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| On Sunday night, I made an impromptu trip to Wal-Mart to pick up an umbrella for the rainy Marathon. As I was standing in line, a woman a few people ahead of me dropped something as she was loading her items onto the checkout conveyor belt. She was taking care of a small child, and didn’t reach down to pick it up right away.
Just a second or two later, a rather overweight kid from a few feet away started walking toward her; my first assumption was that he was going to help her out and pick it up. Instead, he walked right past the item on the floor, actually bumped her aside a bit, grabbed a bottle of Sunkist® from a cooler next to her, and then walked off.
After throwing a “what the heck?” look at the kid for a split-second, I walked the ten-feet or so over to the women and picked her item up, set it on the conveyor belt, and smiled. She said thank you, and that was that.
The bad news is that kids are getting fatter and fatter, people. The good news is that many of them are so rude that pretty soon, we’ll be more occupied with their crap behavior to be concerned with their “husky” profiles.
Not surprisingly, the two are pretty closely related:
“Regardless of race or sex, increasing weight is associated with emotional and weight-related distress in children.”
Young-Hyman D. et al. Psychological status and weight-related distress in overweight or at-risk-for-overweight children. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2006 Dec;14(12):2249-58.
I’m going to go out on a limb and infer from the research and my anecdotal Wal-Mart observation that if a kid is overweight, leading to depression and distress, chances are that he’s going to be more likely to treat people like dirt. I was more sarcastic when I was an overweight kid, and as I’ve gotten older and into better shape, I’ve developed a sense of humor – not more bitter sarcasm.
To that end, anecdotally, I’ve seen athletes who have lost considerable amounts of body fat and change their demeanors in a matter of months. The more self-confidence one has, the less likely he or she is to point out the shortcomings of others. The stronger and leaner one becomes, the more likely he or she is to help out an up-and-coming athlete. Physical health and appearance can literally transform one’s personality.
About three weeks ago, I got a thank you email out of the blue from the father of one of my athletes. This past summer, right as I began working with him, his son (a senior) verbally committed to a solid Division 1 program to play baseball. Since August, this athlete has trained with me 3-4 times a week and given tremendous effort day-in and day-out. He’s leaned out, packed on some muscle mass, gotten a ton stronger, and actually looks like an athlete now. Now, when we lift, it’s like he’s another coach in the room, helping the newer guys out – just like a team captain should. He’s brought in teammates to experience the same great results that he did because he knows that it feeds right back into his own success. Perhaps most impressively, though, is the fact that his father contacted me to let me know just how much of a difference it has made in the way he carries himself. He dresses differently (for the better), walks with his head and chest up, and flat-out treats people better.
I think that the take-home message in all of this is that if we’re looking to improve the attitudes of “Generation Y” – athlete or not – we need to make exercise and nutrition integral parts of that battle.
Eric Cressey, MA, CSCS, is a strength and conditioning specialist at Excel Sport and Fitness Training (www.ExcelStrength.com) in Waltham, MA. Excel’s experienced staff specializes in working with athletes of all ages and ability levels in a fun and motivating environment. The author of The Ultimate Off-Season Training Manual, Eric has worked with athletes of all levels, from youth sports to the professional and Olympic levels. You can find out more about Eric and sign up for his free newsletter at www.EricCressey.com.
ec@ericcressey.com
Eric Cressey
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Eric Cressey, Weight Loss, Fat Loss, Health, Weight Lifting, Depression, Anxiety, Obesity, Strength and Conditioning
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| The Internet has been a tremendous resource for billions of people in a wide variety of realms, but as I've come to realize, it's allowed the "curse of knowledge" to rear its ugly head far too easily in the resistance-training world.
I'm all for training smart, but the problem is that far too many people spend so much time on the "smart" part that they don't actually remember how to train hard. So they wind up unknowingly abandoning simple principles that pack major results.
In his book, Overachievement: The New Model for Exceptional Performance, Dr. John Eliot debunks ten myths of high-performance as examples. Two of my favorites are "use your head" and "learn from your mistakes." With respect to these "myths," Eliot writes (respectively):
"Using your head is stupid. In high-stakes performance, the real genius is someone like Yogi Berra. On his way to ten World Series rings and a place in the baseball Hall of Fame, Yogi was thinking about nothing."
"Legends never say they're sorry. Having a long or frequent memory for mistakes and a short or infrequent memory for successes is a guaranteed way to develop fear of failure. High achievers dwell on what they do well and spend very little time evaluating themselves and their performances."
With these two "myths" in mind, I want you to stop thinking, and start doing while following these five simple principles that have clearly been lost in many Internet warriors, thanks to the curse of knowledge.
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| For those of you who missed it, there was a great article in the Boston Globe about one of my clients' inspirational preparation for the Boston Marathon. Check it out HERE.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/04/13/loss_fuels_her_resolve_to_make_a_difference/
I'm pleased to say that in spite of a cold, windy, rainy day and a freak ankle sprain early in the race, Steph finished in 4:14:59. On a nice, sunny day, she goes under four hours with no problems - especially if she's got two good ankles working for her!
Perhaps best of all, Steph raised $5,877.20 for the Boston Medical Center's Good Grief Program.
Congratulations on an excellent job, Steph!
Eric Cressey, MA, CSCS
www.EricCressey.com
www.ExcelStrength.com
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| How to Kick That Spare Tire
On one hand, this article frustrates the crap out of me, as it’s a sign that there are still a lot of people in influential positions spewing garbage information:
“If you've got some weight to lose, say 10 pounds or more, your primary focus should be aerobic exercise, such as running, biking and swimming, which will help lower your total body fat. To get the best results, aim for 30 to 45 minutes of aerobic exercise three to five days a week. Twice a week incorporate anaerobic exercise, such as weight lifting, using eight to 10 different exercises targeting large muscles, Millar says. Overall, your workout should be 75% aerobic and 25% anaerobic, suggests Edward Jackowski, CEO and founder of the motivational fitness company Exude.”
Somewhere Alwyn Cosgrove is weeping – or, more likely, cursing angrily in a thick Scottish accent. He debunked all these myths in two recent interviews in my newsletter and his wildly successful (and effective) Real World Fat Loss.
And, if that wasn’t bad enough…
“Jackowski recommends crunches and reverse crunches; the latter involves pulling your knees toward your chest. A recent study sponsored by the American Council on Exercise says the best at-home abdominal exercises in terms of getting definite results are the bicycle maneuver, where you perform a crunch by touching your knees to your opposite elbows, and the exercise ball crunch, in which you lie back on the ball, thighs and torso parallel with the floor, and raise your torso no more than 45 degrees as you exhale.”
I’m all for reverse crunches, but to lump them together with regular crunches is silly. I mean, one of the things that we emphasized over and over again in our Building the Efficient Athlete DVD set is that crunches are actually doing more harm than good!
At, the other extreme, this article makes me happy. I’ll always have plenty of job security when there are fat people and corrective exercise candidates at my fingertips because they’re following the bogus information these people continue to spread!
Marathon Monday is at-hand; pray for sunshine. Good luck, Steph!
Eric Cressey
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| It's always great when a client works hard to achieve his or her goals, but it's even better when that success in the gym is a piece of an even bigger success - in this case for an entire family and a very noble cause. This story ran on the front page of Boston.com and the Boston Globe today:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/04/13/loss_fuels_her_resolve_to_make_a_difference/
Congratulations, Steph!
Eric Cressey
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| Here's Part 2 of the interview with Alwyn Cosgrove that ran in today's newsletter.
http://ecressey.wpengine.com/newsletter52.html
We've got a ton more quality information like this available in our free weekly newsletter; subscribe and you'll be the first to hear it!
Go Red Sox,
EC |
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| I just thought you'd all like to know that I'll be taking in the Red Sox home opener at Fenway tomorrow afternoon and you won't. Ha!
Fortunately, though, I've got some good new for you, too. John Berardi has recently made the Precision Nutrition forums available to the public for FREE. We're talking 40,000+ posts on a variety of topics, access to the new Precision Nutrition Exercise Database, weekly email updates of new articles, recipes and exercises, and free downloads of two new ebooks: Precision Nutrition Strategies and Gourmet Nutrition Desserts. Not a bad deal, huh? Check it out for yourself:
Precision Nutrition
Enjoy some solid nutrition info while I enjoy the Sox getting the 2007 Fenway season off to a winning start!
EC
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| I thought you might be interested in checking out Part I of the fat-loss interview with Alwyn Cosgrove that we ran in today's newsletter.
Part 2 will be out next week; you can subscribe to the FREE newsletter to be the first to find out when the time comes:
Enjoy!
EC
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With the NCAA tournament final on Monday night, I thought this email exchange I had Sunday morning might be of interest. As a little background, I was recently contacted by a local D3 basketball coach to help with his team’s off-season conditioning. As a little background, this team is a solid D3 program that generally loses in the first round of the NCAA tournament after winning its conference regular season title. I gathered some background information on the team, and even went up to check out a game a few weeks ago. Following the game, we met up, talked shop, and worked out some of the details on what I’d be doing to help them out; it was a go.
Then, I got an email that included the following:
We just met as a staff and when they were down in Atlanta they met with the a couple of coaches from the NYC area and decided to do a three day trip in mid December. Obviously this is a great experience for our players, but this trip cripples our budget. After punchig the numbers we literally have just under $400 dollars so now we have to adjust everything, including working with you. I appreciate the effort you have devoted to us since I first contacted you and I hope we are able to work something out, if not this year, certainly in years to come. When you find the time let me know what you think about situation.”
Honestly, I don’t really need the money, so doing this was going to be more for my own fun – and I liked the idea of helping out some coaches that were enthusiastic and open-minded (or at least I thought they were).
Here was my response:
Thanks for the update.
I have to be very honest with you: you guys are falling in to the trap that a lot of coaches fall into.
When my buddy and I left your game a few weeks ago, we remarked about how your team basically looked like a "good" high school team in New England. The thing is that neither of us really know a damn thing about the tactical aspect of basketball; we were referring to the speed of play, level of aggressiveness, and utter lack of athleticism. Your players were no different from their competition in terms of memorizing plays/defense, shooting, or anything tactically that could potentially differentiate them. They were just slower, fatter, and weaker - poor relative strength with reactive ability that was mediocre at best. Do you think that they remember plays any worse than the guys at Florida or Ohio St? Trust me, tactically, your guys are probably AHEAD of what you see in D1 ball (as evidenced by average scholastic achievement); they just aren't as physically gifted.
These deficiencies are readily trainable - and you get the added bonus of increased team camaraderie and attitude in the process.
Instead, you guys are going to spend more time on the tactical side of things - basically changing the engine on a car with square wheels. And, you're going to do it over three days while ignoring something more valuable that could span 16-20 weeks. Motor learning doesn't happen in three days.
The guys don't need a three-day vacation mid-season. They need to can the permanent vacation they've been on with respect to off-season conditioning and diet and get their act together. I would encourage you to think "different" instead of thinking "better" - otherwise you're just going to be waiting around until someone tells you what you want to hear.
Hope this wasn't too blunt.
Last night, the commentators noted that it would be very interested to see if Greg Oden of Ohio State – likely the most important man on the team – would be able to withstand the outstanding mobility of Florida’s big men. Mobility is a quality that is very easily trained.
Conversely, I didn’t hear anyone questioning whether Florida or Ohio State’s players could remember their defensive schemes or in-bounding plays.
Tomorrow night, when you’re watching the NCAA tournament final, consider who would be better off: the team that did a three-day crash course on the court in-season, or a team that worked the hardest and smartest in the off-season to prepare for the grueling in-season period.
For more information, check out UltimateOffSeason.com
Eric Cressey
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