I’m just about to give a day long seminar in Seattle, but before I do, I want to give you a quick heads-up that today is the last day to get The High Performance Handbook at the introductory price. The price goes up at midnight tonight (Saturday) PST.

When you order, you’ll be automatically entered to a raffle to win one of many prizes, including an all-expenses-paid trip to train at Cressey Performance.  So, in addition to getting a great program that will teach you about how your body works and help you toward your training goals, you’ll also have the opportunity to win the training experience of a lifetime.

--> The High Performance Handbook <--

The feedback on this resource thus far has been outstanding, and with a 60-day money-back guarantee, you've got nothing to lose. And if that isn't convincing enough, the expertise featured in this program is backed by some well-versed industry notables:

"Eric Cressey is one of the top high performance coaches in the world. With his mixture of academic work, practical experience, and high level athletic achievement, he's outpacing almost everyone else in the field. As a result, he's one of the very few coaches I'll turn to now, and in the future, when I'm looking for unique insight into getting the most out of my athletes."

-Dr. John Berardi, CSCS
Founder - Precision Nutrition

“In the world of fitness and sports training, Eric Cressey is a thought leader and an industry innovator. He is one of Men's Health's most-trusted advisers because his expertise is driven by the combination of science and real-world insights. As a result, Eric's approach is always evolving and improving, and you can be sure it's been tested with both professional athletes and every day people. That's why Men's Health turns to Eric for cutting-edge training advice that's not only proven to work, but proven to give you the edge.”

-Adam Campbell
Fitness Director - Men's Health

Only 15 hours left – and I’d love your support.  Thanks so much for a great week.

--> The High Performance Handbook <--

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Yesterday, our High Performance Handbook launch prize winners were randomly selected and announced!  We gave away five CP t-shirts, three pairs of New Balance Minimus sneakers, and an all-expenses paid trip to Cressey Performance.  The winners were from four different U.S. states, Canada (2), England (2), and Australia (1).  We're worldwide, people; thanks for your purchases and help in spreading the word!

With that said, though, with only 36 hours left on the introductory sale, I figured I'd sweeten the deal again.  And, everyone who has purchased thus far will be automatically entered to win one of these prizes:

1. ANOTHER all-expenses-paid trip to get evaluated and train at Cressey Performance.  It's like this, but you'll be surrounded by other clients who are all working hard like you will be! 

Again, I'll cover all your travel and accomodations expenses, and the training will be on the house.

2. One of three free copies of my "Art of the Deload" e-Book.

3. One of three free online accesses to Mike Reinold and my new "Functional Stability Training of the Lower Body" online resource.

If you've already purchased, you're golden.  If you haven't, you've only got 36 hours left! 

Finally, in light of the busy launch week, I've got a few guest blogs that ran on different sites.  Check these two out:

Fitocracy: Single-leg Success Strategies

Schwarzenegger.com: Efficiency: Important for the Pros and the Joes

Last, but not least, Precision Nutrition's Brian St. Pierre - who authored The High Performance Handbook Nutrition Guide - is going to be doing a live Q&A on my Facebook page at 3pm EST.  You can check it out and ask him your questions HERE.

There are only 36 hours left, so don't miss out!  Click here to learn more about The High Performance Handbook!

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Earlier today, I posted a few snippets from Brian St. Pierre's nutrition guide from The High Performance Handbook Gold Package.  Here's part 2 of that preview, picking up with key point #3, which actually has a few subcategories (and trust me, there are a ton more huge takeaways!):

Point #3: Environmental Carcinogens

Hundreds of chemicals are capable of inducing cancer in humans or animals after prolonged or excessive exposure.  Chemically-induced cancer generally develops many years after exposure to a toxic agent.  For example, a latency period of as much as thirty years has been observed between exposure to asbestos and incidence of lung cancer.

In 2010, the President’s Cancer Panel Report declared that “The true burden of environmentally induced cancers has been grossly underestimated…this group of carcinogens has not been addressed adequately by the National Cancer Program.  The American people – even before they are born – are bombarded continually with myriad combinations of these dangerous exposures.”

According to the report, there are about 80,000 chemicals in commercial use in the United States, but only about 2% of those have been assessed for their safety.  The report singles out radon, formaldehyde, and benzene as major environmental toxins that are causing cancer.

Radon: What is it, Where is it, and How do I Get Less of it?

Radon is a colorless, odorless, radioactive gas.  It comes from the natural decay of uranium or thorium found in nearly all soils, and it typically moves up through the ground and into the home through cracks in floors, walls, and foundations.  It can also be released from building materials or from well water. Radon breaks down quickly, giving off radioactive particles.  Long-term exposure to these particles can lead to lung cancer.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that radon causes about 21,000 lung cancer deaths in the United States each year, with 1 in 20 U.S. homes having elevated levels.  Radon exposure is the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking, and the leading cause among non-smokers.

Testing for radon and taking the necessary steps to lower radon levels in homes that have elevated radon can prevent many radon-related lung cancer deaths.  This process is known as radon mitigation.  Getting your home air and water (if you are on a well) checked is simple and inexpensive – and can save your life and the lives of your loved ones.

Formaldehyde: What is it, Where is it, and How do I Get Less of it?

Formaldehyde is a colorless, flammable, strong-smelling chemical that is used in building materials and to produce many household products.  It also occurs naturally in the environment and is produced in small amounts by most living organisms as part of normal metabolic processes.  Formaldehyde has been classified as a known human carcinogen by several government agencies.

Formaldehyde sources in the home include pressed-wood products such as particleboard and plywood, glues and adhesives, permanent press fabrics, cigarette smoke, and fuel-burning appliances.  In addition, formaldehyde is commonly used as an industrial fungicide, germicide, and disinfectant, and as a preservative in mortuaries and medical laboratories.

Research studies of workers exposed to formaldehyde have suggested an association between formaldehyde exposure and several cancers, including nasopharyngeal cancer and leukemia.  Rats exposed to formaldehyde fumes developed nasal cancer.

The EPA recommends the use of “exterior-grade” pressed-wood products to limit formaldehyde exposure in the home.  Ensuring adequate ventilation, moderate temperatures, appropriate humidity levels (through the use of air conditioners and dehumidifiers), and the use of indoor plants can also reduce formaldehyde levels in homes.

Benzene: What is it, Where is it, and How do I Get Less of it?

Benzene is a colorless liquid that evaporates quickly.  It is naturally found in crude oil and is a basic petrochemical.  Unfortunately, it is also a known human carcinogen.  Benzene is found in tobacco smoke, gasoline (and therefore car exhaust), pesticides, synthetic fibers, plastics, inks, oils, and detergents.  Benzene has also been found in soft drinks (since removed or reformulated), and dryer emissions from scented laundry detergent and dryer sheets.

About 50% of the benzene exposure in the US results from smoking tobacco or from second-hand smoke.  Substantial amounts of data link benzene to aplastic anemia, bone marrow abnormalities and leukemia - particularly acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and acute non-lymphocytic leukemia (ANLL).

To decrease benzene exposure, don’t smoke, and try to avoid second hand smoke.  Ensure adequate ventilation in your home, use non-scented laundry detergents and dryer sheets, and keep plants in the home.

Looking for more insights like these?  Be sure to check out The High Performance Handbook here. And remember: the $30 off discount is only around for this week!

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I've received some questions about what one can expect from Nutrition Guide that accompanies The High Performance Handbook Gold Package, so I thought I'd use today's post to highlight a few "Ah-Ha" moments from Brian St. Pierre's awesome contribution.  For those who aren't familiar with "BSP," he's one of Dr. John Berardi's right-hand-men at Precision Nutrition.  Check out these thought provoking ideas directly from the text:

Point #1: The Dairy and Diabetes Risk Relationship

With little fanfare, a study recently came out by Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian and colleagues. Why so little fanfare, you ask?  It’s because the study suggests that dairy fat may actually protect against diabetes, and that goes against conventional wisdom and government recommendations.

Dr. Mozaffarian and company collected two measures of dairy fat intake in 3,736 Americans. They took six 24-hour dietary recall questionnaires, as well as assessing blood levels of trans-palmitoleate.  Trans-palmitoleate comes almost exclusively from dairy fat and red meat fat, and therefore it reflects the intakes of these foods.  Dairy provided most of the trans-palmitoleate fatty acid in this study.

Adjustments were made for confounding factors, and trans-palmitoleate levels were associated with a smaller waist circumference, higher HDL cholesterol, lower serum triglycerides, lower C-reactive protein (a marker of inflammation), lower fasting insulin and lower calculated insulin resistance.  In addition, people who had the highest levels of trans-palmitoleate had 1/3 the risk of developing diabetes over the 3-year study period.

Again, it is important to note that trans-palmitoleate is a fatty acid, and so is only provided in significant amounts by whole fat dairy, not from low-fat or fat-free versions. The investigators also noted that “greater whole-fat dairy consumption was associated with lower risk for diabetes.”  This is an important distinction, as it wasn’t just trans-palmitoleate levels that were associated with the decreased risk, but the actual consumption of whole-fat dairy itself that seemingly provides the benefit.

Here’s another nice quote from the authors: “Our findings support potential metabolic benefits of dairy consumption and suggest that trans-palmitoleate may mediate these effects.  They also suggest that efforts to promote exclusive consumption of low-fat and non-fat dairy products, which would lower population exposure to trans-palmitoleate, may be premature until the mediators of the health effects of dairy consumption are better established.”

While it is certainly possible that trans-palmitoleate is mediating a lot of these positive health outcomes that were associated with it, in all reality, it only makes up a tiny fraction of the fat content of milk.  I tend to believe that instead, it is more of a marker of dairy fat intake, with the benefits more likely coming from the other elements contained in dairy fat – CLA, vitamin K2, butyric acid, vitamin D – in addition to the trans-palmitoleate.

Point #2: Sleep: Why We Need It, and How To Get It

We all know that sleep is important for our health.  However, many of us (if not most of us) tend to act as if that just doesn’t hold true for ourselves.  We seem to believe that we can get away with it.  While you may blame “work” or simply being “busy,” research clearly and consistently shows that people miss out on sleep due to something called “voluntary bedtime delay.”  Basically, we stay up late because we want to, often watching “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” re-runs, or mindlessly reading useless info on Facebook.  No matter the reason, it is unlikely to actually be more important than logging sufficient and quality shut-eye.

In the big picture, sleep is just as important as nutrition and exercise when it comes to improving your health, performance, and body composition. 

The average adult gets about 6 hours and 40 minutes of sleep per night. In fact, about 30% of the population gets fewer than six hours per night. Women tend to sleep a bit more than men, and people who carry high amounts of body fat tend to sleep less than those with a normal body fat level.  Studies suggest that people who sleep fewer than six hours per night gain almost twice as much weight over a 6-year period as people who sleep 7-8 hours per night. 

Excessive sleep isn’t necessarily better, either; those who sleep more than nine hours per night have similar body composition outcomes as those who sleep less than six hours.

There is a fairly strong body of research showing that lack of sleep increases risk of many conditions, including:

• altered food intake
  • decrease in satiety hormones, increase in hunger hormones
  • increase in pleasure response to food, causing increased food intake
• altered glucose tolerance, insulin resistance & diabetes
• inflammation
• obesity
• disruption of cortisol levels and rhythm
• decrease in testosterone and increase in estrogen
• loss of lean mass, including muscle, bone and organs (such as your brain)
• decrease in thyroid stimulating hormone
• heart attack
• stroke

It is important to note that sleep debt is cumulative, meaning that the more nights with less sleep, the greater likelihood of negative effects taking place.  The good news is that you can catch up with just a few consecutive nights of adequate sleep.  Experts hypothesize that each hour of sleep debt needs to be repaid eventually, so don’t let it add up.

Okay, so we know lack of sleep is a problem.  As researchers have noted regarding sleep debt: "these alterations are similar to those observed during aging and sometimes during depression." Awesome. 

Fortunately, research also shows that simply getting adequate sleep can quickly right the ship on these issues.  [Note from EC: Brian goes into great detail on strategies to improve sleep quality and duration in his guide].

I'll be back later today with a few more key points from BSP's manual, but in the meantime, you can check out The High Performance Handbook here. Don't forget: the $30 off discount is only around for this week!

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I have attended a lot of great seminars during my time in the strength and conditioning field.  In the early days, I’d walk away with a lot of valuable information that I could immediately apply. It was almost like drinking from a fire hose!

Interestingly, as the years went on, I took less and less from seminars – in spite of the fact that the fitness field was a rapidly evolving industry, with new research emerging every single day.  The reason for this is very simple: as the industry developed, so did my knowledge – which means I had developed a better filter to separate what was useful from what wasn’t a good fit for my clients.

As a result, when I attend seminars now, I’m psyched to walk away with one or two things – however small – that we can immediately apply with our clients. And, if I come across something that does more than that, it’s a game changer.

For me, the concept of working from the inside out – or proximal to distal - has been exactly that.  Since it's a recurring theme in the program in my new resource, The High Performance Handbook, I thought I'd use today's post to go into a bit more detail.

Simply stated, this means that you get things right in the core before working on what’s going on with the extremities.  It seems so basic, but it’s something that’s been missed by loads of fitness professionals and rehabilitation specialists for a long time.  Why stretch a shoulder or the hamstrings if you haven’t taken into consideration where the lumbar spine is positioned?

This wasn’t just one part of a seminar, though; it was a theme that kept emerging on a number of fronts. 

First, the research demonstrated that training core stability improved hip internal rotation.  That’s right; you don’t have to stretch someone into internal rotation to improve it. Just get people to "neutral" and then stay there while training, and good things happen.

Then, I checked out some of the Postural Restoration Institute seminars, applied some of their positional breathing principles, and saw athletes gain more than 30° of shoulder internal rotation without me even touching their shoulders.  Their hip internal rotation improved, and they were able to adduct and extend the hips more effectively. 

Seeing these changes in action was awesome, but at the same time, they were moments that made me think “why didn’t I ever think of this before?”  It’s just a matter of restoring proper alignment with breathing and adequate core recruitment to facilitate that breathing. When alignment is “on,” protective tension doesn’t have to kick in.

If you stretch and you’re out of alignment, you get instability.  If you strengthen and you’re out of alignment, you shift more stress to passive restraints (which may create more instability) and you get overuse injuries.

Working proximal-to-distal is a theme you see in all our warm-ups and the way that we approach arm care with our athletes.  If you establish “good stiffness” early on, warming-up the entire rest of the body becomes a much more efficient process, as you aren’t just reaffirming bad patterns. 

As I noted, this proximal-to-distal approach is also heavily emphasized in my new resource, The High Performance Handbook, in the assessment portions, programs, and detailed exercise technique videos.  Regardless of whether you’re looking for some direction in your own training or in your work with clients, this will be a "clutch" resource to which you’ll refer for years to come.

It's on sale at a great introductory price through the end of the week; you can pick it up here.

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I'm psyched that my multi-year project - The High Performance Handbook - was finally released just a few hours ago. You can check it out at www.HighPerformanceHandbook.com.

This resource is a by-product of spending many years in the gym trying to find out what works and what doesn't - and just as importantly, how to customize programs to individuals' unique needs quickly and easily. As the testimonials from "guinea pigs" who've completed the program show, I think we've done a great job of it.

As a bonus for people who actually buy today, we're giving away a bunch of free stuff today. Most notable is an all-expenses-paid trip to train with us at Cressey Performance!

If you've enjoyed my work at EricCressey.com and beyond, I'd be thrilled to have your support today - either with a purchase or in helping to spread the word (or both). Thanks so much!

After over a year of hard work in getting it ready, I’m beyond ecstatic to announce that my new resource, The High Performance Handbook, is now available for sale.  You can pick it up at www.HighPerformanceHandbook.com.

I went to great lengths to ensure that this resource doesn’t just offer a training program that delivers outstanding results; it also educates you along the way. You’ll learn about some of the things that are unique about your body, and how you need to manage your training accordingly.  It’s almost like a choose-your-own adventure book for people looking to achieve their training goals.

To celebrate this exciting launch and thank you for your continued support, I’ve decided to sweeten the deal for anyone who purchases the product before Tuesday at midnight (PST).  If you do so, you’ll be automatically entered to win a number of prizes, most notably an all-expenses-paid trip to get evaluated and train with us at Cressey Performance.  If you’re selected, I'll pay for your airline ticket, put you up in a nice hotel, feed you, and “coach you up” alongside all our regular clients.  And, even if you don’t win this one, you’ll still receive some awesome free bonuses no matter what. 

Also, while you’re at it, I’d highly recommend you pick up the Gold Package of The High Performance Handbook, as it includes an awesome nutrition and lifestyle guide from Brian St. Pierre of Precision Nutrition.  There is some really eye-opening and useful stuff in there; I learned a ton myself from reading it!

Again, you can pick it up at www.HighPerformanceHandbook.com.

Thanks again for your continued support.

In anticipation of next week's release of The High Performance Handbook, my week of video madness continues!  Hopefully, you've already enjoyed the first two videos - and today, I've got another one for you.  This time, it's about my favorite lift: the deadlift.  In this video, I discuss the "arch your back" cue that we often hear so that you can determine if it's right for YOU.  Check it out, and you'll improve your deadlift technique (and strength) in a matter of minutes:

--> The Right Deadlifting Cues for YOUR Body <--

The countdown continues...

Earlier this week, I posted a video on different ways to look at upper body pressing.  In light of the great feedback I received, I have another one for you.  Today, I’m going to talk about breathing, a topic that has taken the fitness industry by storm in recent years. 

We can use breathing to help with relaxation (yoga, meditation), but also with bracing the core to lift heavy weights.  If you have something that can help with two extremes like this, you know it can be “clutch” when it comes to making or breaking your fitness progress.   And, that’s why today’s video will be so beneficial to you:

--> Breathe Better, Move Better <--

This video today focuses on some of the breathing strategies I uses in terms of exercise selection and coaching cues with our athletes at Cressey Performance.  These drills are awesome for enhancing core stability and correcting bad posture. Fortunately, you can have the same great results if you just pay close attention to the cues I outline and put them into action.  And, be sure to keep an eye out for the release of The High Performance Handbook next week!

Over the past year, I’ve been working long and hard to create my newest resource, The High Performance Handbook. It’ll be out next week, but as a “precursor” to its release, I’ve got some awesome video content for you this week to build the excitement.

Today, in the first video, I talk about different ways of looking at upper body pressing – and how there’s a lot more you need to consider than just bench pressing.  Check it out:

--> Why Your Upper Body Training Program Might Need to Change <--

This is really important stuff that could make a huge difference in the way your upper body feels and performs, so be sure to check it out – and tell your friends, if you think they could benefit. 

Keep a look out for more videos in the not-so-distant future.  And, expect to see this resource out next week!