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Register Now for the 1st Annual Cressey Performance Fall Seminar

I'm psyched to announce that on Sunday, October 28th, we'll be hosting our first annual fall seminar at Cressey Performance.  This event will showcase both the brand new Cressey Performance, as well as the great staff I'm fortunate to have as part of my team, and our outstanding sponsor, New Balance.  We want to make this an affordable event for everyone and create a great forum for industry professionals and fitness enthusiasts alike to interact, exchange ideas, and learn.

Here are the presentation topics:

Understanding and Managing Congenital Laxity - Presented by Eric Cressey

In this era of semi-private training, boot camps, and group exercise, it’s not uncommon for coaches and trainers to try to train all athletes and clients the same. This can quickly lead to injury in a population with significant congenital laxity. In this presentation, Eric will teach you how to assess for laxity and safely train with it to improve how people feel and move.

The Food Freakshow: What Will You Be Eating in the 21st Century? - Presented by Brian St. Pierre

Burgers grown from dinosaur DNA? Tomatoes carrying a delicious basil lemon gene? Red meat with the fatty acid profile of an avocado? Science is starting to change the way we look at food. And in the coming years our food will be very, very different. Want to know what you'll be eating? What your kids will be eating? What your grandkids will be eating? Let Brian untangle the mystery. In this talk he'll discuss what's on the horizon for those of us who like to eat, and like to eat healthy. Join him for a fascinating exploration of the future of food – and for useable, practical strategies you can put into action immediately.

Deep Squats: Are They Worth It? - Presented by Tony Gentilcore

In this presentation, Tony will highlight research on the squat under various conditions and discuss population-specific considerations one must take into account when programming squat variations. He’ll discuss improving the squat pattern, as well as exercise recommendations for those who should avoid squatting altogether in their programs.

“Out with the Old:” A new model for preventing injury and improving performance in the throwing athlete - Presented by Eric Schoenberg

The system is broken! Injury rates at all levels of baseball are alarming. Despite improvements in research, technology, and sports medicine principles, the numbers continue to rise. Each year, teams work tirelessly and spend millions to recruit, draft, and sign the best talent from all over the world. However, only a small percentage of that money is invested to keep these athletes healthy and allow them to showcase their talent on the field. This presentation will help to debunk some common myths, identify disturbing problems, and provide solutions to help keep athletes on the field and out of the training room.

How "Strong" Does An Athlete Need To Be? - Presented by Greg Robins

In this presentation, Greg will discuss how various strength qualities contribute to an athlete's power potential. Each sport requires a slightly different blend of these strength qualities to provide for high-level performance. Learn which qualities athletes need to improve and how to get the job done.

Current Trends in Manual and Manipulative Therapy - Presented by Nathaniel Tiplady

Nate will present a review of Active Release Technique, Graston Technique, Fascial Manipulation, and joint manipulation. He’ll cover what we know, what we don't know, and present his thoughts and experiences on the best methods to get people pain-free.

Program Design Considerations for the Young Athlete - Presented by Chris Howard

In this presentation, Chris will discuss important considerations one must take into account when designing and implementing programs for young athletes. Topics to be covered are exercise selection and progression, creation of a fun training environment, and the role of the strength coach in educating young athletes. He will stress the fact that young athletes can be trained similarly to adults, but that there are distinctions that need to be made.

Location:

Cressey Performance,
577 Main St.
Suite 310
Hudson, MA 01749

Cost:

Regular - $129 regular, $149 day of the event
Student (must present current student ID at door) - $99 regular, $129 day of the event

Date/Time:

Sunday, October 28, 2012
Registration 8:30AM
Seminar 9AM-5:30PM

Continuing Education:

NSCA CEU pending (seven contact hours)

Click Here to Sign-up (Regular)

or

Click Here to Sign-up (Students)

We're really excited about this event, and would love to have you join us! However, space is limited and each seminar we've hosted in the past has sold out in less than two weeks, so don't delay on signing up!

If you have additional questions, please direct them to cresseyperformance@gmail.com. Looking forward to seeing you there!
 

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Mobility Exercise of the Week: Palmar Fascia Soft Tissue Work
Anyone who has ever broken or burned a finger will tell you that you just don't appreciate how much you use your hands until you don't have access to one for a bit.  Obviously, you partially lose your ability to do things - but what many folks might not appreciate is that you also lose some of your ability to sense things, as the hands contain a tremendously amount of sensory receptors relative to the rest of the body.  In fact, the tiny folds in our skin on the fingertips that comprise the fingertip are there because they increase the surface area of the hands - which allows us to get more sensory receptors where we need them.  Cool stuff, huh? Why then, do we not give the hands any love when it comes to soft tissue work?  We'll foam roll our hip flexors, lats, and other large muscle groups (which are certainly valuable), but we'll ignore one of the most sensory-rich parts of our body - and one that is constantly active (and overused, in some cases) throughout the day.  We grip, type, and flip people the bird - but we never really pay attention to soft tissue quality in this region...until today, that is. If you look at the structure of the hand, you'll see that it has a large fascial, the palmar aponeurosis (we'll call it the palmar fascia to keep things simple).  This structure has an intimate relationship with the muscles/tendons and ligaments of the hand, and serves as a link between the forearm and fingers.

Based on the size alone, you can see that it has plantar-fascia-caliber importance even if it isn't weight bearing.  You see, of the five muscles that attach via the common flexor tendon on the medial epicondyle at the elbow, four cross the wrist joint and palmar fascia on the way to the hand, where they work to flex and abduct or adduct the wrist, and flex the fingers.

Loads of people have tendinopathies going on up on the medial elbow (Golfer's Elbow), but they only work on this spot (called a zone of convergence).  Meanwhile, the soft tissue quality might be just as bad further down at the wrist and hand, adding tension on an already over-burdended common flexor tendon.  Think about it this way: if you had a pulled hamstring up by your glutes, would you only work to improve tissue quality at that spot, or would you work all the way down to the posterior knee to make sure that you'd improved some of the poor tissue quality further down as well?

Below, massage therapist and Cressey Performance coach Chris Howard talks you through two different ways to work out the kinks in the palmar fascia and surrounding regions, but keep in mind that it'll always be more effective to have a qualified manual therapist do the job - and that's certainly someone you should see if you have any symptoms whatsoever.

We've found that quite a few of our pitchers comment on how the ball seems to come out of their hand easier after this work.  Usually, they're the guys who have the most stiffness along the forearm, particularly into wrist extension and supination.

Give it a shot at your desk at work and see how it feels.

Note: Chris' video here is a sample of what comes in his Innovative Soft Tissue Strategies contribution to Show and Go: High Performance Training to Look, Feel, and Move Better.

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The Top 10 Mistakes Intern Applicants Make – Part 1
At Cressey Performance, we have a few interns in the spring (1/5 - 5/10), summer (6/1 - 8/30), and fall (9/1-12/23).  Over the past three years, this internship program has "kicked out" some coaches who are doing great things in the industry, including names you'll recognize like Brian St. Pierre (who we wound up hiring as our first employee), Kevin Neeld (now a hockey expert and director at Endeavor Fitness), Kevin Larrabee (now on staff at Mike Boyle's place), Chris Howard (Cressey Performance's newest employee), and Roger Lawson (World-Class Rock, Paper, Scissors Competitor):

There are several more who are either still in school or out in the world doing great things - and we're really proud of them. In light of the successes of these folks (and, presumably, the outlandish intern-hazing death circuits we've featured in this blog), Cressey Performance internships have become coveted ones.  In fact, for the three internship positions we had available for this summer, we had 33 applicants.  It proved to be a huge challenge for us to narrow it down to our final few, as we had strong applicants, and many of them came with recommendations from good friends/colleagues of mine in the industry. With that in mind, since I know we have a lot of industry up-and-comers reading this blog, I thought I'd throw out my top five mistakes that intern applicants make - at least in my experience.  Not surprisingly, most (if not all) of these bulletpoints also apply to to the application process for a job. Mistake #1: Spelling "Cressey" incorrectly. - I'm dead serious; this really happened.  One international applicant read about the internships at www.ericcressEy.com and download the application form at www.cressEyperformance.com, but somehow found a way to spell my last name "Cressy"on the mailing envelope and at least 4-5 times in his application essay - which was stapled to the application with the word "Cressey Performance' across the top.  Attention to detail and the ability to follow directions are important - and this cut us down to 32 candidates pretty darn quickly.

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Mistake #2: Not proofreading your application essay. - This was an issue for quite a few others.  It's really unfortunate, as some folks may be great coaches who are articulate in speaking, but just don't come across well in writing.  However, we're talking about a 500-word essay.  It wouldn't be wrong to ask 2-3 friends, parents, or colleagues to have a look at it to make sure it's clean.  So, you could say that in my eyes, a poorly written application essay doesn't just show that you're unprepared in the context of a crucial skill in the working world, but also that you aren't comfortable asking for help.  I want all of our interns to be secure (and humble) enough to admit when they don't know/understand something so that we can teach them.

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Mistake #3: Glazing right over the application. - We had this issue with a few applicants for different reasons.  Two applicants glazed over the application and just included their essay and resume, and while they were good candidates in terms of the essay and their qualifications, the simple fact that they did not include the application added five minutes to our internship coordinator Pete's day as he tried to track down their contact info, references, and desired internship period (spring, summer, or fall).  A few others had such poor handwriting that we had to contact them with follow-up emails to determine what they were really trying to relate.  Pete is already a super-busy guy with the regular goings-on of CP, so someone who comes up short on such a simple task stands out to us as someone who is going to throw up "inefficiency roadblocks" as an intern down the road, as opposed to becoming a thriving member of the team. Mistake #4: Acting like an immature bag-of-worthlessness in your social networking profile(s). - Research from the University of Dayton's Career Services showed that approximately 40% of employers check out job applicants on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc. before making a hiring decision.  CP is proud to be among those 40%.  Dropping F-bombs left and right and posting pictures of you boozing are not good ways to win over potential employers and internship supervisors - especially since we know many of our interns become very popular with clients and eventually form Facebook friendships.  And, many of our clients are impressionable young athletes; you need to prove to us that you are mature enough to be role models for them.

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Mistake #5: Attempting to always go through Eric. - Yes, I just referred to myself in the third person, but that's not the point.  We had a few applicants who would call or email constantly to request more information about the internship: dates it runs, application deadlines, housing recommendations, etc.  As I noted above, in addition to being our business director, my business partner Pete is also the internship coordinator.  He took this position not only because he's beyond qualified for it, but because I don't have the time or desire to manage the logistics of the preparation for the program.  My responsibilities are working with the interns once they arrive, and - to that end - I refer all inquiries directly to Pete during the application process.  Still, we have had several people call/email who big-leagued Pete by refusing to interact with him, instead requesting to always speak with me.  Invariably, when I speak with them (if I do contact them at all), the questions all wind up being ones that Pete could have fielded easily - and with more detail than I could.  So, the take-home lesson is to always deal with the internship coordinator - because he a) controls your future more than anyone else, b) will immediately black-list you if you big-league him, and c) will actually give you the best responses of anyone in the process. Remember that there is a difference between being proactive and being a pain in the butt; persistence is fine, but cumbersome is something difficult is another thing altogether. You'll notice that none of these five mistakes had anything to do with coaching ability, academic performance/GPA, and previous experience.  Very simply, we can rule out a good 50% of candidates simply because they haven't established themselves as professionals.  As an example, Roger Lawson was one of our most popular interns of all time with clients - and he did it with ZERO academic background in fitness (he graduated with a degree in English Literature).  However, his application and essay were thorough and professional, and he was humble and "politely persistent" - so he made it past the first round over people who had as much as six years of experience in the classroom and training world than he did. Some recommended reading for those out there who are worried about making it past this first stage: How to Win Friends and Influence People - It should cost you about $1 on Amazon, and you should read it within a day. Made to Stick - Discusses the importance of first impressions and how to make yourself "stick" in someone's mind during the selection process. Never Eat Alone - It's about networking, but not the cheesy kind where you just name drop.

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Peak - This book explains a lot of why our business  (or any business) is successful. In my next post, I'll talk about what separates the folks in the final decision process after the initial "cuts."
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