The Birth of The Shift Method
First, let me start by saying WELCOME to the very first Shift Method blog! The purpose of this blog is to give you a better understanding of how The Shift Method came to be, what it is, what we serve to do, and how we will accomplish our goals.
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The Path Towards Fitness
To understand what The Shift Method is, you have to understand how it originated. I could go on and on about who I (Coach Michel) am and what got me into fitness, but that’s done in great detail on the “About” page of this website, so here’s the TLDR. All my life I wanted to be in the military because it appeared to be a place of brotherhood forged through physical activity, hard work, and the pursuit of a common goal, which was all very attractive to me. That dream was shattered my sophomore year of high school when I was diagnosed with a life threatening and rare autoimmune disorder. Luckily, by senior year I was essentially 100% healthy, but I was denied by virtually every branch of the armed forces once I spoke to a representative or doctor about my condition (understandably so). Heartbroken, I did some introspection to see if I could determine what to do with my life, and the answer came by analyzing why I wanted to join the military in the first place. I wanted to be physically active, foster a sense of community, and participate in helping others. That led me to realize I should pursue some career path centered around physical fitness and athletics. Turns out (and yeah I’m biased, but I think the overall program speaks for itself) Florida Atlantic University (FAU) has one of the top exercise science programs in the state of Florida (Universities.com / Noodle.com). When you have professors like Dr. Mike Zourdos and Coach Ian Pyka (among many others) in your program, you know you’re getting a quality education.
I can’t stress enough how much I loved my undergrad program. It was immersive, hands on, challenging, and overall fun! I was also fortunate enough to earn my NASM CPT the summer going into my sophomore year of college, and secure a job at FAU’s Recreation and Fitness Center. At the rec, I was able to become a personal trainer, group fitness instructor, and fitness manager, all of which were wonderful experiences. Eventually, I developed a reputation as being one of the top trainers at FAU, thus I had the opportunity to work with a wide variety of clientele. My boss at the time knew that I could handle the “tougher” clients, ya know, the ones on 5 medications that you’ve never heard of before, or those who got cleared from physical therapy after going through surgery early in the year. I started to make a niche for helping clients in particular who were dealing with pain and injury (within my scope of practice, of course). I think this specialty (if you can call it that) was created from the challenge of trying to help people get out of pain and become more active. I quickly learned how pain was a very complex phenomenon that differed greatly from person to person.
A Shift In Perspective
Because I was working with clients who were afflicted by various types of pain or recovering from an injury, I started to apply my learned skills. I relied on my NASM certification, knowledge obtained from my coursework, and experience from participating in and teaching an ACE personal training prep course. Simultaneously (as most trainers do), I began digging into the literature to see if anything I learned needed to be updated. NASM (and ACE to a large extent) focuses heavily on corrective exercise, they even have certifications for it (NASM corrective exercise / ACE corrective exercise) so that line of thinking was the backbone of how I approached pain and injury. My understanding at the time was that pain is merely an outcome of something being wrong or broken. I thought there was such a thing as perfect posture and that our lifestyle places us in poor positions that causes pain and injury. I was taught how to use techniques like static stretching and SMR to stretch what’s “tight”. I learned about postural deviations, and movement analysis protocols like FMS to detect “muscular imbalances”. I bought into the idea that there’s primarily 1 way to perform complex movements and any deviation from that is most likely a faulty movement pattern, which again will cause pain and injury. I though that anterior pelvic tilt (APT) was the root cause of most back pain, I thought flexion of the spine was dangerous, and I should inform my clients that it’s dangerous so they don’t hurt themselves. Admittedly, my prior understanding turned me into a bit of a neurotic, biomechanics centered, movement perfectionist, when training my clients, and with my own training program. So I relied heavily on prior knowledge to guide me on this new endeavor while I worked my way through the literature. This is where things got tricky for me. You see, I started coming across research and professionals that were challenging a large portion of what I learned and believed in regard to pain and injury.
These new ideas took me down a bit of a rabbit hole that still leaves me asking questions on a daily basis. I started to learn that pain and injury are far more complicated than I ever could’ve imagined. I was introduced to concepts like the Biopsychosocial (BPS) Model of Medicine, the Fear Avoidance Model, and nociception. I became aware of organizations like the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP). I even stumbled upon high level fitness professionals like Dr. Quinn Henoch, and the Barbell Medicine crew who provided unique perspectives on these topics. I found myself in an extraordinarily conflicted place because the vast majority of my beliefs were now being challenged by these new ideas. Well, I had to see if they worked, so I put them into practice (on myself, and my clients). Often times I hear people talk about anecdotal evidence, well here’s the thing, I firmly believe that the research on pain and injury is leaning in a particular fashion, and anecdotally, myself and my clients have had greater results from adopting these concepts as opposed to traditional models. Of course, as I started diving into and testing these ideas, it was time for me to graduate and move on to the next adventure.
Boiler Up!
West Lafayette, Indiana. Man, what a place. The winters are rough, but the people are kind, and there’s a culture founded on competition, academic excellence, and family everywhere you go. This Florida boy decided to attend Purdue University (PU) to pursue a Master’s in Health & Kinesiology. Luckily, I was able to secure a GA position at Purdue’s Recreation and Wellness Center in the department of Fitness Operations and Services. The idea was to get my Master’s and make a career in campus recreation or commercial fitness management. I quickly realized however, that I wouldn’t want to pursue that career path long term. I wanted to create something unique, something that brought all my experiences together, but I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted. My first year at Purdue was quite rough. I was adjusting to the culture shock and living on my own for the first time. I was also adapting to the dynamic role of supervisor and student, which included managing roughly 80 - 100 students per semester and taking a graduate level course load. On top of that, my first year at Purdue RecWell had a large change in professional staff, including my direct supervisor. For a time, it was just me and a few of my Lead Personal Trainers steering the ship, doing our best to keep it afloat (I couldn’t have done it without their help). It was a very stressful time, in which I did a great deal of introspection. I remember the exact moment that the light bulb went off in my end.
The semester was rolling to a close, and the interview process for my new supervisor was underway, giving me time to catch my breath and collect my thoughts. It was Memorial Day, 2019 that I sat in my bed and thought “Think Damien, what is it that you want to do with your life, be specific”. Somewhere along the way I came across a formula “Vocation = Passion + competence”. So, I made a list of things that I would love to do if money wasn’t an issue (passion), and a list of things I’m good at (competence) to see if any of them could be combined into a profession. I didn’t want to believe it (because it’s a risky idea in general) but I kept coming back to the same career path over and over again. By combing my passions with competence, I found that I wanted to open up my own gym. I love the idea of independence, to make something unique centered around working with athletes and other clientele. I also know that I’m great at programming, speaking, building relationships, and leading a team. I couldn’t deny it any longer, so I told myself right then and there that I was going to make this thing happen! As luck would have it, I actually met the perfect guy to be my mentor in this chapter of my life.
Human Movement Performance and Prehabilitation is a privately owned gym in Lafayette, In. (Human Movement). This facility provides internship and course credit opportunities for Health & Kinesiology students at PU. When my advisor, Cassie Ledman, heard I had aspirations about owning my own facility, she knew immediately who to contact. The gym’s founder and Head Coach, Lucas Woody, was kind enough to take me in as an Apprentice Coach. Lucas taught me the ins and outs of starting your own facility, how to build a brand, and the importance of community centered around common values, among many other things. Lucas is too humble speak openly about all the great work he does, so I’ll do all the talking for him. He’s a great man, who truly cares about the health and well-being of others, and he truly believes that although Human Movement may not be the gym for everyone, that he has the ability to help everyone. Lucas and I may differ somewhat in coaching style and philosophy, but the overlap in values is seemingly endless. Lucas lives and breaths his values, which are Consistency, Community, Integrity, Gratitude, Context, Responsibility, Positivity, Betterment, Purpose, and Empathy. All of these values are embodied by Lucas, his clients, and those that he supervises. One thing that Lucas instilled in me was the importance of knowing your why! Your why is your purpose, and a person with purpose is a nearly unstoppable force. It’s thanks to him that I was able to fine tune my why. You see, the main part of this internship (which would later turn into my graduation project) was to create a facility concept. Thanks to Lucas, I was able to map out what I hope to accomplish as a gym owner, why I want to accomplish these things, and how I plan to do so. I came up with 3 main areas that I wanted my facility to focus on.
Strength & Conditioning
Allow me to outline what I mean by strength & conditioning. First, I mean it in the athletic sense in that I want to train and work with athletes to become stronger, faster, more explosive, etc. I’ve been involved in sports my entire life, and have worked with youth, amateur, and professional athletes, so naturally working with them is desirable. I also view strength and conditioning in the literal sense, meaning that a balanced exercise program for most people should have a combination of resistance and cardiovascular training. Finally, when I open my facility I plan to have my training programs based around strength & conditioning equipment for various reasons. One of my core values is enjoyment, by offering unique equipment for the general public (sleds, curves, assault bikes, turf, etc.) I can differentiate myself from most commercial gyms while also giving people an “athlete like workout”. In the purest sense, athletic performance is typical human movement expressed at the highest level. We all jump, run, push, pull, twist, etc. so let’s train those patterns in an appropriate manner that supports the individual’s goals.
Education
As I eluded to earlier, I enjoy public speaking and teaching others. This goes hand in hand with education, and I don’t mean that in a sense of “you’re wrong, I’m right, and here’s why” sort of way. I enjoy giving people the tools to think critically. I found it more common than not (and I’m guilty of this as well) that exercise science students want the exact answer. It’s a science, right? There should always be a “correct answer”. The common thought is there’s a consistent algorithm of how to train someone, “ this person, of this age, has this goal, so just tell me how many sets, and how many reps, and I’m good to go”. While there are definitely themes and principles when it comes to program design and training, it usually isn’t that clear cut. I understand why students have this mindset, and why teachers teach in a particular manner. You need a foundation to build off of, and it’s difficult to dive into abstraction if you don’t have any firm ground to stand on.
The problem is working with people is messy. Yes we are biological creatures that exist in a world dictated by physical laws, there’s no debating that, but unlike machines we’re influenced by psychological and social factors. We’re adaptable, imperfect beings that are extraordinarily complex and variant in a seemingly endless amount of ways. This isn’t to say there aren’t certain standards or that biology isn’t important, I would never make that claim, but when it comes to working with people you have to embrace the reality of uncertainty, blurred lines, outliers, and nuance. In my opinion, this is how exercise science ought to be taught. Get the facts that we know down pat, and give students the tools and platform to navigate the grey areas. I try to teach my students and trainers that it’s OK to admit when you’re wrong, and to do so with grace and humility. When working with people you have to understand how much beliefs and attitudes influence their adherence and outcomes, you have to understand placebos and nocebos. I tell all my students and trainers that we like to call ourselves “personal trainers” but more often than not we forget the first (and in my opinion more important) part of that phrase, “personal”, which isn’t something you can completely understand simply by just reading a text book. All that’s to say, my goal is to create a facility that not only trains individuals, but actively focuses on providing educational content both in person via seminars and clinics and online through podcasts and social media for the public and fitness professionals.
Pain And Injury
I decided to merge my passion of education and strength & conditioning to tackle the issue of pain and injury. A little sneak Peak into future blogs… 50 million Americans (roughly 20% of the population) reported having some form of Chronic Pain (pain lasting longer than 3 months) in 2016 (CDC 2016). About 17% of Americans were prescribed at least 1 opioid prescription in 2016, and of that, 11.5 million people 12 years of age and older reported to have misused one of those prescriptions. (CDC 2016). 80% of people will experience some form of lower back pain (LBP) in their lifetime, and 90% of all low back pain is currently non-specific, meaning there’s no known cause for it (Koes et al 2006). Moral of the story, we have a problem, and it’s impacting our ability to exercise, our quality of life, and our overall health. I’m no expert in pain science nor am I a physical therapist, I’m just a coach trying to bridge a gap in the fitness industry, the gap between strength & conditioning and physical therapy. There’s a grey area when it comes to working with clients where they don’t necessarily need physical therapy, but strength & conditioning (or personal training) doesn’t exactly prepare you to help them. The Shift Method’s goal is to dissect the emerging data on pain and injury and use it as an educational tool for fitness professionals to provide coaching strategies that promote autonomy and self-efficacy for clients dealing with these issues.
The Shift Method:
My approach when it comes to coaching (like pain and injury) goes back to the “personal” side of the equation. I can have the best programming skills, the nicest facility, and the credential alphabet behind my name, but none of that really matters if I can’t influence behavior. To influence behavior, individuals must identify what they value, so they can pursue it! This is challenging because figuring out what you value isn’t always easy. You have to explore what you want, and often times it’s messy simply because you’ve never spoken about it out loud with another person. I work with people to help them find what they value then map out a plan that details how they’re going to pursue it. I then provide the platform for people to take action!
A shift is defined as “to move or cause to move from one place to another, especially over a small distance” (Oxford Dictionary). Changing behavior and ultimately your lifestyle over time is a shift. Your physical fitness improves incrementally, inch by inch, and day by day. Eventually, those inches add up to miles, and great changes occur. The field of exercise science is always shifting and should remain dynamic by updating its practices and education to match the literature. How we train and interact with clients should shift over time. Finally, the culture of physical fitness and the fitness industry as a whole should also shift. I strive to create a culture centered on all the principles discussed above which are individualism, autonomy, purpose, education, kindness, to name a few. The way or method in which I aspire to shift what was previously discussed, culture, education, strength & conditioning, and so on, that is what I call The Shift Method.
References:
CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain. (2019, August 28). Retrieved July, 2020, from https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/prescribing/guideline.html
Corrective Exercise Specialist. (n.d.). Retrieved July, 2020, from https://www.acefitness.org/fitness-certifications/specialty-certifications/corrective-exercise.aspx
Human Movement. (n.d.). Retrieved July, 2020, from http://www.humanmovementlafayette.com/
Kinesiology and Exercise Science Colleges in Florida. (n.d.). Retrieved July, 2020, from https://www.noodle.com/colleges/fl_location/kinesiology-and-exercise-science_subjects
Kmgcoolguy4, I., Kmgcoolguy4, @crambon0713, I., Dgreco, I., & Dgreco. (n.d.). Best Kinesiology And Exercise Science Colleges in Florida. Retrieved July, 2020, from https://www.universities.com/find/florida/best/kinesiology-and-exercise-science-degrees
Koes, B. W., Tulder, M. W., & Thomas, S. (2006). Diagnosis and treatment of low back pain. Bmj, 332(7555), 1430-1434. doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7555.1430
NASM Corrective Exercise Specialist. (n.d.). Retrieved July, 2020, from https://www.nasm.org/continuing-education/fitness-specializations/corrective-exercise-specialist?gclid=Cj0KCQjwjer4BRCZARIsABK4QeWjvAO0R60E2prnkzWJdnk97Qzy3H0n8MXocAtSDZpXDivjXldHEGUaAjYHEALw_wcB
Prevalence of Chronic Pain and High-Impact Chronic Pain Among Adults - United States, 2016. (2019, September 16). Retrieved July, 2020, from https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/wr/mm6736a2.htm
Shift: Definition of Shift by Oxford Dictionary on Lexico.com also meaning of Shift. (n.d.). Retrieved July, 2020, from https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/shift