Technique Wednesday
Wednesdays are one of my favorite days in the studio. And it’s not because I get to talk A LOT, well maybe a little. I love Wednesdays because we do technique. Every week we break down a movement and we spend an hour getting a better understanding of that movement and how our bodies adapt to it. This can seem tedious or maybe even boring some of the time, but in the long run it makes for stronger and more individualized training.
Lets be honest, most of us would like to be experts in most things that we do. A lot of time we don’t want to spend all the time to learn the ins and outs that it takes to truly master something. And when it comes to exercise a lot of times we want harder or more, before we even have the basic movements down. So I think of Wednesday as a kind of forced day of mastery. It is a day that we get to feel, hear and watch a certain movement and begin to understand how our body can best master it. Every person is going to get something different out of the day, because no two bodies are the same. Bringing in technique really helps individualize the movement.
I love that people want it, because technique is not sexy, unless we are doing hip mobility, than it’s hard to not be sexy. Sometimes it is actually pretty annoying. It’s annoying when you feel really confident about your squat and then someone (me), comes over and critiques it and has you go deeper or higher or open the knees more. But it is a great way to begin the road to mastery. And even if you don’t want to master a squat, it gives you the confidence to know that you can do the movement, and do it well.
Just to clarify, I by no means am an expert in all of this stuff. I know a lot about movement and I have chosen to train under people who have helped me see things in people that they can’t see themselves. On top of that I train a lot of people. I work out regularly, using myself as a guinea pig for new movements or workouts or fun toys. I wouldn’t do something to my classes that I wouldn’t do myself. I am very confident in what I know, which is a lot more than I give credit to. But I am also not expecting that I know everything. There are days that I am left with a lot of unanswered questions and other days I look towards other people to help me out. And I’m alright with that. It gives me things to study and ideas of trainings to go to. The technique days are a teaching tool to make me a better trainer. During our Wednesdays we laugh at ourselves and ask questions. Some times I walk in knowing exactly what we are going to do and other times I give up to the Peoples Choice and let the classes decide what they want to know.
Honestly, what I love about technique is giving people the confidence to go anywhere to workout and know that they are doing it correctly. We get to explore how we are doing an exercise and feel comfortable not being perfect. I am not perfect and I am happily a student learning as I go. What I really want is for people to be empowered by their own movements. I want people to understand that every single body is different and the way that one person moves may not be right for another person. Some Wednesdays are easy (mobility) and others are hard (Double Kettlebell). Some days have a lot of “aha” moments and some leave us feeling bad ass. But technique is there to help you move better and feel better.
One of my favorite parts of my job is to watch the different ways people move. I love watching peoples strengths and weaknesses. I love watching people struggle to achieve a goal. I love watching the different ways people can do the same exercise.