Home 2018 December (Page 2)

Dallas Seminar Announcement: January 27, 2019

I just wanted to give you a heads-up on one-day seminar with me in Dallas on Sunday, January 27, 2019.

Cressey scapula

We’ll be spending the day geeking out on shoulders, as the event will cover Shoulder Assessment, Corrective Exercise, and Programming.  The event will be geared toward personal trainers, strength and conditioning professionals, rehabilitation specialists, and fitness enthusiasts alike.

Agenda

9:00AM-9:30AM – Inefficiency vs. Pathology (Lecture)
9:30AM-10:15AM – Understanding Common Shoulder Injuries and Conditions (Lecture)
10:15AM-10:30AM – Break
10:30AM-12:30PM – Upper Extremity Assessment (Lab)
12:30PM-1:30PM – Lunch
1:30PM-3:30PM – Upper Extremity Mobility/Activation/Strength Drills (Lab)
3:30PM-3:45PM – Break
3:45PM-4:45PM – Upper Extremity Strength and Conditioning Programming: What Really Is Appropriate? (Lecture)
4:45PM-5:00PM – Q&A to Wrap Up

Location

Atlet Sports
617 North 7th St.
Midlothian, TX 76065

Continuing Education Credits

This event is approved for 0.7 CEUs through the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA).

Cost: $199.99

Click here to register using our 100% secure server!

Note: we'll be capping the number of participants to ensure that there is a lot of presenter/attendee interaction - particularly during the hands-on workshop portion - so be sure to register early, as previous offerings of this evan have sold out well in advance of the early-bird registration deadline.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Questions? Please email ec@ericcressey.com.

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Performance Programming Principles: Installment 3

It's been a while since I updated this series on program design, so I figured it'd be a good time to throw some new material at you on this front.

1. Ground-to-standing transitions are invaluable, but it's challenging to know where to put them in programming.

I'm a big fan of exercises like Turkish get-ups and kneeling overhead hold-to-stands, as they're awesome for "syncing up" the lower and upper body to teach force transfer through a stable core. Yesterday, I posted a video of one of my new favorites - half-kneeling offset kettlebell get-ups - and I got a question about how we'd incorporate this in a program.

The challenge is that these could be considered extended warm-up drills, core work, upper body work, and even lower body work (depending on what variation you're using) once the load gets heavy enough. A kettlebell windmill can even be viewed somewhat similarly.

With that said, I find myself programming these first thing in an upper body training session. My experience has been that they are a good "transition" from the medicine ball work into more conventional rows, presses, push-ups, etc. They also generally pair really well with most upper body pulling exercises, as they aren't super grip intensive (gravity helps to hold the KB in the hand).

Later in the offseason, when guys transition to three days per week strength training, we'll plug these in as part of a full-body session because...well...they're about as full-body as you can get.

2. Complex training won't ever be "perfect" when you're working on power development in the frontal and transverse planes.

We like to work in post-activation potentiation in our offseason programs around December/January. I covered this in a lengthy article, The Stage System, at T-Nation in the past, but a quick synopsis of one benefit is that when you do heavy stuff before lighter stuff, your lighter stuff feels much faster. As a result, complex training - using a heavy strength(high load, lower velocity) exercise right before a movement that's lower force, higher velocity (e.g., jumps, throws) can be helpful for eliciting greater power output.

Here's where it gets a bit challenging when dealing with rotational sport athletes. We know that power is relatively plane specific. In other words, just using sagittal plane power exercises like broad and vertical jumps won't necessarily have great carryover to power in the frontal and transverse planes. Instead, we need to do more things like Heidens (skaters) and rotational medicine ball work. Unfortunately, though, it's really hard to load people up on the first exercise in the frontal and transverse planes; you can only go so heavy with a lateral lunge.

With that in mind, we'll often use a more traditional heavy sagittal plane exercise - deadlift, squat, or axial-loaded single leg exercise - for lower reps, but then do the power exercise in the frontal/transverse plane. An example might be:

A1. Safety Squat Bar Squats: 4x3, 30s rest
A2. Heidens: 4x4/side, 120s rest

3. We use more direct forearm work with our pitchers than we have in the past.

For a long time, we really didn't use any direct forearm work with our baseball players. My feeling had always been that they got plenty of grip work in their regular strength training. Two things changed my mind on this.

First, I saw what a game-changer is it to strengthen throwers closer to end-range external rotation in the 90/90 position. In other words, rather than just expecting arm care work with the elbow at the sides to magically carry over to the positions where guys threw, we actually trained guys at those positions. Novel concept, huh?

Second, thanks to the higher quality slow-motion video we have at our fingertips these days, we can better appreciate that throwers' forearms get into considerably more supination and pronation throughout the throwing delivery than we were training in the weight room. While we were doing a lot to preserve those ranges-of-motion, we weren't doing anything to provide good strength throughout those ranges-of-motion.

With that in mind, we attack our direct forearm work in two particular ways: supination/pronation and ulnar deviation. Here are some Instagram posts that'll walk you through the why: 

Nowadays, we'll work in some of this direct forearm work 1-2x/week at the end of our upper body training sessions with our throwers.

I'll be back soon with another programming strategy brain dump. Have a great week!

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Exercise of the Week: Quadruped 1-arm Trap Raise to Swimmer Hover

I recently started implementing the quadruped 1-arm trap raise to swimmer hover with some of our baseball guys, and it’s quickly become one of my favorites.

This drill addresses several important needs in a throwing population:

1. scapular posterior tilt

2. scapular upward rotation

3. tissue extensibility of the long head of the triceps and lat

4. the quadruped (all fours) position really reaffirms the good convex-concave relationship between the scapula and rib cage

You should not feel this at all in the front or top of the shoulder. Rather, the movement should be felt in the lower traps (mid back) and serratus anterior (add a full exhale at the top of each rep to intensify that activation). Some individuals will feel a good stretch through the triceps.

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

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Strength and Conditioning Stuff You Should Read: 12/1/18

I hope you've had a good week and are looking forward to the weekend. To kick it off, here's a little recommended reading and listening:

Relationship Between Range of Motion, Strength, Motor Control, Power, and the Tennis Serve in Competitive-Level Tennis Players: A Pilot Study - This research study was just published in the past few months, and it once again demonstrates that sagittal plane power exercises (e.g., broad jump) don't predict performance in rotational sport activities (e.g., tennis serve). I've been saying this for close to a decade: power is plane-specific! If you're looking for more details on this topic, here's where I first put it out there: What I Learned in 2010.

Andy McCloy on the Physical Preparation Podcast - I was a huge fan of Andy's first appearance on Mike Robertson's podcast, and this sequel didn't disappoint, either.

Frank Duffy on the Robby Row Show - Cressey Sports Performance coach Frank Duffy was a guest on Robby Rowland's podcast to discuss Functional Range Conditioning concepts and how we apply them with our baseball players.

Top Tweet of the Week

Top Instagram Post of the Week

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