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Autor: markyoung
~ 21/12/10
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Yesterday I posted a link to an article that talked about many of the psychosocial elements that play into the success or failure of a weight loss program with obese clients.
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In the comments below, another Canadian fitness professional named Kyle Grieve asked what I think is a very important question:
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“For people in the fitness industry, how will we ever be able to treat the physiological, psychological, or sociological issues they have? It’s way out of my scope of practice.”
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To me, rather than being a limitation, perhaps this is an opportunity for those fitness professionals working with obese clients to add another approach to their paradigm. Many private fitness studios have physiotherapists and massage therapists to with with things that are beyond the scope of most strength coaches and trainers. Why not add a social worker to the team and offer counselling as well?
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The studios that do this would invariably set themselves miles apart from those that don’t and, as I said before, I think this is going to be the future of weight management. Dealing with client nutrition and training is going to be futile in the long run unless you deal with their barriers in the first place.
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From a business standpoint (because you can’t run a business without making money) it is another service that can be billed for. Since group classes often work well in this regard, the cost to clients could be low and the facility owner could make a tidy profit. This is a win for the client and the owner of the facility.
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The other point to be taken home is that those not trained to deal with the psychosocial elements in weight management should step back and leave it to those who are or refer out for such counselling to run parallel to their training/nutrition efforts. If a client got injured you’d refer out right? Why not here?
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And finally, I’ll state again that I think that addressing barriers to fat loss should not only be limited to morbidly obese clients, but to anyone who needs a lifestyle change whether pursuing fat loss or muscle gain. If you think about it, do your clients struggle because they don’t know what to eat or how to train (they should if they’re paying you) or is it because they’re “just not getting it done” for some reason? If this is the case (and it will be for most people) then this is where extra attention needs to be spent.
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More time hammering home the importance of good nutrition and not missing workouts alone isn’t going to do the trick. After all, if that worked the number of overweight people in North America wouldn’t be nearly so high would it?
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PS: Don’t forget to leave me a comments on THIS POST to score your free copy of Nick Tumminello’s Strength Training for Fat Loss DVD which I’ll do a draw for tomorrow morning. Go get it!
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PPS: If this post strikes a chord with you, please consider sharing it. This is most certainly a topic that I’m very passionate about.
Mark,
Good points and leads again to the concept of having a team approach to the aspects that may be out of our realm of expertise.
The challenge will be in finding therapists that are well versed in these matters.
Comment by Bruce Kelly — December 21, 2010 @ 7:01 AM
Could not agree more with you Mark. I have a mental trainer part of my clinic for the issues that I feel I can’t handle well. We both have out strengths and weaknesses and it’s important to know your limitations. Same goes for my physiotherapist and other health professionals.
Comment by Patrick — December 21, 2010 @ 7:38 AM
Bruce – I personally find the same issue with ANY professional to which I might refer. Mind you, it is true that there aren’t a lot of people who are skilled in this regard yet. I think that eventually, more people will become versed in this area. Until then, at least we have Dr. Phil.
Comment by markyoung — December 21, 2010 @ 9:27 AM
Mark,
Good post. Social support goes a long way and we probably don’t do a good enough job of that yet…
Comment by Ryan Gleason — December 21, 2010 @ 9:35 AM
Ryan – I would emphasize that this also goes far beyond social support, but digging down to find out the historical and current barriers to success and creating strategies to deal with these.
Comment by markyoung — December 21, 2010 @ 10:21 AM
Mark,
Ever since discovering your blog, I’ve finally felt connected to a “fitness philosophy.” Honestly! I’ve always been one to question everything. Being overweight in high school, and dropping nearly 50 pounds to now having and MAINTAINING a whole new body ten years later, I’ve always felt on the outside of the fitness industry. I’ve been involved in fitness since my decision to lose weight the day after Christmas of 2000. I guess you can say this year in my 10 year anniversary- something I’m actually very proud of. Nonetheless, I’ve always been skeptical about a lot of research in the fitness industry, and your information has really really made it “ok” with me to be skeptical. I guess you can say that I find strength in numbers. I’ve never read anyone smash HIIT or TABATAS the way you have, and I ABSOLUTELY love it. You get right down to the most basic science of things. It drives me absolutely insane when fitness professionals use these terms to market their business because it continues to widen the gap between actual exercise and results. It also widens the gap between close-minded guru worshippers and professionals like you that take research for what it is- CONTROLLED research. I’ve always wanted to focus more on the psychological aspect of success. Being that I was once overweight, I really try to get through to my clients on a psychological level because weight loss, fat loss, strength gain and everything else is rather easy to attain. Their basically tangible and observable decisions made over time that produce visual, emotional and observable results. But I love focusing on “the process of making those decisions.” I truly believe that fitness studios and businesses in general should have psychologists and social workers because results are not possible without breaking through these barriers. Clients often tell me, “I can’t walk down the street and not get a cupcake from my favorite bakery.” Some fitness professionals would then design a program to further increase a caloric defecit. Some would go into healthy alternatives. Some would focus on why the cupcake is nutritionally bad. Some would say “Oh you must not have eaten breakfast or enough throughout the day so your body is starving and creates images in your head that’ll give you the nutrients it needs.” The client already knows this which is why they expressed their concerns in the first place. I ask them are they lonely, anxious, upset? Are they acting out of pure habit? I tell them to change the street they walk down. I tell them it’s going to be hard. Hella hard! I tell them some days they’re going to feel so down, so tired and so depressed. I tell them their relationship with food is no different than an addicts relationship with substance abuse. We are all objects of conditioned responses, and that is why we can re-condition and change. That’s the beauty of change and our ability to do so. I love the social worker idea, and just like some physical therapists are personal trainers who focus on rehab, some fitness professionals are “mental rehabilitators” not so much because they have a phD in changing themselves long-term, which is something many people don’t do. So sure, some fitness professionals can’t deal with obese clients because maybe they haven’t gone through it themselves. This is a long rant from someone who’s never commented, but here is my first comment!
Comment by Danny Matos — December 21, 2010 @ 11:03 AM
Correction: I love the social worker idea, and just like some physical therapists are personal trainers who focus on rehab, some fitness professionals are “mental rehabilitators” because they have a phD in changing themselves long-term, which is something many people don’t do. ***
Comment by Danny Matos — December 21, 2010 @ 11:06 AM
Mark,
Great idea in suggesting that the real issue(s) that the client has needs to be addressed. However as a fitness professional, how would you intend to manage the increase in potential liability? I would tend to think that any dealings with a social worker would need to be private in nature and not to be shared with their fitness professional.
One other question – how does a group class fit into this concept? Aren’t most issues that clients could face individualized by nature?
Comment by Ryan J — December 21, 2010 @ 11:25 AM
Ryan – Generally speaking, in many locations (both private and government funded) bariatric programs are conducted in group format which creates an opportunity for those in the group to learn from others’ experiences and to foster social support. The support alone is of critical importance and many don’t have a supportive home/work/social environment so it is very powerful to have people on your side.
Despite the fact that our family and friends may want us to succeed, they don’t always change their own habits and spending time exclusively with people whose habits are not in line with our goals can often sidetrack us. And sometimes (actually quite often) those you’ think would be willing to help someone are actually sabotaging them. Spouses sometimes worry that in losing weight that their wife/husband may leave them if they lose weight. Sisters/Friends that are used to being the skinny one don’t want to be the heavier one. And so they sabotage others to maintain the status quo.
Groups also allows the facilitator to reach many people at the same time which is important when resources are short and it keeps costs down. Any issues too sensitive for class could be addressed in private appointments. And since the details don’t necessarily pertain to the fitness professional doing the training/nutrition, confidentiality could be maintained.
Comment by markyoung — December 21, 2010 @ 1:48 PM
Danny – Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment. I am sincerely glad that you finally feel “connected” to the fitness industry. I have to admit that sometimes I feel that I’m a little “outside of the industry” myself, but comments like yours make me realize that I’m reaching people. That absolutely makes my day!
In the end though, I think that stuff like this will eventually become mainstream. For now, it isn’t popular because it isn’t fast, easy, or marketable. But the day will come…and when it does I will be ready with bells on.
Thanks again for your thoughts.
Comment by markyoung — December 21, 2010 @ 2:00 PM
Mark,
I completely agree that because it isn’t quick, easy or marketable, people just rather avoid it or don’t want to build a business model off of it! But like the saying goes, it’s a marathon not a sprint. So those that do value the importance of sound change through addressing barriers will prevail in the end because sooner or later, people are going to realize that long-term doesn’t happen without digging deep. Hopefully when I earn my blog stripes as a fitness professional, I will be just as influential as you and the other people that value these things!
Comment by Danny — December 21, 2010 @ 6:06 PM
Mark,
I completely agree that because it isn’t quick, easy or marketable, people just rather avoid it or don’t want to build a business model off of it! But like the saying goes, it’s a marathon not a sprint. So those that do value the importance of sound change through addressing barriers will prevail in the end because sooner or later, people are going to realize that long-term doesn’t happen without digging deep. Hopefully when I earn my blog stripes as a fitness professional, I will be just as influential as you and the other people that value these things!
Comment by Danny Matos — December 21, 2010 @ 8:36 PM
Danny – I’m not sure that I’d consider myself “influential”, but thanks for the vote of confidence.
Comment by markyoung — December 22, 2010 @ 6:26 AM
[...] who think they need to “lose a few pounds” are clinically obese). In fact, I’ve mentioned before that addressing these issues need not even be a burden for a fitness professional, but an [...]
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