In this strength and conditioning business you develop relationships. As a coach, you watch your clients put everything they've got in to the task you give them. You watch them struggle, fight, sweat, bleed, cry. You also have the privilege of watching them overcome, succeed, celebrate, focus, achieve, and re-focus on the next dragon to be slayed. It should go without saying, but with all of this emotion and these powerful experiences, strong bonds are made between coach and athlete.
This is especially the case for my relationship with my long-time personal training client, Mike. Mike was my very first personal training client when I first moved to Austin and during that time we've made some massive changes in health, strength, mental toughness, etc. It's truly been an absolute joy to train Mike over the last several years.
Mike would put everything he had in to our hour-long sessions. He busted is ass as hard as any one in the gym and was positive - even when he was near his breaking point. In fact, the only thing that halted our steady progression was a shoulder injury - the cause of which is still unknown.
In any case, Mike took a step back from our training and began physical therapy for what they were calling a "misalignment of the shoulder". With the PT taking priority, we decided to take some time off and get back to when we had the OK from the docs.
Well, we all know that when you start sliding it can be hard to stop, right? That's kind of what happened in Mike's case. He had stepped out of our training routine and started slipping. That is, until I touched base with him two weeks ago....
It's amazing what a simple "check in" can yield! Mike received my text and responded back that just that week he had stopped by my old stomping grounds in an effort to find me so that we could start up again! Needless to say, I was PUMPED!
So that's that. We started back up again on Wednesday after a year hiatus! Our first session was awesome. It seemed as though we hadn't missed a day! And just as I expected, Mike worked his ass off from start to finish.
gotta say....It's good to have him back!
On a final note - this should be more than just a story for you to read. This should be a call to action to get back to doing the things that were producing results in your life....regardless of whether they were hard or not. Do those things that required great things of you so as to challenge yourself and exceed expectations.