My "random thoughts" pieces are some of my favorite writings that I've ever published, and today seemed like a good day to throw out some quick and easy ideas on how you can feel better, move better, lose fat, gain muscle, get strong, and - if you're super-motivated - take over the world. Here goes...
1. Get a good training partner.
There are random dudes you meet at the gym who provide a mediocre lift-off on the bench press here and there, and then there are dedicated training partners. There is a big difference. A good training partner will tell you to get your act together and train hard when you're slacking off, or even hold you back when your body is banged up, but you're stupidly trying to push through it. It's guaranteed accountability, motivation, expertise, safety, competition, and all-around awesomeness. To be honest, I often wonder if most people get the best results working with a trainer/strength coach for these factors more than the actual expertise the fitness professional provides!
2. Make your bedroom a cave.
One of the best investments my wife and I made when we bought our new house were reinforced window shades for our bedroom so that very little light could get through when they were down. They make a dramatic difference in terms of how dark you can make your room at night (especially if you have street lights near your residence) and were 100% worth the extra cost, as compared to regular shades.
Even if you don't want to spend the extra few bucks on souped-up shades, though, you can still get some of the benefits of "cave sleeping" by blocking out light from cell phones, alarm clocks, and - if you're a frat boy - bright green neon signs of your favorite beer in your dorm room. Also, do your best to shut the TV and computer off at least thirty minutes before you hit the sack as well, as it'll give your brain time to wind down and transition to some deep, restful sleep.
3. Take Athletic Greens.
I've always been a non-responder to supplements. As an example, I never gained an ounce when I started taking creatine in 2001, and never noticed a huge difference in sleep quality when I started taking ZMA. Still, I pretty much trust in research and go with these supplements, plus mainstays like fish oil and Vitamin D and assume that they're doing their job. It's interesting how some of the most essential supplements we take are the ones where we might notice the most subtle difference, isn't it?
Anyway, in 2011, I added Athletic Greens to this mix. I look at it as whole food based "nutritional insurance" use it in place of my multivitamin. I think it's solid not only as a greens supplement (which, incidentally, doesn't taste like dog crap), but also because it directly improves gut health to improve absorption of micronutrients. With loads of superfoods, herbal extracts, trace elements, antioxidants, and pre- and probiotics, I could tell that it would be something that would decrease inflammation and improve immunity (something I've viewed as increasingly important with each passing year as life has gotten more stressful with the growth of Cressey Performance).
Interestingly, one of our long-time athletes who is now playing baseball at a highly ranked D1 university, started taking Athletic Greens after we chatted about it this summer, and he sent me this note:
Hey Eric, thanks for the recommendation on Athletic Greens. I love the product! I have not gotten sick once since I started taking it 4 months ago, and my body feels better than ever. This is the first semester I haven't gotten sick. Hope all is well!
I guess I'm not the only one who likes it! Check it out for yourself here.
As an aside, they do a pretty cool combination where you can get greens, fish oil, and vitamin D all at once at a great price, and the fish oil is excellent quality. We have several athletes who get everything in this one place for convenience.
4. Go split-stance.
Last week, in my popular post, Are Pull-ups THAT Essential?, I included the following video of forearm wall slides at 135 degrees, a great drill we like to use to train upward rotation, as the arms are directly in the line of pull in the lower traps. With this exercise, we always cue folks "glutes tight, core braced" so that they don't just substitute lumbar extension in place of the scapulae moving into retraction/depression on the rib cage.
Unfortunately, these cues don't work for everyone - particularly those who are super lordotic (huge arch in their lower back). A great "substitute cue" for these folks is to simply go into a split stance, putting one foot out in front of the other (even if it's just slightly). As you have probably observed in performing single-leg exercises like lunges and split-squats, it is much harder to substitute lumbar extension for hip extension than it is with bilateral exercises like squats and deadlifts. Fortunately, the same is true of substituting lumbar extension for scapular movement on the rib cage. So, if you're struggling with the exercise above, simply move one foot out in front of the other and you should be golden.
5. Get some assessments done.
Imagine you were about to embark on a cross country trip with a great vacation in mind in, say, San Diego. However, I didn't tell you where you were starting the journey. While you might get to where you want to be (or at least close to it), it'd make the trip a lot more difficult. You'd probably blow a bunch of money on gas, sleep in some nasty motels in the middle of nowhere, pick up an awkward hitchhiked who smells like cabbage, and maybe even spend a night in a Tijuana jail along the way. Not exactly optimal planning.
A strength and conditioning program isn't much different than this cross-country trip. If you don't know how your body works - both internally and externally - you need to learn before you subject it to serious stress. Get some bloodwork done to see if you have any deficiencies (e.g., Vitamin D, iron, essential fatty acids) that could interfere with your energy levels, ability to recover, or endocrine response to exercise. Likewise, consult someone who understands movement to determine whether you have faulty movement patterns that could predispose you to injury. I think this is one reason why Assess and Correct has been our most popular product ever; it gives folks some guidance on where to start and where to go. Otherwise, the strength and conditioning program in front of you is really just a roadmap, and you don't know where the starting point is.
These are just a few quick thoughts that came to mind today, but I'll surely have many more in the follow-ups to this first installment. Feel free to post some of your own ideas in the comments section below, too!
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Here's a list of recommended strength and conditioning reading to kick off you week.
The Prevalence of Radiographic Hip Abnormalities in Elite Soccer Players - This recently published study in the AJSM shows us just how common hip issues are in soccer players - even if they're asymptomatic. You can apply this to hockey players as well - and possibly on an even more pronounced level. This goes hand-in-hand with some of my writings in the past about knees, shoulders, and lower backs. Just because someone is asymptomatic does not mean that they are "healthy" - and this is why assessment and an understanding of population-specific norms are so important!
Causes International - This isn't so much fitness-related, but I think it's a great organization worth checking out. The folks at Causes International provide an opportunity for you to help raise money for your favorite charities by donating your used electronics (a process known as upcycling). Most people have old gadgets kicking around the house, and these can easily be upcycled to benefit others and protect the environment.
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In part 1 of this series, I discussed the fact that – all other factors held constant – increasing stride length will improve pitching velocity. Unfortunately, when you simply tell a pitcher to stride further down the mound, there are usually some unfavorable mechanical consequences that actually hinder pitching velocity. So, be sure to read that piece before continuing on here.
That said, sometimes, physical limitations can make it difficult to acquire a longer stride. To that end, I wanted to use this second installment to begin to outline the top five limiting factors for those looking to get down the mound and throw harder.1. Hip Mobility
If you’re going to really get down the mound, you need outstanding adductor length on both the lead and trailing legs. That goes without saying. While we outline several options on our Assess and Correct DVD set, the split-stance kneeling adductor mobilization is definitely my favorite, as it improves adductor length in both hip flexion and extension:
Just as important, players need to stop “hanging out” in adduction in sitting and standing. I wrote about this in a bit more detail in my What I Learned in 2010 article (point #3). This is incredibly common in right-handed throwers, in particular. If your resting hip posture looks like this, fix it!
We use a variety of drills from the Postural Restoration Institute to help address the issue, but suffice it to say that you’ll be swimming upstream unless you learn to stop standing/sitting like this!
Additionally, you need adequate length of the trailing leg hip flexors – particularly rectus femoris – to ensure that you don’t cut off hip rotation prematurely. I like the wall hip flexor mobilization for this purpose. Keep in mind that we perform the exercises on both the front and trailing leg, as many pitchers will have substantial knee flexion deficit on the front leg secondary to the stress of landing/deceleration.
Third, you need adequate hip internal and external rotation on both sides. Hip external rotation range-of-motion on the trailing leg is particularly important to allow force to be applied over a longer distance. Additionally, hip internal rotation is key on the front side, as enables a thrower to utilize the lower half more efficiently in deceleration. Those without adequate internal rotation on the front side often cut their arm paths short and miss high with pitches – and put much more stress on their arm because the deceleration “arc” is shorter.
External rotation is best gained through glute activation drills (supine bridges, side-lying clams, x-band walks) in conjunction with simply externally rotating the femur during the split-stance kneeling adductor mobilization I featured earlier. For internal rotation, I like a gentle knee-t0-knee stretch/mobs (assuming no medial knee issues) , and bowler squats as a follow-up to get comfortable with the pattern.
Of course, all these mobility drills must be complemented by quality soft tissue work: foam rolling and, ideally, manual therapy with a qualified practitioner.
So, as you can see, adequate hip mobility for optimizing pitching velocity must take place in a number of planes. Additionally, you need to remember that mobility is always influenced by musculo-tendinous. capsular, ligamentous, and osseous (bony) restrictions, so no two pitchers will be the same in their needs. And, some pitchers simply may not have the bone structures to get into certain positions that are easy for other pitchers to achieve.
2. Lower-Body Strength/Power
You can’t discuss lower-body mobility without appreciating the interaction it has with lower-body strength and power.
You see, mobility is simply your ability to get into a certain position or posture. Flexibility is simply the excursion through which a joint can move. What’s the problem?
Flexibility doesn’t take into account stability. Just because you can get your joints to a certain position in a non-weight-bearing scenario doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to achieve that same position when you’re in a weight-bearing position, trying to throw 95mph as you move downhill. So, I’ll put my point in big, bold letters:
Pitchers need strength to have mobility.
Truth be told, building lower body strength in throwers isn’t tough. You use all the basics – single-leg work, deadlift variations, squat variations (when appropriate), sled work, pull-throughs, glute-ham raise, hip thrusts, glute bridges, etc. – but just work to make sure that they are safe for throwers (e.g., use the front squat grip instead of the back squat grip).
Strength isn’t just a foundation for mobility, though; it’s also a foundation for power. You can’t apply force quickly if you don’t have force! So, once players have an adequate foundation of strength, they can benefit more from rotational medicine ball exercises and plyos in the frontal/transverse planes to learn to better apply force outside the sagittal plane.
Make no mistake about it; having adequate strength/power to push off and rotate aggressively – not to mention decelerate the body on the front leg – is essential to outstanding pitching velocity.
I’ll be back soon with Part 3 of this series. In the meantime, if you’re looking for more hip mobility ideas for baseball players, check out Assess and Correct: Breaking Barriers to Unlock Performance.
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The dynamic warm-up is an extremely important component of a strength and conditioning program. In addition to reducing the risk of injury while enhancing subsequent performance in a variety of contexts, it's also a great place to implement corrective exercise drills to address underlying muscle imbalances.
With that in mind, to get the most out of your dynamic warm-up, keep in mind these six characteristics of an effective pre-training program.
1. A good dynamic warm-up should be preceded by soft tissue work.
Every one of our clients at Cressey Performance goes through the following foam rolling series (at the very least) prior to their first warm-up drills.
For a bit more on the rationale behind foam rolling, check out this post of mine from a few months ago. Needless to say, it's important - and will make your dynamic warm-up far more productive.
2. A good dynamic warm-up should progress from ground-based to standing.
When I write a warm-up, I want athletes to do all their ground-based activation and mobility drills first, rather than mix them in with standing exercises. This works not only for the sake of convenience, but also in terms of facility logistics: traffic throughout the gym is more predictable. As an example, I might use a wall hip flexor mobilization to improve hip extension range of motion before I'd get an athlete up to do lunge variations in the standing position.
I like to see things progress from ground-based, to standing in-place (e.g., scapular wall slides, bowler squats), to standing and moving.
3. A good dynamic warm-up should progress from single-joint to multi-joint movements.
We might do a rocking ankle mobilization or quadruped extension-rotation early in the warm-up to work purely on ankle mobility and thoracic spine mobility, respectively, but once the warm-up progresses and one becomes upright, all the joints need to be working together in an appropriate balance of mobility and stability. Just count how many different pieces are in place on this drill:
4. A good dynamic warm-up addresses mobility at the ankles, hips, and thoracic spine.
Even if people just worked on these three areas (to the exclusion of everything else) and then moved on to the rest of their strength training programs, the world would be a much healthier and high-performance place. Throw on restrictive footwear and sit hunched over a desk all day, and these are the areas that will suffer the most - so make sure you've got drills for each in the warm-up. Keep in mind that while one drill each for the ankle and thoracic spine mobility will be sufficient for most, it'll likely take several to take care of the hips, as they need to be moved in all three planes of motion.
5. A good dynamic warm-up should take into account joint laxity.
This is something I have to keep in mind all the time, as many of our baseball pitchers have considerable congenital joint laxity. Their joint ranges of motion are already so good that we don't need to do much (if at all) in terms of mobility work. Rather, we do substantially more low-level activation drills during the warm-up period to teach them how to stabilize joints prior to more intense exercise. Conversely, if you have someone who is as tight as a drum, chances are that you can be more aggressive with mobility drills, knowing the subsequent stability will come more easily to them.
6. A good dynamic warm-up should actually increase body temperature.
I see a lot of people who drag their heels going through a warm-up, thinking too much or simply wasting time along the way. You don't need to do 20 different drills, but rather select 8-10 drills and do them at a pace that allows you to get your body temperature and joint range of motion up sufficiently to be prepared for a more specific warm-up (e.g., light deadlifts). If you take it too slowly, it just won't have the same effect. While everyone is different when it comes to perspiration, I like to see athletes sweating a little bit by the end of the warm-up.
These are just a few quick and easy guidelines I like to keep in mind when writing the dynamic warm-ups in our strength and conditioning programs. Of course, each client has unique needs - from actual physical limitations to space/equipment limitations - that one must take into account as well.
To learn more, I'd encourage you to check out Assess and Correct: Breaking Barriers to Unlock Performance. This two-DVD set provides 27 assessments and 78 corrective exercises that can serve as the foundation for effective dynamic warm-ups in your strength and conditioning programs.
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When it comes to corrective exercise programs, everyone simply wants to know "what" is and isn't included - and rightfully so. Picking the right strength exercises and mobility drills - and contraindicating others - is absolutely crucial to making sure you get folks to where they want to be.
However, very rarely will you hear anyone specifically discuss the "when" in these scenarios, and as I'll demonstrate in today's piece, it's likely just as crucial to get this aspect correct.
To begin to illustrate my point, I'm going to reuse a quote from an article I wrote a few weeks ago, Correcting Bad Posture: Are Deadlifts Enough?, on the Law of Repetitive Motion :
Consider the law of repetitive motion, where “I” is injury to the tissues, “N” is the number of repetitions, “F” is the force of each repetition as a percentage of maximal strength, “A” is the amplitude (range of motion) of each repetition, and “R” is rest. To reduce injury to tissues (which negative postural adaptations can be considered), you have to work on each of the five factors in this equation.
You perform soft tissue work – whether it’s foam rolling or targeted manual therapy – on the excessively short or stiff tissues (I). You reduce the number of repetitions (length of time in poor posture: R), and in certain cases, you may work to strengthen an injured tissue (reduce F). You incorporate mobility drills (increase A) and avoid bad postures (increase R).
What I failed to mention a few weeks ago, though, was that the sequencing of these corrective modalities must be perfect in order to optimize the training/corrective effect and avoid exacerbating symptoms. Case in point, we recently had a client come to us as a last resort with chronic shoulder issues, as he was hoping to avoid surgery. Physical therapy had made no difference for him (aside from shrinking his wallet with co-pays), and following that poor outcome, he'd had a similar result with soft tissue treatments twice a week for six weeks. In a single four-week program, we had him back to playing golf pain free. What was the difference?
In the first physical therapy experience, he'd been given a bunch of traditional rotator cuff and scapular stabilization exercises. There had been absolutely no focus on soft tissue work or targeted mobility drills to get the ball rolling. In other words, all he did was improve stability within the range of motion he already had. In the equation above, all he really worked on was reducing the "F" by getting a bit stronger.
In his soft tissue treatment experiences, he felt a bit better walking out of the office, but ran into a world of hurt when his provider encouraged him to "just do triceps pressdowns and lat pulldowns" for strength training. In other words, this practitioner worked on reducing "I" and increasing "A," but totally missed the boat with respect to enhancing strength (reducing "F") and increasing rest ("R") because of the inappropriate follow-up strength exercise prescription. Doh!
What did we do differently to get him to where he needed to be? For starters, he saw Dr. Nate Tiplady, a manual therapist at CP, twice a week for combination Graston Technique and Active Release treatments (reducing "I") at the start of his training sessions. He followed that up with a specific manual stretching, positional breathing, and mobility exercise warm-up program (increase "A") that was designed uniquely for him. Then, he performed strength training to establish stability (decrease "F") within the new ranges of motion (ROM) attained without reproducing his symptoms (decreasing "N" and increasing "R).
The sequencing was key, as we couldn't have done some of the strength exercises we used if we hadn't first gotten the soft tissue work and improved his ROM. He may have had valuable inclusions in his previous rehabilitation efforts, but he never had them at the same time, in the correct sequence.
This thought process actually closely parallels a corrective exercise approach Charlie Weingroff put out there much more succinctly in his Rehab = Training, Training = Rehab DVD set:
Get Long. Get Strong. Train Hard.
Keep in mind that there are loads of different ways that you can "get long." You might use soft tissue work (Active Release, Graston Technique, Traditional Massage, etc.), positional breathing (Postural Respiration Institute), mobility drills (Assess and Correct), manual stretching, or any of a host of other approaches (Mulligan, DNS, Maitland, McKenzie, etc). You use whatever you are comfortable using within your scope of practice.
When it's time to "get strong," you can do so via several schools of thought as well - but the important thing is that the strength exercises you choose don't provoke any symptoms.
It's interesting to note that this corrective exercise approach actually parallels what we do with our everyday strength and conditioning programs at Cressey Performance - and what I put forth in Show and Go: High Performance Training to Look, Feel, and Move Better. We foam roll, do mobility warm-ups, and then get cracking on strength and stability within these "acutely" optimized ranges of motion to make them more permanent.
We received the following testimonial from a very satisfied Assess and Correct customer via email last week, and I thought I'd share.
"After spending five years heading in the wrong direction regarding my training, I was left with many injuries in my upper as well as my lower body. I had multiple muscle/strength imbalances and horrible posture which caused overuse injuries, chronic pain, pinched nerves and other problems. I physically couldn’t do a single thing without causing some sort of pain. Even though I was only 22 years old at the time, I just assumed that I had headed so far down the wrong path that I would never recover and never be able to comfortably work out again. I accidentally came across one of Eric’s articles about one of my many problems. I read the article and instantly looked for others.
"After some deliberation I decided that Assess and Correct might be something that could help me. I gave it a try, consistently performing the exercises, in combination with other exercises recommended by Cressey, Robertson, and Hartman aimed at restoring correct posture. The best way to describe this product was that it completely changed my life.
"I have loads of mobility and stability in all the right places. I went through every exercise or mobility drill in every progression even if I didn't need to. All the exercises are described thoroughly and simple to complete. Injuries or no injuries, I would recommend this product to every single person who lives and active lifestyle. I am a believer and will be a lifetime follower of Eric Cressey, Mike Robertson, and Bill Hartman. Thanks, guys!"
Click here to pick up a copy of Assess and Correct for yourself!
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Just over three years ago, during a period where oblique strains were on the rise in professional baseball and the USA Today profiled this "new" injury, I wrote an article on what I perceived to be the causes of the issue. Check it out: Oblique Strains and Rotational Power.
This year, the topic has come back to the forefront, as players like Joba Chamberlain, Sergio Mitre, Curtis Granderson, and Brian Wilson have experienced the injury this spring training alone.
While my thoughts from the initial article are still very much applicable, I do have some additional thoughts on the matter for 2011:
1.Is anyone surprised that the rise in oblique injuries in baseball is paralleled by the exponential rise in hip injuries and lower back pain? I don't care whether you work in a factory or play a professional sport; violent, repetitive, and persistently unilateral-dominant rotation (especially if it is uncontrolled) will eventually chew up a hip, low back, or oblique; it's just a matter of where people break down.
In other words, pro athletes are generating a tremendous amount of power from the hips - moreso, in fact, than they ever have before thanks to the advances in strength training, nutrition, supplementation, and, unfortunately, in some cases, illegal "pharmaceutical interventions." Assuming mechanics are relative good (as they should be in a professional athlete), rotate a hip faster and you'll improve bat speed and throwing velocity; it's that simple. This force production alone is enough to chew up a labrum, irritate a hip capsule, and deliver enough localized eccentric stress to cause a loss in range of motion. The Cliff's Notes version is that we've increased hip strength and power (more on this in a bit), but most folks have overlooked tissue quality (foam rolling, massage, and more focal approaches like Active Release and Graston) and mobility training.
If the hips stiffen up, the lumbar spine will move excessively in all planes of motion - and, in turn, affect the positioning of the thoracic spine. Throw off the thoracic spine, and you'll negatively impact scapular (and shoulder), respiratory (via the rib cage), and cervical spine. Hips that are strong - but have short or stiff musculature can throw off the whole shebang.
2. "Strong" isn't a detailed enough description. I think that it goes beyond that, as you have to consider that a big part of this is a discrepancy between concentric and eccentric strength. Concentrically, you have the trailing leg hip generating tremendous rotational power, and eccentrically, you have the lead leg musculature decelerating that rotation.
Moreover, because the front hip can't be expected to dissipate all that rotational velocity - and because the thoracic spine is rotating from the drive of the upper extremities - you put the muscles acting at the lumbar spine in a situation where they must provide incredible stiffness to resist rotation. It is essentially the opposite of being between a rock and a hard place; they are the rock between two moving parts. Structurally, though, they're well equipped to handle this responsibility; just look at how the line of pull of each of these muscles (as well as the tendinous inscriptions of the rectus abdominus) runs horizontally to resist rotation. That's eccentric control.
How do we train it? Definitely not with sit-ups, crunches, or sidebends. The former are too sagittal plane oriented and not particularly functional at all. The latter really doesn't reflect the stability-oriented nature of our "core." The bulk of our oblique strain prevention core training program should be movements that resist rotation:
While on the topic, it's also important to resist lumbar hypextension, as poor anterior core strength can allow the rib cage to flare up (increases the stretch on the most commonly injured area of the obliques: at the attachment to the 11th rib on the non-throwing side) and even interfere with ideal respiratory function (the diaphragm can't take on its optimal dome shape, so we overuse accessory breathing muscles like pec minor, sternocleidomastoid, scalenes, etc).
So, to recap: I don't think oblique strains are a new injury epidemic or the result of team doctors just getting better with diagnostics. Rather, I think that we're talking about a movement dysfunction that has been prevalent for quite some time - but we just happen to have had several of them in a short amount of time that has made the media more alert to the issue. The truth is that if we worried more about "inefficiency" and not pathology," journalists could have "broken" this story a long time ago.
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This is the second half of an interview I did for Dean Somerset's website. In case you missed part 1, you can check it out HERE.
DS: What are the best supplements for the money, in your opinion?
EC: For most folks, fish oil, vitamin D, a decent low-carb protein powder, creatine, and a greens supplement (I prefer Athletic Greens) will get the job done. I’d add in probiotics for many people as well. The longer I’m in this field, the more of a minimalist I become.
DS: There are a lot of misconceptions and misinterpretations on core strength and core training out there. Some say you have to lay perfectly still and think happy thoughts while flexing your belly button, while other say you need to use stability balls to get anything, and other say heavy stuff on your shoulders does the trick. Also, the definition of where the core is and what it does seems to be either incomplete, or somewhat lacking in common sense, as most of the anatomical diagrams will show the core as a hollow vessel, and eliminate the internal organs from the picture. What do you consider to be important in the anatomy of the core, and what would be your go-to core training exercises?
EC: I tend to fall in the camp that it encompasses just about the entire body. We can all agree that the hamstrings probably deserve a place in the role of the core, since they attach to the pelvis via the ischial tuberosity and sacrotuberous ligament, right?
Well, those same hamstrings attach below the knee on both the tibia and fibula. They share a function (knee flexion) with the gastrocnemius, clearly are in close “fascial proximity,” and have neural innervations from the same origin at the lumbar spine (sciatic nerve). The gastrocnemious attaches on the calcaneus – so we’ve established “hip to foot” relationships of the “core.”
Add latissimus dorsi to the picture. It attaches to the iliac crest, thoracolumbar fascia, thoracic spine, ribs, scapula, and humerus. That would be a “hip to arm” connection, right?
Add in the trapezius, which runs from as far down as T12 to the base of the skull, and you can argue that you’ve got a “hip to head” relationship, too.
We’ll just train it with crunches, though, right???
I don’t think it’s as simple as just memorizing the anatomy of the muscles surrounding the lumbar spine; it’s about understanding the complex, functional relationship among all the muscles and their tendons, the ligaments, the fascia, the nerves, and the bony structures to which they attach. Things are more complex than we try to make them – which is probably why a lot of people have chronic back pain that goes misdiagnosed and mistreated.
While much of the industry has gone to the “don’t move the lumbar spine” end of the continuum, it’s really not that black and white. It – like any other body segment – should have some movement. The problem just becomes when we add load to that movement. And, more specifically, things get dangerous when we add load to the end range of that movement. Going into full lumbar flexion with an 800-pound deadlift isn’t going to make your intervertebral discs very happy, and not controlling violent extension and rotation during an athletic movement like swinging or throwing could very well leave you with a stress fracture, oblique strain, or spondylolisthesis at some point.
That said, there should be movement during daily activities; otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to tie our shoes, and my puppy wouldn’t be able to lick his unmentionables for twenty minutes every night before he falls asleep. When we start adding resistance, crazy velocity, and high volumes to the equation, though, we change the game.
To that end, I’ll continue to train anti-rotation and anti-extension exercises in the gym because the favorable outcomes we’ve seen with this approach have been tremendous. If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.
DS: Chewing tobacco: help or hindrance??
EC: I’m probably not the best one to ask. I dipped once when I was about 18 and booted a few minutes later – and then felt miserably for about four hours afterward. It wasn’t one of my finer moments.
DS: I had a client who I was training for hockey a few years ago, and he forgot to go to the washroom for what I like to call a "pre-game." During the middle of his heavy squats, while I was spotting him, he, well for a lack of better term, he "released," and had to go change his shorts. Any training blooper highlight moments from CP?
EC: Honestly, there are too many to list! Most of them take place when our pro baseball guys are just shooting the breeze in the office. Throw in a British golfer, pro boxer, or Ironman competitor, and you get enough people from different walks of life to make any conversation memorable and absolutely hilarious. To that end, we actually have a quote book in the office; it’s got dozens of pages of stupid things that have been said over the past three years or so.
DS: Who is the bigger prankster, you or Tony?
EC: I’m not sure that I’d say that either of us are huge pranksters, but Tony is definitely the brunt of a lot more jokes at CP. We always joke that every 2-3 months, we have a “Tony Moment” where he learns about something and is absolutely blown away to find out that we had already known about it for months.
That said, the CP jester is definitely our pitching coordinator, Matt Blake, as some of these videos show:
DS: You have a lot of people looking up to you and aspiring to hit the level of professional success that you've been able to attain in a relatively short period of time. Who do you look up to so that you're continuously motivated to push and achieve more?
EC: That is a tough question to answer because my goal has never been to “be” someone else. If I was to blindly follow someone else’s steps, it wouldn’t be the career I had in mind. So, I feel like if you are going to be successful in what you do, there has to be some degree of innate motivation in you.
That said, I look to a lot of people for inspiration.
My father owns his own business and that had a more profound impact on me than you could possibly imagine as I opened my own facility. Without even knowing it, he taught me that your business problems are your own and that you never make them anyone else’s problems. And, give your employees autonomy, and as long as you’ve picked the right people, they won’t let you down.
My mother is a high school teacher and administrator – and is pretty much the Mother Teresa of my hometown. Over the years, I’ve watched on numerous occasions as she has fed some of her students who couldn’t afford to eat. I’ve gone to the grocery store with her countless times – and it always takes an extra hour or so because she runs into so many grateful parents and students she’s dealt with over the years. She established the first International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum in the state of Maine at her school. She didn’t have to do any of this; it wasn’t mandated by her salary, and it certainly isn’t something a lot of other teachers do. She taught me that your job has to fulfill you in some way far more significant than money, and that good will never runs out.
My grandparents were married for over 60 years before my grandfather passed away this fall. They taught me that family comes first – and my wife and I have had many talks about how they educated us on how a marriage should work.
In the industry, there are quite a few people I look to for advice. Alwyn Cosgrove has taught me a ton about how to run a business. Mike Robertson has been a guy with whom I’ve collaborated a lot – and we’ve both gotten better in the process. I look to guys like Bill Hartman and Charlie Weingroff as very bright individuals who simply enjoy learning for the sake of learning – and that’s something I enjoy. Pat Rigsby is a guy who has shown me more about how to balance all of life’s demands – from family time to various business endeavors.
I could go on and on, but the point is that I draw inspiration from a lot of sources – both intrinsic and extrinsic.
DS: You've stated that for baseball player, olympic lifting and vertical jumping aren't really necessary as the sport doesn't require it. Most trainers gave you hell, but you stood your ground and proved them all wrong. What other concepts have you brought to the table that have helped re-form many common misconceptions about training and sports development?
EC: It’s funny; right after I published that piece at T-nation about how power is “plane-specific,” I got an email from a researcher who was studying the exact same thing – and finding preliminary data that completely verified what I’d said. Sometimes, research is out there to validate what we’re already doing.
Whether I’ve made people changed their thought processes or not, a few things I’ve tried to bring to the forefront are:
1. The Difference Between Inefficiency and Pathology – We’ve always been taught that if an x-ray or MRI tells us that we’re structurally out of whack, then we’re screwed. The truth is that all of us – even when we’re asymptomatic – have structural issues on diagnostic imaging. The people who are in pain are the ones who don’t move efficiently on top of these structural flaws. I see this every day with the pitching shoulders that come through my door; I assume that they’re all “broken” and that we are just managing them to avoid them hitting a painful threshold.
2. The Concept of Long-Term Athletic Development Beginning with Strength – This is an area where I’ve tried to lead by example with our training model at Cressey Performance. I’m not interested in running a group of 20 14-year-olds through a bunch of agility ladders. If we want the best long term results and safety, our #1 job in a youth population is to improve strength. Sure, they run faster, jump higher, and throw harder – but they also decelerate better and change directions more efficiently. You can run all the "quickness drills" that you want with a young population, but the truth is that you’ll never improve speed or agility unless you teach them to put more force in to the ground. It’s like polishing the hub cabs on a car with no horsepower; you’re studying for the wrong test.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of facilities out there that are just about finding a training model that allows one to run a ton of kids through the same program without much concern for the actual benefits to be gained (or lack thereof). I’m not interested in babysitting.
3. The Differences Between Flexibility and Mobility – This was a key portion of my contribution to the recently releasedIYCA High School Strength Coach Certification. Mobility refers to the ability to reach certain positions, whereas flexibility refers to just one factor (joint range of motion) that affects that ability. Mobility is also dependent on stability, the foundation for which is neuromuscular recruitment. When we test flexibility, we’re talking about isolated testing of relaxed muscles/tendons. To be blunt, we’re ignoring the nervous system.
Mobility encompasses multiple joints and therefore likely involves fascial contributions to movement, whereas flexibility may only involve 1-2 joints and may therefore minimize the impact of fascia on an assessment.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we can easily assess mobility in a general sense – but determining the cause of limitations is more challenging. Flexibility, too, is a quick assessment – but correcting the limitation discovered doesn’t guarantee that movement quality will improve.
4. The belief that there is always something you can do to get better, regardless of injury – I’ve never been a fan of doctors and physical therapists telling injured patients to “just rest.” First off, rest alone is rarely the answer. Just as importantly, though, this recommendation ignores the fact that there are endocrine, immune, functional, psychological, and social benefits that are still to be derived from exercising. When I’m working with clients who are injured, I feel that it’s my job to show them what they can do and not just what they can’t do. And, there is always something you can do to maintain a training effect.
5. Weighted baseballs might actually be safer than traditional 5oz baseballs – and at the very least, they can be a beneficial training addition.This articlesums it up quite well, so I won’t reinvent the wheel. A lot of people can’t believe it when I saw that we used weighted balls, but the results have been nothing short of fantastic.
These are just the few things that came to mind right off the top of my head. I’d like to think that there are more!
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We sometimes get questions about how our products differ from one another, so Mike Robertson stepped up and created the following webinar to describe a bit about one of our most popular products, Assess and Correct. If you're on the fence about purchasing, this should help with your decision.
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Eric, Bill and Mike have done it again!”
Mike Irr
Head Strength & Conditioning Coach, Charlotte Bobcats
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Adam Campbell
Fitness Director, Men’s Health
