We’re excited to announce that on Sunday, April 7, 2019, we’ll be hosting our third CSP Business-Building Mentorship, a day of learning with Pete Dupuis and me. For the first time, we'll offer this event at our Jupiter, FL facility. Pete and I have spent over 11 years 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 30 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
This event is sold out. Please email ec@ericcressey.com to be added to the waiting list or announcement list for the next offering.
Please keep in mind that both previous offerings of this mentorship have sold out well in advance of the event date. With that in mind, if you're interested in attending, please be sure to register early!
Location:
Cressey Sports Performance - Florida
880 Jupiter Park Drive
Suite 7
Jupiter, FL 3358
If you have additional questions, please direct them to ec@ericcressey.com. Looking forward to seeing you there!
PS - If you're looking for hotel information, we have preferred rates at the Comfort Inn and Suites Jupiter and the Fairfield Inn and Suites-West Palm Beach/Jupiter. If you mention the Cressey Sports Performance Corporate rate, you'll get a discounted rate. The hotels are less than 5 minutes from the facility. The contact information is below.
Comfort Inn and Suites-Jupiter
6752 West Indiantown Rd, Jupiter, FL 33458
(561) 745-7997
Fairfield Inn and Suites-West Palm Beach Jupiter
6748 West Indiantown Rd, Jupiter, FL 33458
(561) 748-5252
The Fairfield Inn on Indiantown Rd. in Jupiter, FL offers our clients a heavily discounted nightly rate. Just mention "Cressey" during the booking process in order to secure the discount. Their booking phone number is
The half-kneeling cable lift w/flexion-rotation hold is a new variation on an old drill, and we've been implementing it quite a bit with guys of late. It's a creation of CSP-FL co-founder and pitching coordinator Brian Kaplan.
Like all cable chops and lifts, we're training anti-rotation core stability. However, in this variation of the cable lift, the athlete drives thoracic (upper back) rotation and flexion, two crucial pieces of getting to an ideal ball release position during throwing, or completing a swing during hitting.
Simultaneously, the athlete should be actively pulling into the front hip (adduction and internal rotation) to simulate the same front hip force acceptance you get during the pitching delivery and hitting motion.
Of course, there are many functional performance benefits that extend far beyond the baseball world. This drill will benefit anyone who competes in extension-rotation sports, not to mention your casual weekend golfer. In short, it trains core stability and thoracic mobility, so it has almost universal application.
We'll usually program this for 6-8 reps per side. On each rep, we have a 2-3 second hold at the lockout position with a full exhale. You should really feel the core turn on - and in some cases, you'll even see athletes get a little cramp in the abs.
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To kick off the new year, we're excited to announce that we just did a production run of a new Cressey Sports Performance Hooded Sweatshirt design:
Each hooded sweatshirt is $44.99 + S&H. When you add one to your cart, please just type your size in the comments section (Small, Medium, Large, XL, and XXL are available). CLICK HERE to order.
These usually sell very quickly, so don’t delay if you’re interested in picking one up. Enjoy!
With 2018 winding down, I'm using this last week of the year to direct you to some of the most popular content of the past 12 months at EricCressey.com, as this "series" has been quite popular over the past few years. 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. Why You Shouldn't Look Up When You Lift - It drives me bonkers to see lifters looking up at the ceiling during squats, deadlifts, and even arm care exercises. In this post, I discuss why that's the case.
I'll be back soon with another "Best of 2018" feature. Up next, the top videos of the year!
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We've started using kettlebell windmills a lot more with our athletes this year. I think they slide in nicely (similar to Turkish Get-ups) as a first exercise on upper body days, even if they are more of a full-body exercise.
Generally speaking, I think we underappreciate how solid motion (or resistance to it) in the frontal plane really matters for folks from all walks of life. If you haven't read it already, check out my recent blog, Assessments You Might Be Overlooking: Installment 6, where I discuss the importance of assessing lateral flexion.
To me, the kettlebell windmill is the perfect exercise for teaching athletes how to groove proper core positioning as they load into the hip in multiple planes of motion. My most common cue to athletes with this exercise is, "Load into the hip hinge; don't just side bend."
As you'll see in this picture below, it's possible to get the motion in the wrong places. This would qualify as a side bend - and you can easily appreciate that not all motion is good motion.
We'll perform this exercise both "regular" and with a bottoms-up approach. I think it's best positioned early in the training session for 2-8 reps per set. Make sure athletes have adequate hip mobility and entry-level core control before jumping right to it. I actually like it as a subtle regression from Turkish Get-ups, especially in uncoordinated individuals and those who may lack a bit of shoulder mobility.
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Both Cressey Sports Performance facilities are booming with baseball players coming back to start their offseason training, so it's the time of year when athletes are working hard to get their rotator cuff control back before they start up their offseason throwing programs. With that said, I've been thinking about some big principles on the rotator cuff readiness front.
1. In a broad sense, just about every rotator cuff exercise can be categorized in one of five ways:
a. Strength - this consists of manual resistance work and anything with cables at dumbbells; it needs to be loaded up and challenging.
b. Timing - this consists of drills like 90/90 holds and rhythmic stabilizations.
c. Endurance - this builds on what we see in Option A (some of the same exercises), but the resistance is a bit lower and it's done for higher reps or a longer time. The goal is less about strength and more about training the ability to hold the humeral head on the glenoid fossa for a lengthier period of time. I'd call it more important for a sport like swimming than for baseball or tennis athletes.
d. Irradiation - this can refer to just about any exercise, as your rotator cuff fires reflexively any time your arm moves. That said, certain exercises - bottoms-up kettlebell variations, for instance - are particularly useful for challenging this category of drills.
e. Patterning - these are just drills that take the humerus through its full range-of-motion. Of particular importance is end-range external rotation, which we train with drills like this:
2. I prefer near-daily exposures rather than exhaustive, less frequent programs.
If you look at our training programs, most of our pro guys are doing some kind of targeted training for the rotator cuff 5-6 days per week. Twice per week, we'll push more strength and irradiation work, and twice per week, we'll cover more timing drills. Just about every day, though, there will be some kind of patterning exercise so that we're reminding the cuff of what it's supposed to do.
This approach is a stark contrast to what you usually see in the baseball world, which is notorious for handing out the 2x/week arm care routines that take 45-60 minutes each. They're usually about 15 exercises for multiple sets, and leave an athlete hanging by the end of the session. I think this approach has more to do with the fact that it lines up with what's convenient for 2-3x/week physical therapy sessions than because it's truly optimal. I'm of the belief that you don't need (or want) to exhaust the cuff to get it to where it needs to be.
And, while we're at it, if the cuff is going to get abused on a daily basis with throwing, lifting, and activities of daily living, why not give it some more frequent exposure to build a little tissue resiliency?
3. Posterior deltoid shouldn't be lumped in with infraspinatus and teres minor.
Many times, the reason we have discomfort or the "wrong" feeling with drills is that athletes are paying close attention to the osteokinematics - gross movements of internal/external rotation, flexion/extension, adduction/abduction - of the joint in question, but not paying attention to the arthrokinematics of that same joint. In other words, the rolling, rocking, and gliding taking place needs to be controlled within a tight window to ensure ideal movement.
In shoulder external rotation variations, as we externally rotate the arm, the humeral head (ball) likes to glide forward on the glenoid fossa (socket). The glenohumeral ligaments (anterior shoulder capsule), rotator cuff, and biceps tendon are the only things that can hold it in the socket. In a throwing population, the capsule is usually a bit loose and the cuff is a bit weak, so the biceps tendon often has to pick up the slack - which is why some folks wind up feeling these in the front, thereby strengthening a bad pattern. There are also a bunch of nerves at the front of the shoulder that can get irritated.
Now, here's where things get a bit more complex. The infraspinatus and teres minor are both rotator cuff muscles that have attachments right on the humeral head, so they can control the arthrokinematics (posterior glide) during external rotation work. Conversely, the posterior deltoid (blue, in the image below) runs from the posterior aspect of the spine of the scapula to further down the arm on the deltoid tubercle. In other words, it completely bypasses control of the humeral head.
By Anatomography - en:Anatomography (setting page of this image), CC BY-SA 2.1 jp, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22835985
With this in mind, the posterior deltoid actually creates a gliding forward of the humeral head as it externally rotates and horizontally abducts the arm. For this reason, you need to make sure the arm doesn't come back (horizontal abduction) as it externally rotates during your arm care drills. This video should clarify things, if you're a visual learner:
Looking for more insights like these? Be sure to check out my new resource, Sturdy Shoulder Solutions.
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It's been pretty quiet here on the blog of late, as we've been really crazy with the CSP Fall Seminar, our Business Building Mentorship, loads of pro baseball guys starting up their offseason, and us moving the family down to Florida for the offseason. While there hasn't been a lot of time for new content, I do have some good recommendations from around the 'Net for you:
How to Build an Aerobic Base with Mobility Circuits - I wrote this blog three years ago, and it seemed like a good time to reincarnate it, as this is the time of year when we're incorporating these strategies with a lot of our MLB guys as they get back in action in the weight room.
EC on the Robby Row Show - If you're interested in baseball development, check out this podcast I did with Robby Rowland.
I dislike the "take a month off" recommendation for athletes at season's end. Training shouldn't be an "all in" or "all out" decision; there are many levels of involvement, & the lowest tiers can be very impactful. Pick the lowest hanging fruit in the 1st month of the offseason.
If you've followed my writing for any length of time, you'll know that I'm a big fan of using medicine ball training for power development with our athletes. We have both rotational and overhead variations - and sometimes, we have drills that combine the two. Enter the knee-to-knee rollover medicine ball stomp.
Key Coaching Points:
1. Don't rush the back hip rotation; rather, sit into that hip for what seems like an uncomfortable long time. This allows hip-shoulder separation to occur.
2. Minimize lower back arching.
3. Be firm into the ground on the front leg. Some individuals will stiffen up on that front leg with more knee extension, while others will be slightly more flexed.
4. Perform 3-4 reps per side.
5. We utilize this exercise several months into the offseason after we've had a chance to optimize overhead and rotational medicine ball technique with less complex drills. Athletes have to earn this one.
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It's often been said that anything can be fixed with duct tape and WD-40. And, as a guy with extremely limited handyman skills, I really like this flowchart.
While this might seem like a dramatic oversimplification with respect the human body, I think there are actually some noteworthy parallels. To prove this, let's take a look at a study my buddy, Mike Reinold, co-authored back in 2008. While they looked at range of motion changes in professional pitchers after an outing, the findings of the study that I always keep coming back to have more to do with the absolute range of motion numbers in the data set (moreso than the changes). Take a look:
Looking at the mean shoulder total motion pre-throwing, MLB pitchers averaged about 191 degrees. However, when you look at the standard deviation of 14.6 degrees, you'll see that there were guys down around 175 degrees (very hypomobile or "tight"), and others up around 206 degrees (very hypermobile or "loose").
Speaking very generally, the tight guys need more WD-40 (range of motion work), and the loose guys need more duct tape (stability training). Now, here's what you make your mark as a coach: identify the exceptions to this rule.
For example, when you have an otherwise "tight" guy who comes back from a long season in with a significant range of motion increase at a joint, it could mean that he's developed instability (e.g., blown out a ligament). Or, maybe you see an otherwise "loose" guy who has lost a considerable amount of range of motion, it could mean that he's really hanging out in a bad pattern, developing musculotendinous shortness/stiffness that "overpowers" his ligamentous laxity. Or, he might be really out of alignment, or have developed a bony block.
Identifying outliers - exceptions to the rules - is a crucial part of evaluation success and subsequent programming. As I've often said, don't just focus on average.
Speaking of lessons to be learned in managing overhead throwing athletes, education and individualization are key components of how we roll out our Summer Collegiate Elite Baseball Development Program. You can learn more HERE.
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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.
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