There’s a specific image I picture when I think about why so many people never actually start training: someone lying in bed, scrolling Instagram, looking at workout routines, meal plans, supplement stacks, “the right way” to train for their body type — and never actually getting up to move. Not because they don’t want to. Because there’s so much information available that they’re paralyzed by all the ways they could possibly get started.
This is the real cost of complexity, and it shows up constantly in the questions people ask before they’ve even begun. When should I eat? How much protein do I need? How many rest days should I take? These are good questions — they’re just the wrong questions at the wrong time. If you don’t have a training routine established yet, the honest answer to almost all of them is: it depends, and we’ll figure it out together once you’re actually moving consistently. I’ve had people who’ve watched hours of videos on Olympic lifts, studying the technique in detail, but whose attendance shows they haven’t been in enough to actually practice the movement. People tend to over-research and under-show-up. The research isn’t wrong — it’s just premature.
Even well-intentioned advice can become a trap.
Take sleep, for example. Sleep genuinely matters, so some people skip a morning workout to get a bit more rest. Reasonable on paper. But often, skipping that morning session means they can’t fall asleep that night — because their body was relying on that movement as part of the routine that regulates everything else. So they skip the next morning too, and the cycle repeats. The advice wasn’t wrong. It just missed that routines exist to keep you accountable, and sometimes the thing you’re trying to protect (sleep) is actually dependent on the thing you skipped.
Wearable technology tells a similar story.
Recovery scores, sleep scores, body battery — useful data, but data that can quietly become a permission slip to avoid training. One client wouldn’t come in unless their recovery score read above 70%, and as a result, went a long stretch without training at all. The irony is that consistent training is part of what improves that score over time. Trusting a number on your wrist over how you actually feel, and over the routine you’ve built for yourself, can do more harm than the device was ever meant to prevent.
Here’s the data point worth holding onto: consistency beats optimization, every time. If you wait for the perfect day to train — the day with zero conflicts, full energy, and a completely open schedule — you’ll rarely train at all. Showing up and doing your best on an imperfect day is, in practice, the perfect day.
This plays out constantly with new members’ plans.
Someone writes out the ideal week on paper: 6am class Monday, Wednesday, Friday; noon class Tuesday, Thursday; weekends off. It looks great — until a Tuesday lunch meeting runs long, or a late Thursday night with friends means Friday’s 6am doesn’t happen. The plan wasn’t flawed because the person lacked discipline. It was flawed because it didn’t account for the unpredictability of real life. A genuinely workable plan isn’t rigid — it’s flexible, and it’s built over time, through actual experience, which you can’t have until you’ve already started.
Even coaching itself runs into this. Some of the movements we teach are genuinely complex, technically speaking. But if a coach tries to explain every detail of a movement all at once — every cue, every correction, every “don’t do this” — it overwhelms the athlete instead of helping them. The better approach is to simplify: “eyes up.” “Hips back.” One cue at a time, building over weeks, not all at once on day one.
That’s really what “simple” looks like in practice here.
We prioritize the foundational lifts and ask that athletes get better at the basics before layering on more advanced movements. We ask people to get a little bit better each day, not perfect on day one — because perfect on day one was never realistic for anyone. In class, a coach might give an athlete just one thing to focus on: keep your eyes up for the next ten reps. A few weeks later, maybe it’s dropping the hips a little lower. One adjustment at a time, building toward real competence, rather than trying to fix everything simultaneously.
If you’re waiting to feel like you know enough before you start — you don’t need to. Teaching you is the job. Our core value is staying curious, and no amount of research replaces actually walking in the door.
You don’t need a plan. You just need to show up.