You Can’t Outwork a Broken Approach

I posted a reel the other day from my step-back class. Simple stuff. Me in a chair, doing movements in a chair — the kind of thing I give people who are in a lot of pain and can’t get up and down off the floor.

And I already know how some people will see it. That’s too simple. That won’t work.

I know, because I used to get that same look at the gym. Back when I’d take someone who could barely move, sit them in a chair, and do the whole session right there. Usually older clients. One of them was a banker — he told me he’d spent his entire career at a keyboard, hands out in front of him, sitting. And you could see it. His whole body told the story.

So I learned early that those clients needed a different way in. If exercise was going to mean pain, it was never going to last. They’d quit before they started. That’s where I learned to take it all the way back. Square one. Step one.

Here’s the part I don’t always say out loud.

Even as the coach putting other people in chairs, I never thought I’d be the one who needed baby steps.

Then, somewhere in my 40s, my own back got stiff and tight and painful. And I started doing these small foundational exercises for myself — and they humbled me. They felt almost too simple for me. I knew what I was capable of. That was exactly the problem. The part of me that knew the most was the part that didn’t want to go back to the beginning.

I get it. When you’ve been strong before, the small step feels like an insult. Your brain can’t imagine it counting.

But I’m telling you it counts.

The foundation doesn’t shrink you

Once you’re stronger — once you don’t even need those movements anymore — you’re not going to look back and think that was beneath me. You’re going to look back and think that’s the thing that kept me going.

That’s the part people miss.

For so long I just kept pushing forward on what I already knew. Harder. More. And it wasn’t until I was willing to take a step back — to look at the simple things not as beneath me, but as the things that would actually help me — that I stopped living in the cycle.

You know the cycle. Get hurt. Stop. Feel stiff. Wait until you feel better. Try to figure out what to do. Second-guess whether you’re even doing it right, when you already know what to do.

I’m not in that loop anymore. I have a level of consistency now I didn’t used to have. And it came from the exact part I didn’t want to do.

Find the link that’s off

Here’s how I think about it now. If something keeps tripping you up — if you keep feeling like you’re starting over — a link somewhere is off. You can’t keep loading weight onto a broken link and expect it to hold. You have to go find the link and fix it. That’s not a step backward. It’s the only thing that lets you move forward without it breaking again.

You can’t outwork a broken approach. Not in the gym. Not anywhere.

So ask yourself what’s actually been bothering you. For some women it’s the lower back. For others it’s the shoulders, the neck, the knees, the ankles — or a weakness that’s been there so long you stopped noticing it. Whatever it is, that’s probably your step one.

And no, it’s not physical therapy. The goal of PT, the way most people live it, is to get out of pain and stop. This is different. You do the small thing, you feel better — and then you do more. You don’t park at “not hurting.” You use “not hurting” as the doorway.

The chair movements aren’t impressive. That’s the whole point. They’re simple enough that you’ll actually do them. And doing them is what lets you feel better. And feeling better is what lets you do more.

So don’t let your pride keep you from it. Go back to step one. Not because it’s beneath you — because it’s the thing that opens everything else up.

Strong. Steady. Sustainable.

— Gwen