"You Are Here" Part 2 by Dan john
Part 2: The 1-2-3-4 Assessment
Remember: It’s written as a coach to other other coaches and trainers. If you have a coach or trainer, you should be making sure they are applying the principles below. If you do not have one, but are trying to make progress…you are your own coach or trainer so this applied directly to you.
One: Stand on One Foot
The first test is so fundamental, you may miss its importance. Ask your client to stand on one foot. If he can stand on one foot for over ten seconds, great; move along to the next assessment. Ideally, we are looking for a range between ten and twenty seconds. Anything beyond twenty seconds is not really important. Give him a hearty handshake and say, “Good for you.” If he stands for less than ten seconds, “outsource” him to a medical doctor.
Years ago, Clarence Bass quoted this on his excellent website, cbass.com: “As with muscles, the balance system needs to be challenged in order to improve” (Scott McCredie, Balance: In Search of the Lost Sense).
After reading this quote, as I thought back over my time as a coach and trainer, I began to link up little stories about clients who struggled with balance. One had MS and often had a small stumble when moving about the gym. Another was well over three hundred pounds and couldn’t find his balancing point.
In 1991, one of my clients, a successful local real estate magnate, asked me about a painful ankle.
“Did you step off a curb wrong or something?”
“No.”
“Do you remember hurting it?”
“No.”
“Do me a favor and go see a doctor, would you?”
He did. He had prostate cancer, and they discovered it so early that he still comes by every so often and trains with me. Why did his ankle hurt? I don’t know. I don’t care. By getting to see the doctor early, he took care of the big problem.
Why can’t someone stand on one foot for ten seconds?
I don’t know. I don’t care. Go see the doctor.
By the way, everyone I know starts practicing standing on one foot after being tested. That’s a win–win for a coach: the client is seeking mastery outside the confines of the gym. It makes for a fun test and is something worth doing when you are just standing in line for a movie or doing a house chore. Does it have the value of the other tests? Well, who knows, but it takes only about a minute (at most!), and it might be challenging enough to get someone excited about improving all areas of her training.
Test both feet and get a sense of things. Often, one side might stagger a bit more than the other, and that is worthy of further discussion. But as we begin, let’s just stick to the ten-second standard.
Although I LOVE the ten-second rule, Doctor Michael Mosley shared a nice series of age-related numbers that may encourage many of us to practice our balance a bit more. Here is his piece1:
A good test of your balance is to see how long you can stand on one leg, first with your eyes open and then closed. Take your shoes off, put your hands on your hips and stand on one leg. See how long you last. The test is over as soon as you shift your planted foot or put your raised foot down on the ground. Best of three. Then repeat, with your eyes closed. You will be dismayed by how quickly you start to fall over. Here are the targets that different age groups should be able to manage:
Under 40:45 seconds with eyes open, 15 seconds with eyes closed.
Aged 40-49:42 seconds open, 13 seconds closed.
Aged 50-59:41 seconds open, 8 seconds closed.
Aged 60-69:32 seconds open, 4 seconds closed.
Aged 70-79:22 seconds open, 3 seconds closed.
Two: Measurements
The “2” in the 1-2-3-4 Assessment refers to assessing two measurements. The first is weight. Have your client hop on the scale. If she weighs under three hundred pounds, continue assessing.
If she is over three hundred pounds, refer out.
According to my doctor, Ross Brunetti, once someone gets over three hundred pounds, the rules change. If you are twenty-five to fifty-five years old and you don’t smoke and wear your seat belt, you will very likely live to fifty-five (statistics are statistics), but if you weigh over three hundred pounds, the rules seem to change. Mortality rates for people over three hundred pounds are different.
When a client is over three hundred pounds, ask him instead to see three professionals: an eye doctor, a dentist, and a medical doctor.
Aside from the obvious benefits of a yearly eye exam—I strongly recommend everyone gets one—there are some other benefits too. An eye doctor can see diabetes (as damage to the blood vessels) and high blood pressure and can get a general sense of someone’s cardiovascular system.
My dentist, Seth Spangler, added the next piece to the obesity puzzle for me with a simple insight. He told me, after reading one of my articles, “I don’t see a lot of obese patients.” I followed up on this and discovered that the problem is most likely twofold. First, there is a serious lack of discussion and teaching about dealing with the obese population in dentistry. This is being addressed, but much of the discussion is based on larger chairs and other accommodations.
The second issue is interesting as it involves a “chicken or the egg” question: If you have bad teeth, will you eat softer, more easily chewed food? Does poor dental health make it more difficult to eat those wonderful colorful vegetables we’re always suggesting, yet the client turns to rolls with margarine? Cardboard carbs, the chips and boxed-food family, turn into mush when put in the mouth, no chewing necessary.
Could better tooth care be part of the issue with obesity? It’s worth discussion. It’s worth a bi-annual visit to the dentist.
Finally, and there is no surprise here, I would like this client to see a medical doctor. If this is the third appointment after the eye doctor and dentist, there might not be a lot of surprises left. Blood tests, blood pressure and other simple tests might highlight some long-term issues.
I’m not qualified in any way to do medical exams. So, I send the client off to get all of these checked out. Does it bring me peace of mind or a surety that we won’t have issues? Not really. I’m not worried about sudden death in the gym. What I want to do is ensure that the client gets a sense of a whole-body approach to dealing with fitness, health, and longevity. If there were serious issues found, or even simple little things like cavities in the teeth, we are well on our way to addressing these problems.
If the person can stand on one foot and weighs under three hundred pounds, we can start truly assessing how we can help determine the proper approach to his fitness goals. The next step is simple: Measure his waistline and height.
Always measure height. It is an amazing number for assessing performance at the minimum levels; there will be more on this later.
“Keeping your waist circumference to less than half your height can help increase life expectancy for every person in the world,”
“Keeping your waist circumference to less than half your height can help increase life expectancy for every person in the world,” according to Doctor Margaret Ashwell, an independent consultant and former science director of the British Nutrition Foundation. Brad Pilon, of Eat Stop Eat fame, discusses at length this issue in his PDF book, Dieting for Muscle Growth.[LS1] He takes this a step further and notes that if you are over the one-half measure on your waist (in regard to height), you might be suffering from a variety of inflammation issues.
What it boils down to is this: If a person is over that number, whatever you do to reduce waste measurement (or, hey, get taller!) is going to be better. Again, quoting Doctor Ashwell, “Abdominal fat affects organs like the heart, liver and kidneys more adversely than fat around the hips and bottom, in terms of cardiometabolic risk.”
That’s good enough for me—and the test is so simple (and fast to set up and explain), it is worthy of instant adoption. So, if a client’s waist-to-height ratio is greater than 1 to 2, she is a body composition client.
It doesn’t matter whether the client is male or female. And, of course, you’ll want to make sure to find the narrowest part of the abdominal area to measure as the waist. For clarity, let me give you some examples of passing marks—
· 72 inches tall with a 36-inch waistline
· 64 inches tall with a 32-inch waistline
· 68 inches tall with a 33-inch waistline
The following marks would indicate a body composition client (again, the numbers hold for both men and women)—
· 72 inches tall with a 41-inch waistline
· 64 inches tall with a 50-inch waistline
· 68 inches tall with a 50-inch waistline
Recently, I found some additional ideas from Bertie Marklund’s book, The Nordic Guide to Living 10 Years Longer. I like how these include “risk,” as that often encourages people to realign food and exercise decisions. “Waist Height,” by the way is a fun little measure: lay on your back, push your lower back into the ground, and have someone measure (with a ruler or yardstick) how high is your belly. It gives an interesting insight into where you store fat. Higher is NOT better on this test.
Waistline Numbers
Men
Under 37 inches: Healthy
Between 37 and 40 inches: Some Health Risk
Over 40 inches: Clear Health Risk
Women
Under 31 inches: Healthy
Between 31 and 35 inches: Some Health Risk
Over 35 inches: Clear Health Risk
Waist Height (Healthy Numbers)
Men: Under 8.7 inches
Women: Under 7.9 inches
For all QIII clients (A2 or E2), I use a Venn diagram assessment to help them (and me) address which of these three most important qualities need to be stressed in training and lifestyle: joint mobility, body composition (comp) and strength training (strength gaps).
Joint mobility concerns the ability of each joint to move freely. Enough is enough with joint mobility; if a joint is moving through a full range of motion pain free, it’s enough. There is no need for circus tricks. Body composition is the search for lean body mass—more muscle and less fat. And strength training improves quality of life for the elderly, the injured and the ill—and it can do wonders for everybody else too.
The Big Circles
In my Venn diagram assessment, there are three big circles, and each represents one of the three most important qualities in training—mobility, body comp and strength. Some clients will need to focus on just one of these, some clients on two and some on all three.
When I work with aging collision sports and collision occupation groups, I focus on section Six. I try to train strength and joint mobility back-to-back throughout the training session—that is, every strength movement has a joint mobility movement connected to it. I consider a QII client “old” after about twenty-six years old, by the way, as the years of training, competing and working tend to do a fair amount of aging to the system. People can only take so many hits before they don’t recover as well anymore.
As we progress, you will notice that clients who fall into section Seven are actually quite easy to work with in training and lifestyle. Addressing one issue, for example joint mobility, may help these clients sleep better and longer, which is often helpful in body comp. A little less fat and a bit more muscle helps strength training, which in turn builds a better platform for joint mobility. Sevens often make the best progress of all in the early weeks as well, as the basic principle of “everything works” holds true.
Three: Questions
1.
“How many pillows does it take for you to be comfortable at night?”
This single question has led to more pauses in conversations than an off-color joke. If the answer is one, we continue moving on with the assessment. Any more than one, and the client has joint mobility issues. The record, by the way, is from a former NFL linebacker who told me he needed nine—yes, nine—pillows to sleep. Imagine trying to sleep next to someone who is constantly trying to get comfortable fussing and fidgeting over nine pillows!
So which joint is the issue? I don’t know. But I do know this: As we address movement, we will also probably be addressing body composition, because joint issues impair a proper sleep cycle.
If you have ever been in pain, you understand this point. A broken limb, a painful back or a pinched nerve in your neck can play havoc on normal sleep. Imagine living years or decades with this pain. Sleep, along with proper dental care, seems to me to be the missing part of the whole fat-loss formula.
In my other writings, I have discussed these odd sleep experiments I have tried to lose weight for weightlifting competitions. I once lost thirteen pounds in a week by trying to sleep twelve hours a day. I found it hard to be hungry, and the bodyweight just seemed to fall off. Robb Wolf taught me that all those lights, from LEDs to television screens to street lamps, are interrupting our sleep cycles. Even if you can’t sleep twelve hours, darken your bedroom as best you can when you do sleep.
As coaches or trainers, we want to monitor how improving movement throughout joints and systems can help our clients sleep.
Oddly, the easiest way is by counting pillows. Oh, and your bedmate will thank us for the changes, too.
In this assessment system, if a client needs more than one pillow, we consider him a One on the Venn diagram. It will be rare to find someone who sleeps poorly and doesn’t have any body comp issues, so many who start in section One will slide over to Two. The upside of working with Twos is that addressing either side, joint mobility or body comp, seems to help the other. A little less girth takes a load off the joints and limbs and, in most cases, allows better movement. Better movement tends to lead to more movement and that seems universally a good thing for people’s goals. Moreover, some sleep issues improve with body comp changes, and we begin to see that wonderful cascade where working on something “here” leads to improvement “there.”
2
“Do you eat colorful vegetables?”
The word “colorful” is important as, originally, we left it out. French fries and potato chips might be vegetables to some, but chomping on red peppers is not the same as chomping on corn chips.
If a client answers, “Yes, why, yes I do,” smile and nod. There might be some follow-up questions later—such as how many and how often and okay, now tell me the truth.
Sometimes clients are trying to give you the answer that they think you want instead of giving you an honest one.
If a client answers, “Hell, no,” at least you know where you stand with her. Most of us agree that vegetables are a key to health, but this client is going to need to be convinced to join the veggie side.
If a client answers, “Well, what do you mean by ‘vegetable’?,” you know that he doesn’t eat very many colorful vegetables.
If a coach or trainer doesn’t get enough insights from this question, I have found these follow up questions to be extremely helpful:
Do you eat like an adult?
Do you eat “clean?”
Do you have a menu and shopping list?
Do you practice fasting?
Fasting, of course, seems to be going through a rediscovery. Now, to argue that YOU invented it is going to be difficult:
“Obese people and those desiring to lose weight should perform hard work before food. Meals should be taken after exertion while still panting from fatigue. They should, moreover, only eat once per day and take no baths and walk naked as long as possible.” – Hippocrates circa 471 BC
3
“Do you exercise for at least half an hour each day?”
You might find that many answer yes here, but often the other assessments won’t match this answer. Don’t judge. Some will go down the Socratic Dialogue Avenue (“What do you mean by ‘exercise’?”), and this debate will be far more telling than any actual answer.
Honestly, elite athletes will generally answer no. Many elite athletes train often, but with several days off a week. You can get into the debate of what is meant by “exercise” in this question, but we are more concerned with the client’s response than creating a perfectly clear question. What we are looking for in the last two questions is the disconnect between the other assessments and the answers to these questions. If the person claims to eat nothing but healthy meals and snacks, yet is dancing close to obesity numbers, there is more to the story here. The first question highlights issues with joint mobility, but the last two give us some insight into the client’s mental and emotional processes concerning diet and exercise.
The art of coaching is in understanding and adapting to the client’s feelings concerning change. As Coach Maughan told us years ago at Utah State, “Make yourself a slave to good habits.” And, as I have said many times, it is one thing to tell that to a room full of Division One athletes and another to tell that to a single mom juggling everything.
We must hear our clients and athletes, no matter what they say.
Again, some follow up questions for clarity might be helpful. I have used these, for example:
Do you wait for others to pull out to park?
How many bars/stores/parks are within walking distance of your house?
Are you active on days off/weekends?
Where do you keep your exercise clothes/equipment?
Four: Tests
For many clients, you will only need the first test in this group right away. Certainly, each of the four tests has great value. To determine if clients are on the right path or going in the wrong direction, it is always helpful to test and see where they are now. Also, tests are a handy tool to see if the improvements are sticking.
The first assessment comes from Stu McGill, the great back expert from Canada. I am a big fan of all his work, and I always sit in the front row when he speaks. The test is very simple: Can the client do a two-minute plank? If not, this is an issue. Either, Stu tells us, the client is training his core poorly or he is obese. That’s why I love Stu’s work; he uses research facility to bring clarity into my training gym.
Here’s a fun tip: I get a very high fail rate when I let clients know they’re halfway. That groan and that feeling of “No way!” lend themselves to people dropping out of the challenge. So, it often takes a few attempts to prepare the person mentally for a two-minute challenge.
It doesn’t matter what kind of plank is used. I prefer the pushup position plank (PUPP), but any variation is fine. This two-minute test—and, yes, to quote one athlete I worked with, “it is arbitrary and mean-spirited”—challenges strength in all its degrees and tests a bit of endurance. But what it tells you is this: The client is not strong enough.
Using our Venn diagram, I look over at Five and see that the client is a candidate for getting stronger—and remember, rarely is someone a pure Five.
One important thing to remember is that most NFL players and SEALs would be trained as Sixes, so don’t think that any of this is negative. It is just a starting position to begin to program what the person needs.
Many women are Fours; they can’t hold the plank and have body comp issues. Strength training, as many have discovered, is a superior way to achieve the lean body that many women today aspire to have. The “Cult of Cardio” has slowly disappeared, and we find more and more women discovering the value of strength training.
Like the one-foot test, you may find your people practicing this test over and over. I can’t imagine a better thing for your clients to do than to try to master the plank and one-foot tests to “beat you.”
The second test is a fundamental human movement. Sadly, in most gym settings you rarely see people getting on the floor, and this second assessment is so simple that one may miss the point completely. Follow these instructions: Sit down on the ground. Now stand up.
Fantastic—that’s the whole test!
Doctor Claudio Gil Araújo, who performed a study at Clinimex-Exercise Medicine Clinic in Rio de Janeiro, said being able to stand up from a seated position on the ground was “remarkably predictive” of physical strength, flexibility and coordination at a range of ages. Araújo said: “If a middle-aged or older man or woman can sit and rise from the floor using just one hand—or even better without the help of a hand—they are not only in the higher quartile of musculo-skeletal fitness but their survival prognosis is probably better than that of those unable to do so.”
Each of the two basic movements is assessed (to the ground and back to standing) and scored out of five, making a composite score of ten, with one point subtracted per support, such as a hand or knee, used. Here is the interesting part: Those who scored three points or fewer had a five to six times higher risk of death than those scoring more than eight points. A score below eight was linked with two to fivefold higher death rates over the 6.3-year study period.
Doctor Araújo said, “Our study also shows that maintaining high levels of body flexibility, muscle strength, power-to-body weight ratio and coordination are not only good for performing daily activities but have a favorable influence on life expectancy.”
One of the things I have realized is that many Americans literally spend no time on the ground. So, I came up with a little teaching drill that masquerades as a cardiovascular workout for some and a mobility workout for others. It’s called “Get Back Ups” or GBUps.
There’s an important key to using this drill: Do not overcoach. In fact, intentionally undercoach the whole movement.
Announce the position on the ground (on the front, on the right side, on the left side, pushup position plank and on the back). Wait for the client, or clients, to get in position. When all have stopped moving, announce, “Get back up.” When all are standing still, move to the next position.
Series One
The hands are free.
· On your front (or on your belly)
· Get back up
· On your right side
· Get back up
· On your left side
· Get back up
· Pushup position plank
· Get back up
· On your back
· Get back up
Series Two
The right hand is stuck to the right knee (tell them a puppy dies if their hands come loose from their knees).
· On your front (or on your belly)
· Get back up
· On your right side
· Get back up
· On your left side
· Get back up
· Pushup position plank
· Get back up
· One your back
· Get back up
Series Three
The left hand is stuck to the left knee
· On your front (or on your belly)
· Get back up
· On your right side
· Get back up
· On your left side
· Get back up
· Pushup position plank
· Get back up
· On your back
· Get back up
Series Four
The right hand is stuck to the left knee.
· On your front (or on your belly)
· Get back up
· On your right side
· Get back up
· On your left side
· Get back up
· Pushup position plank
· Get back up
· On your back
· Get back up
Series Five
The left hand is stuck to the right knee.
· On your front (or on your belly)
· Get back up
· On your right side
· Get back up
· On your left side
· Get back up
· Pushup position plank
· Get back up
· On your back
· Get back up
Note: I also use “Both hands in the back pocket,” “Hands behind the head,” and “Hands on shoulders” for variety. The PUPP still stays, and it’s enlightening to see how the person attempts to do these.
Doing all five series is a total of twenty-five reps of going up and down, and the group will be hot and sweating. It’s a fine warm-up, but it also seems to improve movement. As the movements are restricted (hands on knees), the client needs to come up with new strategies to get back up and down.
Doing these series, whether all of them or just some of them, improves the score on the Araújo test. Elderly clients seem to learn to simplify the movements and cut out the extra steps up and down. The feet become planted, and there is a drive upward for the whole leg and glutes. We are cheating the test, certainly, but there is great value in increasing the amount of time that clients spend standing up from and sitting down to the floor.
A final tip here: A program that combines swings or squats with a pushup is going to get your clients successfully on and off the ground. If you mix and match things well, it will become dance-like in its flow. The devil, as always, is in the details.
The third test—and again this is optional for many new clients—is the classic standing long jump. The goal is simple: The client must jump over her body height. Not vertically! Horizontally! This is the standing long jump.
Using the measurement from the height-to-waist test (I told you height was important), either draw a line to get over or just have the client jump and then mark and measure.
Less than height is an issue. Is it a lack of power or a lack of mobility? Either way, after training for a while, achieving this worthy goal is going to indicate that the training program is on the right path.
One of the first articles (we would call them “blogs” now) I ever read on the internet was about jumping and quick lifts. The author, Clarence Bass, began with this story—
“Do you do any jumping?” asked Dr. Terry Todd, Co-Editor (with wife Jan) of Iron Game History and keeper of the Todd-McLean physical culture collection at the University of Texas, Austin. Talking to Terry is always fun and informative; he’s in touch with just about everybody connected with the weight sports. Terry—a big man who weighed over 300 pounds in his heyday as a champion lifter—regaled me with the story of how he used to win tavern bets by jumping flat-footed up on bar counters. Turning serious, he related that, approaching 60 years of age, he still includes jumping and fast lifting movements in his training. “You know,” he explained, “people lose the spring in their legs when they get older; I’ve seen old people who literally cannot jump up on a curb.” Obviously, Terry doesn’t intend to let that happen to him.
The loss of explosive movement, a “spring,” is one of the markers of old age. Although we want to be safe and not cause injury, we must find ways to maintain and then build upon current levels of overall explosion with our older clients. The ability to pop is connected to the appearance of the glutes; again, the butt is the key to a youthful appearance and the secret to youthful power.
For the elite athlete, we expect more than body height. If everyone in a sport does standing long jumps (SLJs) over nine feet, then that is a target for an elite athlete. A coach could say, “Somewhere between six feet and nine feet is your problem right now,” and insist on more power, strength, and mobility training
If training increases the SLJ, I think things are going well. If training decreases the SLJ, I think you have a problem. The SLJ measures explosive power and overall joint health. Keep an eye on decreases here and address them quickly.
The fourth and final test changed my career: the farmer walk. It was the missing ingredient to my training, and once I added it I had a brand-new start as a thrower. In my forties, I threw farther than in my thirties and the only change, beyond two daughters, tuition payments, a mortgage and two pets, was farmer walks.
The farmer walk assesses overall work capacity. Let me just say right here that it is hard to measure work capacity. Some tests are flawed, like testing professional basketball players on indoor cycles to find VO2 max. Many basketball players can’t fit on a normal bike, and others have never bicycled—obviously their scores will suffer. Years ago, some coaches tested physical conditioning with a one-mile run. I certainly understand why, but at the same time the best miler would show the best results, which does not mean he would be able to play offensive tackle or throw the shot put far.
The Farmer Walk assesses work capacity without the issues of most tests.
Farmer walking can be mastered in less than a minute, but the challenge to a person’s grip, posture and overall conditioning is apparent on the first try. The test essentially boils down to this: Have your client do a farmer walk for a specific distance. A few weeks later, after intelligent training, retest the movement. If she goes farther, well, the training is increasing work capacity. If she doesn’t, why not?
Load has been the topic of a lot of serious discussion in our gym. Sophomore girls in high school can use eighty-five pounds per hand, yet this is well over bodyweight total. Some have argued bodyweight in each hand, others half of bodyweight per hand. That’s a big difference.
Still, if the load is the same for the before and after tests, it should be okay. The downside is that people can go a long way…a loooong way…with too light a load. Most people using this test have discovered that erring on weights being too heavy seems to work better.
Mike Warren Brown pointed out to me the issues with so many people trying to get a handle on loading the farmer walk. We came up with a reasonable answer: Use the standards from the squat numbers in my book, Mass Made Simple, for individual people, and the trap bar numbers for gym members and large teams.
Trap Bar Farmer Walk (Mass Made Simple Squat Standards)
· Under 135 pounds: 135 pounds
· 136–185 pounds: 185 pounds
· 186–205 pounds: 205 pounds
· Over 206 pounds: 225 pounds
We experimented with half of bodyweight per hand and actual farmer bars, and it worked well, but we soon realized that it would not be universally repeatable. Kettlebells work well, too, by the way. Strive for bodyweight (half in each hand), but be aware that many places don’t have enough bells.
Kettlebells (One in Each Hand)
· Under 135 pounds: Double 24s
· 136–185 pounds: Double 32s
· 186–216 pounds: Double 40s
· Over 216 pounds: Double 48s
You should always stay with the same loading, with one exception: growing youth athletes. They might need to jump up in load year to year as they grow during puberty.
So, these four tests can also obviously be a performance program. The plank, the GBUps, the SLJ and the farmer walk test a number of important qualities but are also self-measurable. Clients and athletes can practice and improve on these tests often. Moreover, these tests also reflect the needs of life and living. People want to be able to recover from a fall, leap over a rattlesnake and carry packages a long way. They want to have a core worthy of all the bends and twists of life.
It takes a bit longer than four minutes to finish all these physical tests, and many clients will be unable to perform some of the challenges. That is fine. It can be an excellent goal, long term, to be able to do all the movements efficiently and effectively.
Grade the Mirror: Assessing the Program
Assessments are so intertwined with goal setting that the best way to think about goals and assessments is as a figure eight. Goals and assessments run in a continual loop. Goal setting points us in the right direction, assessments feed the process with updated goals and off we go into a loop of goal and assessment, goal, and assessment.
However, there is a gap in most assessments. Usually, we assess the athlete, client, person, or student. And then a few weeks later, we reassess. That sounds right, yes?
What we forget to assess is the program we put this person on! And that is the key.
I’m not sure why this obvious point is often overlooked, but we must assess the program as well as the person.
There are bad programs. There are bad DVD workouts. There are bad methods of training. How does one separate the wheat from the chaff? Assess them and find out! Lewis Caralla, a young strength coach, and I were talking about this simple point.
“Grade the mirror,” he muttered.
“What was that?”
“Grade the mirror,” he responded, a little louder this time.
That’s it. All too often, we throw a bunch of exercises, sets and reps and workout goo into a blender, press the puree button and call it a “training program.” Then, we gobble it down.
Any new training idea might be great, but let’s grade the mirror. Let’s assess both the person and the program.
I grade the mirror with these two tests: the Standing Long Jump and the Farmer’s Walk. If both the SLJ and FW improve with a program or a new exercise or idea, I can be confident that this is a good thing. If the FW improves and the SLJ drops, I need to look at what we have been giving up. If the SLJ improves and the FW doesn’t improve, that might be okay for a power athlete, but a problem for an athlete who needs some level of conditioning. If both drop…we have a problem.
So, grade the mirror and assess the programming every so often.
FAQ
Answering the most common questions about the 1-2-3-4 Assessment
Q. I sleep on my side with a pillow between my knees in order to keep my hips level. I think that’s safer than spending eight hours with one leg angled in, and would be common among some women. Am I still a mobility client?
A. The pillow question is a fun one. No one has ever given me a false answer as there is no stigma to it. If I ask if you buckle your seatbelt, few will answer “No!” as common sense and research practically forces us to answer “Yes,” no matter what we actually do.
The pillow question, as you can see by your question, “opens a door.” Many of us might use extra pillows from habit or comfort or just keeping the dog’s breath farther away from the face. For the assessor, it also gets us asking about mobility work, flexibility training and the key to recovery: sleep.
If you put a pillow here or there for this reason or that, this is fine, of course. As we begin to plan out a training program for you, we are going to just be sure to actively include mobility work throughout your training. I can’t think of a person training who doesn’t need to access and appreciate the full range of motion throughout every joint in the body.
As I type, my neck stiffens up from injuries from playing football. Wrist injuries make me roll the joint around daily and do a few finger movements. Most adults I know have similar issues. As I often tell people, “Don’t worry if you don’t have mobility issues today. You probably will in ten years.”
Something like the Functional Movement Screen or all the various other mobility tests can be a great next step. Our job with the 1-2-3-4 assessment is find a place to start programming the person’s first workout.
After a hard workout of hinges and squats, you might find the need for additional pillows.
Q. So, do you just do the same 1-2-3-4 Assessment every two weeks?
A. You certainly could, but you don’t have to. I like to test something about every two weeks. It can be as simple as a mobility test like one of the seven tests from FMS or revisit the plank or waist measurement. You can organize this, if you like, so that every three months or so, you do each mobility test once or twice and a full screen once. You can test pull ups, push-ups and a variety of strength movements fairly easy just about any time.
The key is recording these tests and watching for improvement.
Q: Your 300-pound weight line, is it lower for women?
A. My doctor was clear about this: man or woman, the line in the sand is 300 pounds. I certainly have no issue with sending each client off to the eye doctor, dentist and medical doctor, but I want to insist upon it over 300 pounds.
I know this: If you decide that EVERY client walking through the door MUST get these exams, you probably won’t have any clients. They will listen to daytime television doctors, the lady at the salon, and the guy next to them on the airplane, but getting them to make and show up to an appointment is going to be a challenge.
When I first came on to the internet, I met a group of women called “The 100 Pound Club.” To join it, you had to lose 100 pounds. I found the group very welcoming, and I also just basically listened and learned from their experiences. Their progress was usually a series of simple steps that all of us would recognize: more water intake, some lifting, cutting drastically on carbs and watching for “triggers.”
There were a lot of health problems discussed on the threads. A lot of medical advice was given out to the newbies from people who had lost a lot of weight, but never darkened the door of medical school.
So, I am fine with erring on the side of caution with any client. But ask twenty people today the following question: “Have you been the eye doctor, the dentist and a medical doctor in the past year?” You will be amazed at how few answer yes. So, insist on those over 300 pounds and encourage everyone else to maintain an active medical history.
Q. What if the person “passes” all three of the tests?
A. The person who has their waistline at or under the 2:1 ratio, sleeps with only one pillow and can handle the plank for two minutes is obviously doing well. In my times assessing Americans, I don’t honestly see many of these.
I would suggest training them like a Six. Mobility and Strength work are always good for the human person. In addition, I would actively encourage them to participate in some kind of active hobby and perhaps athletics. Rock climbing will encourage you to keep your bodyweight down far better than a daily hop on the bathroom scale. You will feel those extra pounds as you pull yourself higher. Anything you can do to embrace the active lifestyle and continue to move about is going to pay benefits in your future
Q. What does this assessment do for me? What is next?
A. This assessment process simply gives the coach and trainer a simple road map for the next three to nine sessions. Remember, we are discovering what the person NEEDs not what they want. Our job is to get them to turn their rudder in another direction. The assessment shows us what needs to be done
I want you to stay on the path to your goals.
live to learn give to earn.
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Dan’s favorite Guardian Academy principles are Raising The Floor and What Is Enough? Both are also discussed in Bumpers.
Sorry everyone. This: "f the SLJ improves and the FW improves, that might be okay for a power athlete, but a problem for an athlete who needs some level of conditioning. " should read "and the FW doesn't improve,"