I used to be heavily against best practices and more principled-oriented in my work too, but then I realized it was too much cognitive load for most the people I was working with.
Through weightlifting I've come to appreciate the term "coaching cue": these are specific reminders on how to perform parts of a movement – For example, in kettlebell lifting you might have six or seven coaching cues in order to perform even a relatively simple movement like a clean.
Coaching cues allow people to become independent rather quickly, great coaches repeat them like a mantra before each movement, no matter how skilled they are: at some point you are able to coach yourself and coach others because you have internalized not only the coaching cues themselves, but the principles behind them — Complexity will add up over time because of entropy, but coaching cues are your building blocks.
With coaching cues you have always a quick "what-why" connection, it's never "do it this way because I say so" and I think that both as a consultant or a personal trainer, you are responsible for keeping most of the cognitive load for yourself.
I used to be heavily against best practices and more principled-oriented in my work too, but then I realized it was too much cognitive load for most the people I was working with.
Through weightlifting I've come to appreciate the term "coaching cue": these are specific reminders on how to perform parts of a movement – For example, in kettlebell lifting you might have six or seven coaching cues in order to perform even a relatively simple movement like a clean.
Coaching cues allow people to become independent rather quickly, great coaches repeat them like a mantra before each movement, no matter how skilled they are: at some point you are able to coach yourself and coach others because you have internalized not only the coaching cues themselves, but the principles behind them — Complexity will add up over time because of entropy, but coaching cues are your building blocks.
With coaching cues you have always a quick "what-why" connection, it's never "do it this way because I say so" and I think that both as a consultant or a personal trainer, you are responsible for keeping most of the cognitive load for yourself.