Fitness Coach Mentorship - Feedback from Clients

The Fitness Coach Mentorship has been an awesome service for me. I obtained this service because I needed something different that would meet my needs.  Being deaf, Michael provided something that I have not seen others do.  Individual attention, personal assessment of my strengths and weaknesses, progression at an appropriate level, and assignments that challenge critical thinking, are just a few of the many experiences I've gained from working with Michael.  The biggest takeaway so far has been the simplicity in how Michael explains things and how it challenges my creativity towards programming and exercise selection.  I would highly recommend this service to anybody who really appreciates the art and science of programming and coaching.  I plan to continue this service for as long as Michael can tolerate me!

--Brad Forbes (Fitness Mentoring Client)

I have been a remote coaching client with Michael since November 2011. During this time I was able to see how effective and methodical his individualized programming is. The overwhelming results I achieved in such a short time left me wanting to know more. As soon as a space was available for Fitness Coach Mentoring, I jumped at the opportunity to become involved in the program. I feel like I was able to take my coaching to a much higher level by learning how to target specific energy systems and design appropriate strength sessions using reps, sets, tempos and rest times.  Having the knowledge to understand, program, and explain these methodologies to others brings nothing more than results for myself and the clients I train.  I would definitely recommend this program to other coaches looking to expand their knowledge; it is like having a personal trainer teaching you the science behind coaching!

--Chip Thorndike (Remote Coaching Client, Fitness Mentoring Client)

I decided to sign up for the Fitness Coach Mentoring because I reached a point in my training where I was all over the place, and needed some guidance. I have qualified for the Northeast Regionals for the last two years, and had disappointing finishes. I was following and talking to James FitzGerald for about three years, and was trying to implement this style of programming into my own gym, Vagabond CrossFit, for the last two years. However, I needed more guidance and knowledge for practical application.  I have been talking to Michael for the last 6 months and my knowledge has grown. Both myself and my clients have seen great results. Without Michael’s guidance, I can honestly say I would be stuck in a rut, and the programming in my gym would be sub par. We have seen huge gains within Vagabond, since I started working with Michael, and also since we have been doing the online classes for OPT CCP.

More specifically, I have learned to be a critical thinker, and actually have a plan and purpose to my programming. I have tried to do this in the past, but now we actually have a rhyme and reason. We are not guessing at what we are doing, but we are assessing every little thing, and the improvement within our gym has shown this. All my clients have improved in someway, and they have done it injury free. The time and effort I put into my programming now, I take pride in because I now have a scope of what I am doing when I sit down to program for each individual.  I am always thankful to the Optimum Performance Training community, and what they have provided for myself and Vagabond CrossFit.

--Kevin O'Mallay (Remote Coaching Client, Fitness Coach Mentoring Client)


I have been doing the remote coaching service with Michael for 7 months now and it is definitely the best thing I have ever done.  I used to be one of those guys who would always train based on ‘feel’. It got to a certain point, but then after honestly assessing myself I knew I wasn't reaching my full potential and I only had myself to blame. Subconsciously, whether I wanted to admit it or not, I did favour my strengths. Having an emotional connection to your training can be a good thing, but also can be a big downfall if you are letting it dictate what you do on a daily basis.

This all came to a head in August '11 when I woke up one morning.  I bent down to put my shoes on before going to the gym and felt a tweak in my back. It was definitely a culmination of overtraining and under-recovering. Cut a long story short, I ended up having a disc bulge at L5/S1, it resulted in me having a thing called foot drop, which meant that when I was walking as soon as my heel touched the ground my foot would slap on the ground (I couldn't dorsiflex my ankle no matter how hard I tried). I was seeing a Neurologist and almost had a discectomy. The Neurologist told me I would never be able to lift over 30kg again the rest of my life.

I think the way any bad news works is like this: negativity, blame, acceptance, and progression. It was a pretty shit time, I always tried to lead from the front and seeing guys who I always used to train with start to beat my times from the past was depressing. I did pretty much nothing for 3 months except some walking and light swimming...

I avoided the operation and eventually one day I tried to raise my foot up and it actually came up. It was only for a short period, but it was progress.

I started to really look inside and be honest with myself, I knew how I would be going back to training (if I ever did again). I knew I would pick something up, think 'that feels good' put a bit more weight on and keep doing that and eventually I would be back to hurting myself again. These were hard things to admit to, knowing I am really not the best at taking care of myself - when I am someone coaching a heap of other people and I should be setting an example!

I needed a coach who would tell me what to do and keep me grounded, I didn't care how long things would take, I just wanted to not have a paralyzed foot and start to move around again.  I needed a person who's views of fitness also correlated with health and who I trusted. Michael was the guy I chose.

I am waffling on now but my first week of training was super simple, I think the hardest thing I did was air squats @ a slow tempo. I had no ego and didn't care because I was happy to be moving again.  We slowly progressed everything and now 7 months in things are starting to come together. I still have a long way to go, but I don't forget where I have been, which is the most important thing. I am still about 40kg off of my deadlift and back squat PR from before the injury, but that stuff doesn't really matter anymore nor is it important in the big picture. I am thankful every day for being able to move again and most of all I am appreciative of being associated with a guy who has his head screwed on and can take some time out of his day to help me out.

I did the OPT CCP in November last year and it has made me grow tenfold as a coach. 'The more you know the more you realize what you don't know' is such a wonderful statement.  I always want to try and be the best coach possible and I knew working with Michael in the Fitness Coach Mentoring program would help keep me focused and on track with what I believe about health and fitness. You need to be able to question things and make things uncomfortable for yourself to grow and working with Michael helps encourage that to happen with me.

The past 12 months started out being the worst I have ever had (not being a skirt, I know people have endured MUCH worse) - but looking back on it now without it happening I never would be where I am today - "everything happens for a reason".

--Scott Dillon (Remote Coaching Client, Fitness Coach Mentoring Client)

Fitness Coach Mentoring - New Recruits

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There are a maximum of 5 spots available for the Fitness Coach Mentoring service. For more information, please go here. Here is the initial assignment that MUST be completed and e-mailed to info@optimumperformancecalgary.com before you will be officially enrolled into the program. Upon submission of your assignment, we will set-up our first meeting (Skype or in-person). Here it is, any questions regarding the assignment can be e-mailed to the above address. Registration deadline for this service will close on September 9th, 2012. The next openings will begin later in 2012.

Part 1 - Philosophy

The purpose of this part is for me to get an understanding of where you are coming from when you make decisions and choices in training design. In your own words, describe the following to the best of your ability:

- Describe what you believe Fitness is. Be specific. Minimum 500 words.

- Design what you believe would be a legitimate test of fitness, considering all important components involved in competition (i.e. judging, scoring, variety, etc.). Design an 8 event, 3 day competition, be prepared to justify your decisions and choices. Assume you would have access to anything you needed (i.e. equipment, area, volunteers, etc.)

Part 2 - Design

The purpose of this part is to get an understanding of your ability to design training programs based on the person's abilities and their goals, as well as managing all the variables related to training in order avoid over or under training and injury. Design a 4 week training program for each of the following individuals. Each training program must include the days of the training session (i.e. Monday) and the entire training session that goes along with it. You do no have to plan for a peak or anything, linear progression is fine (if you do not understand what I mean, just do your best). Before each design, please describe in point form what YOU believe the training priorities for these individuals should be and HOW you came to those conclusions. As well, assume they do not have a competition for 6-8 months so you are free to start training with any template/priority you like. At the end of each 4 week design, briefly describe what you would plan to change going into the next program, if anything.

Individual #1 - 25 year old Female that wants to compete in CrossFit based Competitions.

*Assume no flexibility issues and no previous injuries

*Able to only train on Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday/Saturday/Sunday

- Height = 5'8"

- Bodyweight = 125lbs

- Deadlift = 200lbs

- Back Squat = 135lbs

- Front Squat = 115lbs

- Power Clean = 95lbs

- Clean and Jerk = 95lbs

- Power Snatch = 70lbs

- Snatch = 75lbs

- OHS = 85lbs

- Close Grip Bench Press = 95lbs

- Press = 70lbs

- Weighted Supinated Chin-up = 10lbs

- Weighted Bar Dip = 15lbs

- AMRAP Chest to Bar Chin-ups = 3

- AMRAP Ring Dips = 2

- AMRAP HSPU = 0

- Muscle-ups = 0

- 500m Row = 2:15

- 1000m Row = 4:35

- 2000m Row = 9:20

- 400m Run = 1:30

- 800m Run = 3:25

- 1600m Run = 7:15 min

- Fran = 12 minutes

- Helen = 15 minutes

Individual #2 - 25 year old Male that wants to compete in CrossFit based Competitions.

*Assume no flexibility issues and no previous injuries

*Able to train any time, any day

- Height = 5'10"

- Bodyweight = 185lbs

- Deadlift = 500lbs

- Back Squat = 375lbs

- Front Squat = 330lbs

- Power Clean = 225lbs

- Squat Clean = 250lbs

- Clean and Jerk = 245lbs

- Power Snatch = 185lb

- Snatch = 205lbs

- Close Grip Bench Press = 275lb

- Press = 195lb

- Weighted Supinated Chin-up = 110lb

- Weighted Bar Dip = 125lb

- AMRAP Chest to Bar Chin-ups = 45

- AMRAP Ring Dips = 35

- AMRAP HSPU = 35

- 30 Muscle-ups for time = 3:30 min

- 500m Row = 1:25 min

- 1000m Row = 3:10 min 

- 2000m Row = 7:30 min

- 400m Run = 1:00 min

- 800m Run = 2:25 min

- 1600m Run = 6:25 min

- 5000m Run = 24 min

CrossFit Open 12.1, AMRAP Burpees in 7 minutes = 115 reps

Fran = 2:20 min

Helen = 9 minutes

Nate = 20 rds

Individual # 3 - 40 year old Male that wants to qualify for the Boston Marathon

*Make no assumptions here

*Able to train any time, any day

*Describe what you believe would be necessary testing for this person to go through if they came to your facility (i.e. what would you do with them for an assessment that would give valid information and therefore be beneficial to designing a training program for this person).

- Height = 6'0"

- Bodyweight = 175 lbs (under 10% bodyfat)

- Maximum Heart Rate when Running = 182

- 10k = 40 min

- Half Marathon = 1 hour 29 min

- Marathon = 4 hours 

Questions of Fitness

What is your definition of fitness? Do you agree with CrossFit? Or, do you agree with another fitness body or organization? Or, do you have your own idea or theory? What constitutes a legitimate definition? I will be presenting (more in-depth) on this topic at the OPTathalon in San Diego in October.  But, for now, let's just get a little bit into this without going overboard. Comments/discussions are welcomed.

I imagine most of my readers would be those that are engaged in CrossFit or at least know enough about it to get the gist of my blog posts. So, we will say that everyone (I am exaggerating, or at least I hope I am) reading this agrees with CrossFit and their definition of fitness, as "work capacity, across broad time, and modal domains (WCBTMD)".

Here I am trying to outline a simple way for you to understand where your own personal definition of fitness may sit in the evolution of definitions.

First (Basic) Order Definition - "To complete a task"
* Not specific (too broad of a scope). If the scope of the definition is too broad, then it is useless and infinite.
* Not directive and descriptive (i.e. does not provide direction as to how to go about testing this as a legitimate theory. It does not provide any insight as to what the "nuts and bolts" are, so to speak...what makes up fitness?)
* Universally understood and appreciated (i.e. farmer working in the field on their crop, or shovelling your driveway if needed, CrossFit Games, OPTathalon, or whatever).

Second Order Definition - "WCBTMD"
* Not specific (too broad of a scope). Characteristics of what they consider makes up fitness ("the 10 components of fitness" is important, but does not limit the scope as any single thing (i.e. typing on a keyboard, walking your dog) can be useful on this scale of 10 components.
* Somewhat directive and descriptive (does provide insight into the ways in which fitness can be tested, but does not go into great detail. There is substance to the definition, and it does give more insight about the subject of fitness and what it is).
* Less understood and less appreciated than the 1st Order definition (inherent as the intricacy of the definition increases.)

Third (Intricate) Order Definition - to be determined
* Must be specific. Here are just some of the "little things that must be discussed and considered".
- what are the "nuts and bolts" of fitness? what is the over-riding guide? energy systems? 
- should characteristics like agility, balance, co-ordination, etc. be considered useful in designing appropriate testing? or are they merely correlative of appropriate testing and of the top athletes? 
- which modalities are appropriate and suitable for testing and which are only appropriate and suitable for training? are certain modalities more important and valid than others in testing (i.e. running, clean and jerks, deadlifting, burpees vs. sit-ups, step-ups, turkish get-ups, back extensions)?
- which scoring system has to be adopted universally such that testing can be considered legitimate and a comparison between years can be made?
- should weight and height ever be considered, or not?
- should a judge be necessary? how much of a factor should judging be? who is qualified to judge? are modalities selected with judging capability and accuracy in mind (how much judging capacity does running and rowing require? how much judging capacity do kettlebell swings require?
- can we determine the validity and repeatability of said test/event?
*Must provide direction and be descriptive.
- should it outline appropriate ways (i.e. workouts, events, modalities) to administer testing? 
- who determines that the testing is appropriate and suitable to be able to say it is testing an aspect of fitness? Remember for the 1st and 2nd Order definition, anything can be considered a test of fitness as they are too broad in scope.
- should human physiology be considered into what makes up an entire testing event (i.e. an entire competition)? how many energy systems will be considered in testing? on what basis? how many events per energy system shall be utilized?
- are their yearly reviews, conferences, and roundtable discussions to try to improve our understanding of the definition.

All I really want people/readers to get from this brief exercise is to think more deeply about the thing we all love so dearly...Fitness! Without discussion and reasoning, we will get no where.

(James - photo courtesy of Focus Sisters Photography)

(Michael - photo courtesy of Focus Sisters Photography)