One of my clients completed another Hyrox race at the weekend. His third to date.
He’s come on leaps and bounds since we first started working together, a little over a year ago.
And by that I mean he’s lost 20kg of body fat and nearly halved his 5km time.
But what I found most interesting was the conversation we had after his first lab assessment.
Rather than just give someone a print out with all their numbers on, and then leave them to figure it out themselves, I place huge importance on having a conversation where we can take that data and understand what it means to them and their unique experience, goals, and lifestyle.
And before we sat down together, I asked him the same question I ask every new client:
“On a scale of 1 through 5, how would you rate your current knowledge of training and fitness?”
He scored himself a 4.
He’d been heading to the gym for well over a decade, was well read on aspects of training and nutrition, and had a fairly broad understanding of health and fitness.
But less than 5 minutes into our conversation, he put his hand up.
“Garry, I need to stop you there. Can I change that 4 to a 1?!”
Turns out he knew nothing about VO2 Max, training zones, how his body would use carbohydrates or fat at different training intensities, or how different types of training would improve his aerobic or anaerobic fitness.
It just goes to show…
You don’t know what you don’t know!
Even as someone fairly informed in health and fitness, there were huge gaps in his knowledge that prevented him from making real progress in his training.
But armed with the data from his assessment, and a clear understanding of what training he needed to be doing, we were able to see rapid improvements in performance.
It was an important reminder for me too, of something commonly referred to as ‘The Curse of Knowledge’.
According to Google:
“The curse of knowledge is a cognitive bias that occurs when an individual, who is communicating with others, assumes that others have information that is only available to themselves, assuming they all share a background and understanding.”
I often talk about VO2 Max, training zones, and styles of training, operating under the assumption that you know exactly what I’m talking about.
But I have to remind myself that may not be the case.
After all, you don’t know what you don’t know.
Which begs the question:
On a scale of 1 through 5, how would YOU rate your current knowledge of training and fitness?
And with that answer in mind, how do you think coming in and seeing me at Sportstest could help you achieve your goals faster than you could on your own?
Hit reply and let me know.