Discipline – A Subjective Experience to an Objective End

The job of a coach is to guide clients to their results. Trainers are supposed to be a role model for the lifestyle habits and behaviours that the client wishes for themselves – and oftentimes the physical appearance or performance capabilities found therein. This can involve many moving parts, such as filling skill or knowledge gaps, providing surrogate forms of personal accountability, and gradual lifestyle remodelling to better align with their goals.

A recurring theme among new clients in their first few years of training is the idea of cultivating discipline. As though there is only one concrete definition of discipline (especially within the context of fitness), and that strict adherence to this romanticized near-military level of regimented living is the only way to see results. Not true. The role of the coach is to understand the mechanistic underpinnings of fitness well enough to help the client understand their most effective, subjective, personal definition of discipline. The end result of discipline, the goal being acquired, is the only objective part of the experience. The rest is tailored to the personal psychology of the client that will most safely, effectively, and sustainably see them realize their goals.

Stated another way, there are mechanistic underpinnings of exercise physiology that drive all of our adaptations, regardless of your preferred method of training. A behind-the-scenes reason for something whether you realize it is happening or not. If a muscle grows, chances are that it has been brought sufficiently close to technical failure enough times over the course of a training block to warrant growth. This can be accomplished with moderate to lower reps as well as higher repetitions, but the unifying theme behind the two methods is that the muscle under both scenarios was brought close enough to failure to elicit a reason to grow. There are benefits and drawbacks to both, but once you understand the underlying reason for growth, there is freedom of choice on how to get that response.

Each client may face any number of constraints that demand a fluid, adaptive understanding of discipline. It is a rarity that any one person will show up with zero barriers or stressors that would impede a textbook run-through on the goal acquisition process. Accepting this, the breadth of knowledge of the trainer should be challenged in order to harness the pre-existing daily habits of their client. To grease the wheel of their success. To use their own lifestyle and psychology as the foundation for their own personal definition of a disciplined lifestyle.

Aspects of discipline that we all know and immediately invoke at the thought of fitness pursuits are unavoidable in one form or another. But an all-or-none approach that too many people still believe is one of the fasted roads to plateau or relapse. Like all things, cultivating discipline is a long, winding experience full of trial and error. Meet the client where they are and act accordingly.

Best,

Eric