Last weekend, my wife and I undertook one of our biggest parenting challenges to date: bring a 4-and-a-half-month-old baby to an out-of-town wedding. My sister (you might remember her, she’s super strong) got married, and not only did we bring our daughter Clara, but Emily was in the bridal party and I was officiating the wedding. Needless to say, we were nervous.
Fast forward 48 hours and we’d enjoyed a beautiful weekend in New Hampshire with family and friends. There were no baby meltdowns (and no adult meltdowns either!), thanks largely in part to helpful grandparents. Sighs of relief all around.
Any time spent outdoors, especially on a picturesque lake, gives me time to reflect. Because I can’t help but think about coaching all the time, this past weekend helped me draw several parallels between parenthood and coaching.
Are powerlifters just gigantic babies under a barbell? Should we be bottle feeding our high school athletes (especially the skinny ones)? Not exactly, but here are five ways being a dad has helped make me a better coach.
1. Monkey See, Monkey Do
We’re about a month into our first internship program at The Strength House. We spent a good chunk of that time teaching the interns about different learning styles and how to capitalize on an athlete’s learning style for faster results.
Turns out that many athletes are primarily visual learners. They learn best by watching you demonstrate a movement and then copying it, rather than listening to you TELL them what to do. As a dad, I’ve discovered that babies are good copycats too. Clara will smile back at me when I smile, giggle when I laugh, and scowl when I frown. And of course she doesn’t really know words yet, so I can’t exactly tell her what to do (a pattern that I’m sure will continue until she’s well into adulthood…).
If a baby can learn visually at such a crucial point of development, certainly teens and adults with much deeper libraries of movement can benefit from demonstration-based coaching. So when in doubt, take the “monkey see, monkey do” approach to coaching. It will usually get your clients moving more efficiently than verbal cueing.
This is one of the first concepts we teach our interns at The Strength House. The application deadline for our Fall Internship Program is fast approaching, so click here to apply.
2. Routines Build Habits
Most successful fitness endeavors can be traced back to building good habits. Want to lose weight? Develop one healthy nutrition habit at a time (such as eating protein at every meal) instead of completely overhauling your diet in one day. Want to get stronger? Start with three 30-minute workouts a week, which is an easier habit to build than working out for hours every day.
Make the first step so small and so simple that you can’t fail.
Just like would-be fitness fanatics, babies thrive on routine. Emily and I learned that if we wanted even a fighting chance at a full night’s sleep, we needed to get Clara into a consistent bedtime routine. We used the Four B’s routine:
- Boob (breast feed her last meal about an hour before bed)
- Bath (wash in the tub about 30 minutes before bed)
- Book (read her a book while she gets a fresh diaper and PJs)
- Bed (rock and sooth her until she’s drowsy, then put her down in her crib)
This didn’t work overnight. In fact, it took a few months (and hundreds of failed attempts) to get this down. But we slowly established each step of the routine – one ‘B’ at a time – until Clara comes to expect each step at exactly the same time each night.
Had we just chucked her into her crib from day one and threw our hands up in frustration when she wouldn’t fall asleep, that’d be akin to revamping one’s entire exercise and nutrition regimen and expecting six-pack abs the next day. It doesn’t work like that in the real world.
So if you’re a coach trying to take someone from zero to hero, slow-drip the steps to success. Implement one small change at a time until it’s a habit and they can’t mess it up. Then and only then should you introduce the next step.
3. Transitions are Hard, so Have Some Sympathy
Remember those routines we just talked about? When routines get shaken up, exercise and nutrition habits tend to fall apart. It could be any major life change: a new job, moving to a new city, getting married, and yes, having a baby. You still gotta go to work, you still gotta feed the kids, but working out and eating right get pushed to the back burner.
Babies hate transitions too. Diaper change? Cry. Feeding time finished? Cry. Bath water too hot? Cry. Bath water too cold? Cry. Turned the lights off? Cry!
Why do babies hate transitions so much? Because they’re brand new to the world and have no idea what to expect. For all they know, turning the lights off at bedtime could mean they’ll never see mom or dad again. So rather than getting frustrated when simple transitions lead to an eruption of tears, we had to be patient and ease Clara into each transition to make them as comfortable as possible.
While transitions aren’t quite so dramatic for adults, they can flip the world upside down. If you used to go to the gym three days per week at 7 am, and then suddenly your new job requires you to be at your desk by 8 am sharp, guess what? You gotta find a new routine. And it likely won’t happen in a day, or maybe even a week.
So if you’re coaching someone who’s going through a tough life transition, have some sympathy. Instead of demanding four intense workouts a week, settle for two just-OK workouts. Don’t expect PR’s and perfect nutrition right now. Maintenance might be all they can muster. And most of all, let them know that you care about what’s going on outside the gym. Ask about their new job, their new house, their new baby. Listen to what they have to say – chances are they’d love to brag or vent to someone.
4. Have a Unified Front
One of the biggest sources of frustrations for new parents is conflicting ideas about how to raise a child. If parents can’t agree on a feeding routine, co-sleeping vs. independent sleeping, or discipline (once the kid is old enough to consciously act out), sleep deprivation will be the least of their worries.
Conflicting information runs rampant in fitness too. Sure, there are plenty of ways to get strong, gain muscle or lose weight, but if a team of coaches can’t create a unified front for their clients, they’ll stunt the progress of everyone around them and create resentment within the team.
This is especially important in a private gym like The Strength House where ALL the coaches coach ALL the clients. Most of the time, a client could ask any of us the same question and get pretty much the same answer. But every once in a while, I’ll coach a client and they’ll respond, “Well, so-and-so told me to do it this way.” As long as the client isn’t going to hurt themselves, I instantly defer to the previous coach. Why? Because we need a unified front to show that we’re all on the same page – otherwise, clients will start picking and choosing which coach to listen to and which ones to avoid. If I truly have an issue with the coach’s initial instruction, I’ll take it up with them in private, but it’s more important for the client to see that the coaches trust each other than it is for me to get the last word.
5. It’s Not a Big Deal if You Don’t Make it a Big Deal
Ever notice how if a kid falls off a swing and bumps their head, they’ll look at their parents’ reaction for a second before bursting into tears? Or how a kid will dangle daddy’s car keys above the toilet and look back at daddy just long enough to hear him scream “Don’t!” before sending the keys into the sewer? That’s because kids often interpret situations based on the reaction of the parents.
These situations can either become a big deal or NOT a big deal, and it’s the parents’ choice. If mom softly touches the fallen child’s head and whispers, “You’re OK,” rather than shrieking in terror, the kid is less likely to freak out. And if dad calmly explains how if the keys end up in the toilet, they can’t go out for ice cream, you’re less likely to end up with wet keys.
Coaches have a similar power over clients, especially when it comes to perspective and dogma. If you assess someone and berate them up and down about how poorly they move and how dysfunctional they are, then prescribe dozens of corrective exercises to “fix” their movement, they’re more likely to develop a complex about their movement and overthink everything. These clients are more likely to get hurt because they EXPECT to get hurt. They’re less likely to push through discomfort (notice I didn’t say pain), which is often necessary to achieve impressive results.
If you shout from atop your soapbox about the evils of gluten and sugar, guess who’s more likely to develop a bad relationship with food? Or just outright eat all the things you tell them not to? That’s right: your clients.
But if you don’t make these things a big deal, they won’t be a big deal. Keep everything in perspective. Does your client need to move a little better if they want to have better workouts? Sure. Do they need to limit processed foods and eat more protein and veggies? Absolutely. But don’t demonize these things, because demons create disordered behaviors that are hard to break.
Coach Dad
Coaching and parenting share a common goal: teach a novice how to interact with their environment. And even though your clients and athletes aren’t babies (no matter how much they whine), there’s plenty to learn from parenting that can help make you a better coach. I know fatherhood has made me a better coach, and I believe I was better prepared to be a father because I’m a coach.
