coach and multiple conference championships as a collegiate defensive coordinator,) was fond of saying, "It's not what you teach, it's what you emphasize." I disagree slightly with Coach Thomas; there are certain things that should be emphasized above others, but what you teach needs to be strongly rooted in the fundamentals. When I instruct exercise, the first several sessions are all about establishing a good foundation in fundamental technique, speed of movement, proper breathing, and working to keep your emotions in check as intensity of effort increases. I utilize a cadence count to help clients develop a feel for proper speed of movement in each exercise. During individual periods with quarterbacks, you will often hear me count, "1, 2, 3, and throw" as they take their drops and prepare to throw. I always emphasize the significance of making quick decisions and throwing the ball on time. The importance of repetition cannot be underestimated; in fact, my high school coach Terry Changuris often said, "Repetition, repetition, repetition!" Whether in exercise or football, teaching points must be repeated over and over before mastery can occur. Sure, saying the same things over and over can become a little monotonous (I often wonder how many times I say the phrase "breathe freely" during the course of a normal workday), but it is an essential component of teaching and learning.

As I mentioned in my last article, simple is always better. This is as true in football as it is in exercise. When I coach football, I am working with 14 to 17 year old young men whose brains are still developing. At Total Results most of our clients are adults, but nearly all of them are relative novices when it comes to high-intensity exercise. In either endeavor I am not working with experts, so I need to break things down in simple terms that are easily understood. When I first became certified as a Super Slow instructor over 20 years ago, the practical portion of the exam involved memorizing long scripts for introducing and teaching exercises to new clients. For years, I would recite these scripts verbatim as I put clients on machines for the first time. While this was useful in theory, in practice I found that trainees had a difficult time following along and their attention began to waver. Eventually, I shortened the introduction for each exercise and found that clients learned better by doing than by simply listening to me talk. Initial consultations now take less time than they used to; what once lasted nearly 90 minutes now typically takes less than one hour. It is important not to overwhelm the client with information. Yes, certain key points (like preliminary considerations) need to be explained before the sample workout can commence, but prospective clients should not feel like they will be tested on all this information at the end of the consultation. When teaching throwing mechanics to quarterbacks, I have found it effective to break the skill down into smaller components (establishing your base, stepping toward your target/separating your front hand from the football, rotating the back hip/trunk, leading with the elbow, releasing the ball, and following through) and then put them all together. Quizzing the kids on certain plays and formations, as well as occasionally having them teach a skill back to me are potent strategies to gauge learning.

I will say that an exercise studio and a football field are very different settings. As such, my presence and personality are in contrast with one another when I have a stopwatch around my neck as opposed to a whistle. When I instruct exercise I have a clinical demeanor. This is because exercise is something that should be taken very seriously, but also because I do not want to distract the client while they are in the middle of a session. A clinical demeanor also helps me to preserve energy over the course of a twelve hour workday. The nature of football is different; while I am also enthusiastic about exercise I must be a little more muted so that I do not lose proper perspective. With football I am a bit more demonstrative, and emotions play a large role in the character of the sport. Practices last no more than two hours, so it's more of a sprint than a marathon. Don't get me wrong, I take football incredibly seriously. However, at the end of the day it is supposed to be fun for both players and coaches alike. I have even found slight differences in my personality depending on what position I am coaching. I coached the offensive line for the previous three seasons, and found myself to be a little more vocal and fiery than when coaching quarterbacks. When coaching signal callers I am usually more even keeled and cerebral. Either way, all the yelling and screaming in the world is not a substitute for effective teaching.

At the end of the day, it is about teaching. No matter what you are teaching, success is dependent upon one's ability to connect, communicate, and demonstrate competence. Different people, young and old, learn in different ways, so you must be able to modify and adapt your methods based on whom you are teaching. Expectations should be mutually understood at the beginning of the relationship so that there are no surprises, and there must be a clear methodology that is in line with the desired outcomes. The teacher and student must be on the same page. As Hall of Fame coach Nick Saban famously once said, "If you're not teaching it that way, you must be allowing it to happen that way."