Stimulus Is Held Within The Context

A large part of a coach's job when running a class is giving clients context.

From the outside looking in it may seem as though each client is doing a different workout. Different weights on the bar, different movements and different equipment.

To the untrained eye this may look odd but to the coach it is a necessity for each client to get the right stimulus from the day's workout. The key to the coach deciding which movements, weight and skill needed for each client will depend on their relative fitness.  

Everyone’s needs vary. As you can imagine an 18 year old male and a 60 year old female may have differing abilities when it comes to what they can do physically.   

They both have the need to squat, lift and move so we scale the complexity, weight and type of movement for the individual.  

Each workout has a certain stimulus. Think of it kinda like a target for the day. Imagine the workout is: 3 rounds of run 400m, 30 box jumps. The coach has programmed this workout to take 9-12 minutes. If a client finishes this workout in 20 minutes it would be safe to say they missed the target for the day.

By no means am I saying they didn’t get a good workout but they definitely missed the stimulus intended.

At the end of the day if you are moving and sweating then you are doing something to improve your fitness but… A large part of fitness is adaptation and in order to continually adapt you need to continually change the stimulus.

Performing the same routine your body is used to every day is not going to push the boundaries of your fitness. Your fitness will increase when you expose it to continually different movements, different time domains and different intensities.

The body has 3 energy systems, multiple planes to move in and an unlimited amount of objects to lift, carry and hold.       

Mixing and matching these things into constantly varied workouts is something coaches think about while writing a program. Does your workout fall into one of these categories, or is it unclear, have pointless movements and no intended stimulus or target…

The stimulus should be made clear to you by your coach. Your coach will do this by giving you context, a description of how it should feel and how it should be done.

Only then can you be expected to get the right stimulus from each and every workout...