World-Class Coaching Is Closer Than You Think (Physical Friday)

[Full verbatim transcript — Deepgram Nova-2 transcription, 2,028 words. Source: Tom Rowland Podcast production archive, EP 825, Physical Friday.] Tom Rowland: What's going on, everybody? Welcome to Physical Friday. Today, we're gonna talk about something which is kind of time sensitive, I think. And that is the time that we are living in right now is arguably one of the best times ever in history to get better at anything. Before Zoom, before the internet, we were relegated to finding someone that could help you in person. So if you wanted to have, let's say, a weightlifting coach, or you wanted to be better at playing golf, or you wanted to be good at fly fishing, you would have to go find someone that was within an area that you could drive to and go spend time with that person in person and get some of their time. They were probably limited to how many people they could do for daylight hours, for other things. And man, as you know, everything has changed. And when I say that this is the best time ever, certainly in my lifetime, to get better at anything, I mean it. Whatever you're into, there is a coach online that can help you. And so in Physical Friday, we tend to talk about things that we can do to get better, or to be in better shape, so that we can continue to do the things that we love to do longer throughout our life. Hunting, fishing, hiking, backpacking, skiing — anything that you want to do, we want to be able to do it as long as we possibly can. And that starts with taking care of yourself, staying in good shape, maintaining mobility, maintaining range of motion, staying strong through your life, so that when you want to do something later in your life, you're not going to be limited by: are you strong enough? Do you have enough stamina? Do you have enough flexibility or mobility? Can you still climb a hill like you used to be able to? We want to be able to do that with our kids, with our loved ones, with our friends, for as long as we want to go. So if you're really into fly fishing, for example, you can go find a fly casting instructor near you, or you can seek out some of these people that can help you through modern technology like Zoom. For my own personal journey this year, one of the things that I've wanted to do for a long time is to be able to qualify for the CrossFit Games in my age group. Now I've moved up into a new age group, the 55-to-59 age group, and that has helped me considerably, because at the cutoff of 55, the weights go down a little bit and it becomes just a little bit easier. It also helps that I'm the youngest in my division right now at exactly 55, and so I am feeling like if I'm ever going to be able to do this, this is the best year. That led me to thinking, okay, I think I want to get a coach, because I only have one shot at this for the most part, at my best opportunity for this, so I want to find a coach. So I start thinking old school and thinking, well, I'll go find someone near me that can help me. But are there other masters athletes that have gone to the Games and can help me? Is a 25-year-old coach really going to be the best coach for me as a 55-year-old athlete? Would it be better to find a coach that understands masters athletes and the more recovery that we need, and that more is not necessarily better? So what I did is I started looking at, okay, who in my age group could I get to coach me that's already done the things that I want to do? And I didn't find anyone in my age group necessarily — not that there aren't people — but I did come across someone in the 45-to-49 age group that happens to be a four-time CrossFit Games champion. His name is Jason Grubb. He has been on the podcast before. And I reached out to him and I said, hey, do you ever do any private coaching? And he said, yes. He already had it in place, and so I went to the best person in the world, and it's very easy. We operate off a Google spreadsheet. We have a Zoom call every now and then. We check in, and I have one-on-one coaching with the best coach for me in the world. Now you can do this with anything else — fly fishing, golf, whatever you want to do. You can look locally, and maybe you find somebody that's really good. But don't be restricted to that. Look globally, and you may be able to find the best person in the world and have them be your one-on-one coach. And you might be very surprised at how reasonable the cost is, because of the technology that we have — Zoom — they can operate way longer. You don't have to be restricted to daylight hours. You don't have to be restricted to working hours. They can be watching your videos that you send them at night, and first thing in the morning you've got an email in your inbox critiquing all of your different movements, whether it's golf or fly fishing or weightlifting or whatever. Weightlifting is another place where I have reached out and found a coach. I do have a weightlifting coach near me, but he happened to have broken his leg, and he is not doing any coaching right now. So I was kind of dejected, because I felt like if I'm going to make this jump in performance to be able to qualify for the CrossFit Games, I'm going to need somebody that can help me with my technique and drills and a program for Olympic weightlifting, which is the clean and jerk and the snatch specifically. Those two movements are very difficult. They're very much like the golf swing — slight movements, slight adjustments in the setup positions, can make a really big difference on a successful lift or an unsuccessful lift. So I went to the internet and I looked up Sonny Webster. I had already followed him, and many of his videos say that he offers free critique, free coaching, just so you can get to know him and see what he does. And in his bio it says he's helped 40,000 people learn and get personal-best lifts. So he's got the Zoom thing figured out. We have a Zoom call. He writes a program for me. I send him videos. He critiques these videos and sends them back to me. And over the first few weeks of working with him, I've already gotten way better than I was before. And so I signed up for a twelve-week program, and he is going to coach me all the way through these twelve weeks. Whether it's Olympic lifting, fly fishing, or even a personal trainer — if you are thinking, well, I really want to get in shape, but I need a personal trainer, but I hadn't found anybody around here that I really like, or the gym's too far away, or whatever, don't even want to go to the gym, that's fine. Find someone on Instagram or on YouTube, somebody that is doing something that you like to do, and see if they do coaching. Many, many times they already have the coaching offered, and you just sign up for it. They write the program for you. They encourage you. They have you send them videos of what you're doing. They critique those. You can improve, and that is a great way to do it. So taking advantage of modern technology, you can get the best person in the world. It's really amazing. This Sonny Webster — he was an Olympian, and he's a fantastic coach. You can find the same thing for someone who can help you get to whatever goal that you're looking for. There are probably online coaches already, and if they're not, maybe they might be interested in it. But I do kind of urge you to look for somebody that's already got the whole platform built, and it's churning, like Sonny. He uses something called TrueCoach. It's an app. It's very easy to work, and then we communicate over Zoom. And I've learned a ton already. So whatever that is for you — fly fishing, archery, whatever — you can find it. It's out there, and there are online coaches. As far as getting in shape, you can have online nutritionists, online dietitians, online CrossFit coaches, online boot camp instruction, all of it. It's all right there on your phone or on your computer, and you can really get the best in the world. So once you do that, the one other thing that I would want to kind of talk about is being committed to it. It's the same commitment as if this guy's gonna show up at your house. You have to be willing to put in the time so you're not wasting their time, and you're not wasting your time, and you're not wasting your money. So make the commitment that whatever this time commitment is going to be, make sure that you have that time that you can do it, and then make sure that you fulfill that. Then also being coachable is a very big part of this — willing to accept criticism and understand that that's constructive criticism, and that this coach is actually trying to make you better. If you are easily coachable and you're willing to put in the time and the work, you will get the results, and especially if you have a world-class coach that has seen all kinds of things, you're not gonna present them anything that they hadn't seen before. Alright. So online coaching — that's Physical Friday for this week. Check it out. If you're frustrated with your local situation, man, there are alternatives, and you can probably find the best in the world for whatever you are doing. Alright, that's it. We'll see you next week on Physical Friday.