Hill, have you ever lifted weights, tried to decrease the time you ran a mile, or played a sport?

When you step in the weightroom, you don't just sit down and bench 225 pounds (just throwing a number out there). You start with the bar and make sure your form is good. Then you start adding a bit of weight and slowly start getting stronger. Or you start running and it takes you 12 minutes to run a mile and you want to do it in 8 minutes. So you keep at it and little by little you start getting to where you want to be.

I have middle school and high school soccer players. With high school, I�m pretty much able to concentrate on tactics and not worry about technique. In other words, I don�t have to work with my striker to correctly �strike� the ball into the goal like I do a middle school soccer player. But when I had them in middle school, we had to start with the basics�knee over ball, body over knee, etc. I can�t just throw them in a formation and expect them to �get it�. They have to slowly learn the basics and they will fail a lot at first. They learn from experience and practice. But with my middle school athletes, it does me no good to get upset and yell at them if they don�t perform well when they�re just beginning.

I worked with a new client today in the gym. We started with dumbbell pressing. Her form was terrible. So I had to go through and show her the correct way to press. And she started with 10 pounds. Would it have done me any good to say, �Geez! Why can�t you get this? And only 10 pounds? Really? Why can�t you do better?!� Then we started on the conditioning aspect, she was getting exhausted on the first circuit and could barely make it 200 meters on the rowing machine. And even her form on the rowing machine was off so she was using way too much effort. Thing is she had no idea what she was doing. I can�t expect her to perform at the same level as my 21 year old trainee that I�ve been working with for 3 years now. I have to start her off on basic techniques and keep positively reinforcing them patiently.

You can�t expect immediate results. And getting emotional isn�t helping. If you think you�re acting like a �*** edit ***� then stop. It really is that easy. It�s easy and difficult at the same time. You know all those emotions that you can�t get control of that you realize you need to? Well, your wife is having trouble in the same way. And not only does she realize she needs to do a better job but now she�s afraid of the way you�ll react. We have a basketball coach at the school that if the athletes technique is off, he makes them run. So instead of working with the athlete to fix their shooting, he just yells and punishes the entire team. So now not only does this basketball player not know how to correctly to shoot but now he�s extremely nervous every time he steps up to shoot and it absolutely makes his shooting off more because now he�s nervous and doesn�t want to disappoint the coach.

My question to the basketball coach is, �do you really think he�s missing baskets on purpose?� and the same question to you, �do you really think she�s sitting around thinking how she�s not going to meet your needs today?�