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| It doesn’t cost a thing to be punctual, professional, and polite. I credit a ton of my success to the fact that my parents instilled these values in me at an early age. Write thank you notes to people who help you. Shake people’s hands firmly and look them directly in the eye. Show up on time. Dress up for seminars that warrant dressing up. Spell-check everything. Say “please” and “thank you.” You’d be amazed at how far these things go – seriously. Dale Carnegie's book How to Win Friends and Influence People should be required reading in every high school for this very reason.
Eric Cressey
Have you ever wondered what separates the average coaches from the best of the best? |
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| I have gone through your book and it is very good. I am however confused as to how I can apply the phases to year round sports like BJJ. Our tournaments are not to often and I do not find out about them until 2 months before. I love the static template as it is just what I need. Any help with organizing this into a yearly plan would be great. Thanks.
A few options:
1. Give it up and take up checkers. :)
2. Plan several mini off-seasons. That is, go into off-season mode, and then just kick in the metabolic conditioning work 4-6 weeks out from your tournament.
3. Set aside 4-5 months out of the year when you won't compete; you'll just train.
Eric Cressey
Step-by-Step what it Takes to Become a Superior Athlete |
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| Q: In light of the information in your Ultimate Off-Season Training Manual, i.e. minimizing sport specific training in the off season, how would you train a basketball player with a dire need to improve his ballhandling skills and jump shooting?
A: You're actually in luck, as these are skills that aren't as hard on the system as actual gameplay. That is, you might get some accumulated fatigue from loads of jump shooting, but it really won't detract from your weight room work. We always just tried to get our guys to do the two in separate sessions - or even use the shooting in small sessions to help warm them up for lifting.
Eric Cressey |
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If you don’t love what you’re doing, find something else. Be enthusiastic; you can't teach passion. If you love this, act like it and have some fun! You’ll be amazed at how your athletes and clients get excited when YOU get excited. And, if you're just training for you, you'll be amazed at how much better you progress when you find something that excites you. Going to train should never be an undesirable experience; if it is, you need to shuffle things up.
Eric Cressey
Have you ever wondered what separates the average coaches from the best of the best? |
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Honestly, the word “core” has become so hackneyed that it makes me kind of ashamed that our profession. I mean, let’s face it: “Core” can essentially be translated as “The rectus abdominus, lumbar erectors, obliques, and all those other muscles between the knees and shoulders that I’m either too lazy or misinformed to list.”
Everything is related; our bodies are great at compensating. As such, it’s imperative that the approach one takes to “core” training be based on addressing where the problems exist. The most common lower back problems we see are related to extension-rotation syndrome. We most often get hyperextension at the lumbar spine because our gluteus maximus doesn’t fire to complete hip extension and posteriorly tilt the pelvis; we have to find range of motion wherever we can get it. Having tight hip flexors and lumbar erectors exaggerates anterior pelvic tilt, so this hyperextension is maintained throughout the day to keep the body upright in spite of the faulty pelvic alignment.
The rotation component simply comes along when you throw unilateral dominance into the equation. It might be a baseball pitcher always throwing in one direction, or an office worker always turning to answer the phone on one side. Lumbar rotation is not a movement for which you want any extra range of motion, and the related hip hiking isn’t much fun to deal with, either.
The solution is to get the glutes firing and learn to stabilize the lumbar spine while enhancing mobility at the hips, thoracic spine, and scapulae. You just have to get the range of motion at the right places.
Unfortunately, thinking this stuff out isn’t high on some people’s priority list. It’s “sexier” to tell a client to do some weighted sit-ups, Russian twists, and enough yoga to make the hip flexors want to explode. I’m not going to recommend sit-ups to anyone, and if an athlete is going to do something advanced, he’s going to have shown me that he’s prepared for it by successfully completing a progression to that point. You can get away with faulty movement patterns in the real world, but when you put a faulty movement pattern under load in a resistance training context, everything is magnified.
Eric Cressey
Start with the right plan. |
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This is the foundation for everything. I’d like to be able to give you a quick-fix answer, but the truth is that nothing will ever go as far as elbow grease and perseverance. It sucks, but work long hours - longer than you could even imagine. I have regularly worked 80+ hour weeks for as long as I can remember; at times, it has been 40 of athletes/clients (some for free) and 40 of writing/online consulting/forum responses. I did it in the past so that I could get to where I am now, and I do it now to capitalize on the foundation I put down in the past and so that I can spend time with my family when that day comes.
I had a conversation with Mike Boyle on this back in December, and asked him flat-out where I should draw the line on work and play. His response: "At your age, you don't. Sleep in the office if you have to. It'll all pay off." You won't find someone who works harder than I do, and when one of the most sought-out performance enhancement coaches in the history of sports gives an overachiever like me that kind of encouragement, you not only pay attention; you go from really productive to crazy productive.
So, in short, the truth is that I have busted my butt from day one and wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t done so. I didn’t spend a penny on alcohol in my college career; it was better spent on resources such as books, DVDs, seminars, and quality food and supplements to make me the lifter and coach that I am today. I never went on Spring Break; I worked in gyms and with athletes at universities for every single one of them through my six years of college education (undergraduate and graduate).
I didn’t abuse my body with excessive late nights – or any alcohol or drugs – because I knew how such behavior would affect my training, coaching, and writing. I haven't even watched an episode of Survivor, 24, American Idol, Lost, Alias, Will and Grace, The Apprentice, or any of a number of other popular shows I'm forgetting to mention; I'd just rather be doing other things. Don't get me wrong; I've still had fun along the way, but I've gotten better about finding a balance. Life is all about choices, and I chose to be where I am today.
Eric Cressey
Have you ever wondered what separates the average trainers from the best of the best? |
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Eric Cressey
In addition to learning outside the gym, right off the top of your head, what are five things that our readers can do right now to become a better lifters, athletes, coaches, and/or trainers.
Bob Youngs
1) A good program must include: movement prep, flexibility work, injury prevention work, core work, cardio work, strength training, and recovery/regeneration work. Does that sound familiar? In other words, construct programs that incorporate all aspects.
2) Read one book per week. If you ever come over to my house you will see hundreds of books. I shoot for one new book per week.
3) Network within your given sport or profession. If you are a powerlifter, seek out lifters stronger than you and learn from them. If you are a strength coach, seek out another coach you think has something to offer that you don’t have. You get the idea. Most people are willing to share information if you ask them; this is usually the way you will learn the most.
4) Work smarter. Many people work hard; what makes a person the best at any given task is usually working smarter.
5) Have properly defined and realistic goals, and write them down. I am shocked by the amount of athletes and coaches who have one broad goal and no steps to get there. Set a big goal and then break it down into smaller goals. I will use a powerlifter as an example. I hear all the time, “I want to squat 800 pounds.” That’s great, but how do you get there? If you have a current max of 500, your next small goal might be to squat 550. Then, you break that down further to knowing you need to hit X on a given max effort exercise. Now, you have a goal every time you go into the gym. |
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| Q: I have an imbalance - one leg vs. the other. Do you suggest doing 100% unilateral leg-work for a while to cure the imbalance?
A: This is a tough one to answer; it's never as simple as "right and left." Generally, you'll see muscles on each side that are a bit stronger or weaker. For example, in right-handed individuals, they'll typically be stronger on lunging movements with the left leg forward. The left ITB/TFL, right quadratus lumborum, and right adductors will be tight, while the right hip abductors, left adductors, and left quadratus lumborum will be weak.* There are more complex ramifications at the ankle and foot, too. Often, the best way to address the unilateral imbalance in a broad sense is to figure out where people are tight/weak and address those issues. I've seen lunging imbalances corrected pretty easily with some extra QL work or pure stabilization work at the lumbar spine. The tricky thing about just doing extra sets on one side is that your body will often try to compensate for the imbalances. You might get the reps in, but are you really doing anything to even yourself out if you're just working around the dysfunction?
This is just some stuff to consider. I don't think doing more on that side will hurt, but it won't always get you closer to where to want to be.
Eric Cressey |
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| Here it is, the grand finale.
In Part I of this series, I introduced you to a collection of deadlifting prerequisites needed to qualify my recommendations to you — and enable you to determine if deadlifting is right for you in the first place.
In Part II, I covered the good, the bad, and the ugly of the conventional deadlift, the cornerstone of the deadlifting world.
With the prerequisites and the general technique issues resolved, it's time to diversify and look at several deadlifting variations you can use to give your training plenty of variety without losing out on the tremendous benefits of heavy pullin'!
Continue Reading... |
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Q: I am a strongman competitor and am thinking about incorporating squat briefs into my training. I talked to a powerlifter buddy of mine and he said he would recommend briefs for max effort squats and deadlifts to keep the hips healthy. What do you think about this?
A: Well, my first observation is that you’re not going to be using the briefs in competition, are you? Specificity is more important than people think; what’s specific for a powerlifter won’t necessarily be specific for a strongman.
However, given the nature of the training you’ll be doing (powerlifting-influenced), I wouldn’t rule the briefs out right away. It depends on whether you're regularly box squatting and/or squatting with a wide stance. If you are, I'd say that they're a good investment, and you could use them 1-2 weeks out of the month.
I would, however, caution against using them as a crutch against poor lifting technique. There are a lot of guys who just throw on briefs because their hips hurt, not realizing that it isn't the specific exercise that is the problem; it's the performance of that exercise that gives them trouble. For example, hamstrings dominant hip extension/posterior pelvic tilt allows the femoral head to track too far anteriorly and can cause anterior hip pain. If the glutes are activated appropriately, they reposition the head of the femur so that this isn't a problem. Unfortunately, a good 80% of the population doesn't have any idea how to use their glutes for anything except a seat cushion.
Eric Cressey
Efficient Athletes will always be Better Athletes |
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LEARN
HOW TO
DEADLIFT
- Avoid the most common deadlifting mistakes
- 9 - minute instructional video
- 3 part follow up series
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