After writing Neural Notching and watching social media start to provide a platform for scientists to come out of their shell and challenge Guru’s, my reputation was in the right place to take a battering. For only the second time in my life, I could not present, I was not fully committed to the content of any of my courses, except FTE and Neural Notching. I seriously considered leaving the industry!!
Conflict in the industry was growing and I was feeling the pressure. Potential students were saying that my company was just a lighter version of Gray Institute. Students who had taken my course previously were taking my content and presenting it as their own. Some of the older students, tutors and industry experts I thought of as my closest friends were bad mouthing my company and taking on the work for themselves. It was being born out of my hesitation to openly admit I was wrong. These companies were and are peddling the rubbish that I had been doing years before. Trainers are still buying it because they are not strong enough to fight the fear-based under-researched training that promised quick fixes.
Professionals are standing up on videos and making outrageous claims about tape, shoes, 3D motion, postural assessments and other fear-based training, and no one is challenging them. How professionals can do this when tape companies and shoe companies, to name a few, are losing court cases or settling out of court because of false claims is unbelievable and irresponsible. Some of the gurus I loved are backing products that have no evidence. One old student has built a business on my HMAC (a movement analysis chart designed to help you see movement) and is selling a course where he won’t share where his proof has come from, mainly because like my class in 2008; it is based on guess and guruism. Physiotherapists and Chiropractors, buy this stuff too!!
The amount of foam rolling, vibrating and fixing going on is ridiculous. On the pain science side, there are guru’s and experts that are still peddling fear and misinformation/interpretation on the evidence and backing poorly researched techniques because their mates write them. My new challenge was to find a place to fit in, a space in the industry that would suit a former football coach that loved seeing his students growing and being successful, but wants to do it the right way.
So what should I do? In 2015 the industry had turned its back on my business but people and companies were blatantly stealing my material, material that in 2018 I am not sure I would even still let out based on current evidence, but that aside, changing a few words, pretending my business did not do the work or going quiet convinced no one. At this point, I did have an amazing set of trainers coming through the FASTER process again, with a top-level set of FTE students. FTE is the name of the programme I redesigned and made into a one-year training, career-long invite course, designed to make these trainers the best in the industry and arm them to teach my programmes across the UK and World hopefully.
It was 2015/16 on the back of my inspirational students on the FTE I decided that no matter what the pain would be, I would bring FASTER back into the forefront of the industry. The foot is great, and you should know about it, but let's cut the crap and start telling the truth. I decided to make it my job to build a community of trainers who could stand on their own when it comes to research, creating content, presenting content and understanding how to have integrity in a low standard industry. Although some of my FTE students struggle with this, I make it my job to drag them through so they can experience the fantastic feeling of being right because you have the evidence.
This article started about the foot, and that is where my journey started. Actually, it was never about the foot and ankle, it was about my need to be the best and my drive to help the industry. I want the reader (you) to understand that in this story the foot was the MacGuffin that allowed me to meet the research and other techniques I needed to be the best trainer and educator I could be. Finding the skills that I list further on, allowed me to communicate in a way that gives my students the ability to deliver memorable sessions every session, and allows their clients have the best experience while progressing efficiently to their specific goal. Reading this story I hope that I save at least one person from buying a course because it is cool, to save one person from falling for bad scientific reasoning that boils down to opinion and guesswork, and to help at least one person make choices that massively improve their own lives and all their trainers lives.
Now I use the foot to help show how easy very complicated structures can be, and by doing this, I am also starting to produce industry leaders who call out the gurus who cannot back their claims. It feels more than okay.
This is where we are, to be a great Trainer or Therapist then you need to do the following (using science) –
“Give the client what they want the way they want it.”
You need to have the following skills to do this –
Questioning Skills – to find the right questions to ask for your clients, not influenced by gurus or equipment companies
Research skills – to find, read and make decisions on the balance of great research
Communication Skills – how to use detail such as environment, physical distance, tempo, word choice, tone, delivery and more to help change clients emotion. A primary factor includes burying your protective ego to allow you to be the trainer/therapist you need to be for the client in front of you
Biomechanical Analysis Skills – how to see motion, and predict movement, then work with the differences you did not expect without any prior expectation
Exercise design for Performance and Skill Development – knowing the different techniques for skill development and performance, the importance of hands-off and hands-on and how to apply training tools to magnify results.
Story Telling – The real way of building programmes, social media and content in a way that moves emotion and communicates your point precisely and measurably.
I don’t have all the answers on the foot or anything else, but I have a way of teaching that will give you the confidence to be yourself and help your clients in a way that is not only following research but is memorable for them and allows them to take it away and use it forever. All my research and how you can find research is contained in these courses. However if you want to know more, or a list of evidence to back any claim in this article you should email me on John@fasterglobal.com and I will be more than happy to help you out.