(💪S.S. #34) Save the best for last

1. Why I Saved the Best for Last - Jonathan Goodman

The Wealthy Fit Pro’s Guide to Getting Clients and Referrals is my 11th book.

It’s also my final book for trainers.

Although the print edition doesn’t come out until next month, you can preorder now and get the audio and ebook versions immediately.

I didn’t set out to make it my last one. The whole time I was working on it, I thought it would be the third of at least five books in the WFPG series.

It wasn’t until I finished that I realized I was finished.

I’d put everything I know about marketing and sales for personal trainers between these covers. I literally have nothing more to add.

This is it. This is all that there is.

I’m glad I didn’t know it would be my last. If I had, I’m sure it would’ve been a different book.

More philosophical, less practical.

Instead, I’m finishing with the biggest and most content-rich book of my career. Which explains why it took so much out of me.

I won’t say I’ll never write another book. But if I do, it won’t be anytime soon. I need to learn something new, have success using it, and have success teaching it. That's going to take a long time.

For now, I hope you consider preordering the book. It ships Feb 17th.

In the meantime, I'll send you the audio and digital free within 30 minutes of your order.

Preorder is available from our store. Here's the link:
--> Preorder the Wealthy Fit Pro's Guide to Online Training here

2. Myths of rotator cuff exercises

Twenty percent of adults have rotator cuff tears, a problem that increases with age. You may be one of them. Even if you aren’t, you surely train people who either have a tear or are recovering from one. Which means you’ve performed, prescribed, and/or coached the most popular rotator cuff exercises.

But how well do you understand them? Even the most experienced and best-informed trainers probably believe at least one of the four myths physical therapist Mike Reinold debunks in this post:

They aren’t functional
They aren’t necessary
They should only be performed with light weights
You should use the same light weights for all of them

The takeaway: "Remember, the goal is to get stronger," Reinold says. A weak muscle can’t stabilize, and without stability, you can’t safely and effectively perform functional movements that involve your shoulders. "Challenge each muscle during each exercise."

3. Many paths to the same results

The one thing every fad diet and training program has in common: the idea that this single thing is all you need to get the results you want. And anyone who says otherwise is either corrupt and stupid, or chose the blue pill instead of the red pill.

Weight-loss specialist Spencer Nadolsky, DO, loves to push back on this absolutism. In this post, for example, he says he usually recommends low-carb diets for his patients with type 2 diabetes, but finds that some of them do better with low fat.

In normal times, a doctor talking about his actual experiences with actual patients would be no big deal. But these are not normal times. If you believe one thing is better than all other things, every nuanced view is a challenge to your very existence. The farther you fall down the rabbit hole, the more purity tests you impose.

Think we’re exaggerating? Consider this comment from cardiologist Danielle Belardo, MD:

"The irony of nutrition and social media: As a vegan of 11 years, it’s not the keto/carnivore crowd who send me the most hate. It’s vegans."

Go deeper: Exercise isn’t quite as polarized as nutrition, but we still have our arguments. Among them: Is it better to stick to the same exercises, based on the (mostly) unchallenged principle of progressive resistance? Or will you get better results by shaking things up?

A recent study tackled that question, and found something for everybody. "No benefit was seen for ‘muscle confusion’ on strength or hypertrophy," explains Brad Schoenfeld, one of the coauthors. But at the same time, "more variety may help to promote better adherence, which is by far the most important consideration in the general population."]

4. What we argue about vs. what people actually do - Lou Schuler

Hang around the fitness industry long enough, and you’ll see every imaginable exercise and nutrition controversy hashed out and litigated, many of them multiple times. Just when you think an argument about carbs or fasting has burned itself out, it comes back with new branding and code words.

But while we argue among ourselves, what do you think our clients are focused on? To give you an idea, here are the 10 most-searched diets in 2019, according to Google:

Intermittent fasting diet
Dr. Sebi diet
Noom diet
1,200 calories diet
GOLO diet
Dubrow diet
Sirtfood diet
No carbs no sugar diet
Endomorph diet
JLo diet

I didn’t know what half of them were until I Googled them. That’s how I learned Dr. Sebi is an alkaline diet; Noom is habits-based; GOLO (promoted by Dr. Oz) focuses on managing insulin; Dubrow is low-carb; and Sirtfood uses specific foods to activate a specific gene.

I also learned that "no carbs no sugar" and "JLo diet" are the same thing: a 10-day challenge in which you eliminate all carbs.

Personally, I feel dumber for knowing any of this. (Especially when I consider the redundancy of specifying "no sugar" when the diet is already "no carbs.") But countless people are searching for this same information, and some percentage of them will soon be convinced one of these diets is the Holy Grail.

Go deeper: For examples of how we recycle workout and weight-loss fads, check out this article by my colleague Jerilyn Covert:

--> 11 Diet and Fitness Trends That Are Not Actually New

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