I know I’ve been a bit out of the loop of late, but I’m happy to report that it’s been for a good reason.

On Friday, July 13th, I officially made the move to open my own facility.  Since my return to Boston last year, business has taken off like I couldn’t possibly have imagined, and it was time to go for it.  While we’re still making a ton of renovations and some of the equipment purchases won’t arrive for another few weeks, Cressey Performance is already in full-swing; my athletes and clients are practically kicking the door down.

Located in Hudson, MA, the facility is roughly 4,500 square feet, including:

-Roughly 2,500 feet devoted to strength training equipment

-a 40-yard straightaway for sprinting (soon to be turf)

-roughly 1,000 feet of open space for movement training

-two offices

The facility itself is a subdivision of a 16,000-square-foot space we’ll be sharing with America’s Pastime, a baseball training facility that has eight batting cages and two pitching mounds.  I work with a ton of baseball guys, so we’ve basically created a place where they can hit, throw, sprint, and lift all in the same trip.  We’re also exploring the possibility of a second smaller location closer to the city where I can work in a more individualized context with my higher-level athletes.

I consider myself really fortunate to have onboard two guys – Pete Dupuis and Tony Gentilcore – who will be great assets for years to come.  We’ll be dealing with a ton of young athletes, and both these guys have a lot of experience with that population (Pete has coached high school soccer for five years, and Tony is still certified as a teacher in NY state).  Pete will be handling the business side of Cressey Performance so that Tony and I can focus on our strengths: coaching athletes and helping people to achieve their fitness goals.

Logistics aside, I have to get a bit sentimental here and say that having my name on a facility like this means more than you can possibly imagine.  Many of you know that I went through some tough times years ago because I was a young athlete who never had guidance in terms of training and nutrition.  I really could have used a place like this years ago.

I’ve coached professional and Olympic athletes, set world records in powerlifting, published two books, created nine DVDs, written over 200 articles, and spoken all over the US and abroad, but the truth is that all of that doesn’t even feel remotely significant when I think about the difference Cressey Performance will be able to make for thousands of young athletes in the years to come.

When I go back to my hometown of Kennebunk, ME and see generations of students and parents raving about what a difference my mother (a local teacher) has made in their lives, I can’t help but think that it would be a great position for me to be in 25 years from now.  In the context of our industry, Mike Boyle is a perfect example of what someone who really cares about his athletes can do over an extended period of time.  I consider myself very fortunate to have guys like Mike, Alwyn Cosgrove, Dave Tate,John Berardi, and Jason Ferruggia as friends and mentors; this certainly would never have come to fruition without them.

I want to take a moment to thank two vendors – Perform Better and Elite Fitness Systems – for all their help in pulling this thing together on such short notice.  You won’t find better service anywhere.

As it’s the season of physique transformations, it seems only fitting to post a “before” picture of my own…own FACILITY, that is.  Here’s what the place looked like on Saturday morning, July 14.  The place already looks dramatically different, and we’ll have more up-to-date photos for you very soon.

It’s been an incredibly busy and exhausting three weeks thus far, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t say thank you to all of you readers and customers for helping me (in one way or another) to get to where I am today.  Thanks for your continued support, and my apologies for being out of the loop as we’ve worked to pull this all together.  Please keep an eye out for the official launch of www.CresseyPerformance.com – and information on a grand opening.  Renovations should be complete early next week, with the remainder of our equipment arriving by the end of the month.

In the meantime, you can support the cause by picking up a Cressey Performance T-Shirt from our PRODUCTS page.

Some other quick notes:

-A huge thanks goes out to everyone who attended my Program Design workshop at Equinox in NYC on July 22 (yes, I really went to New York amidst all this).

-My co-author Matt Fitzgerald and I just submitted a new book to our editor at Avalon Publishing; it’ll be released in the Spring of 2008.  I’ll be filling you in on more details soon.

-I highly recommend you check out a great interview with Dr. Jeff Volek at T-Nation.  I was fortunate enough to study under Dr. Volek (among others) at the University of Connecticut, and he’s absolutely brilliant.  You won’t be disappointed with this interview.

All the Best,

EC