Find Your North Star: A Field Guide to Cueing Under Load

Why cueing decides everything

Before I was a trainer I was an actor. The single most useful skill I brought across is something we called the focal point — a fixed thing your eye locks onto so the audience knows where to look. On stage it shapes a scene. Under a barbell, it shapes a rep. I call it your north star.

Cueing is not just verbal instruction. It is permission to stop guessing. When a client is in the middle of a hard set and their form starts to drift, the worst thing I can say is something abstract — 'engage your core,' 'stay tight.' Those words mean nothing in the moment. A north star is the opposite: a single, concrete thing to focus on that keeps the rep honest.

The five north stars I use most

1. The far wall. In any hinge — deadlifts, RDLs, kettlebell swings — most beginners look down. Looking down shortens the cervical spine and dumps the chest. Pick a spot on the wall in front of you, at eye level when you're standing, and keep your eyes there through the entire rep. Your spine follows your eyes.

2. The breath out. In any pressing movement, exhale as the weight moves away from you. The exhale is the cue, not the result. Most beginners hold their breath and then wonder why their face feels hot at rep five. Exhale on every rep, every time. The breath out is your north star.

3. The opposite shoulder. In a single-arm row, most people pull with their bicep and never feel their back. Look across your chest to the opposite shoulder as you pull. You will feel your lat fire in a way you have never felt before.

4. The floor through your big toe. In any squat variation, you will hear me say this over and over. Drive the floor away through the ball of your big toe. Not your heel, not your pinky toe — your big toe. This single cue fixes more squats than any drill I know.

5. The count. Sometimes the north star is a number. Three seconds down, one second up. The tempo IS the focal point. If you cannot maintain the tempo, the weight is too heavy or the set is too long. Tempo turns sloppy reps into honest data.

Why this matters more for new lifters

Experienced lifters have already built internal cues over thousands of reps. They don't need a north star because they have hundreds of them, all running in the background. New lifters do not have that library yet. Without an external focal point, every rep becomes a panic. The body looks for any signal — and grabs the wrong one.

This is why I write every program by hand. The exercise selection isn't just about what muscle to train. It's about which cues you can currently follow. If a client can't yet find the floor through their big toe, I don't program a barbell back squat — I program a goblet squat where the weight in front of them gives a different, easier-to-follow cue. We earn the more complex exercise by first earning the cue.

Cueing for mobility limits

When I work with clients who have hypermobility, joint pain, or limited range of motion, cueing changes again. The north star for a hypermobile client is often 'stop short.' For someone with shoulder impingement it's often 'externally rotate before you press.' For someone returning after a long break, the north star is the third rep — if the third rep feels different from the first, the set ends.

None of this is in a generic template. It is the result of one person paying attention to one body in one moment. That is the work. That is what 'training' actually is.

How to find your own

On your next training session, pick one exercise and assign it a single north star before the first set. One cue. Not five. Repeat that cue silently to yourself on every rep. Notice when you lose it. Notice what happens when you find it again. That is the entire practice.

If you want help building a personal library of north stars — across the patterns your body actually uses every day — that's what my Foundations program does. Want a session? Send me a note.