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Why You Should ScaleHow many of you let the fact that you need to scale the workout bother you mentally? How many of you have left the gym crushed by a workout because you did not listen to the coach and use the appropriate weight or scale the number of reps? This is one that happens less often but I still want mention: How many of you fail to get better at more challenging movements or weights because you want to remain at the top of the leaderboard?All of these things happen on a daily basis and they just don’t need to. Since I am a parent now I like to look at things from a parent perspective, so that is what I am going to do here. If I took one of my boys to get swim lessons and the coach just threw him in the pool before he could even tread water then we would have a problem. On the other end of the spectrum, once he became proficient at swimming, if the coach did not continue challenging him to become a better swimmer, I would change coaches. If he were being coached in a private session, I would expect the session to be planned exactly for his current abilities. If he were in a group, I would expect the workout to be modified to his current abilities as well. Why should this thought process change for myself if I were learning to swim? It’s easy to see the answer.Scaling is hard on the ego because you are choosing to see yourself as less than capable rather than in a process of learning. If we were to change the word scaling to personalized programming for your current strengths, weaknesses, and goals, it would be much easier to deal with. So let’s do just that and look at what we do as personal training in a group environment, which is exactly what we are doing.

Are you going to be the one to jump in the deep end before you are ready?

Steve