I received this Show and Go Review via email the other day and thought I'd share it with those of you who might be on the fence about whether or not this product is a good fit for you.
"I just read your recent blog post in which you mentioned sending Show and Go testimonials. Well...it would be a travesty if I didn't give you a shout out.
"I'm a personal trainer myself. And after over 23 years of training myself and 16 years of training others, to say I grow "bored" with conventional weight training programs would be an understatement. I first trained to augment sport (football), then I got into powerlifting, and really became addicted to it when I started bodybuilding. I competed for eight years in the sport and did very well. But...I outgrew it. Yes...I was bored.
"I, like many others that I train, look to other sources to not only motivate me in my own training (mentally more than physically), but also to broaden my horizons as a trainer. That is what led me to purchase your Show & Go program. I have to say, Eric, it is the most comprehensive, integrated program I have ever used. From the warm-ups, to the strength exercises, to the stretching, to the cardio enhancement....my strength, flexibility, conditioning, and muscularity all improved ten-fold. And my bodyfat level went noticeably down without me tweaking my normal diet. I even had nagging shoulder and low back pain that inhibited me from doing certain movements that are now gone. I was able to deadlift weight I haven't been able to use since my powerlifting days. Plus, a couple of the core movements you include are ones I have never seen or done and I loved them! I now use many of them with my own clients.
"One last thing to note...I very rarely get through a 16 week program. I tend to grow bored and need a different style of training. That never happened. Not only that...I am starting a second go-round this week of it with a few of my own personal tweaks to it. Great product, Eric! Thank you so much!"
James Cipriani - CFT, CSCS, NS
Brookfield, CT
Based on feedback on Show and Go: High Performance Training to Look, Feel, and Move Better, one of the most popular components of this strength and conditioning resource has been the exercise modifications section. This section features recommended modifications for everything from mobility deficits (e.g., can't squat deep without rounding the back) to equipment limitations (e.g., no cables or squat rack).
That said, I know it's never possible to use a single chapter to cover absolutely every equipment modification one will encounter, so I wanted to get a series going here that highlights some quick and easy substitutions that you can use in your strength training programs. To that end, here is the first installment of High Performance Training Without the Equipment. Today's focus will be what to do in your home gym if you don't have access to dumbbells.
If we're talking about regular bilateral dumbbell pressing, the modification is quick and easy: just use a barbell, and get your variety by using a collection of floor presses, board presses, full range-of-motion presses, and various inclines and declines.
If we're talking about either unilateral or alternating dumbbell pressing variations, then try out the 1-arm push-up. You can make the exercise easier by performing it off the pins in a power rack - and as you get stronger, gradually move the pin down lower.
On the "flip side," you can obviously use barbell rowing variations to replace dumbbell rowing variations. One that I particularly like is the 1-arm corner row, in lieu of the 1-arm DB Row. You just stick the end of a barbell in a corner.
Or, you can just do the 1-arm barbell row - which requires a ton more grip and forearm strength to keep the bar from tipping.
Of course, there are plenty more options in this regard; your imagination is your only limit!
I often get questions on what the best approach for fat loss is - and the truth is that there is no one correct way. Everyone responds differently, and different fat loss programs have different outcomes for different people. That said, I wanted to outline two resources and the population to which they appeal the most.
First, for the general fitness "Joes" (and "Janes") that read this blog, I wanted to give a shout-out to Dr. Kareem Samhouri's Double-Edged Fat Loss program , which is a resource that I'd highly recommend if you (or a family member or friend) is someone who is new to exercise and looking for a program that can deliver excellent results without much equipment. It certainly isn't right for everyone (particularly a lot of the hardcore fitness enthusiasts and fitness professionals) reading this blog, but Kareem definitely offers an excellent resource to those who need help getting the ball rolling on an exercise program and want to do so without a ton of equipment. He's also a great dude and an excellent motivator, so I think you'll find it to be good reading, should you make the investment. Click here for more information and to see if it's a good fit for you.
Second, for the fitness professionals out there, Alwyn and Rachel Cosgrove recently introduced an online education series, Counting Reps to Counting Revenue, about how they have built up their gym, Results Fitness, which is arguably the most profitable gym per square foot in the country. What does this have to do with fat loss? Well, the fat loss market is their bread and butter - so you can't have a successful business model without a successful training model. For more information, click here.
I hope you all had a great weekend. I'll be back tomorrow with more fresh, new content.
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Everyone likes to think that they bust their butt all the time in their strength and conditioning programs. The truth is that deep down, we all know that we dog it sometimes. Nobody can give 100% every single day (or 110%...ever; I hate that adage).
Along those same lines, here is a pretty amusing study that shows just how much your mind can get in the way of the efforts you SHOULD be putting out in your workout routine. Researchers had three groups each perform ten 6s sprints on a cycle with 24s rest between sets. The first group (control trial, or CL) knew they were doing ten before the session. The second group (deception trial, DC) was told they were only doing five - but then informed that they had five more to go after the fifth sprint. The third group (unknown trial, or UN) weren't told anything; they were just stopped after ten sprints.
When researchers examined the total work performed over the first five sprints, they found that the deception trial group was 6.5% greater than the control and unknown trials. The others had paced themselves because they knew the ending was further off. People are going to pace themselves and hold back a bit whenever you give them a reason to do so - so plan accordingly in your exercise prescriptions.
What's one way to work around this if you aren't being coached in-person? Make yourself accountable to a program. There is a tendency to want to skip the last set or strength exercise when you design your own programs, but when you're answering to someone else's program, you're more likely to stick to it. Show and Go: High Performance Training to Look, Feel, and Move Better is a great resource to check out in this regard. Just ask James Cipriani, a personal trainer who used the program to kick his own personal gains up a notch:
“I just read your recent blog post in which you mentioned sending Show and Go testimonials. Well…it would be a travesty if I didn’t give you a shout out.
“I’m a personal trainer myself. And after over 23 years of training myself and 16 years of training others, to say I grow “bored” with conventional weight training programs would be an understatement. I first trained to augment sport (football), then I got into powerlifting, and really became addicted to it when I started bodybuilding. I competed for eight years in the sport and did very well. But…I outgrew it. Yes…I was bored.
“I, like many others that I train, look to other sources to not only motivate me in my own training (mentally more than physically), but also to broaden my horizons as a trainer. That is what led me to purchase your Show & Go program. I have to say, Eric, it is the most comprehensive, integrated program I have ever used. From the warm-ups, to the strength exercises, to the stretching, to the cardio enhancement….my strength, flexibility, conditioning, and muscularity all improved ten-fold. And my bodyfat level went noticeably down without me tweaking my normal diet. I even had nagging shoulder and low back pain that inhibited me from doing certain movements that are now gone. I was able to deadlift weight I haven’t been able to use since my powerlifting days. Plus, a couple of the core movements you include are ones I have never seen or done and I loved them! I now use many of them with my own clients.
“One last thing to note…I very rarely get through a 16 week program. I tend to grow bored and need a different style of training. That never happened. Not only that…I am starting a second go-round this week of it with a few of my own personal tweaks to it. Great product, Eric! Thank you so much!”
James Cipriani - CFT, CSCS, NS
Brookfield, CT
I suppose this blog title is more of a rhetorical statement than an actual question, but I'm going to write it anyway.
Just about every week, I get someone who comes to Cressey Sports Performance - either as a new client, or as a one-time consultation from out of town - and they have some issue that is bugging them to the point that they opted to see a doctor about it. This doctor may have been a general practitioner or an actual sports orthopedist. In many cases, the response from this medical professional is the same "Just rest."
"It hurts when you lift? Then stop lifting."
Huh? When did COMPLETE rest because a viable recommendation?
In case folks haven't noticed, a scary number of Americans are overweight or obese. Even if rest was the absolute key to getting healthy, telling them to not move is like not seeing the forest through the trees. Your bum knee will feel better, but you'll have a heart attack at age 43 because you're 379 pounds.
Oh, and nevermind the fact that exercise generally improves sleep quality, mooed, and immune, endocrine, and digestive function. I'm not going to lie: I would rather have an achy lower back than be fat, chronically ill, sleep-deprived, impotent, angry, and constipated.
But you know what? The good news is that you can still exercise and avoid all these issues - regardless of symptoms. I can honestly say that in my entire career, I've never come across a single case who couldn't find some way to stay active.
And, when I did an internship in clinical exercise physiology, we trained pulmonary rehab patients in spite of the fact that they often had interruptions during their sessions to cough up phlegm for 2-3 minutes at a time.
All over the world, people are using exercise to rehabilitate themselves from strokes, heart attacks, spinal cord injuries - you name it.
However, Joe Average who sleeps on his shoulder funny and wakes up with a little stiffness needs complete rest and enough NSAIDs to make a liver cringe.
Sorry, but you're going to need to be on crutches, in a back brace, with poison ivy and a punctured lung to get my sympathy. And, you're sure as heck not going to get it if you're just "really sore" from your workout routine. Seriously, dude?
I don't care what your issue is: "just rest" is almost never the answer (a concussion would be an exception, FYI). When a health care practitioner says it, it's because he/she either a) doesn't have the time, intelligence, or network to be able to set you up for a situation where you can benefit from exercise or b) doesn't think you have enough self control to approach exercise in a fashion that doesn't make it more harm than good.
There is almost always something you can do to get better and maintain a training effect. While adequate rest for injured tissues is certainly part of the equation, it is just one piece in a more complex puzzle that almost always still affords people the benefits of exercise.
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Some blasts from the past for you:
The Most Important Thing for Rookie Trainers - I thought this would be a good follow-up to my post two weeks ago about how to enter the fitness industry the "right way."
Eccentric Exercise and Mobility - Ever been told you shouldn't stretch post-training? I know I've heard that recommendation before. Read this old post to find out the real scoop on it.
Add 300 Pounds tn Your Deadlift - This lengthy piece was a response to a question of how I went from pulling low-to-mid 300s up to my 600+ pound deadlifts.
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Q: I've read a lot from you, Robertson, and Hartman about including push-up variations in strength training programs is really important for shoulder health. Unfortunately, whenever I do them, I have pain in my bum shoulder. Any ideas what to do?
A: Well, obviously, there are two things we need to rule out:
1. You may simply have a really irritated shoulder, which (in most cases) means that any sort of approximation or protraction movement could get it angrier, even if it is a closed-chain movement like the push-up that is normally pretty shoulder-friendly. Likewise, if you have a significant acromioclavicular joint injury, the extension range-of-motion at the bottom of a push-up could exacerbate your symptoms. So, obviously, the first step is to rule out if something is structurally wrong with your shoulder, and if so, if the push-up even belongs in your strength training program.
2. Your technique might just be atrocious. If the elbows are flared out, hips are sagging, and/or you're in a forward head posture, simply changing your technique may very well alleviate those symptoms. In a good push-up, the elbows should be tucked to a 45-degree angle to the body, with the hips, torso, neck, and head in a straight line. The muscles of the upper back should essentially "pull" you down into the bottom position:
Once you've ruled out those two issues and still have some annoying issues, there is one more thing you can try: simply elevate the feet. Looking to the research, Lear and Gross found that performing push-ups with the feet elevated significantly increased activation of the serratus anterior (SA).
If we can get more SA recruitment and less pectoralis minor contribution, it keeps us out of a position of scapular anterior tilt, which mechanically decreases the subacromial space through which the rotator cuff tendons pass. In the picture below, think of the area just below the word "acromion" being smaller, and then picture what would happen to the tendons that pass through that region; they get impinged. Serratus anterior (along with lower trapezius) can help prevent that.
That said, I've seen quite a few folks with persistent shoulder pain with bench pressing variations (barbell and DBs) and regular push-ups who were able to do the feet-elevated versions completely pain free in their strength training programs. Obviously, begin with just body weight and see how it goes, but over time, you can start to add resistance and use the single-leg version.
We see everything at Cressey Performance. While just about 70% of our clients are baseball players, we also have everything from Olympic bobsledders and boxers, to pro hockey players and triathletes, to 69-year-old men who bang out pull-ups like nobody's business.
Obviously, certain athletic populations have specific weaknesses that need to be addressed. Soccer and hockey players and powerlifters tend to have poor hip internal rotation. Basketball players don't have enough ankle mobility. Baseball pitchers need to pay more attention to scapular stability, posterior rotator cuff strength, and glenohumeral (shoulder) internal rotation range of motion.
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Let me be clear about one thing: with the possible exception of anything that comes out of Larry King's mouth, there are no unimportant interview questions. Every question or comment serves a purpose, whether it's to get the interviewee to open up, show emotion, unleash new information, or just get back on track. Everything matters.
But I recently learned that sometimes I should just let the guy ramble. If he wants to rant, my job is to shut up and make sure the tape recorder keeps rolling.
Most of the guys I interview are great at going off on tangents. And while the resulting transcript is often a jumbled mess of opinion, applied research, and hard-earned experience, occasionally I get something unexpected: an idea for a completely different article based on the unrelated information or opinion. To paraphrase Rod Stewart, every tangent tells a story.
This is a collection of those tangents and tidbits from Dave Tate, Chris Bathke, Matt McGorry, Eric Cressey, and Craig Weller.
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In this week's "The Biggest Loser made me want to stab my eye out with a hot poker" moment, I watched what appeared to be a 1,742-pound woman attempt to do an inverted row. It was an admirable attempt, for sure, but I'm sorry to say that in all my years of coaching and writing strength and conditioning programs, I've can think of fewer than 20 females who have ever been able to perform a single good inverted row.
This isn't a knock on women; it's just that they, on average, have markedly less strength than men in the upper body. And, more importantly, the inverted row is a more advanced strength exercise than people realize - so that strength discrepancy will be more readily apparent.
As a frame of reference, here is what a good inverted row looks like:
As you can see, the chin stays tucked to keep the cervical spine (neck) in line with the rest of the body. Without that forward head posture, you're getting just the kind of scapular retraction you want. Speaking of scapular retraction, you'll also notice that the chest is going ALL THE WAY up to the bar.
There are three compensation patterns that you'll come across. To protect the innocent, I won't post videos, but rest assured that if you did a quick YouTube search for "inverted row," you'd quickly come across example of the following:
1. The Ceiling Humper: This individual will give a little tug of elbow flexion and scapular retraction to get about halfway up, and then he/she will violently thrust the crotch to the heavens. In some circles, this individual is known as "The Fish." Regardless, it isn't pretty.
2. The Scared Cat: This individual basically does a curl - including curling the wrists in - so that there is essentially everything occurring except scapular retraction. In the process, they get to the top - but in that top position, they are rounded up in a ball like - you guessed it - a scared cat. There is, however, a delightful chin protrusion/forward head posture that makes that individual believe that the movement actually took place. Unfortunately, it didn't - and this effort, too, isn't pretty.
3. The Half-Asser: This individual is the lazy cousin of the Ceiling Humper and Scared Cat. He can be found around dudes who do half pull-ups, pop their collars, and live in their parents' basements. Very simply, he (or she, for that mattter) only goes halfway up - but usually still insists on using the feet-on-the-box set-up (the most advanced progression).
Sadly, the acronym IRA was already taken, so Inverted Rows Anonymous could never get off the ground - and these issues persist. I suspect that we're looking at a $47 million government stimulus package to remedy the issue. And, as our new commander-in-chief has stated, "things are going to get worse before they get better," be prepared to observe this inverted row ignorance for quite some time before it's addressed.
For a host of better scapular stabilization exercises, check out Optimal Shoulder Performance.
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