Death to the Silo Approach
“That’s not the way we do it around here, when you’re here you’re doing things our way.”
Fitness pro absolutely crushing a silo approach mentality.
The silo approach was first introduced to me by Greg Rose within the Titleist Performance Institute curriculum. At the time, I was a fourth year strength and conditioning coach writing programs for young professional baseball players. We were working closely with athletic trainers to design return-to-play protocols for injuries like hamstring or oblique strains.
Dr. Rose was making the case that the silo approach, or the environment where professionals work in isolation from one another, can lead to poor programming and outcomes for the baseball players we were working with. By limiting the number of perspectives within each methodology being used, the athlete was put into a variety of treatment plans or drill-work that may or may not be related to their goals or specific needs.
This presentation stuck with me as I started Soma VT, a personal training gym in South Burlington, Vermont and worked with our team to foster a community of collaboration between practices.
Jes, owner of Movement Matters and an awesome physical therapist, commonly takes time out of her busy schedule to talk with me or any of our coaches about exercise selection or assessment of current members.
Joy, who is a fantastic massage therapist in her own right, trains in our group strength classes and commonly talks shop with trainers concerning specific areas she’s finding troublesome in her massage therapy practice.
Sam, a strength and conditioning coach with more than a decade of experience, spends time each week talking with a local chiropractor along with multiple holistic health professionals about improving health within the community. He also spearheads our staff development program and is consistently starting conversations about how we can do things better, inviting input from our staff as a whole to push us in the right direction.
I could go down the list of people at Soma, including Meg, Jacq, Sophie, Daniel, Amber and Laura and give specific times where they have sought collaboration over isolation but my hands are tired and no doubt your eyes are too.
The point is, collaboration is a main element to our philosophy at Soma VT and a major reason why we have wanted to hire the people currently on our team. A professional open to collaboration and the opinion of others has a far greater chance of success in our current health environment. Our bodies are too complex to understand from just one perspective.
When I walk around our training floor, I’ll see exercises like the Aquabag single leg RDL, a reaction drill using the Blaze Pods, a primal pattern on the floor or a back squat with solid spotting and technique and I can’t help but smile. Those exercises all came from individual perspectives on our training floor or outside of Soma VT and came into being used more broadly because the people working at Soma were open to a new perspective.
It gives me hope and excitement for where we are headed in 2025 and beyond to know that we have a team of people willing to put their ego on hold to pursue the best possible outcome for our members. If you are interested in a consultation with one of our amazing coaches, reach out for more information.
#shamelessplug
