Own the Basics
Most of us have only a handful of hours each week that are dedicated to working out. These hours are precious! They serve as a chance for us to blow off steam from the stress of life and to give our bodies a chance to escape the car/office/couch sitting routine. But these hours are not just a chance to burn calories–our offering is that, if taken seriously, we can actually improve your ability to function better.
What we look for in our people is a gradual, steady increase in abilities. The temptation to race to the fancy movements the pro's are good at is hard to resist, but it could not be more important (or productive!) to build off of a solid foundation as we take strides towards the Instagram post-worthy movements.
Much of the responsibility for your progress sits on our shoulders, but there are times where we need you to step up and take charge, too. Want to get to the advanced movements? Show us first that you are competent in the basics.
There does come a time when it's necessary to begin chipping away at more technical movements (think muscle-ups, handstand push-ups, and snatches), but we can't safely take you there if we're continually working on the "easy" stuff (air squats, push-ups, sit-ups, etc.)! Cueing you to go full range on your push-ups, or to "get lower" or keep your knees out when you squat are legit points for a coach to emphasize, but there is a time when we should all be able to move beyond hearing about them.
We're not going to stop pointing out inefficiencies when we see them, but your time here would be exponentially more worth while if we weren't always going over the same points with you. Plus, how dang sick are you of hearing about it?! Enough already!
The rub is that this can mean a temporary "regression" (I use quotes because you're actually not stepping back at all, but that is what it can feel like). While you work on these corrections it might mean that you don't do as many reps as the workout calls for, that you scale range of motion, or that you sub out a more basic exercise. You know who's going to judge you for it? NOBODY. We've all been there and all understand that scaling is just a part of the process.
Going back to where I started, your time in class is valuable! We want to help you improve, but we only have so much time to work with each person in class. When you take charge of owning the basics, you allow us to really do our best work for you.
On paper this can seem like a simple task, but your coaches all understand that there's more to it than that. I speak for every staff member we have when I say that we could not be more dedicated to helping you get the most out of every class you attend; but we can't do it without your help. Not sure how to fix an issue? Hit us up! We can only assist with the problems we know about, so don't sit in silence wondering why things aren't getting better.
You probably already know that this is something you'd like to get better at. Lets get going on it so you can move on to what's next!