It’s not easy buying holiday gifts for me.  I’m “that guy” who really can’t think of anything that he really wants – or even needs.  Call me simple, or call me stubborn (or a bit of both), but short of books, audiobooks, and DVDs within my field (all of which are continuing education write-offs that go directly to the Cressey Performance library), I’m generally really at a loss for what to write after “Dear Santa.”

So, I thought I’d make my holiday wish list a bit non-traditional for the sake of this blog.  Without further ado, here’s my holiday blog wish list:

1. I’d like for the phrase “it’s all you” to be permanently banished from gyms worldwide.

2. I’d like to see it get markedly more difficult to be in a position to train people for a living.  In other words, I think that states ought to implement licensing requirements that – even if not very strict – would discourage folks from getting into the industry if they weren’t fully committed to being good at their chosen craft.

Now, don’t get me wrong; I would never discourage someone from making a career change to become a fitness professional.  I know some excellent coaches/trainers who have done just this and been very successful – and helped a lot of people.  These effective transitions, though, were made by people who invested the time, energy, and patience to do it the right way.

3.  Similarly, I’d like for more people in the fitness industry to appreciate the process (human interaction) more than just the destination (making money).  There’s been a big push on the business side of things in this industry to help people run their business more efficiently, and I think the intentions are fantastic.  However, I think it’s important to not lose sight of the fact that training people should be fun; I’m a firm believer that if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.  If you aren’t enjoying it and letting your enthusiasm show because all you can think about is getting to the four-hour work-week, then you’re not doing everything you can to help your clients.

I know I can say that I am like a little kid on Christmas morning when it comes to helping out up-and-coming high school athletes with the college recruiting process, and I watch dozens of high school baseball games every spring.  In addition to the great time I have working with all our pro and college guys at CP, I’m also following all of them during their seasons – because it really does matter to me how they do.  While it may add value to your services in your clients’ eyes, this extra stuff isn’t “billable” (and never should be).  It may extend your “work” week, but you don’t perceive it because it’s all part of a process that you enjoy, not just something you “get through” as quickly as possible so that you can do something else.  Case in point: here’s how I spent one Friday afternoon last spring after the facility had closed up for the day (this video followed a crazy circuit we’d designed for the guys, and the winners got the hoses):

So, if you find that you aren’t having fun and taking an active interest in your clients’ successes, then your job should be to rearrange things to either find your enthusiasm or put someone else in your place who can provide enthusiasm of their own.  I guess the take-home point is that it doesn’t take any extra time to simply care.

4. I’d like for Tony Gentilcore to misplace every techno CD he owns.

5. I’d like to see more rehabilitation specialists be proactive with soft tissue work.  Please understand that it may not be indicated in every condition, but for me, knowing that a rehabilitation specialist is willing to use some elbow grease with a patient is a sign that he/she isn’t just going through the motions.

6. I’d like to know why my business partner needs to wear a weight belt to answer the phone.  Is it really that heavy?

7. Shameless (but justified) self-promotion alert: I’d like to see anyone who exercises purchase a copy of Assess and Correct.  The overwhelming majority of people who come through our doors with a history of pain are not just people who have dysfunction.  Rather, they’re often people who have had dysfunction for a long time and accumulated exercise volume on top of it.  Or, they’ve done therapy just enough to get asymptomatic, and then gone right back into their “normal routines” without addressing an underlying imbalance. That, to me, is why we made Assess and Correct.

It’s a proactive approach in a more reactive fitness world.  People wait for something to go wrong with the knee, back, shoulder, or something else.  To me, it makes a lot more sense (both financially and in terms of the cost of one’s time) to assess oneself and address what’s wrong than it is to wait for symptoms to kick in – and then spend time in physical therapy.  As hackneyed as the saying is, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Click HERE to check it out.

8. Along these same lines, I’d like to see people think more along the lines of “contraindicated people” than contraindicated exercises.  Short of a few movements (e.g., upright rows, behind-the-neck pulldowns, empty cans), there aren’t many exercises I’d completely “banish” from my training arsenal.  Mike Boyle’s “The Death of Squatting” interview kicked off a lot of interest on this front.  I think that it’s our job to fit the exercise program to the individual, and not the individual to the exercise – and as such, we don’t need to worry about excluding certain exercises altogether.

9. I’d like to see distance running for pitchers (or any baseball player) completely abolished.  I’ve wrote about my opposition to it in A New Model for Training Between Starts: Part 1.

10. I’d like for this kid to get the record deal he deserves.