On a personal level, he attended a CrossFit facility as an athlete and joined in on group training regularly. Career-wise, he was building a personal training business. He rented space at two local gyms to train his growing book of clients.

As we age, we all begin to suffer from metabolic syndrome, osteopenia (loss of bone density) and sarcopenia (loss of muscle mass). Typically these will be accompanied by a man-made side effect of aging, polypharmacy. Medical professionals will typically prescribe a multitude of medications to offset the side effects of when other, more holistic interventions can effectively address the same symptoms, whilst avoiding the unwanted side effects that so often come with pharmaceutical interventions.

In this weeks Ask Me Anything (AMA) sneak peek, James FitzGerald, tackles the question of how important is it to get sunshine? This weekly AMA is available exclusively to OPEX Coaching Certificate Program (CCP) Coaches as part of our never-ending mission to supply our coaches with a quality education.

Here is some exclusive coaching advice from James FitzGerald himself pulled directly from our weekly Ask Me Anything (AMA) Sessions. In these sessions, OPEX Coaching Certificate Program (CCP) Coaches ask FitzGerald their coaching questions. This week one of the questions was “What are the three best coaching habits I should cultivate?” here is FitzGerald’s answer.

This weekly Ask Me Anything (AMA) sneak peek, provides James FitzGerald’s answer to the question “What is the best way to implement deliberate practice”. OPEX AMA sessions are exclusive content available to OPEX Coaching Certificate Program (CCP) Coaches, in which FitzGerald answers three questions submitted by our coaches, weekly.

Bodyweight training has become a dominant form of exercise in fitness while accessibility to gyms and equipment remains limited. If you are a coach you are most likely familiar with the basics of bodyweight training, but may not have experienced restricting your training prescriptions to movements without load. 

As coaches, we are used to clients coming to us and seeking advice, but no matter how knowledgeable we may be, sometimes our friends and family just won’t listen. In this weeks Ask Me Anything sneak peek, James FitzGerald, gives his top tips for communicating your coaching knowledge to the ones closest to you.

At the beginning of the year you had a detailed plan to progress your client towards their goals in the gym. Then COVID-19 spread, and before you knew it the gym was closed and your client’s ability to train was limited. You were forced to adapt and now find yourself coaching your client through home workouts. While this may have forced you to abandon your original program, it does not mean all hope for progress is lost.

Nutrition is fairly simple when your clients are in a good rhythm–following a routine, buying the same food, cooking the same recipes, and going to the same grocery stores week after week. But what happens if something changes to that routine, i.e., they are forced to stay at home for an extended period? While it may seem like all hope for progress is lost, there are several things you can do to keep your clients progressing towards their nutritional goals during an extended time at home. 

When you hear the word ‘bodybuilding’ what is the first thing that comes to mind? Is it a tupperware of chicken and broccoli, or perhaps an excessive amount of bicep curls? While both of these may be defining elements of the sport of bodybuilding, there are numerous reasons why the average person should be doing exercises derived from this fitness discipline.

The sagittal plane is an axis that runs parallel through the body extending through the head and tail. It is also the plane that most exercises in functional fitness take place. Over time though it has gotten a bad rap as coaches realized the majority of exercises they were programming took place only in the sagittal plane. 

As many gyms of all sizes have lost clients or closed their doors completely, and people have quickly grown bored of Zoom classes, OPEX CCP Coach Benny Evien has taken advantage of the pandemic by using it as a time to show people the value of having a personal coach in their corner. 

Volke, a life-long athlete, competed in both rugby and track and field at a university level. However, his introduction to training others was not through sports performance, it was out of a need for rehabilitation. Volke’s wife had suffered an injury during a rugby match and was not seeing the results they wanted from physiotherapy. Looking for a more practical approach and taking matters into his own hands, Volke started to study coaching and uncovered his passion for helping others live a healthier life.

Some follow a 3-day-on, 1-day-off training plan. Others follow a 5-day ‘work week’ pattern, with weekends off. Some opt to schedule specific days as ‘off days’ or ‘active recovery’ days, such as a Thursday and Sunday split.

But what if you could create meal plans for your clients that eventually turn into healthy habits? Well, first we have to get rid of the word ‘meal’, there are more factors that influence your client’s success than a single meal. Goals are reached by creating healthy habits that include but are not limited to their ‘meals’.

Olympic weightlifting or just weightlifting is a common sight in most CrossFit gyms and is a sport all on its own. While a wide range of clients enjoy weightlifting and want to get better at it, it’s common that even after years of practice some clients don’t progress. This begs us to ask should the clients be weightlifting in the first place? 

Wednesday is always a recovery day for the Fittest Woman in the United States, Tennil Reed. Curious to see how she recovers and prepares for the upcoming CrossFit Regionals? Check out her training below!

Are you a fitness coach looking for mentorship and ongoing education to continue to upgrade your professional skill set and progress in your career?

Corrin Lemieux has always defined herself as an athlete. She’s never shied away from competitive athletics, in fact, she’s always excelled at it. Whether it was softball or gymnastics, Corrin always found a way to prove her athletic ability in her youth. However, life happened and Corrin slowly felt her fitness drift away from her as she became the mother and wife figure society expected her to become. However, all that changed when she discovered CrossFit in 2012.

Some say programming is an art and some say that programming is a science.  I tend to believe that it is a bit of both.  Think about how programs are created.  There must always be a sound reasoning for why you prescribe something, at least there better be!  But, within that program comes historic experiences of what has worked and what hasn’t, assessment of that specific athlete, consultation with that athlete that leads you to either include or exclude volume/intensity/specific movements.  What happens if you happened to catch your client after a tough day at work and your consult with them pointed you in a direction that they were over worked?  Would you over program them with work?  Of course not.  Without continued learning, over time, around your clients you will not be able to get them moving in the right direction immediately.  Sure, sometimes a program just hits the mark spot on right away, but the program should always organically improve as you learn about your client’s tendencies and as your client learns about his/her capacity for the training.  So, to be a great programmer you must think scientifically and creatively in unison.