Interview with Canadian Personal Trainer Elsbeth Vaino

I had the please of interviewing Canadian based personal trainer Elsbeth Vaino.

Elsbeth discusses her training philosophy, her mentors in the strength and conditioning field, a few tips for young trainers looking to get into this field, and some important concepts of strength training for skiers, as this is a group of people she works with frequently.

Hope you enjoy!

Patrick
patrick@optimumsportsperformance.com

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1. Hello Elsbeth, thanks for doing this interview.  Can you please tell the readers a little bit about your background and what your philosophy on training is?

I have quite a varied background.  I actually am an engineer who has moved into the strength and conditioning world.  I started my career as an electronic warfare engineer at Lockheed Martin, which was an odd choice for me, as I’m really more of a Greenpeace type than military establishment type. In hindsight I’m not sure I could have found a better opportunity from a personal growth perspective though.  I moved into environmental consulting shortly after that to which I felt a much bigger connection.  But I soon discovered that my passion lies elsewhere.  I spent my spare time either coaching hockey, coaching ultimate (Frisbee), teaching skiing, or reading strength & conditioning and physical therapy textbooks.  Eventually it occurred to me that I should stop relegating my passions to my spare time and make it full time.  And so I did.  I studied anatomy and exercise physiology; attended seminars, courses and mentorships with some of the top professionals in the industry (including Dr. Lee Burton, Dr. Stuart McGill, Brian Grasso, and Michael Boyle); and earned personal training and strength and conditioning certifications from the National Academy of Sports Medicine and the National Strength and Conditioning Association.
 
As I look back I see that my background really affects my training approach.  Engineering is about assessing problems and developing practical and effective solutions, and then periodically reviewing and adjusting that solution.  That pretty much sums up my training approach too.  Understand the individual client’s needs and desires, find a solution that fits well, and then keep up with the maintenance by re-assessing and progressing periodically. 
 
2. You got into the industry of strength and conditioning later in life.  Can you tell us about who your biggest influences are and offer some advice for those going into this industry.

Without a doubt  Michael Boyle has been my biggest influence in the strength and conditioning field.   His approach is complete without being complex.  Mark Verstegen is another key influence for me.  Prior to moving into this field, I had spent a couple of years following the Core Performance training plans for my own training, and I was amazed at how effectiveit was. In fact I would say that he has really taken an engineering approach to strength and conditioning: it is a complete system where everything has a purpose.  Gray Cook and Lee Burton – the co-creators of the Functional Movement Screen (FMS) would be the other big influences for me.  As soon as I read about their approach to assessment and correction of movement instead of muscles, I just knew they had the right idea, and I knew I wanted to learn more.  I now run all of my clients through the FMS and use the results to select which corrective exercises to provide to each client.  The other big influence for me has been Dr. Stuart McGill, with his approach to back-friendly training.  I am also intrigued by his concepts related to the timing of maximal muscle activation and then relaxation for increased performance, but I still have more to learn in that area. 
 
As far as advice to those going into the industry, I would probably offer the same advice to someone entering any field. The key is to understand what makes you good and build your career around that rather than looking for what appears to be the biggest opportunity and trying to fit yourself around it. 

In my case, I know that I’m a very detail-oriented, I am really good at problem solving (engineering background!), and I’ve always been good at understanding people’s needs.  So it’s not a big surprise that my specialty is creating custom training programs for clients based on a detailed assessment of their movement, lifestyle and goals.  The service I’m providing is building on my best traits, which means my clients are getting the best of me.  It’s very tempting to look and see where all the money is – Boot Camps and Biggest Loser type of programming.  If that’s your thing, then go for it; but if that’s not your thing, go find what is.  This is a vast field full of opportunities. Figure out which ones are the best for you and then work hard to be the best at it. 

3. You work with a lot of ski athletes.  How important is a good strength and conditioning program for skiers and what advice would you give skiers with regard to their strength training program?

I do work with some skiers, but not as many as I’d like.  It’s a bit of a frustration for me in fact.  Skiers tend to believe that the only way to get in shape for skiing is to ski.  Unfortunately that belief also tends to be accompanied by a belief that it’s normal for skiers to have a sore back all season, that it’s not possible to ski hard all day for several days in a row, and that there’s nothing that can be done to reduce the high rate of knee injuries.  I hear this constantly as I’m also a ski instructor. I am constantly pointing out the link – that if they prepared to ski, they would enjoy it for longer, with less pain, and with a reduced injury risk. Spreading this word is a mission that I am on. I have had some success, but am nowhere near where I’d like to be.  

The other mission I’m on with skiers is to get them warming up at the beginning of the day.  Most skiers avoid warming up because they think skiing is the best way to warm up for skiing (skiers are consistent at least!).  I think this stems partly from habit, but I’m also seeing a lot of people that have read a study that stretching before activity is bad.  Unfortunately they didn’t get the full implication of that study – that static stretching immediately before activity can reduce power output. So they don’t realize that static stretching well ahead of activity, and dynamic stretching immediately before activity can be helpful.  I put together a dynamic warm-up for skiing video that includes 9 movements that can be done in ski boots on snow, and requires no additional equipment (other than poles).  I’m starting to spread the word, but it is a slow process.
 
For the skiers I do train, it is a very similar approach to how I train any athlete: assess them for movement asymmetries and compensations, and then create a program that includes mobility, activation, power work, strength for all of the basic movements including the core, and anaerobic conditioning.  We pay a lot of attention to the hips, both for performance reasons as they are the main drivers in skiing, and for low-back pain prevention as skiing involves a hip-flexed posture followed by time sitting on a chair lift.     
 
I believe that hip mobility is a bigger factor in performance for skiing than possibly for any other sport.  Hip mobility is a factor for any sport, but in skiers it has an additional importance because an imbalance in hip mobility can prevent someone from being able to turn properly in one direction, which will make skiing steeper terrain either challenging or impossible. Improving hip mobility in training will translate to big improvements on snow.

As a ski instructor, I see a lot of students who turn well to one side but not to the other.  We arm ourselves with drills to help them fix whatever the problem is that we see, but it can often take a long time and a lot of effort.  When we don’t succeed, the default is for the instructor to recommend that the student go to a boot fitter who will assess their posture in their boots and likely suggest a custom footbed and possibly adjust the canting of the boots.  I think there is a missing step in this process.  When there is asymmetry in movement on snow, there is likely an asymmetry in movement on stable ground as well.  This is the assumption instructors make when they send someone to a boot fitter.  But by sending these skiers to a boot fitter, the instructor is assuming the problem is structural.  It may be structural, but what if it is functional?  We need to assess for functional movement problems and try to correct them before sending them off for structural corrections.  When a boot fitter sees a skier in their boots with knee valgus (knees move inward), the likely recommendation will be adding a wedge shaped material to the bottom of the boot to move the leg into a better position. But  what if this is just an issue of a weak glute medius?  Canting the boot will correct the valgus, but it won’t correct the weakness, and it may just move the problem elsewhere.  But if we strengthen the glute medius (and probably work on hip flexor mobility), we can actually fix the problem.  I do think there are people with structural problems and situations that warrant a visit to the bootfitter, but I would prefer to see more ski instructors referring their students to a strength and conditioning specialist for an FMS and some home corrective exercises and only sending them to the boot fitter as a last resort.  Spreading this word is my third mission!

4. Great interview, Elsbeth.  Thanks for taking the time out of your day to answer these questions for us. Where can the readers find out more about you?
 
Thanks Patrick.  I have articles on my blog at www.elsbethvaino.com, including a couple of blog articles about training for skiing.  For anyone in the Ottawa area, you can come and find me at Ottawa Osteopathy and Sports Therapy (www.ottawaosteopath.com), and in the winter you can catch a ski lesson with me at Camp Fortune.  Lastly, I am in the process of launching my new custom online training site, www.customstrength.com.