MESSAGEFrom the President
Human beings are all athletes in one way or another. And improving one’s “life performance”, is one of the most important ways to enjoy a healthy, successful life. So let me repeat:
You are all athletes for life.
Enhance your life performance.
In order to improve one’s life performance (or quality of life), it is essential to keep oneself in good physical condition. The way to do this is through “conditioning”.
There are many types of conditioning available, but I believe that “medical conditioning” and “exercise conditioning” are the two essential parts that everyone needs.
Medical treatment is needed to recover from injuries, pain, or illness. Meanwhile, exercise acts as a form of both rehabilitation and preventative medicine. As we looks to the future, there will increasingly be more overlap between medical care and exercise as a form of maintaining an active and healthy lifestyle.
Exercise is medicine
Exercise is a form of medicine: prescribing the right type of exercise can lead to effective treatment for a wide range of issues. In order to deduct what type of exercise is correct, there are 2 requirements; first is to understand your body’s current condition, and second is to understand how exercise can impact your body. In this regard, it is very similar to how a doctor prescribes the correct type of medicine and correct dosage.
At R-body, thanks to our tie-ups with medical facilities, we have created an environment where people can learn about their own body and physical condition. The goal is for our clients to become knowledgeable about their own body so that they can perform conditioning by themselves (instead of having to rely on other people to tell them what to do). Our mission is to continue developing a broad-range of high-level conditioning knowledge so as to comprehensively support the life performance of as many people as possible.
Total conditioning for life performance
As a company that both educates athletic trainers and supports people’s pursuit of improved life performance / quality of life, R-body plans to become an important company on the world stage, as we continue to develop under the spirit of “continuity and change”.
In terms of “continuity”, R-body will always follow the 4 R’s that define our corporate philosophy.At the same time, we will continue to embrace “change” in response to updated knowledge and changes in society. In the current era, some ways that athletic trainers need to move with the times, is in terms of enhancing both their coaching skills and personal networks.
Traditionally, the acquisition of new knowledge and enhanced skills was left to the efforts of individual trainers, and their coaching quality and reputation was based on what they studied and acquired. However, in the modern world, with the evolution of an information-oriented society, this kind of role is being re-defined.
In other words, knowledge and skills that were previously only available to a select-few people who had spent a long time studying and acquiring them, are now being spread at an unprecedented speed and amongst an unprecedented number of people. To reflect this change, I think we should change the definition of “knowledge” from “remembering” to “utilizing”.
In terms of athletic trainers, the ability to “utilize” their knowledge, means being able to recognize both what information needs to be conveyed to clients (and what information does not) and also being able to explain difficult concepts in an easy to understand way. This is what is known as “coaching ability”, and has become an ever more important arrow in a coach’s quiver.
Coaching ability can be looked at as the ability to understand another person’s desires, embrace these desires as a mutual goal to be obtained, and then help lead the person to achieving these goals and desires. A major factor in one’s success is whether you are able to truly put yourself in the other person’s shoes, which will allow you to fully comprehend their goals and act accordingly.
To put this in extremely simple terms, you could say it boils down to whether or not you are viewed as a “good person”.
I think that being seen as “good person”, who also has the relevant coaching skills and is comfortable embracing new technology, are going to become indispensable pre-conditions for the athletic trainers of the future.
Another important factor that I think will shape the future of athletic trainers is their “network”. The type of conditioning needed to improve people’s life performance varies from person to person. And for each individual person, this will change again based on their condition at any given time. It is almost impossible for an individual trainer to cover all of these possibilities by himself / herself.
In order to provide comprehensive conditioning services, it is necessary for both trainers of different fields of expertise and also specialists from other conditioning-related fields to bring together their skills, knowledge, and coaching expertise for the benefit of the clients.
To that end, at R-body we will continue to expand our network, building up a wealth of valuable knowledge thanks to our connections with highly-specialized conditioning experts from both within Japan and around the world.
Additionally, I think that athletic trainers themselves need the following four elements in order to build a proper, effective network:
・ For the benefit of your clients, raise your own game, fully engaging your cognitive abilities to learn more and find solutions
・ At the same time, don’t be afraid to pick the brains of others
・ For that reason, engage with people who you trust and respect
・ And finally, become a person who is trusted and respected yourself
If I had to explain what I mean by a proper, effective network, I would say it is a “team working together”. At R-body, we envision trainers of the future as being people who are able to build an effective team that works together for the benefit of their clients.
At R-body, we have assembled a group of “good people” that “work as a team”, and I would like to continue expanding this network of good people to build an even bigger and better team.
Everything we do is for the benefit of our clients.
At R-body, our vision is to grow from being an athletic training company to becoming a total conditioning company, and we will do it by forming a team of good people that work together for the benefit of our clients.
