“The gap between where you are and where you want to be is called Frustration” 

Unlike most of the other training professionals that are out there, I choose to maintain my health as a priority.  Being a fitness business professional, I have to look like I know what I’m talking about and sound like I know what I’m talking about… “Walk the walk”- “Talk the talk”.

“When do I take time to unwind?”… Personally, during those few moments when I can regroup and maximize my exercise time with a mindful audio from the sharpest of leaders and mentors.

The world is full of critics… give it a break “need to relax” … “need to unwind”… they say, to be fair I can understand where others may be coming from but let me be clear, let me be the judge of that. Truth be told, I lived my retirement on the front end, now it’s time to work… sharpen the saw.

Tell me something I don’t know?

AC: Here’s something you should know. As far as the many popular trainers out there are concerned, let’s just say that I’ve seen behind many curtains. There are a lot of people writing about training who do not train anyone, or at best a few clients. I know a lot of these guys; I know their numbers, their financials, how well they’re doing. I know that they’re not getting by.

Shit, I get email from a lot of them asking me for business advice. The story is always the same: you ran out of money cause you were an unsuccessful trainer, so you had to come up with something else to make cash, like an article or an e-book. For this reason, there are a lot of self-appointed “training experts” talking about training theory who don’t train anyone to speak of. And a lot of their “findings” are based on very little real world work.

One critic of mine says I cherry pick the research that supports what I’m doing. He has that completely backwards. I don’t go to the research to decide what to do; I see what’s going on and then look to science to explain what I’m seeing.
When I started to see steady state cardio not working for people, I went to the library and began searching. I found no data to support steady-state cardio for fat loss. Everything that I write and talk about I see in numerous people over and over again. And everything I write about, I use every day with my clients.

Don’t believe me? Then come to my fucking gym and see me work. I have clients. I have a facility. I didn’t have time to start writing training articles until I got sick because I was way too busy training people. Most of the good coaches are like that. But there are lots out there now who have built a reputation based solely on articles and social media networking and Twitter and shit like that. It’s fucking marketing, not training. If you don’t know that about this industry, then you should.

I also refuse to pick a team. I probably have more kettlebells in my gym than dumbbells but I’ll be fucking damned if you label me a kettlebell trainer. But I know they’re effective.

I can pick up the phone and talk shop with top powerlifters at EFS, Olympic lifters, bodybuilding coaches, collegiate strength and conditioning specialists and MMA coaches. I learn all that I can from them and I’m not scared to use anything useful that I learn.

Different clients have different goals but more importantly, they also have very different needs. Sometimes you have to build guys up, sometimes you need to trim them down, other times you just have to get them strong. All require different methodologies. So what good does it do to pick a team when there are a lot of useful methods and tools out there?

Although I’ll confess that makes it hard sometimes. It’s easier to ignore people than be challenged. So don’t believe everything you read — but even more importantly — don’t just read what you already believe. Open yourself up to different ideas — give them a try before judging them.

But in the end, education is the single biggest difference maker in anything. You cannot get to the next level by just doing MORE of what got you to this level. It requires different knowledge, mindset, thinking, ideas, and actions.

Here’s a final thing you might not know. It’s a basic career/life rule that I live by: The gap between where you are and where you want to be is called Frustration. Frustration is eliminated by Education and Action. Get learning and get doing. –Alwyn Cosgrove

There you have it. This is how we typically unwind at M2… we don’t get comfortable; learning is the one constant similar to change. Stop looking in from behind the sidelines… Get in the game!