Home 2017 November

Making Sense of Bad Rehab and Fitness Advice

"Don't assume; it makes an ASS out of U and ME." It's one of the most hackneyed expressions of all time, but it's a lesson many folks in the fitness industry - and casual observers to this industry - will never seem to learn. Assuming an exercise or methodology will help or hurt someone is one of the biggest mistakes I see across all training programs. Perhaps the most readily apparent example is in individuals with back pain.

“Your back hurts? You should try yoga.”

“Back pain? Just give up squats and deadlifts and only do single-leg work instead.”

"Your low back is cranky? Try McKenzie press-ups and it'll fix you right up."

You know what? I’ve seen people whose back pain got considerably worse when they took up yoga. I’ve also seen people whose low backs feel better when they avoid single-leg work and stay with bilateral exercises like the deadlift. And I've seen extension-intolerant individuals integrate McKenzie press-ups on a friend's recommendation and flare up their symptoms.

That doesn't mean any of these recommendations are inherently bad, or that the ones giving the recommendations aren't well intentioned. It's just that you're going to a podiatrist to get dental advice; it isn't a qualified recommendation, nor is it backed by a solid sample size of success.

Sometimes, the exercise selection is the problem (the wrong yoga poses).

Other times, it’s the technique is the problem (your squat form is horrific).

Occasionally, the timing is the problem (disc pain is worst first thing in the morning, so it's probably not the time to test out deadlifting for the first time in six months.

Often, the volume is the problem (maybe it would have been good to run 1/2 mile pain-free before trying to jog ten miles).

Rarely does an entire discipline (ALL of yoga or ALL of strength training) need to be contraindicated.

We need to avoid assuming that all back pain is the same and instead dig deeper to find out what works for each individual. The same can be said for shoulders, hips, knees, ankles, necks, and just about every other musculoskeletal malady we encounter. Good assessment and a solid library of knowledge from which to draw both help to solidify recommendations as sound.

 

Here, we basically have a missing infraspinatus. That's your largest - and likely most important - rotator cuff muscle. It's secondary to a suprascapular cyst. I usually see 1-2 of these in professional pitchers each offseason, and while most are usually completely asymptomatic, it has a dramatic impact on the way we approach their offseason arm care programs. We want to them to REMAIN pain-free. 😮 Here, we also have a friendly reminder of why you should always, always, always do upper extremity assessments shirtless (or in a tank top/sports bra, with females) if you deal with overhead athletes. 🤔 Never miss a big rock with your assessments. Know your population. #cspfamily #shoulderhealth #shoulderpain #rotatorcuff #SportsMedicine

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Injuries and conditions are usually very multifactorial. We rarely hurt simply from an isolated traumatic incident; rather, it's the accumulation of various aberrant movements over the course of time that bring us to a symptomatic threshold. And that's why we need to build broad skillsets that encompass assessments, programming strategies, coaching cues, and an appreciation for how all the pieces fit together in determining whether someone hurts or not.

That's what Mike Reinold and I aimed to do with our Functional Stability Training resources; give both rehabilitation specialists and strength and conditioning professionals the tools they need to help keep people healthy - or, in the clinical sense, help them get healthy in the first place. This four-part series is on sale for 25% off through Monday at midnight by using the coupon code BF2022 at checkout; for more information, check out www.FunctionalStability.com.


 

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CSP Clothing for the Holidays

With the holiday shopping season upon us, I wanted to highlight some goodies we have for sale from the Cressey Sports Performance clothing line. As a little Black Friday/Cyber Monday bonus, we'll do free domestic shipping on all orders over $50 (we'll refund your shipping charge after the order is placed). Just click on the link of whatever you'd like an it'll automatically be added to your cart (and you can keep clicking to add multiple items).

NEW Navy CSP Camo T-Shirts - $24.99: XXL, Extra Large, Large, Medium, Small

NEW Blue CSP Elite Baseball Development T-Shirts - $24.99: XXL, Extra Large, Large, Medium, Small

NEW CSP Tank Top - $24.99: XXL, Extra Large, Large, Medium, Small

CSP Ladies Tank Top - $24.99: - Extra Large, Large, Medium, Small

Note: If you'd like to purchase one, please just add the appropriate color you'd like (teal, black, or pink) in the comments section at checkout. An important note: these tank tops run a bit big, so you'll want to order a size smaller than you'd normally get.

CSP Baseball Hat - $24.99: (One Size Fits All)

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Should You “Balance” Your Pushes and Your Pulls?

A while back, I posted on social media about how I think the concept of balancing pushes with pulls in your programming is outdated. It received some hefty debate, so I thought I'd delve into the topic a bit further in today's video.

To learn more about how I assess, program, and coach at the shoulder joint, be sure to check out Sturdy Shoulder Solutions.

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Strength and Conditioning Stuff You Should Read: 11/20/17

I hope you had a great weekend. Before I get to the recommended reading for the week, I wanted to give you a heads-up that with it being Thanksgiving week, we're kicking off our Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales early so that you have an entire week to take advantage of them. From now though Monday, November 27, you can get 25% off on any (or all) of the Functional Stability Training resources from Mike Reinold and me. You can check them out at www.FunctionalStability.com. No coupon code is necessary.

6 Principles to Improve Your Coaching - Speaking of Functional Stability Training, here's an excerpt from the latest offering on this front, FST: Optimizing Movement.

NFL Teams Address Fatigue Factor - We've worked a lot with Fatigue Science to monitor sleep quantity and quality with our athletes, and this article goes into detail on how they're impacted NFL teams as well.

Why We Use End-Range Lift-off - Cressey Sports Performance coach Frank Duffy discusses how to build active control of your passive range of motion.

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Cressey Sports Performance Elite Baseball Mentorship – January 14-16, 2018

We're excited to announce our next Elite Baseball Mentorship offering: an upper-extremity course that will take place on January 14-16, 2018 at our Hudson, MA facility.

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The Cressey Sports Performance Elite Baseball Mentorships provide an educational opportunity to become a trusted resource to this dramatically underserved athletic population. Through a combination of classroom presentations, practical demonstrations, case studies, video analysis, and observation of training, you’ll learn about our integrated system for performance enhancement and injury prevention and rehabilitation in baseball athletes. Cressey Sports Performance has become a trusted resource for over 100 professional players from all over the country each off-season, and this is your opportunity to experience “why” first-hand at our state-of-the-art facility.

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Course Description:

This Cressey Sports Performance Elite Baseball Mentorship has a heavy upper extremity assessment and corrective exercise focus while familiarizing participants with the unique demands of the throwing motion. You’ll be introduced to the most common injuries faced by throwers, learn about the movement impairments and mechanical issues that contribute to these issues, and receive programming strategies, exercise recommendations, and the coaching cues to meet these challenges. 

Course Agenda

Sunday

Morning Session: Lecture

8:30-9:00AM – Registration and Introduction (Eric Cressey)
9:00-10:00AM – Understanding the Status Quo: Why the Current System is Broken (Eric Schoenberg)
10:00-11:00AM – Common Injuries and their Mechanisms (Eric Schoenberg)
11:00-11:15AM – Break
11:15AM-12:15PM – Flawed Perceptions on “Specific” Pitching Assessments and Training Modalities (Eric Cressey)
12:15-1:00PM – Lunch (provided)

Afternoon Session: Lecture and Practical

1:00-3:00PM – Physical Assessment of Pitchers: Static and Dynamic (Eric Cressey and Eric Schoenberg)
3:00-3:15PM – Break
3:15-5:15PM – Prehabilitation/Rehabilitation Exercises for the Thrower (Eric Cressey and Eric Schoenberg)
5:15-5:30PM – Case Studies and Q&A

5:30PM Reception (Dinner Provided)

Monday

Morning Session: Lecture and Video Analysis

8:00-9:00AM – Strength Training Considerations for the Throwing Athlete (Eric Cressey)
9:00-10:00AM – Key Positions in the Pitching Delivery: Understanding How Physical Maturity and Athletic Ability Govern Mechanics (Christian Wonders)
10:00-10:15AM – Break
10:15-11:30AM – Video Evaluation of Pitchers: Relationship of Mechanical Dysfunction to Injury Risk and Performance (Christian Wonders)

11:30AM-12:00PM – Lunch (on your own)

Afternoon Session: Observation at Cressey Sports Performance – 12PM-5PM*

Tuesday

Morning Session: Practical

8:00-9:00AM – Preparing for the Throwing Session: Optimal Warm-up Protocols for Different Arms (Eric Cressey and Eric Schoenberg)
9:00-11:00AM – Individualizing Drill Work to the Pitcher and Live Bullpens from CSP Pitchers (Christian Wonders)
11:00-11:30AM – Closing Thoughts and Q&A (Eric Cressey, Eric Schoenberg, and Christian Wonders)
11:30AM-12:00PM – Lunch (on your own)

Afternoon Session: Observation at Cressey Sports Performance – 12PM-5PM*

* The afternoon observation sessions on Monday and Tuesday will allow attendees to see in real-time the day-to-day operation of the comprehensive baseball training programs unique to Cressey Sports Performance. This observation of live training on the CSP floor with our professional, college, and high school baseball players will allow you to experience firsthand our approaches to:

• Programming
• Proper coaching cues for optimal results
• Soft tissue techniques
• Activation and mobility drills
• Strength/power development
• Medicine ball work
• Multi-directional stability
• Metabolic conditioning
• Sprint/agility programs
• Base stealing technique

In addition, you will experience:

• Live throwing sessions
• Biomechanical video analysis
• Movement evaluation
• Live evaluations of attendees with Eric Schoenberg

Location:

Cressey Sports Performance
577 Main St.
Suite 310
Hudson, MA 01749

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Cost:

$999.99 regular rate

No sign-ups will be accepted on the day of the event.

Continuing Education Credits:

2.0 NSCA CEUs (20 contact hours)

Registration Information:

Click here to register using our 100% secure server.

Notes:

• No prerequisites required.
• Participants will receive a manual of notes from the event’s presentations.
• Space is extremely limited
• We are keeping the size of this seminar small so that we can make it a far more productive educational experience.
•This event will not be videotaped.

For details about travel, accommodations, and other logistics, please email cspmass@gmail.com.

We hope to see you there!
  

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Random Thoughts on Long-Term Fitness Industry Success – Installment 8

I'm long overdue for a new installment on this series, so here are some thoughts that have been rattling around my brain on the business side of fitness.

1. Unique skill sets help you fill in the cracks.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret: most of the strength and conditioning resumes that come across my desk are painfully similar. Seriously, they are 90% the same. Here's an excerpt from a presentation I gave earlier this year when I touched on the topic:

As you can probably infer, experience like this is really abundant - and what is abundant is rarely coveted. I'm not saying any of things are bad to have on a resume; I'm just saying that they're prerequisites, not differentiating factors.

So how does an up-and-coming strength and conditioning professional stand out from the crowd? Here are a few examples:

a. Fluency in another language (Spanish is incredibly useful at CSP, where we train quite a few bilingual baseball players)

b.Technology proficiency beyond the "norms" (I can't tell you how many times long-time CSP employee Chris Howard has helped out with everything from Powerpoint issues to wiring speakers)

c. A demonstrated history of lead generation and conversion (Have you built and grown a business? Have you found value where others missed it?)

d. An internship at an established facility (I'm going to look more fondly on someone who's interned at IFAST, Mike Boyles, EXOS, or something comparable - as opposed to the person who chose a random YMCA on the other side of the country)

e. Playing AND coaching baseball (have you seen it from both sides of the lens?)

The possibilities are endless, but the point is that these unique skill sets are differentiating factors that make it easier for someone to justify hiring you.

2. Your bio is probably more important than you think.

Most of the time, when someone posts their bio on a website, it's to make sure that prospective clients review it and recognize two things:

a. This person is qualified (Allison graduated from XYZ university with ABC degree, and has achieved these certifications)

b. This person is relatable (In his spare time, Doug enjoys walking his two pet schnauzers and eating ice cream with his wife of 27 years, Peggy.)

An experience the other night reminded me that it's important to give equal attention to each.

This guy lost out on a pretty big time client because he focused too much on being relatable; almost his entire bio was targeted toward potential patients, but not other practitioners who might be looking to evaluate his clinical skill set for the purpose of referrals.

When you write your bio, make sure you include components of both - and that might mean you have to trim the fat on some of the non-essentials.

3. Slow and steady still wins the race.

Have you ever heard the story of the small company who gets a big breakthrough to get their product on the shelves of Wal-Mart or Target - and then goes out of business just months later because they didn't have the short-term cash flow to keep up with a huge surge in production demands and inventory needs? Their systems couldn't keep up with their lead generation.

Many trainers would kill to add 20 new clients, but most fail to realize that they don't have the systems in place to take on that many new people and still deliver a high quality product. This is a classic story when a fitness bootcamp runs a Groupon to bring in a surge of new prospects - only to see their long-term members get irritated at crowded classes, watered down programming, and "flightly" training partners who go from one gym to the next each month. The systems weren't ready for the surge in leads.

Last summer, my business partner, Brian Kaplan, co-founded The Collegiate League of the Palm Beaches near our Jupiter, FL Cressey Sports Performance location.

In a matter of weeks, we added over 60 new college baseball players as 3-5 days/week clients for a two-month period. It took months of planning to make sure that we were staffed accordingly, and included loads of email outreach to schedule evaluations. It even meant that there were a few cases when we had to turn away "drop-in" evaluations from college guys who hadn't scheduled in advance. I even flew down from Massachusetts for a week to help out with the initial surge.

As Aaron Ross and Jason Lemkin wrote in From Impossible to Inevitable, "Speeding up growth creates more problems than it solves." It only makes sense that this would be a huge issue in the fitness industry, where we have people who are often skilled technicians, but not very savvy entrepreneurs and managers. So, unless you have your systems fine-tuned, be careful what you wish for when it comes to expanding your offering to new markets or within the existing market.

4. Read this post from my business partner, Pete Dupuis.

This is an excellent lesson that can apply to any endeavor in business and in life.

The Value in Giving More Than You Take

If you're looking for a longer read on this front, I'd highly recommend Adam Grant's Give and Take.

 

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Strength and Conditioning Stuff You Should Read: 11/13/17

I hope everyone had a great weekend. Here's a little recommended reading and viewing to check out:

Complete Core - This is Mike Boyle's new core training/programming resource. I'm working my way through it, and so far, so good! It's on sale for 50% off this week.

Is there a correlation between coaches' leadership styles and injury rates in elite football teams? - This was a fascinating study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

The Dangers of Aligning Yourself with a Specific Team or Program - Cressey Sports Performance - MA co-founder Pete Dupuis authored up this insightful piece on why you shouldn't leap at every offer of "exclusivity."

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I’m convinced that one of the (many) things that has set Corey apart over the course of his career is that he’s always made the early offseason extremely productive. 👇 While many players take 4-8 weeks of complete rest, he’s usually back in the gym in some capacity within ten days. Train smart, and you can get “easy gains” - improved mobility, rotator cuff strength, scapular control, and body composition - without interfering with the period of restoration. Over the course of a lengthy career, this could add up to more than an extra year of quality training in a sport when there never seems to be enough time to cover everything you want to cover. No matter what time of year it is, there’s always something you can do to get better. #cspfamily #cykluber #indians #mlb #Repost @frankduffyfitness (@get_repost) ・・・ I started @kinstretch work with Cleveland Indians pitcher Corey Kluber this off-season to complement his training program. Alongside his daily CARs routine, we've been working consistently on certain Positional Isometrics, Wall Peel Offs, and 90/90 Isometric Movement Paths (IsoMPs - shown in the video above). It doesn't matter if you're a Cy Young award winner or a 9-5 desk worker. The concepts of #functionalrangeconditioning and #kinstretch can be applied to all living individuals. #cspfamily #controlyourself . @drandreospina @deweynielsen @hunterfitness @danajohnflows @drmchivers @rannyron @koncious_k @ianmarkow @joegambinodpt

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Performance Programming Principles

Without a doubt, program design is one of the most challenging things for up-and-coming coaches to learn. With that in mind, here are a few thoughts on the topic - and I may even turn this into a regular series.

1. Volume matters.

I just counted them up, and it turns out, I wrote 105 programs in the month of October. I've basically been doing this since 2001, and in these kind of volumes since we opened Cressey Sports Performance in 2007.

When you do anything 3-4 times per day, eventually, it becomes a lot easier. This is why I encourage young coaches to seek out opportunities to program early on in their careers as often as possible. Have a family member who wants to drop 20 pounds? Offer to write something up. Have a buddy who wants a bigger bench press? Write up a specialization program. The best learning experiences will come when they report back on their experiences and you tinker with the program on the fly, but truthfully, even if they don't actually follow through on the program, you'll get better from going through the process. 

Moreover, make sure you have a wide variety of clients early on in your training career. You want to program for everyone from athletes, to general fitness folks, to post-rehab cases.

[bctt tweet="Be a good generalist to build a foundation for becoming a specialist later."]

2. Get some momentum.

Never, ever sit down to write a single program. Rather, always block off some time where you can write several in a row.

Programming is just like any other skill you practice; you need to find your groove. While I write programs every day, the truth is that I feel like the process comes more easily when it's 6-7 in a row on a Sunday night than 1-2 on a Tuesday morning. Like everything in life, "deep work" creates superior results - so try to find blocks of time devoted exclusively to programming.

If you're early in your career and don't have a lot of them to write, use it as an opportunity to write programs for hypothetical clients, or use it as a chance to review old programs you've written - and update them with new things you've learned.

3. Remember that programming is both a science and an art.

If you take two really skilled, experienced strength and conditioning coaches and have them write a program for the exact same athlete, you might get two markedly different programs. Coaches usually agree on the 90% of principles, but may disagree on the means to accomplish objectives. Just because one coach prefers to use block pulls and another likes trap bar deadlifts in month 1 doesn't make either of them incorrect. It's just an opportunity to highlight that there is an artistic component that goes hand-in-hand with the true science behind creating adaptation with training.

That said, there are scenarios where you don't get "poetic license" with your program. As an over the top example, you won't ever be able to convince me that a behind-the-neck barbell press is a good initiative in a 65-year-old man who is six weeks post-op on a rotator cuff repair. Science is so strong in some cases you can't even get to the art discussion; you have to earn the right (with your education) to get to that point.

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Pitchapalooza!

I'm excited to announce that I'll once again be speaking at Pitchapalooza near Nashville, TN. This year's event has an awesome speaker list and will surely be great on both the educational and networking side of the baseball industry. You can learn more HERE.

Hope to see you there!

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Strength and Conditioning Stuff You Should Read: 11/7/17

I hope you all had a great weekend. I just got back in the wee hours of Monday morning after teaching a shoulder course in Atlanta, so the new content at EricCressey.com will come in a day or two.

In the meantime, here's some recommended reading for the week:

The Power of Moments - If you've followed me for any length of time, you'll know that I'm a fan of Chip and Dan Heath's writing. This book is no exception, and for any of the fitness entrepreneurs (or any entrepreneurs) out there, I'd call it a must-read.

What Really Constitutes Functional Balance Training? - I had a discussion with another coach the other day about how to approach balance training in athletes, and it reminded me of this old blog of mine. 

Skill Acquisition Considerations for Athletes - These are lecture notes from a recent presentation Nick Winkelman delivered, and they're absolutely outstanding. I'd call this a must-read for any coach.

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LEARN HOW TO DEADLIFT
  • Avoid the most common deadlifting mistakes
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