We're very excited to announce that on Sunday, April 10, we’ll be hosting the CSP Spring Nutrition Seminar featuring a day of learning with Brian St. Pierre. This event will take place at our Hudson, MA location. Brian was CSP’s first employee and has since moved on to be the Director of Performance Nutrition at Precision Nutrition.
Here’s a look at our agenda for the day:
8:30am: Registration
Morning Session – Laying the Foundation
9:00am: Human metabolism and the calorie conundrum
10:00am: Protein: the magical macro
10:30am: Carbs: the misunderstood macro
11:00am: Fats: the mystery macro
11:30am: Supplements: what works, what doesn’t, and what might
12:00pm: Q&A
12:30pm: Lunch
Afternoon Session – Practical Application
1:30pm: How to assess and where to begin
2:30pm: Controlling portions and making adjustments
3:00pm: Dietary adjustments for advanced muscle gain and fat loss
3:30pm: Problem solving and case studies
4:00pm: Why consistency is king
4:30pm: Q&A
Location:
Cressey Sports Performance
577 Main Street, STE 310
Hudson, MA 01749
We’re really excited about this event, as Brian is a polished presenter and always on top of the latest and greatest research on optimal nutrition practices. Space is limited and we expect this event to fill up quickly, so don’t delay on signing up!
If you have additional questions, please direct them to cspmass@gmail.com. Looking forward to seeing you there!
PS - If you're looking for hotel information, Extended Stay America in Marlborough, MA offers our clients a discounted nightly rate. Just mention "Cressey" during the booking process in order to secure the discount. Their booking phone number is 508-490-9911.
We're wrapping up the week with some good recommended strength and conditioning material. Check these reads out:
Can Eating Too Little Actually Damage Your Metabolism? - This was an absolutely outstanding article on energy balance from Brian St. Pierre for Precision Nutrition. Suffice it to say that it's much more complex than "calories in vs. calories out."
Today's "Exercise of the Week" guest post comes from Lee Boyce. Enjoy! -EC
One of the basic exercises that people are taught to practice for improved shoulder rotation, upper back activation, scapular mobility and anterior muscle release as a by-product is the standard scapular wall slide. To do them, a lifter would simply stand with the heels, butt, upper back, shoulders and full arms and hands against the wall, reduce the lower back arch, and slide the hands up and down, mimicking a full shoulder press movement pattern.
Regressing this movement is as simple as taking the feet a few inches away from the wall and assuming position otherwise. Progressing this movement, however, is another story.
The problem is that people adapt quickly to an unloaded mobility drill, and because of this, the wall slide can become another non-transferrable “skill” that doesn’t carry over to generally improved posture or performance. Moreover, depending on whether the humerus is properly nested in the glenoid fossa to begin with, the wall slides themselves may always pose a problem from a biomechanical perspective. To help this cause, adding some mild resistance can “remind” the muscles of the rotator cuff to center the humeral head in the socket and create a much more effective external rotation position. Plus, using a neutral grip via ropes (as compared to a palms-forward grip) creates a much more ideal (and shoulder friendly) environment for external rotation that can act to counter anterior shoulder glide.
For resisted scapular slides, I like using a cable pulley, and performing the lift from a seated position. It’s a bit easier for a lifter to focus on avoiding back hyperextension, which is a common compensation pattern when lifters have insufficient shoulder mobility.
This movement creates a force angle that works against the standard slide pattern, so keeping the hands and arms moving along the same plane becomes a much more challenging task for the scapular muscles. It’s easy to “let up” and allow the hands and arms to drift forward. To view the movement in action, watch the video below.
Coaching Cues
1. Have the athlete sit squarely on a box or bench. The closer parallel the box puts him in, the better.
2. Set up the cable pulley and ropes in a position just above head level. This way, at the top position, the force angle won’t be strictly downward, and there will be ample tension throughout.
3. If the lifter is still novice or intermediate level as far as shoulder mobility and control goes, a neutral grip is recommended for reasons mentioned above. If the lifter is more advanced, he can feel free to pinch-grip between the thumb and first finger, and face the palms forward.
4. During the movement, avoid slipping into lower back hyperextension; maintain thoracic region extension; and be sure to maintain neutral head posture. Also, avoid letting the elbows fall out of line with the hands in the vertical plane.
5. Your target areas are the rotator cuff muscles, rear deltoids, and lower traps (as you raise the weight further overhead). When you start feeling this in other areas like the biceps and upper traps, readjust positioning and continue.
6. The exercise is very specific, so it shouldn’t take much weight for it to be effective. 15-20lbs of resistance on most machines is usually plenty.
7. The movement won’t work if it’s done in a rush. Think of a 2121 tempo as a solid guideline.
8. Use higher reps to build up the muscular endurance of these muscle groups.
9. Your range of motion should replicate your typical dumbbell shoulder press – meaning the rep begins very close to the shoulder level, and ends at a full arm extension overhead.
10. Through the movement, remember to keep the hand separated (pull the rope handles apart) as much as possible. Doing so keeps the upper back engaged, avoids internal rotation, and keeps the hands stacked over the shoulder, where they belong.
About the Author
Lee Boyce (@CoachLeeBoyce) is a strength coach, writer, and former collegiate level sprinter and long jumper, based in Toronto, Canada. In 2013, he was named to the training and treatment staff for team Jamaica at the Penn Relays . He’s regularly featured in the largest fitness publications as a writer. Visit his website at www.LeeBoyceTraining.com or check him out on Facebook.
Sign-up Today for our FREE Newsletter and receive a four-part video series on how to deadlift!
Back in my early-to-mid-20s, my focus shifted into powerlifting and away from a "traditional" athletic career. While I got a ton stronger, I can't say that I felt any more athletic. In hindsight, I realize that it was because I trained strength at the exclusion of many other important athletic qualities. Since then, I've gone out of my way to include things that I know keep me athletic, and as a result, into the latter half of my 30s, I feel really good about taking on anything life throws my way. With that in mind, I thought I'd pull together some recommendations for those looking to remain athletic as they age.
1. Stay on top of your soft tissue work and mobility drills.
Without a doubt, the most common reason folks feel unathletic is that they aren't able to get into the positions/postures they want. As I've written in the past, it's much easier to do a little work to preserve mobility than it is to lose it and have to work to get it back. Some foam rolling and five minutes of mobility work per day goes a long way in keeping you athletic.
2. Do a small amount of pre-training plyos.
I think it's important to preserve the ability to effectively use the stretch-shortening cycle (SSC). That's not to say that every gym goer needs to be doing crazy depth jumps and sprinting full-tilt, though. A better bet for many folks who worry about tweaking an Achilles, patellar tendon, or hamstrings is to implement some low-level plyometric work: side shuffles, skipping, carioca, and backpedaling. Here's a slightly more advanced progression we use in The High Performance Handbook program:
The best bet is to include these drills right after the warm-up and before starting up with lifting.
3. Emphasize full-body exercises that teach transfer of force from the lower body to the upper body.
I love cable lift variations to accomplish this task in core exercises, but push presses, landmine presses, and rotational rows are also great options.
4. Emphasize ground-to-standing transitions.
Turkish Get-ups are the most well-known example of this challenge, but don't forget this gem:
5. Get strong in single-leg.
Squats and deadlifts will get you strong, no doubt, but don't forget that a big chunk of athletics at all levels takes place in single-leg stance. Lunges, 1-leg RDLs, step-ups, and split squats all deserve a place in just about everyone's training programs.
6. Use core exercises that force you to resist both extension and rotation.
Efficient movement is all about moving in the right places. The lower back isn't really the place to move, though; you should prioritize movement at the hips and upper back. With that in mind, your core work should be focused on resisting both extension (too much lower back arching) and rotation. Here are a few favorites:
7. Train outside the sagittal plane.
It's important to master the sagittal (straight ahead) plane first with your training programs, but once you get proficient there, it's useful to progress to a bit of strength work in the frontal place. I love lateral lunge variations for this reason.
8. Chuck medicine balls!
I'm a huge fan of medicine ball drills with our athletes, but a lot of people might not know that I absolutely love them for our "general population" clients as well. I speak to why in this article: Medicine Ball Workouts: Not Just for Athletes. Twice a week, try adding in four sets at the end of your warm-up and prior to lifting. Do two sets of overhead stomps and two sets of a rotational drill, starting with these two variations in month 1:
In month 2, try these two:
Trust me; you'll be hooked by the "8-week Magic Mark."
9. Be fast on your concentric.
If you want to stay fast, you need to keep a fast element in your strength training program. This can obviously entail including things like Olympic lifts, jump squats, and kettlebell swings. Taking it a step further, though, you can always just make a dedicated effort to always accelerate the bar with good speed on the concentric (lifting) portion of the movement.
10. Play.
In a given week, on top of my normal lifting, I might catch bullpens, sprint or condition with my athletes, play beach volleyball, or run a few football receiving routes at the facility. The old adage, "Variety is the spice of life" applies to fitness and athleticism, too. Don't be afraid to have some fun.
The longer you've been training, the more you realize that your strength and conditioning programs have to be versatile enough to preserve your athleticism and functional capacity while still keeping training fun. If you're looking for a flexible program that's proven effective across several populations, I'd encourage you to check out my flagship resource, The High Performance Handbook, especially since it's on sale for $50 off through Sunday at midnight. The discount is automatically applied at checkout at www.HighPerformanceHandbook.com.
Sign-up Today for our FREE Newsletter and receive a four-part video series on how to deadlift!
Happy Friday, everyone! Here are three good reads from the strength and conditioning world to kick off your weekend on the right foot:
Would I Be Healthier If I Quit Drinking? - Camille DePutter takes a close look into how alcohol and fitness can co-exist, and what tradeoffs the choice to drink may entail. As usual, Precision Nutrition delivers excellent content.
Resume Building 101 for Fitness Professionals - My business partner, Pete, reviews well over 300 resumes each year for both CSP internships and jobs. Suffice it to say that if you're looking to strengthen your resume in the fitness industry, this is must-read material!
Also, just a friendly reminder that the $30 off sale on The High Performance Handbook ends this Sunday at midnight. Be sure to take advantage of this discount on my most popular resource of all time!
Sign-up Today for our FREE Newsletter and receive a four-part video series on how to deadlift!
One of the most popular features of The High Performance Handbook is the extensive online video database it includes. With that in mind, I thought I'd highlight a few of my favorite exercises that are included in the program. I like these, in particular, because they're "anti-isolation" exercises. In other words, they deliver multiple training effects to give gym-goers more efficient training outcomes. Keep in mind that just because I don't include classic compound lifts like squats and deadlifts in this discussion doesn't mean that they aren't absolutely fantastic; I just want to give you a little exposure to some different drills in this post.
1. Kettlebell Crosswalk
Because of the asymmetrical loading, you get some great rotary stability work at the core - on top of the anterior core stability work you get from holding a weight overhead while resisting too much arching of your lower back. You get some outstanding shoulder mobility and stability benefits, as getting the top arm up requires a lot of scapular upward rotation and rotator cuff activation. Finally, an overlooked benefit is the opportunity to reaffirm good neck positioning. A lot of athletes will want to shoot into forward head posture, but if you pack the neck correctly, you'll be able to avoid this.
2. Positional Breathing
I use a wide variety of positional breathing drills as part of The High Performance Handbook program, so this is really more of a "category" than a specific exercise. When you put athletes (especially those with more "extended postures) into a more flexion biased position and encourage them to full exhale, you are effectively training both mobility and stability simultaneously. When you exhale, many of the muscles of inhalation - scalenes, sternocleidomastoid, lats, pec minor (not surprisingly all muscles that have chronic tissue density in many individuals) - all are forced to relax. Concurrently, the rectus abdominus and external obliques fire to get air out - and in the process, establish better anterior core stability.
Here are a few examples:
3. Dumbbell Reverse Lunge to 1-leg RDL
Whenever I put this in an athlete's program, I go out of my way to warn them that they'll be pretty sore in the days that follow. Lunging and 1-leg RDLs constitute different kinds of single-leg work with different training effects, but when you combine them, you can get the best of both worlds.
This can also be done with one dumbbell at a time. As athletes get more proficient with the drill, I look for more "fluid" transitions, as opposed to a lot of stop-and-go movements.
4. 1-arm KB Turkish Get-up
This one is just too obvious. To do a good get-up, you need everything from a hip hinge, to anterior core control, to shoulder mobility, to single-leg stability.
Let's face it: nobody really enjoys mobility warm-ups. Fortunately, for those of you who dread these drills and prefer to get to the lifting as quickly as possible, there are some combination drills that speed up the process a bit. Check out these two examples from the program:
Wrap-up
If you're looking to learn more about how all these different pieces fit with an overall strength and conditioning program "puzzle," then I'd encourage you to check out my most popular resource, The High Performance Handbook. It offers programs versatile enough to accommodate a wide variety of training goals. Learn more at www.HighPerformanceHandbook.com.
Sign-up Today for our FREE Newsletter and receive a four-part video series on how to deadlift!
We're long overdue for a new installment of my "Exercise of the Week" series, so here's one of my all-time favorite drills. The 1-arm TRX Row with Offset Kettlebell Hold affords all the shoulder health and postural benefits of horizontal pulling, but also trains thoracic (upper back) rotation, and both anterior and rotary core stability. In other words, it delivers some fantastic bang for your training buck. Check it out!
Sign-up Today for our FREE Newsletter and receive a four-part video series on how to deadlift!
Happy February, everyone! Let's kick off the month with some good reading from the strength and conditioning world:
Why Rehabilitation and Fitness Should Be Delivered in Parallel - I thought this was a fantastic article from Charlie Weingroff. Collaborative efforts between fitness professionals and rehabilitation specialists always make for better patient outcomes.
Captivology - I just finished up this book from Ben Parr, and there are definitely some useful lessons for coaches looking to maintain athletes' attention and avoid "desensitization" to important messages.
My Favorite Thing About Owning a Gym - Here's another awesome post from my business partner at Cressey Sports Performance - Massachusetts. Pete always delivers unique insights when it comes to the business side of fitness.
Speaking of CSP, just a friendly reminder that we just announced the Cressey Sports Performance - Florida spring seminar, which will take place on March 13 at our Jupiter, FL facility. You can learn more HERE.
Sign-up Today for our FREE Newsletter and receive a four-part video series on how to deadlift!
We're very excited to announce that on Sunday, March 13, we’ll be hosting our first spring seminar at Cressey Sports Performance in Jupiter, FL. This event has been a big hit at our MA facility, so we decided to bring it to our FL location as well. This event will showcase the great staff we're fortunate to have as part of our team. As always, we want to make this an affordable event for everyone and create a great forum for industry professionals and fitness enthusiasts alike to interact, exchange ideas, and learn.
Here are the presentation topics:
Eric Cressey – Bogus Biomechanics and Asinine Anatomy
The strength and conditioning and rehabilitation fields are riddled with movement myths that just never seem to die. Drawing heavily on case studies, scholarly journals, and what functional anatomy tells us, Eric will “bust” some of the common fallacies you’ll encounter in the strength and conditioning field today. Most importantly, he’ll offer drills and strategies that can be utilized immediately with clients and athletes in place of these antiquated approaches.
Shane Rye (CSP-FL Co-Founder) -- The Hip-Knee Hierarchy
In this presentation, Shane will summarize the current research and anecdotal evidence surrounding the interaction between hip function and knee pain. More importantly, he'll provide training strategies for preventing knee pain - or training around it if pain is already present.
Brian Kaplan (CSP-FL Co-Founder) -- Explosive Control: Making Medicine Ball Drills Work for You
Medicine ball exercises may only be a small percentage of a client's program, but they have a large effect on applying learned functional movement and strength to athletic activities. Coaching and cueing the exercises require an understanding of clients' compensation issues while harnessing their unique movement patterns and current fitness levels.
Pete Dupuis (CSP-MA Co-Founder) -- Business Before Branding
All too often, business owners put the cart before the horse by concerning themselves with branding before establishing a tried and tested business foundation. Before you worry about creating the most memorable hashtag on Twitter, you need to be certain that your systems are efficient, your team is sound, and your business and/or training philosophies are concrete. Anyone can convince a client to hand over their money once, but it is the business owner who delivers a consistent and predictable service that retains clients and truly experiences the lifetime value of a customer. In this presentation, Pete will take an in-depth look at the core values, systems and principles that helped to create the foundation of our success at Cressey Sports Performance.
Tim Geromini (CSP-FL Coach) -- Piecing Together the Back Pain Puzzle
At some point in their careers, all fitness professionals will certainly encounter clients suffering from acute and chronic low back pain. The presentation aims to help you understand the complex origins of that pain to assist clients move pain free again. Tim will give special consideration to the collaborative efforts between rehabilitation specialists and fitness professionals.
Laura Canteri (CSP-FL Coach) -- Joint Distraction Exercises: Friend or Foe?
Joint distraction has recently become a more popular form of mobility in the fitness community. This technique provides new ranges of motion by creating more “space” inside a joint complex and stretching the surrounding tissues. Most people find immediate, short-term improvements in their range of motion and pain through joint distraction. This quick fix may result in more harm than good; therefore, Laura will take a closer look at some common band distraction exercises that you may want to reconsider.
Tony Bonvechio (CSP-MA Coach) -- Creating Context for More Efficient Coaching
Coaches put endless focus into what they say, but this presentation will illustrate the importance of how they say it. Creating context with your clients goes beyond internal and external cueing, and the ability to create "sticky" teaching moments will get your athletes moving better and more efficiently. Tony will discuss different cueing approaches, how they resonate with different learning styles, and how to say more with less to help your clients learn new movements with ease.
Location:
Cressey Sports Performance
880 Jupiter Park Dr.
Suite 7
Jupiter, FL 33458
We’re really excited about this event, and would love to have you join us! However, space is limited and each seminar we’ve hosted in the past has sold out quickly, so don’t delay on signing up!
If you have additional questions, please direct them to cspflorida@gmail.com. Looking forward to seeing you there!
PS - If you're looking for hotel information, The Fairfield Inn in Jupiter, FL offers our clients a discounted nightly rate. Just mention "Cressey" during the booking process in order to secure the discount. Their booking phone number is 561-748-5252.
This is my first installment of this series since October, so hopefully I can atone for that with a solid January performance. Here goes!
1. On several occasions, I've written that if you are going to include an exercise in a program, you absolutely have to be able to justify how it's going to create the training effect you want. In particularly, this is a question that should be asked constantly during sprinting and agility progressions. The end goal is obviously to (safely) put a lot of force into the ground as quickly as possible to create powerful athletic movements in all three planes of motion. Sometimes, I feel like we get very caught up in just programming drills for the sake of programming drills. There are a million different types of skipping drills, for instance, and we use a lot of them. Athletes certainly ought to be able to skip, but at the end of the day, we have to ask ourselves if making a skip more advanced and elaborate is really going to make an athlete move better. Or, would we be better off devoting that training volume to actual sprint work? There isn't really a "correct" answer to these questions, but I do think it's important to critically analyze our programs to see if the carryover from drills to actual athletic performance is really that good.
2. Earlier today, I was discussing outfield "jumps" with a few of our Cressey Sports Performance clients, including Sam Fuld, an Oakland A's outfielder who is well known for making some pretty crazy plays in center field. We were talking about lower-body movement (hip turn, crossover run, etc.) during the initial break as he reads a ball off a bat, but as we went to actually find some video online, my attention went elsewhere. Check out this play where Sam traveled 58 feet to make a diving catch:
What I noticed was the fact that he never actually got upright. He stayed in acceleration mode the entire time. If you replay the video from above, watch the :08 through :11 second interval. You'll rarely see a player cover more ground in the field.
This is yet another reason why I think a 30-yd (or home-to-first) time is more appropriate for assessing baseball-specific speed than a 60-time. Baseball players rarely get to top speed, whether it's in running the bases or playing the field. And, more importantly, they'd never do it in a straight line. I'm beginning to think that a 60-time is about as useful for a baseball evaluation as the 225lb bench press test is for NFL players...
3. Remember that not all your anterior core work has to be slower tempo drills like rollouts and fallouts, or low-level isometrics like prone bridges. Rather, remember that any time you go overhead while maintaining a neutral spine, you're working to resist excessive extension at your lumbar spine. In other words, overhead med ball drills can be great anterior core progressions - and here's a way to take them to the next level:
4. Resistance bands are awesome on a number of training fronts. They can be used to accommodate the strength curve, making the movements more challenging at the points in the range of motion where we are strongest. They can also be used to deload certain movements at positions where we are weakest.
In sports performance training, though, I'd say that their biggest value is in teaching direction - and subsequently loading it. As an example, I like band-resisted broad jumps because they allow us to produce force in a path that would be challenging to load in any other way. And, we need to produce force in this path during everyday athletic endeavors:
This is an area where Lee Taft really excels. When I watch experienced coaches teaching and coaching, I look for patterns that stand out: strategies that they return to frequently. In his new Certified Speed and Agility Coach course, Lee uses a band a ton to teach direction of force application and create appropriate angles for acceleration. It made me realize that we can get more efficient in some of our coaching strategies by busting out the band a bit more.
Speaking of Lee, the early-bird $100 discount on his new certification wraps up this Friday at midnight. I'm finishing it up myself and really benefited on a number of fronts - and our entire Cressey Sports Performance staff will be going through the resource as well. You can learn more about the course HERE.
Sign-up Today for our FREE Newsletter and receive a four-part video series on how to deadlift!
