Cues

This is a blog for all the personal trainers out there.

I recently attended a seminar with Chuck Wolf. He is a highly esteemed Exercise Physiologists that has worked with Gary Gray, published books and written articles for ptonthenet.net (great resource by the way).

About a week prior to that though, I attended a personal trainer Continuing Education meeting at my school that focused on Olympic lifting. While I eventually got the full clean down pretty well, I couldn't help but notice how frustrating it was to focus on doing multiple movements at a time.

Wolf mentioned in his seminar that the less cues you can give some one, the better. That originally sounded counter-intuitive but when I thought back to my experience with Olympic lifting, it made sense. The more basic you can make the cue, the more effective it will be. Simply telling a client to touch their head to the ceiling will put them in the proper thoracic alignment most of the time.

I had gotten used to knowing exactly how to squat, deadlift, bench and do every other exercise that I frequently do. This recent experience made me a better train in that I am better able to understand what my clients are feeling when I'm giving them so many cues.

Simplify.