Today’s post is a guest post by Aaron Callaghan, PTA Global Faculty Member and director of Peak 40. Peak 40 is a company specialising in lifestyle transformation for males aged 40 and over, teaching proven techniques to understand the relationship between mindset, recovery, nutrition and movement. Their goal is to help you thrive, not just survive, as well as enhancing how you look, feel and perform.

In a very simplistic overview, training is all about manipulating stress.

Yes, occasionally you might need to push into those dark places to get a training adaptation, but in general you want to be training just under your threshold for that day.

What do you mean ‘for that day’? Does it change? You bet.

If you as the coach don’t understand where your client’s threshold is today, then at best you might maintain your client’s current fitness status. At worst, you’re risking injury, sickness, weight gain, loss of motivation, decrease in performance and overloading an already depleted system.

To get continued improvement, it’s all about training the body, not draining it.

Well known strength coach Dan John said it best: “you’re better to under train than over train.”

Your body only knows stress as stress. Exercise is not a stressor that sits in an isolated pocket – our clients have MANY other stressors! As coaches, we should always be mindful to view the body in a holistic manner. We are the sum of all our experiences.

Have you ever noticed when you go away on holiday and relax, that your body feels a lot more flexible and less tense?

We often forget that the brain and the body are interdependent. Stress can be real or perceived. Therefore, mental and emotional stress from relationships, work, financial all have a significant impact on how the body performs.

As a coach should you be considering your clients mental and emotional state? You bet.

What about their lifestyle choices?

Has anyone got a client that is up late regularly checking emails or reading Facebook? How is this going to effect the quality of their sleep? When do we produce our big spikes in HGH (human growth hormone)? You guessed it – while we sleep.

What about those clients that have a diet high in sugar and vegetable oils? Is that going to effect the quality of their tissue and recovery? Yes and yes!

Or how about the client that has been sitting all day, without drinking any water, then comes in complaining of tight hammies and glutes?

As a coach, should you be considering your client’s lifestyle choices? You bet.

What about when your client turns up with a stiff lower back? Or went for a 10k run the day before with a friend even though it was supposed to be a recovery day?  Maybe they’re invited to play in a social soccer tournament?

What do you do as a coach to have them in tip top condition?

As a coach, should you be considering your client’s physical demands? You bet.

To be an effective coach that has a thriving business, you need to be able to understand all of these variables and then make the necessary changes to meet your client where they need to be meet on the day.

PTA Global has developed an easy to use tool to first help you understand where your client is on the stress continuum, then gives you strategies to effortless manipulate your session to provide a world class experience every time.

I only wish something like this was around fifteen years ago when I started coaching! Maybe then I wouldn’t have made so many mistakes. (Maybe.)

Happy manipulating!

Azza.