I love writing multi-part features because it really affords me more time to dig deep into a topic of interest to both my readers and me. In many ways, it’s a challenge on par with writing a short book, whereas individual blogs tend to be quick bullet points. That said, here were five noteworthy features from 2011 at EricCressey.com:
How to Deadlift: Which Deadlift Variation is Right for You?- Part 1 (Conventional Deadlift) - This kicked off a three-part series on why certain deadlift variations may be more appropriate than others for certain lifters. Be sure to read installments 2 and 3: the Sumo Deadlift and the Trap Bar Deadlift.
Coffee Consumption and Health: The Final Word - Part 1 - As I noted the other day, one of the biggest surprises for me in 2011 was that my readers were psyched to get nutrition content at EricCressey.com, and Brian St. Pierre's guest blog on coffee consumption and health was one such example. Be sure to check out Part 2 as well.
How to Fit Core Stability Exercises into Strength and Conditioning Programs - Part 1 - This two-part feature was published late in the year, but that didn't stop it from receiving enough traffic to rank in the top five at year-end. It was a follow-up to the Functional Stability Training seminar that Mike Reinold and I presented at Cressey Performance in November. Click here for part 2.
Is Dairy Healthy? The Whole Story - Part 1 - This three-part feature was another great guest submission from Brian St. Pierre on a hotly debated topic in the nutrition world. Check out Part 2 and Part 3 as well.
Speaking of features, that wraps up this third installment of the "Best of 2011" series; I'll be back soon with the top videos of 2011.
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With 2011 winding down, I'll be dedicating this week to the best content of the year, based on traffic volume at EricCressey.com. I'll kick it off today with my most popular articles from the past year.
1. My New Favorite Training Shoe - This post received more than 3,000 views more than #2. Apparently, footwear is a topic about which folks were anxious to read, and I gave a detailed review of all the minimalist footwear options I've tried - and folks shared it a ton. Additionally, based on feedback on my Twitter account, a lot of people purchased the New Balance Minimus based on my recommendation and have absolutely loved it.
2. Your Arm Hurts? Thank Your Little League, Fall Ball, and AAU Coaches. - This post received well over 1,000 Facebook "shares" and loads of Tweets, and I'm hopeful that this is indicative of parents, coaches, and players learning about how to approach arm care and throwing programs intelligently. I think it was also popular because it was a good blend of scientific evidence and simple, everyday logic.
3.Tim Collins: Why Everyone Should Be a Kansas City Royals Fan (at least for a day) - This was my favorite post of the year, as it was a chance to celebrate a good friend and long-time Cressey Performance athlete who is everything that is right about Major League Baseball. As a cool little aside, traffic to this article played a large part in having "Tim Collins" trending on Twitter during his MLB debut on Opening Day in March.
4. Weight Training Programs: You Can't Just Keep Adding - It sounds like many of my readers were glad to hear that I was doing some writing on managing training stress. There is a lot of common sense in this one, but sometimes, that's what people need!
5. Strength Training Programs and Squat Technique: To Arch or Not to Arch? - Here's a very misunderstood topic in the area of strength and conditioning technique. You'll be happy to know that I'll be addressing it in great detail in the new Functional Stability Training resource that Mike Reinold and I are releasing soon.
6. Shoulder Hurts? Start Here. - In this piece, I outlined three sure-fire strategies that just about everyone can employ regardless of their shoulder issues.
7. Healthy Food Options: Why You Should Never Take Nutrition Advice from Your Government - One of the biggest surprises for me in 2011 was that my readers absolutely ate up (no pun intended) nutrition content, and summer Cressey Performance intern Tyler Simmons' guest blog perfect example. He shared some great (and controversial) thoughts in this guest blog.
8. Correcting Bad Posture: Are Deadlifts Enough? - People want results, and they want them fast. This post touched on whether or not the deadlift could be an optimal "shortcut" for getting to where you want to be.
9. Why the Gym's Out-of-Business and the Porn Store's Thriving - This was proof that I can write about just about anything. Don't ever expect to see a content drought here at EricCressey.com. The timing for this was really good, as I got the idea to write it right around the time that we released The Fitness Business Blueprint.
10. Lifting Heavy Weights vs. Corrective Exercise: Finding a Balance - I can definitely see how folks found this topic so interesting, as it's a very challenging balance to strike. In fact, it was even a very challenging piece around which to wrap my brain!
This wraps up our top 10 posts of 2011, but I'll be back soon with more "Best of" highlights from 2011. Next up, I'll list my top product reviews of the year.
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I write a lot at EricCressey.com about various continuing education opportunities for fitness professionals.
Reading this blog and other related websites on the 'net is one.
Checking out some of my products and those created by other folks in the industry is a second.
Attending seminars is a third.
Getting out to observe other coaches is a fourth; we have observational interns stop by all the time to check out Cressey Performance for a day or two.
Fifth would be teaching. One of the best ways to master a topic is to have to teach it and answer questions about it. This is why giving seminars and doing staff/intern training makes me better at what I do.
However, there is a sixth option out there that - to be very honest - blows all the rest out of the water.
All of your clients/athletes have things to teach you.
Case in point, Monday was the busiest day in Cressey Performance history, as lots of our college guys rolled back in from the fall semester and jumped in with our professional athletes, adult clients, and high school and middle school clientele. This week alone, we saw athletes from the following:
29 of the 30 MLB organizations
Over 20 area high schools and their associated middle schools
Wake Forest University
Vanderbilt University
University of Virginia
University of Maryland
Boston College
Northwestern University
University of Florida
Coastal Carolina University
University of Connecticut
Columbia University
Florida Tech
Kennesaw St. University
University of Hartford
Binghamton University
Bryant University
Babson College
Assumption College
Wheaton College
Rollins College
Southern New Hampshire University
UMASS - Lowell
UMASS - Amherst
Middlebury College
Emory University
Elon University
Carson-Newman College
St. Lawrence University
Washington University - St. Louis
Franklin Pierce
Colby College
Bowdoin College
Eckerd College
I'm sure I'm forgetting a few - and this is on top of our adult clients, but that's neither here nor there. The point is that every single one of these individuals has a unique background: different injury histories, different training backgrounds, and different responses to the training they are doing with you. Ask them questions about what they like and what they dislike. Find out what's worked, and what hasn't. Ask where their biggest shortcomings are; what do they struggle with on a daily basis?
This form of education is the absolute best of the bunch for two reasons.
First, it's the best kind of information, because it's already framed in the context of an existing schema in your mind (I covered this concept in an old blog, Strength and Conditioning Programs: How to Make Change Easier). Comparatively speaking, when you read about a concept in a book, you have to consider how it applies to a client/athlete of yours before you can apply it - and then you have to evaluate it to see what works. When you do "Q&A" with the individual in question, you get useful information that you can immediately apply.
Second, it's an opportunity to show clients/athletes that you genuinely care about them and are taking an interest in their unique situations. This simply doesn't happen in facilities when they don't do evaluations on the first day. And, it certainly doesn't happen when everyone does the same program off the dry erase board.
So, the next time you're looking to pick up some new ideas to help your strength and conditioning philosophy evolve, start asking questions of the people who matter the most: your clients and athletes.
The dynamic warm-up is an extremely important component of a strength and conditioning program. In addition to reducing the risk of injury while enhancing subsequent performance in a variety of contexts, it's also a great place to implement corrective exercise drills to address underlying muscle imbalances.
With that in mind, to get the most out of your dynamic warm-up, keep in mind these six characteristics of an effective pre-training program.
1. A good dynamic warm-up should be preceded by soft tissue work.
Every one of our clients at Cressey Performance goes through the following foam rolling series (at the very least) prior to their first warm-up drills.
For a bit more on the rationale behind foam rolling, check out this post of mine from a few months ago. Needless to say, it's important - and will make your dynamic warm-up far more productive.
2. A good dynamic warm-up should progress from ground-based to standing.
When I write a warm-up, I want athletes to do all their ground-based activation and mobility drills first, rather than mix them in with standing exercises. This works not only for the sake of convenience, but also in terms of facility logistics: traffic throughout the gym is more predictable. As an example, I might use a wall hip flexor mobilization to improve hip extension range of motion before I'd get an athlete up to do lunge variations in the standing position.
I like to see things progress from ground-based, to standing in-place (e.g., scapular wall slides, bowler squats), to standing and moving.
3. A good dynamic warm-up should progress from single-joint to multi-joint movements.
We might do a rocking ankle mobilization or quadruped extension-rotation early in the warm-up to work purely on ankle mobility and thoracic spine mobility, respectively, but once the warm-up progresses and one becomes upright, all the joints need to be working together in an appropriate balance of mobility and stability. Just count how many different pieces are in place on this drill:
4. A good dynamic warm-up addresses mobility at the ankles, hips, and thoracic spine.
Even if people just worked on these three areas (to the exclusion of everything else) and then moved on to the rest of their strength training programs, the world would be a much healthier and high-performance place. Throw on restrictive footwear and sit hunched over a desk all day, and these are the areas that will suffer the most - so make sure you've got drills for each in the warm-up. Keep in mind that while one drill each for the ankle and thoracic spine mobility will be sufficient for most, it'll likely take several to take care of the hips, as they need to be moved in all three planes of motion.
5. A good dynamic warm-up should take into account joint laxity.
This is something I have to keep in mind all the time, as many of our baseball pitchers have considerable congenital joint laxity. Their joint ranges of motion are already so good that we don't need to do much (if at all) in terms of mobility work. Rather, we do substantially more low-level activation drills during the warm-up period to teach them how to stabilize joints prior to more intense exercise. Conversely, if you have someone who is as tight as a drum, chances are that you can be more aggressive with mobility drills, knowing the subsequent stability will come more easily to them.
6. A good dynamic warm-up should actually increase body temperature.
I see a lot of people who drag their heels going through a warm-up, thinking too much or simply wasting time along the way. You don't need to do 20 different drills, but rather select 8-10 drills and do them at a pace that allows you to get your body temperature and joint range of motion up sufficiently to be prepared for a more specific warm-up (e.g., light deadlifts). If you take it too slowly, it just won't have the same effect. While everyone is different when it comes to perspiration, I like to see athletes sweating a little bit by the end of the warm-up.
These are just a few quick and easy guidelines I like to keep in mind when writing the dynamic warm-ups in our strength and conditioning programs. Of course, each client has unique needs - from actual physical limitations to space/equipment limitations - that one must take into account as well.
To learn more, I'd encourage you to check out Assess and Correct: Breaking Barriers to Unlock Performance. This two-DVD set provides 27 assessments and 78 corrective exercises that can serve as the foundation for effective dynamic warm-ups in your strength and conditioning programs.
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Here's this week's list of recommended strength and conditioning reading:
Groin Strain? Get Manual Therapy - I received an email inquiry this week about training around a groin strain, and it reminded me of this old post of mine.
America's Scariest Fitness Trends - This was a story by Adam Campbell for Yahoo Sports' The Postgame, and I provided a few quotes.
Quantifying the Farmer's Walk- I thought this was an outstanding piece from Shon Grosse, a good friend of mine who is an outstanding physical therapist in Pennsylvania.
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A few weeks ago, when we handed a relatively new athlete his second strength and conditioning program from Cressey Performance, he asked:
What different things are we working on this month, compared to the last month?
I was candid with him and emphasized that we'd be working on some of the exact same stuff - but progressing on what we did in Month 1 with new strength exercises and subtle shifts in what was prioritized in light of where he'd improved the most. In short, the answer was to trust in the program, and allow time for adaptation to occur.
"Assuming" adaptation is one of the biggest mistakes I see coaches and athletes make in strength training programs, as the truth is that everyone responds to a given stimulus differently.
For instance, I've had professional baseball players come back from long seasons with horrendous rotator cuff strength that takes a good 10-12 weeks to get back to baseline. On the other hand, I've had guys come back from the same long season with outstanding cuff strength. It'd be a disservice to these two types of athletes to hand them the same arm care programs, at the same time, with the same progressions. Unfortunately, it's something that happens all the time in a wide variety of strength and conditioning programs simply because folks may be married to a long-term periodization approach, when more of a short-term "wait and see" methodology may, in fact, be far more effective.
In a linear periodization model (which research has proven inferior to an undulating approach in terms of strength and muscular endurance), one might approach the baseball off-season with the following progression: muscular endurance training (sets of 12-15) in September, hypertrophy training (sets of 6-12) in October-November, strength training (sets of 1-6) in December-January, and then power training (lower-load sets of 1-8) in February-March.
The problem with this model of athletic development, of course, is that you get very proficient in one quality at a time while detraining the others. And, each athlete may not need a specific phase of this scheme.
For instance, a baseball player who is an insanely reactive athlete might not need any true power training; he could get that from his sport exclusively - and would therefore be better off emphasizing maximal strength.
Conversely, an athlete who is insanely strong, but slow, would need more power training and less work on maximal strength.
Finally, baseball players don't really need much, if any, muscular endurance training. They build that in a more specific approach later on with the volume and intensity progressions in their throwing and hitting programs.
These are just a few of the many reasons we use a concurrent periodization model for all the strength training programs we write at Cressey Performance. This broad approach affords us the flexibility we need to make specific changes for each athlete based on the adaptations we observe, not something we assume has taken place.
It's perfectly fine to implement variety to keep training fun, expose an athlete to a rich proprioceptive environment, and ensure that overuse injuries don't occur, but never lose sight of the goals of any good strength and conditioning program: addressing an athlete's most glaring weaknesses.
If an athlete is painfully weak, don't stop all strength work 6-8 weeks out of the season because you're supposed to be working on power and conditioning at that time period. Just tinker with things; don't overhaul.
If an athlete is strong as a bull, but always deconditioned, you may need to cut back on the maximal strength work and prioritize metabolic conditioning more.
The body will always have a limited recovery capacity, so when it comes to writing strength and conditioning programs, one must always prioritize the most pressing needs, not simply adhere blindly to a long-term plan that doesn't take into account these opportunities for adaptation.
Here's this week's list of recommended strength and conditioning reading:
The Effects of Stable versus Unstable Surface Training on Performance of Division II Female Soccer Players - I was psyched to see this presented in the most recent Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, as these researchers verified the findings of my master's thesis. Essentially, we found that even a small dosage of unstable surface training interferes with the development of strength, power, and aerobic capacity. For more information, I'd encourage you to check out The Truth About Unstable Surface Training, which summarizes our findings, rationale, and practical applications.
The President's Cancer Panel Report - I thought Brian St. Pierre did a great job of presenting this valuable information very succinctly; it's all stuff that we should know.
The Contreras Files: Volume 1 - I love reading Bret Contreras' stuff because he is constantly working to add to the body of knowledge, whether it's in doing research of his own, or translating research into usable formats for coaches, trainers, and lifters. This is a great example.
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In part 1 of this series, I discussed an overall approach to the categorization of core stability exercises. Here, in the second installment of this series, I'll be talking about how to incorporate various core stability exercises into your strength and conditioning programs.
To recap, the categories we'll be dealing with are anterior core, posterior core, lateral core, and rotary core. In reality, though, in my eyes, we only really need to specifically program for three of these categories. You see, the posterior core seems to take care of itself, as we are already training the ability to resist flexion with various strength exercises like deadlifts, squats, pull-throughs, kettlebell swings, and a host of other strength. Some folks may benefit from some birddogs in the warm-up period to help learn the anti-flexion patterning a bit better, but most folks are ready to rock and roll with a comprehensive strength and conditioning program that emphasizes the other three.
With that "exception" out of the way, I think it's important to appreciate three different factors when programming core stability exercises:
1. An individual's training experience - A true beginner can typically work on low-level core exercises like dead bugs and prone and side bridges on a daily basis to establish motor control. Conversely, these exercises may be too basic for a more advanced lifter, so he/she would need to focus on more advanced exercises, but do them less frequently (1-3x/week).
2. An individual's weaknesses - A young athlete with a raging anterior pelvic tilt would need to prioritize anti-extension core stability exercises over the other categories, as you want to master the sagittal plane before getting "too sexy" in other planes. Sure, you can train the other ones, but you're better off working on the most pressing issue first.
3. An individual's training frequency - Obviously, if someone is training 4-6x/week, you can do more in terms of core stability exercises with his strength and conditioning programs than you could if he was only training 2x/week. When they train less frequently, you often have to make some sacrifices in terms of core stability exercise volume in order to make sure the big-bang strength exercises (which can serve as indirect core training exercises) still get the attention they deserve.
With these three factors in mind, let's look at a few examples. Keep in mind that in each of these examples, I've removed the compound exercises, mobility drills, foam rolling, and metabolic conditioning just so that you can see how the core training exercises exist in isolation.
Example 1: 4x/week Strength and Conditioning Program
Here, you have all the flexibility in the work to prioritize the areas that are lagging the most. This example emphasized anterior core, but it could have easily been lateral or rotary core stability with some quick and easy substitutions.
Example 2: 3x/weekStrength and Conditioning Program
Day 1: Challenging Anterior Core (e.g., Rollouts), Low-Level Lateral Core (e.g., Side Bridges)
Day 2: Challenging Rotary Core (e.g., Landmines), Low-Level Anterior Core (e.g., Reverse Crunches)
Day 3: Challenging Lateral Core (e.g., 1-arm Carries), Low-Level Rotary Core (e.g., Pallof Presses)
You can still get in two versions of each of the "big three" core stability exercise categories over the course of the week - and that doesn't even include the "accidental" benefits you get from your compound strength exercises.
Example 3: 2x/week Strength and Conditioning Program
Day 1: Lateral Core (e.g., 1-arm Carries), Anterior Core from loaded push-up variation
Day 2: Rotary Core (e.g., Split-Stance Cable Lift), Anterior Core from overhead pressing.
You can see that this is far from "optimal" in terms of covering everything you want to cover in a comprehensive core stability exercise program, but when you can only get in two sessions a week (as might be the case for an in-season athlete), you make sacrifices and do what you can. This athlete might be able to complement this program with some low-level prone bridges, reverse crunches, and get-up variations on off-days.
Hopefully, this gives you a little glimpse into what a few sample weeks of core stability exercises look like in Cressey Sports Performance strength training programs. For more information and another perspective, I'd encourage you to check out our Functional Stability Training of the Core resource, which is on sale for 25% off this week (discount automatically applied at checkout). Click here to learn more.
Several of our other products are also on sale; you can learn more HERE.
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Today's guest blog on Metabolic Resistance Training comes from Joe Dowdell, co-creator of the Peak Diet and Training Summit DVD set.Metabolic Resistance Training has received a lot of attention over the last few years, especially for fat loss. However, the reality is that many strength coaches have been using this technique with their clients and athletes for a very long time.
Before we go any further, and so we are all on the same page, my view or definition of metabolic resistance training is any strength training session that employs a series of 4-8 exercises (which are predominantly multi-joint in nature), while utilizing little (i.e., under 30 seconds) to no rest between sets. In other words, these metabolic resistance training sessions incorporate things like the Olympic lifts, squats, chin-ups, push-ups, kettlebell Swings, medicine ball throws, etc. in order to call upon as many muscle groups as possible in a single training session. In addition to the shorter rest periods, one may see “timed sets” as another variable, where the client performs as many reps as possible in a given time frame.
The overall training effect of metabolic resistance training is a greater metabolic disturbance in the body’s physiology, which in turn can elevate your caloric expenditure for a greater period of time following your workout. Compared to a traditional strength training session, this style of training can be very effective for body composition changes as well as an increase in one’s work capacity.
All of this sounds pretty great, especially if a client’s goal is fat loss, right? Well, yes and no. You see, the problem is that some people just aren’t ready for metabolic resistance training, especially when they first come to see you (or at least not to this degree). Many people, especially sedentary individuals, have underlying muscle imbalances that can lead to faulty movement patterns.
And, I’ve also found that some people are too weak to even get a proper metabolic training effect. So, in both of these cases, wouldn’t these people be better served by doing some structural balance work and maybe just some overall strength training? And, if we wanted to get some conditioning in with client, perhaps it might be better to use a Airdyne, VersaClimber, or Prowler after the strength training program wraps up for the day. This way, we can still get them a bit of a sweat, but the learning curve is pretty low. Just a thought.
So, you may be asking yourself, what should you do instead? Well, you can actually still set up a strength and conditioning program that will improve someone’s body composition without using metabolic resistance training. In fact, I often use more of a German Body Comp style of training for client’s in the early stages of training, especially for beginners or sedentary individuals. In other words, I may pair up a lower body exercise (like a split squat) with an upper body exercise (like a flat, neutral grip DB bench press) and allow the client 60 seconds of rest between each set of the two exercises. Or, I may use agonist-antagonist sequence, like a TRX high row followed by a push-up while employing the same protocol for the rest period. This type of training program will allow me to get quite a bit of work done while also giving me the flexibility to target a client’s weaknesses, develop better overall strength and stability while also giving me the opportunity to teach them how to move more effectively.
On the other hand, if I just fast tracked them into a more metabolic style of training like I see many trainers doing with their clients, I’m not allowing that client the opportunity to develop the kind of solid fundamental movement patterns that I want them to have. And, I may be just building strength on top of a dysfunctional foundation, which could lead to a setback further down the road. So, next time, you sit down to design a new client’s fat loss program, ask yourself the following question:
Is this client ready for Metabolic Resistance Training or do I need to first progress them to that point?
Joe covers more on this, as well as proper periodization models, energy systems training, how to structure and sequence a training session, and a lot more in our new Peak Diet & Training Design Home Study Course. Grab a copy before Friday at midnight and you'll save $100, get a handful of other goodies and bonuses, and earn 2.0 NSCA CEU credits.
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