When the pandemic hit and everything closed, I decided I was going to become a runner. I ran exactly one time. Then I came back inside, opened Amazon, ordered a pair of roller skates, and never looked back.
That story made it into my conversation on The Training Room, and it turned out to be the thread that tied the whole episode together. We spent an hour on burnout, workplace culture, and what actually keeps fitness professionals in this industry, and the answer kept circling back to the same place. You have physical taste buds. If you hate foam rolling, you will foam roll twice and never touch it again, so it will never work for you. If you love the heat and hate the cold, no amount of research on ice baths is going to change what happens when you get in one. Recovery only counts if you will actually do it.
We also got into the part I care about most, which is that there is no badge of honor for being the hardest trainer in the gym. There is a badge of honor for being the most human. The trainers I see thriving right now are the ones leading with empathy and connection, and they are not the ones wondering whether they need a hip replacement by next year.
A few other things we covered:
- Why rest is not the same thing as sleep, and what mental rest actually looks like
- How to catch burnout early, including the paper cut test
- Why “soft skills” is the wrong name for the most powerful skills you have
- What a healthy workplace culture looks like, and why your resignation letters are a performance review of your culture
- The case for having an aqua friend, a yogi, and a cyclist in your back pocket
Erin was there too, which means there was a Friends reference within about four minutes, as there always is.
Go listen to the full episode, and then tell me what your roller skates are.
