Care-Coach-Lead

When you are coaching a warm up in the group class setting, do you prefer to lead the class exercise-by-exercise, or do you prefer to explain the entire warm up and then have athletes go through it on their own?

It's common for coaches to have a preferred style, or believe that one format is better than the other.

But we use both formats are our gym, and here's why:

Coach-Led formats are great for keeping the group together, working through progressions or higher-level skills, and minimizing the pre-class preamble that can feel slow or tedious.

On-your-own formats are great for building relationships, maximizing your 1-on-1 technical coaching, and when you want to opt for simple formats that don't require a lot of time or explanation.

We've found that by balancing both, we get a nice mix of coaching, relationship-building, and skill practice over days, weeks, and months, that we couldn't get if we just stuck to one format.

In today's podcast, we break down the pros and cons of these 2 warm up styles in more detail, so you can maximize the beginning of your class each day.

If you struggle with your confidence or your effectiveness in public speaking, then the solution might be simpler than you think.

So often we get caught up in how we appear to others or whether we are doing a good job or not, that we lose sight of our role as coaches or presenters in that moment.

But if we can (1) keep our focus on the audience and off our own performance, (2) find our unique voice or value that we want to bring to the table in every class, and (3) reframe our nerves as excitement rather than anxiety, then we are likely to see our speaking ability improve tremendously in a short period of time.

To hear in detail how you can implement these 3 principles into your next class, seminar, or presentation, check out the latest episode of the Care-Coach-Lead show.

Whenever we are coaching a group class or 1-on-1 training session, our clients are placing an expectation on us to deliver value to them above and beyond what they are paying for that day.

That value typically comes in the form of answering 5 key questions each day in a way that resonates with each client.  But I should note that these questions aren’t usually asked out-loud by our clients, they are just inherent in how the client is experiencing the value they are receiving each day.

If we can proactively answer these questions each day for our clients (without them asking), that client is going to come away from each session feeling like they got way more than they paid for, and hopefully stay a client for years or decades to come.

Every gym needs someone who's setting the standard and making everyone better.

We'll call this person the head coach, whether you have this as a defined role at your gym or not.  

In the simplest sense, there are 3 objectives that all head coaches should be looking to achieve with their staff.  

And ultimately what we're striving for is to create a culture where everyone wants to grow, and feedback is shared often.  That way our growth doesn't rely on quarterly performance reviews or outside certifications to happen, but it happens through every class, interaction, and podcast that we listen to.  

That's where the real magic happens with great teams.  

If you want to hear more about how these 3 must-haves for head coaches can help you establish a culture of excellence and growth, tune into today's episode of the Care-Coach-Lead Show.  

Ideally your first interaction of the day with your members is a positive one. This doesn’t only mean it’s not a negative one, but that also means avoiding it being a neutral interaction as well.

In a perfect world, before class even begins we’ve greeted each person individually and used their name. Realistically, though, when we get into a class setting we aren’t always able to greet each and every person like we want to.

In this episode, I’ll discuss how to make each interaction positive and sincere, regardless of when the interaction happens in the class.

On March 28th, the next round of our Rockstar Coaching Intensive begins. This course is for anyone who is looking to make a career out of coaching. The course focuses on softer interpersonal skills alongside leadership skills necessary to become a professional coach. Head over to care-coach-lead.com/rockstar to sign up

We didn't always have a great Kid's Program at FitTown Jupiter. When we rebranded our gym, we felt passionate about starting a great kid's program. Without that, we felt like it would be hard to leave a lasting impact on future generations.

Melissa really forged the first successful FitKids Program. Since she started the 8-12 group, it's been a huge hit. In this episode we'll discuss the elements that have allowed the class to thrive from not only an attendance perspective, but also from the perspective of parents and kids. 

This also translates to good coaching in general. As we've learned to simplify topics such as nutrition for the kids, it's allowed it to better simplify it for our adults as well, and better serve our community as a whole.

Many great coaches turned gym owners struggle to translate their coaching skills into business success.

As coaches, we are clear on the objectives we are trying to achieve with our clients, and we have a good understanding of what it takes to get there.

As gym owners, we often feel like we are trying to do a million things at once, and don't have a clear path to success.

The fundamentals of coaching seem clear and tangible, but the fundamentals of business seem vague and all over the place.

In today's podcast, Justin Hanover of Fitness Revolution joins the show to help us distill the fundamentals of business into 3 key concepts that anybody can apply to their business.

By defining our ideal client, narrowing our core offering, and creating a unique selling position in our market, we can create consistent and repeatable success with our gym business.

Most tech start ups take years or decades to see their first profit, investing heavily in growth, at the expense of short-term profitability.

Even a great company like Amazon, which was founded in 1994, didn't have its first profitable quarter until 2001.  It didn't become the money-printing machine that it is today, until 2 decades after its inception.

Unless our goal as gym owners is to start a franchise with hundreds of locations, our businesses don't benefit from massive scale the way most tech start-ups do.

We are better off chasing steady, consistent, profitable growth month-after-month that allows us to support ourselves, our teams, and invest consistently back in our businesses.

In today's episode, I break down in detail why the physical and local limitations of most gyms require them to treat their gyms differently from most tech start-ups, and how most of the costs that we view as fixed costs for our microgym are really variable costs that will increase at scale.

It's easy for us as coaches to get stuck in our own functional fitness niche, and forget that the profession of coaching extends to sports, business, and so many areas outside of fitness.

In many ways, coaching is coaching.

Whether you are coaching professional athletes making tens of millions per year, or coaching Moms and Dads at your local gym, the principles of great coaching remain the same.

You have to build trust and buy-in with each person you work with, and you have to connect your expertise in a way that allows them to get the most out of their potential.

In today's episode, I have my good friend, FitTown Jupiter member, and 1st base coach of the Los Angeles Dodgers Clayton McCullough on the show to talk about his journey through professional baseball, coaching, and leading some of the best baseball players in the world.

If you've been following along on the new Care-Coach-Lead Youtube channel, you've seen how we incorporate range of motion assessments to create better modifications for clients in the class setting, and help them attack the root cause of their pain or performance issues.  

Having these assessments has been one of the biggest upgrades to our coaching staff since our inception, yet we still see so many coaches and gym owners that don't utilize this amazing tool.

One of the big misconceptions that we see with movement assessments is that they don't really have a place in a general fitness group class setting, and they are only for coaches that want to specialize in helping clients resolve pain and injuries, similar to what a physical therapist would do.  

But movement assessments can make you more valuable to every client that is coming to your gym; helping you to create better modifications and warm ups, sharpening your coaching eye, and helping you build more empathy for clients.  

In today's episode, we break down why movement assessments are so important, and explain why all coaches should use them, even if you don't plan to ever specialize in the rehab setting.