Exploring Fitness Podcast: Episode 3: Why Slowing Down Can Accelerate Your Fitness with Karinne Couture

In this episode, we talk with Coach Karinne Couture. She discusses what she wishes more athletes would do on a regular basis which can have big affects on fitness and performance.

Having extensive experience in gymnastics and it’s application to functional fitness, Karinne has contributed multiple skill progressions to our online program. Her progressions allow athletes to easily learn and apply new skills from handstand holds to toes-to-bar.

Episode Transcript:

hey everyone welcome to the exploring Fitness podcast I'm your host Dr Dan of infinite capacity Physical Therapy thank you so much for taking the time to be here and listen with us for those who might not know here at INF infinite capacity we primarily work with patients one-on-one in the clinic but we also have a fitness accessory program online membership available the program is based on a four-level framework of purposeful recovery Mobility injury and pain prevention and skill workor having extensive experience in gymnastics and its application to functional fitness Our Guest today has contributed multiple skill progressions to our online program her progressions allow athletes to easily learn and apply new skills from handstand holds to toes to Bar she has been an invaluable resource to both our company and fitness community so let's get into our conversation with Coach Karin all right coach Karin thanks for being here today how are you doing good how are you thanks for having me doing great uh so to start first thing that I ask everybody that I have on is in 30 seconds or less what is Fitness to

you 30 seconds or less um Fitness to me is finding a healthy active lifestyle that I am excited about and able to stick to a routine with and feel good about myself and my health great so a healthy active lifestyle that you can stick with or is maintainable yeah love it yeah you can maintain and feel good maintain and feel good yeah you gotta feel good about it yeah if you don't feel good about it then what's the use in maintaining it nope don't do it don't do it okay um for for those who might not know you can you kind of just give a brief introduction a little bit about your background uh credentials that kind of stuff yeah so my fitness background is growing up doing gymnastics and soccer um I did those in Wisconsin which is where I lived for the first like 23 years of my life um did gymnastics as long as I could remember because I'm the youngest child so my older sister did it so why not put the little child to follow the sister's path so um just started pretty much when I was like two or three with like a parent and taught class and then took a short break in high school for one year when I had that midlife crisis of a middle schooler of what is my life all about um so took a break and then was like yeah gymnastics is cool I'd love to go back to it so finished it out through high school and ended up carrying on gymnastics um and college at a D3 school that I went to um so that was really fun really glad I like had that experience of like I do want to continue on with this Sport and this now means a little bit more to me um so yeah so did jymnastics my whole life um it's something that you pretty much have the opportunity to start coaching at a young age too usually just at the gym club gym that you go to they're always looking for coaches for their recreational staff so pretty much just started coaching alongside of it in college we had a recreational program as well that all the team girls coached at so kind of just never stopped coaching gymnastics um that's been a big part of me growing up and where I'm at now most recently I just um took a break from coaching gymnastics as full-time job from the past like seven years um and switched more into the CrossFit world now so I have my L2 level two CrossFit certification um I was a professional gymnastics coach for the past 12 years now maybe more like 10 um but yeah that's kind of where I'm at with that so gymnastics from the age of two to three until just recently either participating or coaching yeah I say I stopped participating a little bit ago um but was I coaching in some capacity as well um even now but long time awesome so can you talk about your transition from coaching gymnastics full-time to coaching CrossFit like how did you I guess how did you get started with Crossfit and then what made you want to make that transition from what you've been in for such a long time and changing gears to something newer yeah um so I guess I started CrossFit myself as an athlete just over two years ago now um it had been like I said I stopped gymnastics was my sport through college and then post College I kind of stopped and did nothing um I got a dog so kind of started running to get energy out of him so he was calmer in the home but not a big Runner don't love it love that use your pet as an excuse to get into something Fitness yeah yep so that worked for a little bit um and then it had just been a good enough time where I just had that desire to work on my Fitness and get to a place where I enjoyed being more active and finding something that was going to be sustainable for me so yeah that's when I finding a healthy active lifestyle that you could maintain and feel good yeah that was the goal so we were on that journey of what's that going to look like um always heard people would always just tell me like you should try a CrossFit you'd be so good at it because of the gymnastics background having there be such a strong gymnastics component in the CrossFit World um people told me I'd be good at and you always want to do stuff you're going to be good at so why not try it um reached out to Maniac CrossFit was the first gym that I started at um and then yeah met awesome people felt like it was a good fit for what I was looking for in the environment and then uh yeah just kind of stuck with that aniac is now East yard CrossFit same people same coaches um just rebranded and that's where I currently still am and coaching as well so that was kind of how I got started for myself as an athlete and then I I kind of similarly with how I started coaching CrossFit was like Hey you'd be a good coach and I was like oh that's funny because that's what I do for full-time job is a coach gymnastics this is just a variation of that um so that just kind of felt like a natural swing to

start and then yeah just I guess I came to a point where I was ready for a change um ready to kind of step outside my comfort zone a little bit gymnastics has clearly as we talked about been something a part of my life for forever for as long as I've known um and just like we tell our athletes like once you're outside of your comfort zone is when that grow starts to happen so kind of leaned into that a little bit and there was a opportunity for me to do more at a CrossFit be a head coach there so I kind of stepped into that role cool do you feel like coaching has helped you improve in your own Fitness and performance I guess um yeah I would say so I think um most specifically when I started doing our introductory sessions with new members and kind of teaching them as a coach when they a new person wants to start CrossFit but they've never done it we just teach them the movements teach them safety teach them technique really break it down and like just get it to its most simplest form I think really helped me dive into more of the CrossFit world that I was unfamiliar with such as like the powerlifting the Olympic lifting all of the like um how to read your screen on a bike or a rower and like helping those people break that down helped deconstruct it for myself as well and only helped my growth and understanding of those pieces awesome so intro intro sessions for people who had never really done CrossFit before yeah was that similar to beginners gymnastics coaching like of little little people that had never done it before or might not necessarily have body awareness um is this gonna get me in trouble no not at all because I mean I I feel like no matter how old we are if we're introduced to a new type of movement or something that we haven't had the time to get the Reps in like we all kind of look like a baby giraffe trying to learn to walk for the first time like yeah but I just I I have personally never coached youth gymnastics so I just wanted to get your your take on it yeah I think there's a definitely a lot in common um it's and when when you accept that fact of like yeah just break it down make it simple as simple as a four-year-old needs it to be I think that just is so you're just so much more successful with um breaking down those barriers of people not understanding what it's all about and feeling more like this this is such a complex thing there's so much going on how am I supposed to do this movement and just being like it's easy let me show you how which is how you would approach it to a four-year-old you're not going to use any technical terms with a four-year-old because they just can barely look at you for 3 seconds to begin with so yes in that sense there's definitely a lot in common in the coaching style when you're learning something new no matter what it is or how old you are awesome what what do you think the biggest struggle of coaching CrossFit is um I think it's just like getting people to just slow down when you're learning in and in that technique or strength building portion of a 60-minute class but isn't the goal of CrossFit to go fast there is a time for place for that there can be I think there's a lot of different goals of

CrossFit constantly moving fast might not be the only goal so you're saying that you want people to work on their mechanics of the movements more yeah I think just yeah like slowing down working on the technique working on those body mechanics no matter how long you've been doing it sometimes you just start creating new habits you become completely unaware of that that your Technique has even changed you're like oh I know how to do a clean I've done this for eight years because I've been across it for eight years but maybe there's something that started as a small minor inefficient that is now grown to a different level and that's now a bigger inefficiency and if you just keep going with that you're taking the time to slow down and pull back and always fine- tuning that mechanic is just going to keep that Movement Like I said as efficient as possible great so I know that one thing that CrossFit kind of harps on or emphasizes is mechanics first then consistency and then

intensity it's perfect yeah so you're saying that you would like people to slow down continue working on the mechanics until they're consistent before maybe increasing that intensity and trying to always do it fast yeah I think there can be give and take right like for a new person I would say that's exactly correct like take the time to learn it take the time to do it well feel really comfortable with this movement pattern and then we can start going flow faster then we can start adding weight and then and then and then but even for those people that like can attack a workout with a high intensity still taking the time to like dial back every now and then with would be cool too yeah fine tuning yeah awesome yeah more people could do that it would be great it' make my life as a coach a little easier wonderful uh so what's your favorite thing about

CrossFit or or coaching either I think my favorite thing hearing as a coach is just the phrase like oh that makes sense when you just get that that light bulb moment with an athlete after working on it for who knows how long maybe it was quick at light bulb maybe it's been forever but just hearing that little like oh yeah you're like okay great they do it do it um that that's that's a really fun thing and I just think especially seeing people push themselves past where they think they might be able to always seeing people maybe do higher level skills that they can and thinking like oh that's not that's not for me and then all a sudden like two years later they like are doing that and you're like remember when you said and then they've like stepped outside and they've grown and they're like now it's attainable and that's just like that's just really cool see new skills or new weights or just like feeling better about endurance wise overall too like just all of the things all the progress that's made in the gym it's just really really awesome to be a part of as a coach awesome uh what do you feel like more people should know about CrossFit uh um just said it's kind of a fun way to work

out working out can be fun yeah really it can be so fun what's what's so fun about it um I personally just with the world of CrossFit love at this point in my life like I'm not a person that could walk into a gym figure out how to do a workout on their own and again feel good about it and feel like I'm making progress on my fitness journey so I I really like kind of the like there's a gym that you just have to show up to there's a workout plan for you you have a coach that's going to tell you what to do there's other people doing the exact same thing around you um versus working out alone you come up with the plan in the middle of it you're like wow this is hard I think I'm just going to stop look at the person next to you still going and you're like oh okay I can't stop I will still keep going and that's just fun awesome I love that yeah any other thoughts or anything for our

listeners um no unless there's questions out there that come up down the road but I think I think it's cool love it so where can people find you online if they want to learn more about Coach kin um that's a great question um well I am a coach at East yard CrossFit so I do have um Karin easc crossfit.com for email that can be open for questions um I have an Instagram that I never post on but there's some there's some pictures from a couple years ago on there if you want to slide into the DMS on Instagram you know that's an option too no do no regular dog pictures of mowgly well mowgly has his own account well can can people find that yeah yeah that's mowgly wolf at yeah that's it that's his hand those have also not been updated in about five years so a lot of puppy mowgly on there which is adorable well it sounds like you need to be taking more pictures of your dog and posting them regularly sounds like it well thank you again for being on here yeah this is great thank you Dan