I wanted to share with you something that happened at the gym recently with a client of mine. This client was having a lot of hip and back pain on one side of her body. She was doing her prep exercises that we had prescribed for her a few months back, doing them religiously, but they just were not working anymore. She had seen a physical therapist in the past making little progress with this issue, and even though she had made some progress here at the gym it was coming back. It was getting bad and affecting her daily life. So I told her this, “Come in and see me for a one-on-one and we will see if I can figure it out, if not we will send you back out for PT.” This is how I handle most pain concerns as I am a strength coach and not a pain specialist.
So we had our session, I looked at her hips, did some muscle testing and we found out that some of the muscles in her hips were not working the way they should, they were exhibiting some weakness. I also looked at how she stood on one foot and her hips were all out of whack. So what did we do? Just a few simple adjustments to her corrective program with some psoas marches and some controlled step ups in front of the mirror and just like magic her pain was 100{885586236f5820200058e61f9e2fcec1023d525f8b1a6e4e5a4fd7f3c0d65acb} gone. She teared up a little and said “That’s it, that’s the answer”. After seeing that I gave her a big hug. This is why I do what I do, whether it’s a big PR on a lift, becoming pain free or just a client understanding their own movement better it’s that “ah-ha” moment that just makes this whole job worth whatever it takes.
The big take home is the value of the occasional one on one session or re assessment. I know not everyone wants to do it or maybe they think they don’t need one but it has been shown time and time again to be pretty helpful. This big difference is I can see a lot more one on one than I can see in a group. I can’t see everyone’s little movement faults all the time and I definitely can’t test muscles and passive range of motion in a group strength training setting. It can take as little as half an hour and can change how you feel immediately.
Adding a one on one here and there is a great complement to your current group strength training program.
