Not seeing the results you want? Is that gym membership usurping money from you with no ROI (return on investment) Here is an excerpt from an excellent article that may identify some of the problems with your current program, and why a trip to Level10CrossFit is in order.

“The coach who coaches himself has an idiot for a client.”

Even a good surgeon doesn”t pull out his own spleen. A good coach can”t coach himself. Listen, I tried it for years and here”s the problem: you simply don”t have enough RAM to do it yourself. Yep, that”s the computer term. You simply don”t have enough space in your brain to do what it takes to train yourself.

First, designing a program takes a level of honesty that people can rarely match. Oh sure, we can all see the obvious with glaring faults and issues, but the fix might blow up some happy little beliefs that you”re afraid to confront.

Second, anyone can design a program or plan. I see it all the time. But, in coaching yourself, you have to follow this program. Will you give it the time to work, or like me, immediately begin to tweak and change it so that by week two, the original plan is completely lost? I know this by experience… thirty years of it! So, can you follow your own plan? Some can (like Clarence Bass) but most can”t. Even Bass, by the way, changes quite a bit from book to book.

Third, do you have enough will to push through your own program and not find the easy way out? I”m a master of talking myself out of tough workouts and back into my rut workouts. Like Earl Nightingale used to say, “A rut is a grave with the ends kicked out.”

Fourth, can you honestly address your weaknesses at the start of a workout, in a strange gym, or when other alpha males are training near you? The moment guys who look like frat boys start training near me, I front squat. I”m not doing sets of triples in the pull-up when these guys are working their heavy triceps extensions, bro . Sorry, my ego can”t do it.

Dan John is a prominent strength coach, writer, and Highland Games competitor. You can find this article in it entirety here .