1. When "stay in your lane" is bad advice " Stay in your lane, bro" makes for a good punchline in a commercial. And it sometimes makes sense in a career context, especially when you’re asked for advice in areas that are clearly beyond your scope of practice. Nobody wants a dude with an ACE
certification performing soft-tissue work or second-guessing a diabetic client’s insulin dosage. But as Mike T. Nelson argues here, it can also be a self-limiting belief system if it prevents you from learning as much as you can about training, nutrition, and rehab. His reason is simple: "The human body is an elaborate, complex, intricately connected organism. The more you learn about it, the better a trainer you’ll be. In other words, there are lots of good reasons to change lanes early and often." He says that with two pretty big caveats: You need to master the basics of training and
nutrition, and you need to fully understand new systems and methods before you start throwing them together. The takeaway: Nelson says there’s a simple way to tell if you’re ready to incorporate a new discipline with other parts of your practice: Does anyone pay you to do that thing, and only that thing? At that point, you have a green light to change lanes. Go deeper: Nutrition and training are separate disciplines, but your clients will never get the full benefits of the latter without paying attention to the former. Do you know enough about nutrition to help your clients? In a recent PTDC article, Chad Landers looked at five mistakes trainers make when offering advice about diet and supplements.
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