Questions from clients

Here are some questions and general discussions that I have received from my clients, both in-session and over text. 

Some may be funny, and some may provide actual advice. 

Send an email with questions of your own!

1.) How can I improve my posture while working from home, and why do my hips get sore?! 

An attorney client of mine moved from his office in L.A. to working at home full-time in Dana Point over the last couple of years. His upper back, shoulders, and neck were all extremely tight, and therefore sore, from making the office switch. He was working in a hunched, sub-par-posture, making the best use of his home desk and chair that were both extremely outdated. We switched him to an elevated work station, where he would be encouraged to stand tall atop of a standing mat. Transitioning from a taller office chair towering him over a desk that was too short, he is now feeling major relief in his upper thoracic. His posture is miles better and his chest/shoulder region is a lot more mobile. This increase of mobility even improved his breathing and allows him to take deeper breaths more frequently!

Now, by standing most of his long day, his hips and lower back began to fatigue. We concluded that he should keep a foam roller at his desk and massage his glutes once before lunch and another time after. By implementing this new protocol, his upper back feels amazing, his lower back resists fatigue, and his hips have really felt their best lately.

2.) We are not seeing progress as fast as we would like, what type of cardio is best for us?

As natural action-takers, we want to know what more we can add to our routine to perfect it. For these specific clients, less is more. WAY MORE.

These clients are running their own startup business, playing the roles of owners, operators, and wearing every hat imaginable to entrepreneurs. You get it: Creating, designing, ordering, photographing, emailing, calling, scheduling, and just all-around working their butts off. This is all on top of parenting two young ones. We are strength training together three days every single week and seeing reasonable progress but yet, they want to see more (don't we all?!). They ask what type of cardio they should implement in their packed schedule and I told them... "none."

After they finish their daily tasks, the clock is past 11:30pm. Not just throughout the week but daily; and it has been for the better part of a year. Their sleep recovery is almost nonexistent as they are waking up early to train before the Owner/operator/parent hats are worn.

Instead of prescribing cardio in the form of sprints vs. 2 mile walks vs. rower intervals, I asked them to focus on wrapping up their days a bit earlier to prioritize sleep. Focusing on sleep over cardio will allow the body to recover and reach goals faster without causing burnout or harming the nervous system. Sleep is the best for progress; check in with your sleep hygiene if you feel you are not seeing the progress you deserve. 

3.) how should I train while on vacation?

This is a very specific answer to a very specific client of mine. He runs his very successful business of 25 years in Orange County, runs his household near-perfectly, and manages the largest social circle I've ever seen! He enjoys tough training sessions, and they are pretty tough for the most part, but a person needs to recover appropriately as well.  On his latest vacation, we had him skip the gym completely, a decision that he wasn't expecting to hear. Instead, to relax and truly recover from his stressful day-to-day, he slept well and woke up early on Day One. He and his family attended a meditation hour including breathwork, sound bathing, and total relaxation before a busy day running around. Returning from the trip, we were able to resume our high intensity training as he was very recovered and even looking forward to it!

4.) For my off days, Peloton cycle session or heavy sled-pushes?

One of my guys has been through some of the toughest months of his life lately, regarding his stress. He has been missing training sessions to make deadlines, running late to sessions as his own meetings run late, and of course, missing sleep in a big way. On a rare weekend day this last week, he had free time and wanted to sweat out some stress. He decided on heavy sled pushes, a very demanding exercise on the entire body and nervous system. Now, normally I would applaud that since it is very difficult to get people to push the sled without me there in person, but he may have been better served by the Peloton ride.

The arguably easier cycle would have given him a sweat-sesh without frying his core, low back, shoulders, and everything below the belt.  The resistance on the bike proves easier to modify than the sled. This suggestion is pointed at a guy that could thrive off of having a little LESS stress in his life right now until things cool down!

5.) I'm having shoulder pain on cable chest flies when I go back too far, what should I do?

Don't go back that far.

Does it hurt when we cut the range of motion a little shorter? "No." Does it feel better when the weight is lighter? "No."

My client was worried about missing progress since he was unable to reach his arms all the way back on a cable chest fly due to pain. The pain only occurred when his arms were spread at their widest and chest stretched maximally. Instead of defaulting to the largest range of motion (ROM) humanly possible, we had him cut his ROM a bit shorter and keep his hands in front if his body instead of reaching them completely lateral to 180 degrees. We work around the pain, we get to keep an exercise he loves, and we can still progress him via number of repetitions, tempo of repetitions, number of sets,  and even weight to an extent. 

You can always work around perceived limitations. 

6.) I've got a cruise coming up, how can I lose the most amount of weight possible beforehand?

I train in a sustainable, health-focused manner with emphasis on sustainability and longevity. That said, let's go hard for this cruise! Let's double up training, focus on meal prepping every single day, and increase the accountability here.

My client going on a cruise wanted to expedite some weight-loss beforehand. We worked together to make sure each meal was prepped and ready for him, decreasing temptation to eat fast food out of convenience. When he went out for his weekly lunch with his company, we decided to have him order his to-go container at the same time as he ordered his meal; this ensured half of the calories are packed and out-of-sight and half remained to be enjoyed with colleagues. More often than not, the packed half  remained until he got home to be enjoyed as dinner. A restaurant meal is often large enough for two (or more!) meals for a single person. 

He began working out during his lunch breaks at work, first by just foam rolling, but then quickly transitioning to walks around the large city blocks within a matter of days. The fast-paced walking lunches soon turned into him changing clothes and strength training in the office gym for an hour. This behavior change DRASTICALLY increased his weekly workouts from just two with me, to our two sessions PLUS five sessions at work PLUS another at the gym on the weekend. From two weekly sessions to eight, his progress is impressive. Workouts at lunch also help one to NOT eat large, high-calorie restaurant lunches!

7.) My knee is killing me from landing on it wrong while playing with my kids

My guy had fallen on his kneecap and hurt the knee pretty bad while in a potato sack race over summer in Dana Point a few months back. Funny story, but seriously affected our lower-body training. Some days we are free to squat and lunge and carry heavy things; other days not so much. On the days we are feeling limited, I have him perform single-leg exercises on the non-affected side. Our upper-body training plays out the same but, for the legs, only one gets worked. 

We perform pistol squats, single-leg deadlifts, and Bulgarian split squats to work around the achy knee.  Due to "cross-education," the achy side still receives benefit and can even get stronger while we are not working it directly. The human body is beautiful!

8.) My knee hurts from an old injury, do we just train upper body?

NEVER!

A client of mine was performing the leg press with his previous personal trainer years ago in Laguna Niguel, and his form was definitely NOT outstanding then.  His knees still bug him from time to time so bending those legs hurt, especially with weight. Squats, lunges, step-ups all tend to bug him. 

To work around, we have found that deadlifts feel amazing since the knees don't go through that much flexion (bending) throughout the sets. Just because one type exercise feels "off" does not mean we have cancel all lower body training. There is no need to fit any one person into an exercise, we can ALWAYS find a movement pattern that feels great!

9.) My legs lose strength while surfing and I cannot sustain a wave. What can we do?

One of my surfers loves to be in the water daily and surf for hours in San Clemente, but his leg strength falls off after an hour or so. He pops up on his board just fine, makes a turn or two, then loses steam while he tries to pump for more speed.

To combat this, we have focused on the obvious "lifting a bit heavier in his squats and lunges", but have also included leg work during upper body exercises.

While working his back muscles, we've switched him to banded rows while maintaining a squat the whole set. He is now working his back and bicep muscles while crouched in a squat pattern. This engages his quads, hamstrings, and glutes. While working his shoulders by way of dumbbell overhead presses, he begins each repetition in a squat, then stands up fast, while pressing overhead. We transitioned from a seated overhead press to a standing push press to incorporate he legs and build their power. He is now able to turn on a dime and surf even longer now! Instead of his legs resting while training upper body, they are being tested and built the entire hour-long personal training session. 

10.) Doctor said to stay off of my foot due to a minor stress fracture, only upper body training then?

No way! We can still train the legs and hips all while staying off of the affected foot since the fracture was near the pinky toe. My poor client was bummed that we could only strength train his upper body coming into our Monday session but I explained how we could work with it. We began the session with hip bridges, where he laid on the floor with his feet elevated on the bench, heels/Achilles being the only contact point of the foot. His fracture was not affected as it had no contact with the bench and supported none of my client's weight. After our four sets of twenty repetitions, we added banded abductions with a small band around his knee, remaining in a seated position atop the bench. This exercise targets the Gluteus Medius muscles on the sides of the hips and provides no stress to the lower legs, especially the feet. Once again, we completed four sets of twenty repetitions.

After working the hips extensively, my client completed four sets of ten repetitions of pistol squats (single-legged) and single legged deadlifts, but ONLY by utilizing his non-affected leg with the non-fractured foot.  Both of these exercises were done within a safe environment, using the bench for balance throughout the entirety of reps. Some people get nervous neglecting a leg by only working the other, but the benefits are amazing. We strengthen that leg, obviously, but the results get shared with the limb that is healing as well, by a process known as cross education. Doing pistol squats and single legged deadlifts on his left side share a significant amount of progress with the right side (research shows 10-20% of muscular benefit).

Remaining consistent while recovering from most injuries can help improve recovery as the increased blood flow may help to promote healing to the injured areas. Remaining consistent also helps the mental health in dealing with the physical recovery!

11.) muscle strain workaround.

A client unfortunately strained a shoulder muscle doing yard work (carrying too heavy of firewood across his property by himself!) and then received the news from his doctor that his blood pressure is getting too high. With this level of strain, we put a pause on strength training and transitioned to low-intensity cardio training and increased our focus on lower-body flexibility. Our sessions turned into power walking the hills of his Laguna Beach community multiple time per week, then adding in new stretches afterwards. 

Increasing the body's blood flow during this time of muscular recovery helps to promote the shoulder muscle healing, improves the mental health of my client while having to pause an activity that he loves (heavy-ish strength training), and keeps his calorie burn in check. Adding more stretches to his program prevented his legs and hips from becoming tighter from the increase in walking, and will later assist his squats and lunges when we return to the barbell. The moral of the story, use a wheelbarrow when moving piles of wood!

12.) low calorie diet? strength train.

A client was advised by her dietician to restrict calories for five days but was advised to keep training during that week. A simple change we made for that week was solely in her number of repetitions lifted, not her weights lifted. When people go low-calorie, their first instinct is to lower the weights they lift and keep the repetitions higher. If you plan a short duration of low calories such as a week, try this approach.

Squat, lunge, bicep curl with your same weights as last week, but cut the repetitions by 30-50% each set. Your rest periods should increase a bit more to 90 seconds or even two minutes to help recover with a lack of calories and blood sugar. As always, listen to your body and only aggressively reduce calories under the guidance of a dietician or doctor.

13.) Getting sick, what should I do?!?

My long term clients already know my answer to this when they text me to cancel upcoming sessions.

• Rest more.

• Sleep more.

• Water.

• Vitamins.

Done. That's it. Let your body recover. Nap as much as possible. Fuel and nourish your body with the foods it needs to fight off sickness. End of story. Text me when you're better!