Why You're Doing What You're Doing: The Movement Assessment

For those keeping score at home, I write the Home Gym Series, which has been going splendidly, twice a month, nutritional strategies get some love one week a month, and now this series.

This series is all about answering questions related to the programming clients receive at Purposeful Strength. Through these answers I am hoping that you will learn about new concepts in your workouts, see the thought process(es) that go in to working with a Personal Trainer, and like I am doing with Beyond Strength, steal my ideas for your own workouts!

Our first edition covers a topic that all my personal training clients, in person and online, go through; the movement assessment.

“Hey Casey, Can you just start the workouts?”

Nope.

What the hell does that mean? Strength Training Edition

I found myself talking to a friend of mine not too long ago and we were making fun of the industry. Specifically, how so many Personal Trainers like to use the science jargon relating to exercise to their audience on social media, and presumably, their clients as well.

It makes me giggle when Personal Trainers start talking about force-velocity curves, synergistic muscle tendencies, citing the epimysium of the muscle belly, and so forth.

Inputs vs. Outputs: What matters in your nutrition, fitness, and health?

Wearable technology, Usage apps, live time streaming, and even food and nutrition apps all have categories that itemize and register your projected exercise outputs. As all of these avenue’s have become more and more popular (what up, COVID) I’ve noticed a dramatic shift in the attention to what these devices and platforms are telling you.

“Why was my calorie output lower today from the same workout I had last week when it was 150 calories higher?”

“{insert nutrition logging app here} told me my 40 minute workout burned 300 calories, should I eat extra today?”

“My apple watch had my highest movement score, but why is the scale not moving?”

The above are examples of questions I get, from friends, family, clients, and social media acquaintances alike. Don’t get me wrong when I say this, they’re all awesome questions, and I want these questions. But the answer typically pisses people off.

The missing link in your fitness program

I spent some time last night hanging out with Google.

I do this on occasion, probably once a quarter. I just sit down with my laptop and start searching for various key terms and phrases related to health, wellness, fitness, and nutrition. Sometimes it’s the buzzwords I’ve been hearing from clients and other times it’s just me typing in the classics to see what shows up on the first results page.

Last night I tried the phrase “Fitness for beginners”, just curious to see what would show up.

A casual 291,000,000 answers popped up.

Client Conversations Worth Sharing

Colleagues who write publicly have always told me the best writing topics are right under your nose.

Your own struggles and/or successes.

Interests you may have within the scope of your writing.

And the one that brings the best gems, the questions the people you work with ask.

I had a couple conversations last week that were 1) amazing questions from my clients and 2) questions that often get asked and I think a lot of people who read this newsletter would like the answers to.

So without much more, here we go…

What is a calorie?

What the fuck is a calorie.

Let's start with what Google has to say about it.

Noun. The energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water through 1 °C

Interesting. No reference to food. So where did calories get lumped with food?

Let's ask Google again. Here’s what shows up when you type in “define calorie food”.

A calorie is a unit of energy. When you hear something contains 100 calories, it's a way of describing how much energy your body could get from eating or drinking it.