Putting First Things First

I know this is the last thing that I want to hear sometimes…

I’m sure if that’s true for me than you probably feel the same way

Doing first things first means that you lay the foundation correctly rather than trying to jump past the first steps and straight into what you want.

This happens all too much in training. I remember a guy who came to me with the goals of getting into powerlifting but was having knee and back issues from a lack of mobility, control and work capacity to get through sessions without large compensations.

He constantly asked why he wasn’t able to put more weight on the bar and why we couldn’t just do the powerlifts. My answer was I needed to prepare him for it so he could be successful and reduce his risk of getting hurt.

Ultimately this client and I didn’t continue to work together as I wasn’t willing to place him at a high risk of injury by not taking our time and putting first things first  and he didn’t want to take his time with it.

What we really have to remember is by not putting first things first how much time will we have to spend by going back and correcting our problems later on.