SS Coaches: Training your parents

[SquatPressPull]

Just curious: SS coaches are you currently training your parents? (assuming they're alive). I would imagine that's a "yes" for most of you since that's what you are passionate about. Also asking because I'm wondering if you, even as SS coaches, have had resistance from them?

[Michael Wolf]

Some of us have successfully gotten parents or other family members into this. But many haven't. Our families are like everyone's families. Often stubborn, often not supportive of what we do, often stuck thinking of us the way they did when we were kids and unable to accept we know more about something than they do. Of course not always, but you know the same resistances that anyone else can get from family about anything.

Whether or not someone can actually COACH a parent or family member will depend on the particulars of the relationship, but it is often a process fraught with difficulty.

I started working on my mom in 2013, and she finally took a lesson in 2015 - I thought it would be better if I didn't do it myself, and thankfully my good friend Dr. Petrizzo taught my mom to squat and press. She was also more comfortable with this since he's a physical therapist. She finally started training regularly over a year later, about 6 months ago. After John's original lesson, I've been able to do a couple sessions where I coached her, but had to approach the sessions a little more delicately than my usual. But I'm so happy she's regularly training that I'm OK with that. I still think it was a good idea for me NOT to have been the one who first taught her.

All that said, it's completely understandable for anyone's family or parents not to be lifting. Family relationships are often complicated and it's not so simple to get people into doing something like this.

[Katherine Bickford]

My brother and I have jointly coached our parents. It took my mom awhile to come around. Just like any trainee, it helps if they get there on their own, and they need to want it for themselves and not to please you. Sully's book will be a big help to anyone who wants to get their folks under a bar, my mom is now obsessed with "the extreme sport of aging."