Measure what matters

“If you’re not assessing, you’re guessing.”

I love this quote by health guru Paul Chek.

For many years in personal training, the only assessments included exercise parameters:

1RM

Load (%1RM)

Reps

Sets

Rest Periods

VO2Max

HR

as well as aesthetic parameters:

circumferential measurements

bodyweight

bodyfat

BMI

These are measures.

For those of us who are interested in doing more in the gym or looking better naked

These are measures that matter.

These aren’t all the measures that matter.

If they were,

wouldn’t we all do a little better in the gym…

and maybe look a little better naked?

Whether we workout in the gym to do better in the gym, to look better naked or both…

We get hurt.

We get injured.

Our gym performance goes down and we look worse naked.

As personal trainers, we cannot afford it if we get hurt or our clients get hurt.  We gotta eat.  We gotta pay our bills.  We gotta stay healthy and keep our clients healthy.

So we shell out the big bucks to learn movement screens.  These movement screens or assessments are designed to choose exercises that won’t get us hurt and to avoid exercises that will get us hurt.  Not a bad idea.

So we assess ourselves; we assess our clients.  We do what we are cleared to do and don’t do what we aren’t cleared to do.  No longer will we have to worry about hurting ourselves or our clients getting injured….or do we?  Is there something that is missing?

Stay tuned for Part II.