Each time I run a Q&A, I get questions along the lines of:
If you could only pick one hip mobility assessment, what would it be?
If you could only pick one exercise to build pitching velocity, what would it be?
If you could only pick one shoulder exercise to fix my shoulder pain, what would it be?
You know what's awesome? With respect to all of these questions - and many more - I've NEVER in my entire career had to choose just one.
There may be no such thing as a stupid question, but there are stupid lines of thinking - and this reductionist approach to solving health and human performance problems is a big issue in our industry. In my experience, we see far more chronic issues develop because individuals fail to see the synergy among many factors, as opposed to their inability to hone in on the most important one. I'll give you an example.
Earlier this year, we saw a pitcher with a cranky ulnar nerve. He'd had mixed results with anti-inflammatory medications.
As it turns out, he had a subluxating ulnar nerve, which would predispose him to this issue during a motion like pitching that involves repeated flexion/extension, especially when combined with valgus stress (which stretches the nerve).
He did some extensive manual therapy with my business partner, massage therapist Shane Rye, who treated everything from his neck down to his forearm. This alone gave him a ton of relief - and he even commented that he felt a lot better with respect to some shoulder and neck issues he'd had previously.
In his movement screen, we'd noticed a lot of glaring scapular control issues. At rest, he sat in considerable anterior tilt and depression. Upon initiation of overhead reaching, he pulled into retraction instead of initiating smooth upward rotation. Most of his "external rotation" was actually scapular retraction and lumbar extension. In short, he was getting a lot of motion in the wrong places during several upper extremity assessments - and when we went to watch his arm care exercises, they were reaffirming all these faulty patterns. As an example, he was pulling down with the lat on horizontal abduction work, going into forward head posture on a lot of lifts, and banging out push-ups that looked a lot like this.
Morever, the exercise selection in his strength and conditioning programs were contributing to these aberrant patterns. His program was very lat dominant, and he wasn't doing enough work above 90 degrees of shoulder elevation to drive better patterns of upward rotation with good scapular posterior tilt. And, if that wasn't enough, he was using blood flow restricted training on his upper arm regularly in hopes of optimizing recovery. In reality, the compression was probably "snagging" his nerve even more.
We made a bunch of changes - picking lots of very easy, low-hanging fruit - and he hasn't had issues with the nerve all season. I can't tell you exactly which ONE of these interventions had the biggest impact on him staying healthy - but the good news is that it doesn't matter. Success is a function of over a dozen assessments and several interventions from multiple people.
With that mind, quit looking for a quick, easy, reductionist answer. It's not about a single assessment, exercise, or coaching cue any more than it is about a magic pill. Rather, it's about how all the pieces fit together. If you look around at the best coaches and rehabilitation specialists in the industry today, they're usually very well rounded in terms of their knowledge base, skill sets, and referral network. As a result, they can appreciating multiple disciplines and provide comprehensive care to the athletes, clients, and patients they serve.
Looking for a diversified educational experience? Be sure to check out our 7th Annual Cressey Sports Performance Fall Seminar. It'll take place on October 14 at our Hudson, MA location. You can learn more HERE.
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A few weeks ago, we took our three-year-old twin daughters blueberry picking. They had an absolute blast - so you could say that they are very passionate about blueberry picking. In fact, they are quite certain that they are the best blueberry farmers on the planet today.
Here’s the thing, though: they really don’t know much about blueberries. And, they don’t even know what they don’t know.
Addison refused to take her sunglasses off, so she could barely tell the difference between the ripe ones and the ones that needed to stay on the branch for longer to ripen.
Lydia got so excited that she tripped over an irrigation hose.
In short, their passion left them nothing short of blind and disoriented with respect to the competencies it takes to become a successful blueberry farmer.
Sadly, this example is not much different than where many fitness professionals are at the start of their career. They're wildly passionate about fitness and really enjoy working out, so why not make it into a career?
Wikipedia defines the Dunning–Kruger effect as "a cognitive bias in which people of low ability have illusory superiority and mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is."
In other words, you think you're going to be the varsity quarterback, but you're actually only skilled enough to be the carrying water bottles out to the JV squad. This is the harsh reality of most fitness businesses: they're often based too much on passion and not enough on specific career capital (which I previously wrote about here and here).
As a result, people who open gyms get surprised by a lot of things. Start-up costs are higher than anticipated. Generating leads is tougher than they'd expected. Managing growth proves challenging because they've never had to manage employees or pay attention to client retention strategies. They don't realize how complex managing finances is. There aren't enough hours in the day to get to everything they need to do when both working IN the business and ON the business. The list goes on and on.
And, I'd argue that these issues are even more prevalent in the fitness industry than in other entrepreneurial realms. There's a lower barrier to entry in the industry, significant initial start-up costs for gyms, and a service-oriented business model that presents unique challenges. In short, there are a lot of reasons why gyms either fail or really struggle to get by.
My Cressey Sports Performance business partner, Pete Dupuis, has a MBA and consults for various gym owners on a daily basis to help them avoid these common pitfalls. We've been at this for over 11 years and have two facilities still going strong, and a huge part of that success is the significant work we do behind the scenes to make sure we're a well-oiled machine and just just a "workout place" started because we were passionate.
With that in mind, last year, we offered our Business Building Mentorship for the first time. It sold out quickly and received outstanding feedback - so we've decided to offer it again. It'll take place October 15 at our Hudson, MA location (alongside our fall seminar). If you're interested in attending, you can learn more and register HERE.
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I hope you had a good weekend. We're back on our normal Monday schedule with this recommended reading collection after being a bit erratic over the past few weeks.
Divergent Thinking: Inside John O'Malley - This is a lengthy interview, but definitely worth the time. While the interview is with an accomplished cross country/track coach, the lessons are applicable across many disciplines. Thanks to former CSP intern Mike Boykin for sending this my way.
Transformer Bar Overview - I'm a big fan of the transformer Bar from Kabuki Strength, and this video outlines my thoughts (as well as those of Stuart McGill and Kelly Starrett) on why that's the case.
Top Tweet of the Week
Biggest regret I hear from college athletes? They should've started strength training sooner. Getting stronger is a game changer for performance AND the ability to acquire new skills. If you're 21 and just gaining strength you should have had when at age 16, you're way behind.
It's time for a new edition of my thoughts on the business of fitness. Before I get to it, just a friendly reminder that we're hosting our second-ever Cressey Sports Performance Business Building Mentorship on October 15. You can learn more HERE.
Now on to some business concepts...
1. It might take years for someone to become a customer.
Just a few weeks ago, I released my newest product, Sturdy Shoulder Solutions. One interesting thing about my newsletter/product management set-up is that I can tell how long someone has been a "prospect" before becoming a customer. Basically, I know the date they signed up for my newsletter, and then I can check that out to see what products they've purchased and when.
During this launch, I had multiple people purchase this resource as their first purchase with me after over 3,000 days on my list. Yes, that means they "window shopped" for over eight years prior to taking the plunge.
Very few people purchase on the first exposure to a marketing message. Or the second. Or the third. It actually takes load of opportunities for them to perceive your expertise, and usually over the course of an extended period of time. They need to know, like, and trust you - and some people take a long time to get to trusting you enough to initiate a transaction.
Be persistent, but patient. It's harder than ever to be seen and heard.
2. It's a very small world; watch your social media behavior.
I made this post on Twitter yesterday, and it got quite a bit of attention.
You know the pro athlete you’re heckling on Twitter? He’s probably pitched or been hot in the ‘pen 7 straight days. Something likely hurts. Good chance he had a red-eye flight & only slept 2hrs last night. May not have seen wife/kids for wks. So settle down & just watch the game.
Beyond the obvious moral issues of saying cruel things to pro athletes (or celebrities - or anyone else, for that matter), you should be cognizant of the fact that it can very quickly come back to bite you in the butt. Some of the agencies who represent these players may also represent others - athletes, actors, musicians, speakers, or coaches - who could be potential future clients for you. One of your followers could be an old friend or teammate of the athlete. It's an incredibly small world, so chasing a few retweets isn't worth sacrificing a relationship or potential client down the road.
3. Investments are different from expenses.
This is one of the most misunderstood accounting/economics concepts in all industries, and certainly in the fitness business.
An investment has the potential to appreciate in value. Maybe you spend money on a continuing education event, buy a DVD for some new training strategies, put money into a retirement account, or purchase some equipment that allows you to deliver a higher-quality product to your clients. Perhaps you hire a consultant to fine-tune your business, or decide to buy your building instead of continuing to pay rent. Additionally, from an accounting standpoint, investments are usually (but not always) tax deductible.
Expenses are like setting money on fire. They're the $5 you spend at Starbucks each morning, or the Porsche you bought on credit when you were making $20,000/year (is that even possible?). They don't appreciate, and there is a huge opportunity cost to these expenditures. Some are necessary and even tax deductible (e.g., rent), but they always need to be heavily scrutinized. Can that expense be reduced or somehow shifted into an investment?
Fitness businesses are notoriously bad at understanding the difference between the two, or understanding that one's financial situation may dictate what is and isn't acceptable. If you're grossing $5,000/month, paying $1,000/month to a cleaning service probably isn't a good expense; clean the gym yourself. Do you really need to buy seven different types of leg curl machines when you're already $300,000 in debt? And, why do you have payroll expenses when you've only got three clients?
Most businesses (and individuals, in their personal finances) would be wise to go through every cash expenditure and figure out how each one can be categorized. Growing gross revenue is always a priority, but many businesses can be even more profitable if they learn to appropriately trim the fat.
If you've found value in these insights, I think you might enjoy the upcoming Business Building Mentorship Pete Dupuis and I will be hosting on Monday, October 15th. It's a tax deductible expense if you're a fitness business owner, and we'd guarantee that the lessons learned will more than pay for the cost of attendance. Plus, registration in the mentorship includes free attendance at our fall seminar on October 14.
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We’re excited to announce that on Monday, October 15, we’ll be hosting our second CSP Business-Building Mentorship, a day of learning with Pete Dupuis and me. This event will take place at our Hudson, MA location the day after our annual fall seminar. Pete and I have spent nearly a decade crafting the operational systems and strategies that fuel CSP today, and we’re excited to pull back the curtain for fellow gym owners.
It is our intention to foster an environment conducive to learning and the exchanging of ideas, so we will be limiting participation to 25 individuals.
Here’s a look at our agenda for the day:
8:30am: Registration & Coffee
Morning Session – Lead Generation & Conversion
09:00am – 09:30am: Introduction: The Four Pillars of Fitness Business Success
09:30am – 10:30am: Lead Generation: Strategic Relationship Development, Identifying & Connecting with Opinion Leaders, Social Media Strategies
10:30am - 11:00am: Q&A
11:00am - 12:00pm: Lead Conversion: CSP Selling Strategy & Methodology
12:00pm - 01:00pm: Lunch (provided)
Afternoon Session – Business Operations & Long-Term Planning
We're very excited to announce that on Sunday, October 14, we’ll be hosting our seventh annual fall seminar at Cressey Sports Performance. As was the case with our extremely popular fall event over the past six years, this event will showcase the great staff we're fortunate to have as part of our team. Also like last year, 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. We're happy to have Perform Better as our official sponsor again this year as well.
Here are the presentation topics:
Guest Keynote Speaker: Pat Rigsby --The Future of Fitness Business: The Blueprint for Success in a Changing Market
In this presentation, you'll discover how you can position yourself to succeed now and in the future within the fast-evolving fitness industry. You'll learn what you must do to stand out from the competition, earn more and take advantage of your strengths to design a business that will thrive for the long-term. If you want to command higher rates, enjoy better retention and grow a business you enjoy, don't miss this session.
Eric Cressey -- The Overhead Athlete Evolution
Cressey Sports Performance opened in 2007 and quickly became known as a destination for baseball players from around the country looking to improve. This niche gave rise to specific expertise with this demographic. Interestingly, development of the overhead athlete has changed drastically during the past 11 years, and Eric will outline the new challenges we face and strategies that must be employed to keep arms healthy. While the presentation will focus on overhead athletes, the overwhelming majority of lessons will also be applicable to everyday fitness clients as well.
Pete Dupuis -- The Secrets of Our Industry's Top Performing Fitness Businesses
In this presentation, Pete will bring you inside the strategic mindset of some of our industry's most successful fitness business owners. He's interviewed a series of industry influencers and will share the most under appreciated components of their established and immensely profitable operations. Takeaways will include tips for upgrading branding strategy, fine-tuning employee development, maximizing the effectiveness of social media efforts, and more.
Kyle Driscoll -- Simplifying Coaching Cues for High Speed Movements
Kyle will discuss why training rotational power, especially via medicine ball work, is important for everybody. Coaching high speed movements can, however, be difficult to see - and even more difficult to coach. The higher speed the movement is, the more simple the cues needs to be.
Chris Howard -- Shoulder Pain: What Causes It and What Can We Do About It?
Nearly every fitness professional has encountered an athlete or client dealing with shoulder pain or discomfort. In this presentation, Chris will blend his experience of anatomy and muscular referred pain patterns with strength and conditioning and soft-tissue strategies to illustrate how he addresses clients experiencing shoulder pain. Whether you are new to strength and conditioning, or a seasoned veteran, you will see shoulder pain from a new perspective following this presentation.
John O'Neil -- Stress Application and The Principles of Load Management: What Every Coach Needs to Know
In this discussion, John will cover how he as a strength coach for training clients who have multiple variables that affect their ability to handle applied stress within a gym setting, including how to manage these principles in conjunction with a sport coach. This information will include both theoretical aspects of load management in addition to very specific examples used at Cressey Sports Performance.
Cole Russo -- Creating a System for Movement Progressions
Many strength and conditioning coaches have a collection of sprint and agility drills they like to utilize, but no organized framework of how to apply them. In this presentation, Cole will define a system for teaching your athletes movement. This presentation will include both a lecture on movement progressions, coaching tips, and crucial movement competencies; as well as a following practical/movement session.
**Bonus 3:00PM Saturday Hands-on Session**
Frank Duffy -- Neanderthal No More 2.0: Reviving a Classic
Whether you’re a high-level professional athlete or a desk jockey, at the end of the day, you’re a human being. In this hands-on presentation, Frank will outline the “big rocks” you should consider integrating on a daily basis and how to modify them to align with your own capabilities and goals.
Location:
Cressey Sports Performance
577 Main St.
Suite 310
Hudson, MA 01749
We’re really excited about this event, and would love to have you join us! However, space is limited and most seminars we’ve hosted in the past have sold out quickly, so don’t delay on signing up!
If you have additional questions, please direct them to cspmass@gmail.com. Looking forward to seeing you there!
NOTE: Pete and I will be hosting our CSP Business Building Mentorship on Monday the 15th. If you sign up for the business mentorship, admission to the fall seminar is included.
PS - If you're looking for hotel information, The Extended Stay America in Marlborough, MA offers our clients a heavily discounted nightly rate of just under $65.00. Just mention "Cressey" during the booking process in order to secure the discount. Their booking phone number is 508-490-9911.
I’m excited to announce that the 2018 edition of the Cressey Sports Performance Elite Baseball Development t-shirts (powered by New Balance Baseball) are now available for sale. Here's the design:
These shirts are insanely comfortable and run true to size.
Each shirt is $24.99 + S&H. Click the links below to add shirts to your cart:
There have been some noteworthy lat strains in MLB this year, and this trend isn't showing any signs of letting up. Here are a few reasons why they're occurring at such an alarming rate.
1. Better Diagnosis
Any time a diagnosis becomes more "accepted," doctors know to look for it more immediately. In 2011, Jake Peavy was the first player to actually tear the lat off the humerus and have surgery on it, but now we're actually seeing 1-2 of these each year in guys who come to Cressey Sports Performance for consultations (on top of guys who have lower grade lat strains). In the past, a lot of doctors would mistake lat strains for rotator cuff injuries or biceps tendon issues (because the lat attaches on the front of the humerus). Sometimes, lat injuries would be missed on MRIs because the attachment is far enough down the humerus that a regular shoulder MRI wouldn't cut wide enough. In short, better identification and subsequent diagnosis are always a big reason why a class of injuries "surges."
2. Harder Throwers
Lat recruitment during acceleration is substantially higher in high level throws than it is in amateur pitchers. In particular, as lot of elastic energy is put into lat during the lay-back phase of throwing while it works as an anterior stabilizer of the shoulder as it prepares to unleash that energy into powerful internal rotation and horizontal adduction.
Sprinters who run fast pull hamstrings more often. Basketball players who jump high increase their risk of Achilles ruptures. It shouldn't be a surprise that harder throwers have a higher incidence of lat strains.
3. Inappropriate Strength Training
With each passing day, weight training gets more and more "accepted" in baseball populations, and I absolutely love it. Unfortunately, that means a lot of inferior programs get implemented, and nothing is more inferior in a baseball strength and conditioning setting than programs that are way too lat dominant. If you're doing pull-ups, bench presses, heavy deadlifts, farmer's walks, walking dumbbell lunges - and then coaching all your rows and arm care exercises to be very lat dominant, you're really just exacerbating all the negative adaptations we see in throwers. If you look around your weight room and see a ton of guys with limited shoulder flexion, that should be a red flag.
4. Poorly Executed Arm Care Programs
Lats are sneaky, as they'll find a way to creep into a lot of arm care exercises. You'll see people "tug down" (extension/adduct) the humerus (upper arm) during external rotation exercises using the lat when it should be relaxing to allow the arm to externally rotate.
You'll see hands creeping toward the midline (shoulder internal rotation) during wall slide variations - when the lat should be relaxing to allow "clean" overhead motion to take place.
You'll see individuals lock the scapula down into depression during prone trap raises instead of allowing it to posterior tilt.
And, in the most commonly butchered exercise by every lat strain pitcher I've ever seen, you'll see the humerus tugged down during the prone horizontal abduction (when it should be at 90 degrees).
These examples should help to demonstrate that we've had a lot of success bringing lat strain injuries back to full function not only because of our quality manual therapy, but also because we know how to prescribe and meticulously coach the exercises that are so important for these individuals to master.
5. Weighted Balls
Weighted ball programs increase external rotation quickly (particularly in hypermobile throwers) and the lat - as one of the anterior stabilizers of the shoulder - is one structure that takes on the brunt of the load. When external rotation increases quickly and high speeds are involved, the lat at lay-back is analogous to the Achilles tendon of a basketball player that lands on a heavy dorsiflexed ankle; it just can't "give" any more. If you're a visual learner (and don't have a weak stomach), check out the 1:40 mark in this video to see what crazy eccentric stress at the end-range of a joint can do.
Now, imagine he's an untrained 14-year-old working at these speeds and you put a 100-pound weight vest on him; do you think it'll turn out well?
Weighted balls are awesome - when they're integrated at the right times, at the right loads, in the right dosages, with the right athletes who have earned the right to use them.
Closing Thoughts
If you look at these five contributing factors - and exclude the one (better diagnosis) that's actually a good thing - you'll realize that we have three that are completely in our control. Coach exercises correctly, prescribe strength and conditioning exercises appropriately, and integrate weighted baseball work the right way. If we do these three things correctly - and make sure to take care of tissue quality and length in our throwers - I firmly believe we can completely prevent lat strains, and that's been verified by our experience at Cressey Sports Performance.
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With summer training in full swing at both Cressey Sports Performance facilities, I've had all sorts of thoughts rattling around my head on a daily basis, so it set the stage for a new installment of this series on sports performance training.
1. Where an athlete feels an exercise is important, but not on all exercises.
I recently put up two Instagram posts that would appear to contradict one another, to the naked eye.
On one hand, you should always ask athletes where they feel an exercise. And, on the other hand, you sometimes don't want to feel it in one specific place. The answer (as is almost always the case) is "it depends."
When motion is actually taking place, muscles are working concentrically to create that motion. When a muscle shortens, you'll usually develop that "feel" in a certain spot.
Conversely, on an isometric exercise like a carry, there isn't a chance in tissue length, so you won't usually get that same sensation.
Also, keep in mind that the position you're in plays into this as well. If you're squatting, don't expect to "feel" your glutes, hamstrings, or quads specifically in the bottom position or mid-range - but you definitely could feel them a lot at the top as you approach the end of knee and hip extension, as the muscles shorten fully.
In short, "feel" matters - but not all the time.
2. Consider an athlete's age when you're trying to determine why they have a mobility restriction.
One-size-fits-all mobility approaches rarely work because of the way the body changes over the course of the lifespan.
Early on in life, kids are very hypermobile, so you don't really see mobility restrictions. If something seems out of whack, it's probably because they lack adequate motor control at an adjacent joint.
As they hit growth spurts, bones lengthen faster than muscles and tendons can keep up, so restrictions often become more musculotendinous in nature.
As the athletic lifespan continues, those muscular restrictions - in combination with the stress of sports participation or faulty postural habits - can lead to bony blocks and cemented joints. In the years that follow, capsular stiffness can emerge as a problem.
Over time, ligamentous laxity falls off and arthritis becomes more common, limiting range-of-motion even further.
Beyond a lifelong focus on preserving mobility, this knowledge of ROM "regressions" can remind to look to different places at different times. That 14-year-old athletic probably doesn't have capsular stiffness, nor is arthritis a concern. And, that 64-year-old client with the cranky hip probably isn't *only* dealing with muscular problems.
3. Strong guys need longer to train.
Imagine two lifters. Lifter A has one year of training experience and has a personal record deadlift of 315 pounds. Lifter B has 15 years of lifting under his belt and deadlifts 700 pounds. Let's assume both lifters are working up to ~90% of their 1RM in a training session.
Lifter A Warm-up
135x8
185x5
225x3
255x1
275x1
Work sets at 280-285
Lifter B Warm-up
135x8
225x5
315x3
405x3
455x1
495x1
545x1
585x1
605x1
Work sets at 630
Lifter A can get to his working weight in five warm-up sets while lifter B needs nine sets to do so. And, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Lifter B will take more time to unload his plates after finishing his work sets - and he'll probably need an additional warm-up set or two on subsequent assistance exercises. Additionally, chances are that given his time "under the bar" over the years, he'll be a bit older and more banged up (especially at those strength levels), so he'll need to devote more time to the general warm-up before he even gets to deadlifts. Lifter B will also be far more neurally efficient and therefore need more rest between heavy sets than Lifter A even if they've got similar aerobic capacity to facilitate recovery. You're really comparing apples and oranges.
The list goes on and on, and we arrive at the realization that every lifter will have a different optimal training time. This is why I always disagree when I hear things like, "You're working against yourself if you train for longer than 60 minutes." Meanwhile, just about every accomplished strength sport athlete on the planet trains for longer than 60 minutes in just about every training session. And, many of them are extremely lean and muscular.
Don't waste time in the gym, but don't try to race the clock in every session, either. Do what you need to get to get your work in to deliver a quality training effect.
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I'm a day late with these recommendations in light of a lot of a busy week of evaluations at Cressey Sports Performance as the college crew rolls back in. However, that's given me a few extra days to compile some good reading material for you:
EC on the The Farm System Podcast - I was interviewed for this baseball development podcast last just a few weeks ago; give it a listen!
Top Tweet of the Week
20 years from now, your clients/athletes won't remember that you put 30 pounds on their deadlift. They will, however, remember if you were a jerk who made them feel insecure and took the fun out of training. Remember that it's about their goals, not yours.
