Coaction… funny word… not often used within the fitness industry. But it is a word which should be learnt and taught more about.
The concept of coaction should be taught to our clients if we want them to have long term success in their health and fitness goals.
Notice how I said health and fitness goals, not weight lose goals. Don’t get me wrong, weight loss is important to so many people, but it is only one component of the larger picture to optimal health and fitness.
Optimal health and fitness comprises of multiple dimensions of wellness. At Adaptive Strength, from a physiological and mental perspective, these are the dimensions we focus on
- Exercise
- Sleep
- Stress Management
- Mental health
- Nutrition
- Physical Health
- Being Pain Free
There are other dimensions of wellness for example career, finances, family & spiritual but these are out of scope for us at Adaptive Strength and it would be irresponsible of us to try teach our clients about these things.
So we focus on the dimensions we are good at and we know we can really help our clients with.
What do all these dimensions of wellness have to do with Coaction and why should you care?
Coaction is all about leveraging the success you have already achieved in one action to help take action in other areas of your life.
It has been proven time and time again that success leads to success.
If we use “Exercise” as an example of your action steps. When you start incorporating “Exercise” into your life and stick with it till it become consistent, you have now created a habit.
This is where amazing things start to happen.
You are finding success in your consistency and this build momentum. The momentum created will flow over to other areas in your life for example how and what you eat.
The hardest part is getting started but once you are started adding extra changes to your life become easier and easier. It is so true that action leads to action. And for those of you who say you are not motivated. Action creates motivation.
When a client is thinking of joining Adaptive Strength we invite the client in for a Strategy session ( we call it Setting The Stage), where we go through their goals, what they want to achieve and really set the stage for what is required to be successful in achieving the health and fitness they want.
It is great seeing a new client excited to get started, full of energy and motivation. But sometimes the client wants to stretch themselves a little too much. They come in saying they want to exercise 3 days week, plus change the way they eat, plus sleep 8 hours a day, plus have time to relax so not stressed.
While this is idealistic, it is not realistic. Changing and doing one thing is hard enough. For example exercising regularly if you have had a sedentary life for the past 10 years, can be challenging.
So what we teach our clients both new and old is focus on one thing at a time. Make coming to training consistently your goal. Each time you turn up, it is a win. It is a success. Each success helps reinforce the new habit or change in your life. As mentioned earlier, this is when the amazing things happen.
Now making a change to eating becomes easier, going to bed a little earlier become easier… everything build upon itself. You now have coaction working for you.
This is the secret to long term sustainable health and fitness.
If you would like to come in for a Strategy sessions to set the stage book your session here.
