And Now for Something Completely Different
TIERS FOR FEARS
So I was regaling you with holiday tales of halcyon days, offset by just enough training to make the gluttony and sloth better, but it wasn’t all shits and giggles and there was one other day I reserve annually for a Leftfield review: an assessment of what I’m doing, who it’s for and how I’m going about it. Not as formal as it might sound, furnished, as it was, with the requisite roast potatoes and even the odd beer.
One of the advantages of a micro business, people will tell you, is agility. You can pivot, circle back, orbit, flex, or spin in ways the corporates can’t. And that may be true for some— and even me— but in the 15 annual reviews I’ve had to date, I haven’t felt able to do any of those things. I have, above all, felt constrained.
But I’ve felt constrained in a good way. Indeed in a way that describes the idea behind Leftfield from the beginning:
The reconciling of physiological (and psychological) realities with the reality of our day-to-day lives.
A process of recognising the principles by which your body and mind operate and observing them within a corresponding framework and strict order of operations.
Health>Fitness>Performance via Principles>Strategies>Tactics>Tools
I didn’t invent it, only looked closely at what already IS.
But the denial of this reality didn’t require looking closely at all. It’s obvious that all-things-fitness is done backwards with scant, if any regard for how the body and mind work and what they respond to.
Cue—predictable but unnecessary— frustration and failure.
As obvious then, at least to me, as it is now.
Given this constraint, most of what I do is decided for me so revisions are few and far between.
In 2013 there was the (very) early adoption of online training. My goal for trainees is for them to learn to see themselves as coach. To not need me, or any trainer. So, in keeping with that philosophy this format is in many ways the superior option. I'm not a cheerleader type so really the only difference is that I'm not standing somewhere close by, saying nothing.
In 2015, recognising it was fraudulent to offer anything I knew to be ineffective I instituted a 3/week session minimum policy — the minimum effective dose.
In 2019 I recognised the words ‘nutriton coaching’ were causing problems as fast as it solved them — as will any fragmented approach to a holistic problem. I realised the guidance on offer was rarely strictly from the nutrition departments. The fact is, there is no ‘department.’ and specifying 'nutrition' (or exercise for that matter) only reinforces one of the stumbling blocks to progress in this domain: the divisions we put up in our lives - training, work, nutrition, sleep, exercise, etc. are pure illusion where the body is concerned. So I folded it all into the more suitably monikered Youniversity.
In 2021 I unwound the 2015 3/week minimum— insofar as the physiological principles underpinning it allowed— by introducing a hybrid model whereby, were you not able to make 3 park sessions, you would have the additional 1 or 2 sessions programmed to complete in your own time, on your own schedule.
There have been other minor iterations but that about sums up the changes to the Leftfield Training in nearly 15 years. Even when the whole world stopped, Leftfield didn’t.
But they serve to illustrate that it’s the physiological principles that dictate the business model. Take that framework and further filter it through the idea that EVERYTHING is purposed towards the best interests of the client— meaning they must be prepared to do it all without me— and you make things simpler still.
Putting that into action however has come at some cost, because it runs contrary to mistaken notions of coaching and is utterly at odds to our ideas of ‘service’:
I won’t do a thing for you that you can do yourself.
I will standby and watch you make (safe) mistakes and say nothing so you learn to recognise and correct them yourself.
On occasion, I will lead you to make safe mistakes so you recognise and correct them yourself
Forever and always I will ensure you look to yourself and not me for the answer.
If you can’t find the answer, I will tell you what it is. And then tell you how I got the answer from you—because where else would I get it from? And I will never tell you again.
This might read as harsh, but in practice, it’s light-hearted and supportive. The goal is to give you autonomy—to teach you to fish, not hand you one. And look, it’s not like I won’t offer a word of encouragement, carry your water bottle or even the odd rep number update, I make the point only because close to nothing from the fitness and diet industries is helping you.
It’s helping them.
But while it's one thing to recognise there are practices in the fitness and dietary sphere that serve the business only, even frequently at the client's expense, it's another level to consider that:
Most of what we all come to 'know' about fitness and diet is more aligned with the business of fitness than our physiology.
Bringing me to the other founding ideas of Leftfield Training: that the fitness and diet industries are the problem. Indeed, the word industry has run roughshod over any meaningful idea of fitness or diet.
And that these avenues would only, could only, confuse the issue. Confuse you.
And that you were better to do it all yourself. And I was more than happy to help you towards that end. DIY has always been the aim here and long-time listeners will recognise an early 101 offshoot:
As I wrote many moons ago:
…many of our fitness problems stem from the fact we feel as if we need an expert— the need to outsource the basics. In fact, were you to boil these ideas down you will only ever arrive at:
It’s your body. Use it. And listen to what it tells you.
But unfortunately, although we should all have this subset of knowledge, quite evidently we don’t. Aside from the repeated patterns and frustrations this leads us to, it also leaves us ripe for exploitation from those happy to step in and look after our physical wellbeing. Although more frequently looking after themselves, our lack of knowledge is usually so complete, that we are unable to even determine that.
I endeavour to press on you the idea that you are better to apply a series of principles, and in doing so look to your own body, your own goals, your own life to sketch in the details.
From this you will gain a fitness that is specific to you and your life - fit for your purpose.
I have always tried to give you the keys to the castle, to just hand them to you.
My epiphany this summer is that is no longer the case, the fears being:
While I have spelled out the step-by-step implementing of these ideas, often running to tens of thousands of words, this forum means I’m confined to generalities. But, here especially, the devil is in the details, and on both sides of the equation: in the nuances easily overlooked and how they might apply specifically to you, making the advice offered here worth about as much as you pay for it.
It’s possible that writing can’t help, because much of the language in health and fitness is corrupted. I’m long used to these misinterpretations happening in face-to-face coaching making them only more certain in writing.
Times have changed. Look, I still maintain that the fitness and diet industries (including Leftfield Training) — at the level of general population fitness should not exist. As the most fundamentally useful knowledge to human being, it should come courtesy of our education.
But that ship has sailed. So too has the DIY one.
The industries concerned are as reliably self-interested as ever but we have new enemies to all-things-fitness in the mix. Enemies that, with an accuracy making even Nostradamus sound about as prohetic as The Herald horoscope, I flagged early and often.
It was an age of distraction that gave rise to the Leftfield axiom: your body will unfailingly guide you to the promised land, if you listen to it.
That was then. We now live in an age of distraction2
As Seth Godin advises, “good advice unheeded is a waste for everyone involved”, but worse still is the good advice that—for reasons described—cannot be heeded, and only damages the credibility of the ideas. You might easily, although mistakenly, contend there is a problem with the what and why rather than the how.
An approach I know works exactly as advertised, and, under my guidance, far more often than not. And indeed— if you are coachable—can’t not work
Leftfield is the middle ground you never hear about in fitness or nutrition media. It is physiological (and psychological) common sense— applied to the degree that you choose. It's about taking care of basic fitness in the most effective manner possible because we have lots of other things we want to do in our daily life. Not 'better' things— because everything else hinges on this fundamental factor— but we don't want to spend more time on it than necessary.
But how far you delve into it is entirely personal. Some trainees show up at the park and that's all they do. And that's fine because it's up to them. Some require more than others, with, for example, injury rehab or other demands. And others want to go right down the rabbit hole.
The framework is applied in myriad ways for the individual. The same offering across all mediums of delivery and now in two tiers denoting the degree of me.
Introducing a new customer level:
Tool: the tools I use in Leftfield Youniversity will be available to purchase only in instances I think they can be useful without coaching.
Workshop: Either standalone or with short-term (1-4 week) coaching —and cohort coaching— in the use of a tool, topic or a practice building block.
And client level:
Community: where the group and most online trainees currently sit. And they will enjoy access to the workshops that are relevant or of interest to them.
Premium: for private (1:1) clients or those wanting more intensive/ frequent coaching as necessary.
The customer level offers a low-barrier way to sample the Leftfield sauce but still with some skin in the game that both underlines the value and is suitably motivating to put it into practice instead of just reading about it.
As for here, in these pages, I’ll continue to share the Leftfield insights— the big ideas— and, chief amongst them, that a practice is the best path to all fitness ends. A useful point to address those who might see this as a means only to monetise the methodology.
Sure. My bonafides are above, but this is a business. I’m further under no illusion that the fitness practice as promised is not merely valuable but priceless.
I once likened it to a canvas, but a canvas is purposed to be merely covered by paint. A practice, then, is akin to the paper of a watercolour—not merely the surface upon which it exists, but integral to the art itself. It interacts with the paint, absorbing, reflecting, and shaping the colours in ways that define the artwork. The texture creates depth, the whiteness luminosity, and its fibres determine how pigments flow and settle.
As fundamental to the quality of life and your engagement in it— and obviously so— such that with the benefit of very little hindsight you too will come to divide your life into tiers:
Before (practice). And after.
Here is how.
____
Enjoy your weekend.
- OLI