Battle ropes, Kettlebells and medieval weapons? Onnit Academy Training recap

I had been on the fence about attending this training for a while. My only reason for that was I wanted a weekend to relax and sleep, pretty dumb reason. But this whole summer feels like it has been one …

My Fitness Adventure Weekend – Perform Better Summit

This past weekend I went on a wonderful adventure, a fitness adventure! I attended the Perform Better Fitness Summit in Providence RI. It was 3 days full of information about fitness and movement. The main theme behind the summit was the FMS, or Functional Movement Screen. This is a screening tool that fitness professionals can use to see how people move. It is usually done at the beginning of a program to asses where to start, what to do or what not to do. Where a person needs some extra attention and where they are proficient already. I am currently completing my training in the FMS and I am finding it incredibly interesting! It just makes sense.

The creator of the FMS, Gray Cook, is famous for his saying ‘move better, then move often’. I agree with this wholeheartedly. If you are not moving correctly, or in a way that brings pain or injury, why continue to move that way? You need to first correct imbalances or issues before moving on to bigger things. He also has a saying ‘you can’t load dysfunction’. Which again is also true. If you have an incorrect movement pattern for say, the squat, and you keep adding weight to your squat, that’s a recipe for disaster folks!

So back to the weekend. It was awesome. But first it was intimidating and somewhat terrifying. To be walking into a group of fitness professionals, as a non fitness professional, I was a bit nervous to say the least. But I had to push that out of my head pretty quickly. I grabbed my venti Starbucks coffee, held my head high, and marched into the convention center with gusto. I planned out what lectures I would attend and off I went. By the end of the first day I had learned about training individuals with pain, listened to Mike Boyle talk about how to be a better strength coach and learned from Gray Cook about a new screening tool in development. To say information overload is an understatement. I was tired, my brain was fried, but I was so energized. I finally felt like I was learning things I was super excited to be learning. I felt comfortable, in my element. Something that has been lacking for a long time.

Saturday morning I was debating waking up early and going to the 8 am session. I didn’t know who the speakers were, but I had a nagging feeling that was drawing me to one particular lecture. So I got up early, still missed the first 5 minutes, but I made it. It was to hear Martin Rooney speak about coaching and how to be a better coach. It was my favorite lecture of the entire weekend. He is such an incredible speaker, so engaging and motivational. I was truly inspired and pumped by the end. He even got us to do a rocky theme music sing a long, at 8:30 am. Pretty good. He is the founder of Training for Warriors, something I am definitely going to be getting certified in after learning about the program. That started the day of pretty well, if I do say so. The rest of the day I listened and learned from Dan John and Alwyn Cosgrove. Pretty great day as well, and again, Information overload!

Sunday was a short day, but an awesome one as well. I heard a lecture and then participated in a hands on session with Artemis Scantalides. She is a local trainer around the Boston area that I have been following for a while. She is the founder of Iron Body Studios and is a powerhouse, but a 5’1″ 110 powerhouse. She can lift more, press more and pull more than anyone around. She talked about female stereotypes in and out of the gym and how the affect our lives. How women are afraid to lift because they don’t want to look ‘bulky’ and what the media has done for body image these days. It was a great presentation, I could write a whole post about just this, which I may do! Her hands on demonstration session was about how to program pull ups, it was insanely helpful, and I will use it with myself and my sister (future clients?)

It was a great weekend, Le Fiance came with me and brought me coffee and lunch, we went to dinner, we walked around Providence. I felt comfortable and like I was learning what I should be learning, things I can apply now with myself and in the future.

Change up

I have officially decided to change it up around here. By that I mean I will be changing the look of my site, my site name but most importantly, I am changing my career. I will be embarking on fitness/nutrition training in the near future that will help me start out on a new path! I have really immersed myself in learning about nutrition recently and (discovered feels like the wrong term, since I’ve known it for a long long time) but realized that this is where I need to be. I am burnt out in my current field and am no longer passionate about it. I am going to pursue my passion as a personal trainer/nutritional coach, which I will probably mold into some sort of Lifestyle or Wellness Coaching, maybe Holistic Coaching? We’ll see how it pans out. But for now, I’m doing as much soaking up of knowledge as I can and I’ll spit it back out to you too! I am excited. Get excited. Get ready to read!