Can I just add some sets and reps of direct arm work?
How about cardio? Would a few 30 minutes interval training sessions work?
What if I did extra rotator cuff stuff every day? Just a little tubing, you know?
I’m going to add two extra days of calves, abs, and forearms. It shouldn’t be a problem, right?
These are just a few of the common questions I receive from people for whom I write strength training programs (plus all the other components of a comprehensive program). And, it's these kind of questions that make me appreciate just how challenging it is to teach someone how to effectively write strength and conditioning programs - and why everyone gets all flustered when they first start writing training plans.
Very simply, most people don't understand the concept of competing demands. Everybody wants to add something to their weight training program - but not everyone is willing to take something away in order to do so.
How many elite powerlifters or Olympic lifters do you know who regularly do interval training as part of their quest to get strong?
How many elite triathletes do you know who just want to add a few sets of biceps curls along the road to improving endurance performance?
The answer is, of course, none. And, it's because - whether they appreciated it or not - these high-level athletes were effectively managing competing demands.
In some cases, different fitness qualities compete with one another; an example would be extensive aerobic training while trying to increase strength. You can't get strong quickly if you're doing hours of cardio each week. Somewhat similarly, in an overhead throwing population, it's challenging to regain shoulder internal rotation and flexion range of motion (ROM) and pec minor length when an athlete is throwing - so you have to do your best to get the ROM during down-time in their training year.
In other cases, you may have multiple qualities that contribute to an overall training effect, but you can't prioritize all of them at once. For example, my professional baseball clients need a host of different qualities to be successful, but the body has limited recovery capacity, so their training programs have to target their most readily apparent weaknesses - and do so at the right time of year. We cut back on the medicine ball and upper body strength exercises and volume when their throwing volume increases.
And, we can't do as much lower body strength exercises when guys are doing more sprinting and change-of-direction work. Stress is stress, so you have to apply it judiciously.
Taking this into consideration, I think that one of the best drills for someone looking to get better at writing programs is to take a full-on comprehensive weight training program with supplemental conditioning/movement training where someone is training 6x/week - and then cut it back to 3x/week. Assume that there is a whole lot of of "other" stress in this athlete/client's life - whether it's work, illness, family issues, or just being an in-season athlete - and figure out how to scale a program back in order to make it productive and safe for that individual.
Lots of factors have to be taken into account: the volume and intensity that individual can handle, how long each session can last, and what specific factors one needs to address most. A good example to check out would be the differences between the 4x/week, 3x/week, and 2x/week weight training programs (and accompanying optional supplemental sessions) in The High Performance Handbook.
There are loads of factors you have to take into account when you write a comprehensive training plan - from the weight training program, to soft tissue work, to mobility work, to movement training, to energy systems training. The most important consideration, though, is how they all fit together synergistically to make the program as a whole effective.
So, try the challenge I listed above and see how you do; I think you'll find that it's a lot harder to subtract than it is to add to your weight training programs.
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New England Sports Network (NESN) was at Cressey Performance the other day to check in on Kevin Youkilis' off-season training and ask Youk some questions about the upcoming season. As you'll see from the training footage, Youk takes his off-season training at CP seriously and likes to work!
With the new year upon us, I got to thinking about how excited I am for all that 2011 has in store for me – and thought that it’d make for a good post to kick off the year. Here’s why I’m excited:
1. Being Married – My wife, Anna, and I got married on October 3, and it was just the tip of the iceberg in a whirlwind year (new job for her, wedding planning, new house, new puppy). Both of us are pretty excited for a low-key 2011 where we can just hang out and enjoy one another’s company! And, we left our honeymoon for this year (I couldn’t escape for that long during the baseball off-season), so we’re excited about that.
2. The Continued Growth of EricCressey.com - I really enjoy writing, and each year, this website grows – which means I get to share my passion and interact with some very cool people. Here were 2011’s year-end statistics for EricCressey.com:
450,791 unique visitors
1,106,748 visits
2,901,970 pages
2,730,922 hits
Thanks to everyone who visited the site this year!
3. The book I’m reading now: The 4-Hour Body. Tim Ferriss has become a good friend, and I was fortunate enough to be one of those who received an advanced copy of The 4-Hour Body prior to publication. With the crazy goings-on at CP as well as the holidays, I’m just now getting a chance to read through it and give it the time it deserves – and I must say that it’s fantastic. Tim does an awesome job of providing “info-tainment;” his entertaining writing style will keep you reading, and the background research he put in to this book will guarantee that you walk away with some ideas that will immediately benefit you.
4. The book I’m reading next: The New Rules of Lifting for Abs. As with Tim’s book, I got a copy of The New Rules of Lifting for Abs in advance, but haven’t even had a chance to open it up. As with any Cosgrove/Schuler collaboration, though, I’m sure it’ll be high quality and a huge hit. I’m looking forward to checking it out.
5. Cutting Back on Travel – 2010 was a crazy busy year for me personally – from buying a house, to moving, to planning a wedding, to getting married, to getting a puppy. These “firsts” wouldn’t have been tough to pull off normally, but it seemed like every time my wife and I encountered one of them, I was getting ready to hop on a plane to go do a seminar somewhere. As such, I’ve started turning down a lot more seminar opportunities not because I don’t enjoy doing them, but simply because the travel wore me out in 2010. I will, however, still be traveling some – but this year, it’ll be with my wife…and we’ll be traveling for fun!
6. Another Year on the Perform Better Tour – While I may be cutting back on seminar travel, I wouldn’t miss the Perform Better Summits for the world. I’m still waiting on final confirmation of which cities I’ll get in 2011, but I can say definitively that these are some of the best continuing education opportunities in the fitness business and that I thoroughly enjoy all of them – from the information to the great people I always wind up meeting. Hopefully, I’ll get to meet some of you in person thanks to Perform Better this year.
7. Continuing on my Postural Restoration Institute Journey – I’ve spoken a bit in the past about the Postural Restoration Institute and how it dramatically impacted the way we evaluate and program for many of our athletes and clients. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it has been some of the best continuing education money I’ve ever spent. I’ve only gone through two of their seven courses, though, and am excited to learn more. I’ve covered Myokinematic Restoration and Postural Respiration, and already on the agenda for 2011 is Impingement and Instability. If you’re a physical therapist, athletic trainer, or fitness professional and haven’t seen any of their stuff already, I’d highly encourage you to check it out.
8. The New Cressey Performance – I’ll have pictures of the newly-renovated Cressey Performance soon, but suffice it to say that adding 1,000 square-feet can go a very long way. I’ve finally got my own office at the facility, which I know will make things a lot easier moving forward, but even beyond that, just getting a bit more space can really change the “flow” of the facility to make it more coaching friendly. We see all sorts of articles and presentations on how to coach, but nobody ever considers how the set-up of your facility can make your coaching duties remarkably easier or more difficult.
On top of that, Cressey Performance is busier than ever, with double digit percentage growth again in 2010. Thanks to everyone for your continued support!
9. Relishing my Fantasy Football Championship – In the most impressive managerial run in Cressey Performance Fantasy Football history, I crushed the competition this year. This trophy will reside on my desk for the entire year. Those of you who visit CP can have your picture taken with it, if you’d like.
10. Doing more charity work – I’ve helped out here and there with various charities since I moved to Boston in 2006, but in 2011, I’m excited to do much more – and I’m in a position to do more now, too. Nowadays, I can use my exposure and expertise a lot more to help – and thanks to my work with Kevin Youkilis, I can work directly with his great charity, Youk’s Hits for Kids.
Along those lines, those of you in New England might be interested to check out his February 3 event at the State Room in Boston. The CP staff will be there along with a bunch of pro athletes, Tony Gentilcore, actors, Tony Gentilcore, musicians, Tony Gentilcore, comedians, and Tony Gentilcore. For more information, check out YouksKids.org.
11. The New Sports Rehab to Sports Performance Teleseminar – Joe Heiler has done a great job the past few years in bringing in great minds to contribute to his Sports Rehab to Sports Performance teleseminar series – and this year is no exception. I’m really excited about this line-up:
1. Sue Falsone – PT, Athletes' Performance
2. Ron Hruska - PT, Postural Restoration Institute
3. Dr. Mike Leahy - Sports Chiropractor and inventor of ART
4. Thomas Myers - Anatomy Trains author
5. Brian Grasso – IYCA Founder
6. Greg Roskopf - Muscle Activation Technique
7. Brian Mulligan – PT, Mulligan Technique/Joint Mobilizations with Movement
8. Dr. Warren Hammer - Chiropractor, Graston Technique Instructor, Fascial Manipulation
9. Dan John - Strength Coach, author, Never Let Go
10. Gray Cook - PT, FMS
Click here for more information.
12. New Projects – In 2010, I introduced two products: Optimal Shoulder Performance and Show and Go: High Performance Training to Look, Feel, and Move Better. For me, a product every six months is a pretty good “pace,” as I don’t want to become one of those guys who puts out mediocre stuff every single week. As of right now, the only confirmed project for 2011 is a collaborative one with Mike Reinold and Mike Robertson. I am thinking, however, that this is the year that I finally create a baseball-specific product in light of the fact that it’s 80-85% of our clientele and what I do all-day, every day! Only time will tell!
13. Continued Show & Go Feedback – Speaking of Show and Go, it was released in late September, and since it’s a four-month strength and conditioning program, we’re coming up on the point in time where I start getting loads of emails from those who have wrapped up the program and have results to report. I get a lot of feedback along the way, but it’s awesome to hear where things end up when the entire program is complete. So, to those of you doing the program, please pass along your results!
14. More Writing at T-Nation – I only published two articles at T-Nation in 2010, and I don’t plan to repeat that poor output! I’ve already been contacted by them about doing a monthly piece, and while I’m not sure that my schedule will allow me to get one to them every month, I definitely expect to be blowing that 2010 total out of the water. I’ve already submitted one and have two more in the works. I owe a lot to the folks at T-Nation and Biotest for the opportunities and exposure they’ve afforded me and hope to continue to return the favor with good content for years to come.
15. Watching Tank grow up – Our puppy, Tank, is about five months old right now, and he’s awesome. He is pretty much housebroken, and definitely man’s best friend. As you can tell, he loves hording his toys.
16. The 2011 MLB Season - In addition to the fact that my team (the Red Sox) is looking good, we have quite a few clients who are on the cusp of big league debuts, so I am excited to get out to see them play in the show and enjoy the fruits of their off-season labor.
17. The 2011 MLB Draft - Let's just say that I very well might just stay home and hit refresh on my computer over and over again during the two days in June that make up the MLB draft. We have a lot of talent athletes - both high school and college - training at Cressey Performance who will be getting calls.
There are quite a few other things that get me excited for 2011, but this is a good start – and probably all that you care to read! Speaking of YOU, what are YOU looking forward to in 2011? Got a big goal for the year? Share it in the comments section.
Happy New Year!
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I made an effort to get more videos up on the site this year, as I know a lot of folks are visual learners and/or just enjoy being able to listen to a blog, as opposed to reading it. Here are some highlights from the past year:
The Absolute Speed to Absolute Strength Continuum - Regardless of your sport, there are valuable take-home messages. I just used throwing velocity in baseball pitchers as an example, as it's my frame of reference.
Should Pitchers Overhead Press? - This was an excerpt from Mike Reinold and my Optimal Shoulder Performance seminar (which became a popular DVD set for the year).
Shoulder Impingement vs. Rotator Cuff Tears - Speaking of Mike, here's a bit from the man himself from that seminar DVD set.
Thoracic and Glenohumeral Joint Mobility Drills - The folks at Men's Health tracked me down in the lobby at Perform Better in Providence and asked if I could take them through a few shoulder mobility drills we commonly use - and this was the result.
Cressey West - This kicks off the funny videos from the past year. A few pro baseball players that I program for in a distance-based format created this spoof video as a way of saying thank you.
Tank Nap - My puppy taking a nap in a provocative position. What's more cute?
Matt Blake Draft Tracker - CP's resident court jester and pitching instructor airs his frustrations on draft day.
1RM Cable Horizontal Abduction - More from the man, the myth, the legend.
You can find a lot more videos on my YouTube page HERE and the Cressey Performance YouTube page HERE.
With 2010 winding down, I thought I'd use this last week of the year to direct you to some of the most popular content of the past 12 months here at EricCressey.com, as this "series" was quite popular last year. Today, we start with the most popular articles of the year; these are the pieces that received the most traffic, according to my hosting statistics.
5 Reasons You Aren't Getting Stronger - This post came during the launch week of Show and Go: High Performance Training to Look, Feel, and Move Better. With some of the unique programming strategies outlined in Show and Go, it seemed like a good opportunity to outline some of the common mistakes folks make that I really sought to avoid when writing the program.
How to Find Your Fitness Niche - The popularity of this post surprised me. I suppose it means that I have more fitness professionals (and aspiring fitness professionals) reading my blog than I'd previously thought. This piece discusses how I "fell" into my baseball training niche.
Make My Kid Run Faster - Apparently, I'm not the only one who has to deal with the occasional crazy father who tells me how to train his kid!
Clearing Up the Rotator Cuff Controversy - This post discusses my approach to structuring rotator cuff exercises throughout the training week.
The Fascial Knock on Distance Running for Pitchers - This was a fun article to write because it combined a review (of Thomas Myers' presentation at Perform Better) with a summary of my own experiences training pitchers. It's always great to take the perspective of another and see how it meshes with your own philosophy - whether it confirms or refutes what you're doing.
High Performance Training without the Equipment (Installment 1) - I'm glad that I checked back on my statistics to find that this was so popular, as I haven't gotten around to writing any subsequent installments. I'll pick it up soon.
I'll be back soon with the top product reviews of 2010.
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A few weeks ago, Kevin Gray from The Union Leader and Baseball America came down to check out our pro baseball training crew. The result was a feature on Kevin Youkilis and his training at Cressey Performance:
Youk Flipping Back to Third
I wrote yesterday about how fantastic I think Charlie Weingroff's new DVD set, Rehab=Training, Training=Rehab is. Now that it's on sale, I thought I'd use my next few posts to highlight the top ten key points he made that really stood out in my mind. Here are the first five.
1. I hear people saying all the time that they need to find a niche – and I’ve written in the past about how I found my own niche. As Weingroff points out, we’re all working with the same platform and set of rules: how the body works. A “niche” just comes about because we get good with working with those rules in specific populations to create a subspecialty. I train baseball players using my unique methodology, but there are others out there getting results in this population with different modalities, too, because they're performed correctly and these folks keep the original set of rules in mind. Likewise, there are folks with similar thought processes as mine - and they're getting results in populations outside of the baseball world.
The take-home message on this point is that if you want to be a specialist in your niche, you need to understand general principles first.
2. We’re always trying to find the “link” between terrible movement and pathology/diagnosis – and Charlie offered a good perspective in light of the joint-by-joint theory of movement (a central piece of his two-day presentation). When mobile joints become stable, we get degenerative changes (arthritis) and poor recovery. When stable joints become mobile, we end up with dislocations, positional faults, muscle strains, and disc herniations. Want to prevent or address these issues? Work backward along this line of logic with your corrective exercise strategy.
3. Speaking of the joint-by-joint approach, Charlie offered the most comprehensive approach I’ve seen. Traditionally, this approach has been discussed largely in the context of the sagittal plane only, but it definitely has frontal and transverse plane implications as well. Weingroff also went into more detail on the neck and foot than I’ve seen – as you have alternating mobile/stable joints within these entities, too.
4. Typically, a joint in this school of thought will only really have two direct impacts: the joint above it and the one below it. The hip might impact the knee or lumbar spine, for instance.
The thoracic spine, however, has more far-reaching effects, though, and that’s likely why it’s such a crucial area of focus. It affects four systems: the neck, ribs (respiration), scapula/clavicle, and the lumbar spine. So, if you’re seeing a lot of “gross” dysfunction above the hips, it’s often the best place to start with your corrective exercise.
5. Charlie goes to some great lengths in defense of the vertical shin (tibia) as compared to the angled shin during various tasks, most notably squatting. He raises an interesting question in asking whether it’s really a good thing for both the femur and tibia to move simultaneously during the angled shin squat – as it essentially works in contrast to the joint by joint theory of movement he proposes.
Meanwhile, almost every day, we see folks whose knee pain disappears when we teach them to squat with a vertical shin – effectively letting the femur move as the tibia stays still. The same goes for teaching folks to deadlift, do pull-throughs, or anything else that emphasizes “hips back” as opposed to “knees forward.”
Admittedly, Charlie says it much better than I do, though! And, I should note that he emphasizes mastering the movement far more than simply loading it up - especially if we are talking about loading up a dysfunctional pattern (not a good idea).
I'll be back with five more takeaways tomorrow, but in the meantime, check out Charlie Weingroff's Rehab=Training, Training=Rehab at the introductory price HERE.
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Some recommended reading for the day:
The Dynamic Method vs. the Repetition Method - A common question among resistance training beginners who've begun to "think outside the box" is whether they should bother using the dynamic method with their strength exercises if they aren't all that strong (yet). I answer this common inquiry in this blog post.
6 Mistakes: Fitting Round Pegs into Square Holes - This T-Nation article from a while back highlights some situations where it's important to not force something that just isn't there.
"My Coach Says I Shouldn't Lift" - This was one of those pieces that was just fun to write because it's such a ridiculous recommendation from a coach - but the sad truth is that it's happening all the time across the country. So, spread the word and help some kids out!
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November 10 might seem like just any day to most people - and it certainly wouldn't have any significance to the baseball training world to the casual observer. However, it's actually a pretty big day to celebrate here at Cressey Performance.
Today, a bunch of guys in our class of 2011 sign their national letters of intent to play Division 1 baseball - and I wanted to give them a shoutout in this blog to recognize their accomplishments. Looking at this list, we have guys from three separate states - which means that a few of them travel up to two hours just to get to CP (and two hours home). Some have been with us less than a year, and others since they were in eighth grade - but I wanted to recognize them all together nonetheless. Here they are (and the universities/college to which they're headed):
1. Jordan Cote - Coastal Carolina
2. Tyler Beede - Vanderbilt
3. Adam Ravenelle - Vanderbilt
4. Barrett O'Neill - Virginia
5. Matt Luppi - Connecticut
6. Colin Egan - Wake Forest
7. Joe Napolitano - Wake Forest
8. Aaron Fossas - Wake Forest
9. Andrew Chin - Boston College
10. Devin Perry - Boston College
11. John Gorman - Boston College
12. Carl Anderson - Bryant
13. Cam Hatch - Maryland
14. Lorenzo Papa - Rhode Island
15. David St. Lawrence - Brown
16. Matt Mottola - UMASS-Lowell
There are certainly quite a few more to come as a few other guys wrap up the decision making process, but I thought I'd mention all these guys at once on the day that they sign. Congratulations, fellas; it's a party at CP!
As a lot of you probably know, I'm pretty much known as a "baseball training guy" - and rightfully so, as about 80-85% of our athletes at Cressey Performance are baseball players.
Most people are surprised to find that I really never played baseball at a high level. While I was super active in it growing up (my mother jokes that I actually taught myself to read with baseball cards), I actually had to give baseball up at the end of eighth grade so that I could focus on tennis, my "stronger" spring sport. And, to take it a step further, when high school ended, I went off to college in 1999 fully expecting to become an accountant. Seriously.
Around that same time, though, I had some health problems - and my shoulder was already a wreck from tennis. Those factors "beckoned" me to a healthy lifestyle - and that's when I made the decision to transfer to an exercise science program and focus on my new passion as a career. I did a double major in exercise science and sports/fitness management, and took part in internships in everything from personal training to cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation.
When I headed off to graduate school in 2003, I anticipated going in to the research world. About a month after I arrived on campus at UCONN, though, I caught the strength and conditioning bug and was hooked - for life. Interestingly, though, in those first few years, I really didn't work with baseball much at all.
It wasn't until I got out in to the "real world" that I just happened to start working with a few high school baseball players when I first moved to Boston. They were great kids, and I had a lot of fun training them - and they got great results that drew a lot of attention to the work I did with them. I was already a big baseball fan, and given my history of shoulder problems, I really enjoyed learning everything I possibly could about arm care - so it was a great fit.
The rest, as they say, is history. We now have 44 professional baseball players from all over the country here to train with us at Cressey Performance because they believe our expertise, environment, systems, and passion give them the best opportunity on the planet to be successful in their baseball careers. I have guys who swear by my resistance training, medicine ball, mobility, soft tissue, movement training, and throwing programs even though I never even played a single game of high school - let alone collegiate or professional - baseball. I've found my niche - but as you can tell, I never forced it.
What do you think I would have said if you had asked me in 1999 what my ten-year plan was? I would have told you that I'd be filing tax returns in early April, not following all our athletes on opening day around the country.
And, if you had asked me in 2004 what my five-year plan was, I'd have told you that it was to become a great muscle physiology research. I probably would have commented on how cool it was that the Red Sox won the World Series for the first time in 86 years - but wouldn't have had the foresight to note that I'd someday go on to train two guys from that roster who have 2004 world championship rings.
My point is that you can't force a fitness niche; you have to discover and then develop it. A lot of stars had to line up the right way for me to get to where I am with working with a baseball population, but as Thomas Jefferson once said, "I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."
Getting sick forced me to learn how to better take care of my body - and that led me to the fitness industry and strength and conditioning.
Having shoulder pain motivated me to learn more about shoulder health.
Being a "non-baseball guy" growing up forced me to do a lot more listening than talking with our athletes early-on, as I had to learn their culture. It also put me in a position to never accept stupid training principles (like distance running for pitchers) simply because they were "tradition" - because crappy training was never a "tradition" that I'd learned.
If I'd purposely gotten sick, whacked myself in the shoulder with a sledgehammer, and then read every book on baseball tradition that I could, do you think I'd be where I am today? If you answered "yes," put down the glue you're sniffing and start reading this again from the top.
Every business consultant in the fitness industry raves about how important it is nowadays to get a niche. Train middle-aged female fat loss clients only. Or, maybe it's 9-12 year-old kids. My buddy Eric Chessen even works exclusively with fitness for kids in the autism spectrum. I agree completely with these consultants' advice - but your appropriate niche won't magically appear unless you experience a lot of different settings and find the right fit for you, then follow up on it by educating yourself as much as possible by reading/watching everything you can, expanding your network of colleagues, and finding solutions to problems others haven't been able to solve.
If you are going to do something exclusively, you better be:
a) passionate about it
b) good at it
c) sure that it alone can financially support you
d) excited about the possibility of becoming an expert and contributing to the existing body of knowledge in that realm
e) willing to potentially pass up on opportunities in other realms
To be very candid, I just don't think that having specific 5- and 10-year plans is necessarily a good idea. Sure, it's okay if we are talking about financial planning, marriage, etc. - but when it comes to professional goals, there are just too many factors that can change things on a dime and turn you in a new direction. I love what I do now, but couldn't tell you for the life of me where I'll be in 5-10 years - and I happen to think that I have a pretty good grasp on where I'm going, as compared to the rest of the fitness industry. If I was just leaving college today, I'd definitely be taking it one day at a time!
How about you? What's your niche - and how did you discover and develop it?
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