I was thinking there (don’t worry I had a spare ice pack handy to cool my brain down afterwards) about the questions I get when I’m coaching. I was thinking about making this a sort of FAQ post but that wouldn’t work. Instead, I’ll split this into the types of questions I get. Obviously this is quite general and there’ll always be ones that don’t fall into these categories. The two I’ll use today are In Session and After Session.

In Session Questions

These are the least problematic of all questions as they’re usually related to something specific. For example, if we’re squatting, someone will ask how low should they go, or if we’re boxing, someone will ask how to hit harder. These questions are all good and are they type you have to ask in sessions. Coaches can’t see everything and won’t always pick out your mistakes, and it’s harder again to spot if you’re uncomfortable. The type of question that isn’t valid in sessions would be things unrelated to the technique or skill being taught. Such as someone asking how to knee in a boxing class, or how they’re pull ups are poor when they’re doing squats. They’re quite obviously wrong. Less obvious are when people ask questions just because they don’t fancy doing the session. It’s easy to mask fatigue by continually asking technical questions so I actively discourage that and have specific Q&A segments in each class. Sometimes I actually lay the law down. I’ll lay out the class in advance and specifically mention that at, say 7.45pm, we’re going to stop for some Q&A after we’ve done our drills. This depends on how complex the material is and the level of the trainees.

After Session Questions

These are almost more important than the in session questions, as when someone takes the time to approach you afterwards, you know they mean business. There’s no end to the type of question I get here but usually they break down into 3 categories.

1) The fighting question. Usually phrased like “Can I get a fight sometime?” or “When would I be ready to fight”. I like this question. There’s no straight answer but usually I say “when you train BJJ for a decent length of time” because pretty much everyone fancies themselves as knocking someone out.

2) The I’m fat question. Usually phrased differently. This is usually people asking about diet and is very hard to answer in the 5 minutes we have before or after classes. I usually end up answering by email afterwards.

3) The make me a programme question. This is the most annoying question of all as I can easily write a strength, conditioning, or fat loss programme. Why is that annoying? Because 90% of the time people waste my time and theirs after I write it by either not showing up to do it or just doing the bits they like out of it. If I had a penny for every time I wrote pull ups or the assisted versions into a programme and the guy/girl didn’t perform it, I would have…. €1.23…. I don’t really understand the attitude of getting a programme written (which is always based on an assessment by the way) and then going and doing what the fuck you want anyway. This is what I do and I’m pretty good at it, but I suppose the workout on the internet is probably cooler.

I might return to this next week. In the meantime, I’ve been negligent about the Mond
ay music for a while.