Dickie White here. I hope everyone enjoyed hearing about Laura’s Boston Marathon trip. Now that I’m back, let’s jump right into one of my favorite topics- Group Training.
One thing I have found over my years is that training in a group always produces better results than training individually. There are two big reasons as to why groups are more effective than training by yourself.
1. Competition- Whether you admit it or not, you’re competitive to some extent. Surrounding yourself with likeminded individuals produces a competitive atmosphere that helps you push yourself further each workout.
2. Assurance- Sometimes a whole group I train will get stuck when trying to hit a certain lift (let’s say a 300lb box squat). For weeks everyone will continually miss attempts at the weight. Finally, when someone in the group does hit that weight, it seems like everyone else starts hitting it. It seems silly, but seeing other people of similar strength lift a weight can provide the assurance you need to also lift that once unattainable number.
Want to know a great way to create competition not only within a group, but within a team or a gym? Invest in some white boards, come up with weight classes and lifts, write down the record weights, who performed the lift, and the date and hang it high in the gym. I recently did that and now not only is there competition within a group, but also competition between everyone I train. This is a great motivator for kids who I can’t group with certain partners of similar strength and size because of conflicting schedules.
I find that training kids in groups works so well that I no longer schedule 1-on-1 training sessions. The only time a kid trains one on one with me is when their group mates don’t show up, and that rarely happens because no one wants one of their partners to get a step ahead of them. Coordinating group training takes extra planning and attention on the part of the trainer, but the benefits are well worth it.