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Wait a minute. Where is the whip? Where is the scowl? Shelley (left) is smiling. Is that any way to run a fitness class?
Why This Story Matters:
By Ray Glier
This is not a Geezer Jock worst-to-first story. You know, storytelling about the people who fought to get their health back.
This is a story about the people responsible for worst-to-first stories.
These are the people—certified fitness trainers—who have done the spadework before you walk through their doors. These are the people who peer into your soul and discover what is holding you back from full fitness.
It’s January. Fitness is on your mind. This is a must-read story for Geezer Jock because this is about fundamentals and relieving pressure on yourself to move, or move more.
Skim this story, at least. Draw out a nugget. It’s FREE.
I talked to, or traded emails with, three professionals you can learn from today:
Shelley Turk, ProActive Fitness in Saskatchewan (https://www.proactivefit.ca/).
Myrie Jackson of MJ Strength and Conditioning in Atlanta (www.myriejackson.com).
Jackie Bachmeier, Evolution Fitness and Wellness, in Houston. https://efw.fit/
Here’s a primer to keep you reading.
A woman, in her late 60s came to Shelley Turk, 57, who focuses on functional aging. The woman walked into Shelley’s studio with a cane.
“She was quite beat up,” Shelley said.
The client had shoulder, hip, and knee replacements and was due for the other shoulder replacement because she couldn’t lift her arm over her head. She hobbled.
One of Shelley’s more veteran trainers started working with the woman. They built a trust and then a regimen.
That client, who walked in with a cane three years ago, walked out with a new life.
She’s a racewalker.
“She and her husband did the Camino trail in Portugal twice,” Shelley said. “I think they are going back a third time.”
Here is the thing about fitness people like Shelley, Myrie, and Jackie: they have a reverence for detail you and I don’t share. They are unfailingly diligent about doing an exercise correctly.
They are unapologetic, for instance, about asking/commanding/suggesting you make sure your feet are precisely the width apart they need to be when you do a squat. They won't let you stop halfway or lift your heels doing a squat.
**
Coaches in the intense world of college and professional sports say they work with what talent they get. I never believed it. They prune, as if to remove obstacles to growth so the player can be what the coach wants. The Philadelphia Eagles never became a force in the NFL while trying to make quarterback Jalen Hurts run a pro-style offense. They gave him a college scheme and he thrived and then the team thrived.
The good trainers, Myrie insists, will never mold a client in their likeness, to what the trainer thinks the person needs to be. Have your own idea what you want to accomplish, even if it is getting up off the floor faster.
“It’s a personalized approach as to whatever their goal might be,” Jackson said. “You have to base your work off whatever their capabilities are.”
This is Myrie Jackson. His goal is not to make you into Myrie Jackson. The man is about fundamentals. Got that? "I recommend clients learn and work through the primary movement patterns: Lunge, hinge, push, pull, squat, rotate, and gait (loaded carry/walking)."
And remember this if you hire a trainer:
“If you assess a client properly, you pretty much don't make them do anything that they couldn’t do,” Myrie said. “It's just making sure whatever they can do, they do it to the best of their ability.”
No trainer the first week should ask you to do something like a Hindu squat, or baithak, which is a deep knee bend on toes.
“I don’t push,” Myrie said. “Ever.”
The other thing I learned is that these pros have a practical purpose for teaching you what they do. They also carry groceries in from the car and reach for the soup can on the top shelf, like you and me.
Jackie Bachmeier says her No. 1 movement to teach to Geezer Jocks is sit-to-stand. You know the drill. Getting up from the toilet, or standing up from the tub, etc. Standing up from the living room floor can be a chore.
What you may not know is this:
“When we can perform a high level sit-to-stand, or various squat progressions, we build core strength, lower body strength in the tush, legs, ankles and feet and we gain balance and stability," Jackie said.
And when we stand, we may have to carry something. It’s another core tenet for Jackie.
“We carry baskets of heavy laundry, groceries, tea cups, and food items,” she said. “We should be carrying our young grandbabies, small pets, plants, and tools.
“When I program for my clients there is always a squat, or some version of, and there is always a carry, or some version of. I include holding a weight as heavy as they can tolerate and just asking them to march in place.”
Here is more practicality in practice. You know this, but you don’t really know this.
“We don't get on the floor very often, especially after a certain age, right?,” Shelley said. “We just stopped doing it. I asked the group this morning ‘How often do you sit on the floor at home?' And only one person said they did because of their very young grandchildren.
“I said, ‘When you watch TV, do it on the floor, move around a little bit. We do a lot of crawling and rolling and things like that.”
Shelley is a disciple of Dan John, the strength and conditioning guru.
“The one thing he always preaches we can do for people over 50 is get them up and down off the floor,” Turk said.
It matters. A client’s elderly mother fell and broke her arm. She couldn’t roll over and get on her knees. She laid there three hours.
Shelley has her clients glue one hand to their side, as if it is injured, and practice getting up.
“We always roll to one side,” she said. “Can you roll to the other side if you have to?”
Jackie had a client who saved her life with fitness and then lost her life with inactivity. The woman, in her 80s, came to the gym frail and struggled to get to the bathroom on her own. It was 2019.
“We started with one-on-one training,” Jackie said. “Then she joined a group.
(Jane) flourished and got her husband to join in as well.”
COVID hit. The client’s doctor was adamant that she stop training due to her previous bouts with pneumonia. (Jane) tried Zooming, but she didn’t have the same level of equipment at home. She quit. All her training work unspooled. When she fell and injured herself, the client ended up in nursing care.
“Within a year she passed,” Jackie said. “I was heartbroken.”
What’s encouraging to Myrie Jackson is that there are fewer stories like that. He said older people are going out to meet the fitness wave. They have saved for retirement and now they want to move and enjoy it.
“I think definitely it has caught on…there is an influx of older people that are starting to work out and move and have more energy,” he said. “They're feeling like it keeps them more active going to the gym two to three times a week. It helps them stay strong.”
There she is smiling again. Shelley keeps her eye on the client's form.
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