Here's this week's list of recommended strength and conditioning reading:

Post Rehab Essentials Version 2.0 - Dean Somerset just released this today and it's excellent.  Candidly, I didn't get a chance to start it until Sunday night, so I'm only partway through.  I'll be writing up a review of it as soon as I can find some time to finish up with it.  The first edition was very good, and this new version has fantastic content as well.  Dean is a super bright guy who kind of flies under the radar, but you'd be wise to check it out, especially since you can get CEUs for it.

The Food Freak Show - Brian St. Pierre wrote up this article for T-Nation on where our food production industry is headed.  The article is based on a presentation he gave at last year's CP Fall Seminar, and you can actually listen to it here, too.

Breathing Pattern Disorders - This was an excellent recap Mike Reinold wrote up after a small seminar with Leon Chaitow.  Chaitow is one of the best manual therapists on the planet, and in this review, Mike discusses his approaches to the assessment and treatment of breathing pattern disorders.

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Happy Valentine's Day Week! While I love all my readers and appreciate your support, I won't get all sappy on you today.  Instead, our recommended strength and conditioning reading will focus on getting jacked and crushing good food.  What's not to love?

Strength Training Program: What to Do If You Can't Squat Deep - This was a guest blog I wrote over at Men's Health earlier this week. If you don't have the mobility to squat deep, don't worry; I'll give you some alternatives to ensure that your lower body strength training doesn't suffer.

Limit Protein to 20g Per Meal? - This is an old blog post from Dr. John Berardi, but I've had two separate athletes ask me about whether the body can only "handle" a certain amount of protein at each meal.  As such, I thought it'd be a good time to reincarnate this excellent write-up.

Smart Overhead Pressing - This was a great post at T-Nation by Dean Somerset.  If more people would follow progressions like this before jumping into overhead pressing, we'd have a lot fewer shoulder injuries in the weight training population.

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Here's this week's list of recommended strength and conditioning reads:

When to Wear Minimalist Shoes - I thought this was a great post from Dean Somerset on a hot topic these days.  Dean, like me, is a fan of the New Balance Minimus.

As an interesting little aside to this, last week, I had a chance to preview the newest version of the Minimus (due out in December), and they're absolutely awesome.  Cool colors, awesome design, super durability, and great fit. I'm excited to rock them.

The Most Overlooked Continuing Education Opportunity for Fitness Professionals - My experience out at the Area Code Games reminded me of this old post of mine, as I had an opportunity to interact with kids from all over the country on the baseball field.  The athletes and clients you encounter can teach you a ton.

Glutes Gone Wild: Part 2 - Silly name, but good article from Ben Bruno nonetheless.  There are some exercise variations in here that we use quite often at CP.

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Here's this week's list of recommended strength and conditioning reading for you:

Research: Gaining Hip Rotation Without Stretching - My UCONN buddy Mike Irr wrote up this excellent research review, and did an equally solid job with discussing implications of its findings and recommendations for future research. 

Why Nobody Except Your Mom Reads Your Fitness Blog - The popularity of my business partner's guest blog (here) reminded me of this post I wrote last year.  I think you'll find it to be entertaining!

Scapular Stability and Push-ups - Dean Somerset wrote up an entertaining, video-packed post on how push-up variations fit in with your scapular stabilization programs.

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Over the years, I've probably become best-known for my writing, consulting, and presenting in the corrective exercise field.  It's become a great niche for me; I get to help people who may be frustrated with injuries, bad posture, or movement limitations that prevent them from doing the things they enjoy.  And, I'm able to have fun in the process and make a good living while doing so.

With that in mind, I wanted to devote today's piece to my top four reasons that you, too, should make a dedicated effort to become knowledgeable in the world of corrective exercise.  The timing is quite fitting, as our Functional Stability Training series (which provides thorough insights into the corrective exercise field for rehabilitation specialists and fitness professionals alike) is on sale for 20% off through tonight (Sunday) at midnight.

Anyway, without further ado, here are my top 4 reasons you ought to get involved in this component of the fitness industry.

1. Health care quality and quantity are changing all over the world.

The push toward universal health care has dramatically increased the need for qualified people to fill the gap between "healthy" and "injured" populations.  When more people have health insurance, but there aren't any more providers, not everyone can get access to what they need - and certainly not nearly as quickly.  Two stories come to mind in this regard:

a. A guy I know in Canada actually waited nine days to have a ruptured patellar tendon repaired.

b. An online consulting client in England who sought me out after a hip surgery reported that he had to wait three months for the hip surgery following the point at which they concluded that physical therapy wasn't going to get the job done.

While the push for universal health care in the United States is still being sorted out (and it's certainly not a topic to be covered in this blog, as I have no interest in taking this down political lines), the truth is that we've seen a "crack-down" on what insurance companies afford folks in terms of physical therapy visits for a given condition.  Very simply, physical therapists rarely have the time to do everything they want to do to get people truly healthy, so folks often have to just settle for "asymptomatic."

In the U.S. and abroad, there is a huge need for qualified personal trainers and strength and conditioning coaches to step in and take the baton from physical therapists in the post-rehab setting to help improve patient outcomes.  And, there is certainly a big need for these fitness professionals to step in and help people who may move terribly, but not have symptoms...yet.

2. New expertise enables a fitness professional to tap into a new market and carve out a niche.

Roughly 85% of our clients at Cressey Sports Performance are baseball players; it's a population we've really gone out of our way to understand for years now.  Specific to the current discussion, baseball players have the most extreme collection of upper extremity injuries you'll encounter (on top of lower back, oblique, hip, and knee issues) - so demand is never lacking for our services.

This just one sport, though.  Almost every golfer experiences lower back pain at some point.  Hockey players have load of hip issues.  Swimmers have so much laxity that their shoulders are always banged up.  The opportunities to carve out a niche in a specific sport or population are endless - but you have to know your stuff first.

3. Everybody is injured - whether they know it or not.

I've written quite a bit previously about how absolutely everyone you encounter has some kind of structural abnormality on diagnostic imaging.  This applies to lower backs, shoulders, knees, and every other joint you'll encounter in your professional career.

The importance message to take from this knowledge is that even though everyone is "injured," not everyone is symptomatic.  Rather, the ones who hurt are those who have poor mobility, stability, and tissue quality.  They're in pain because they simply don't move well.

Taking away someone's pain is a tremendous way to win them over for life - and I can assure you that keeping them out of pain when they know they should be in pain isn't far behind on the appreciation scale.

4. Structural abnormalities are becoming a part of normal physical development.

I work with a lot of 10-18 year-old athletes, and I'm constantly amazed at how we are "de-evolving."  Kids' movement quality is worse than every nowadays, as they're sitting too much and playing too little.  And, their yearly athletic calendars lack variety because of early sports specialization.

The end result is that our society has created an epidemic of injuries (e.g., ulnar collateral ligament tears in pitchers, ACL ruptures in soccer/basketball players) and conditions (e.g., femoroacetabular impingement, atrocious ankle mobility) that were much less common in the past.  Getting involved with corrective exercise education is a way to not only help understand why this is happening, but also to manage it and hopefully prevent it from continuing.

I'm speaking very broadly with respect to the need for significant corrective exercise education in order to make a difference in this industry, but the truth is that it is a subject that warrants a ton of detail.  Fortunately, Mike Reinold and I delve into this topic in great detail in our Functional Stability Training resources: Core, Upper Body, Lower Body, and Optimizing Movement. You can learn more - and save 20% through the end of the day today - at www.FunctionStability.com.

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Last summer, Rick Kaselj sent me the eight webinars from his new collaborative product, Muscle Imbalances Revealed - Upper Body, to review.  I was really excited to check them out, as I'd enjoyed the initial version of the Muscle Imbalanced Revealed (MIR) series.

Unfortunately, my enthusiasm to watch it was overtaken by a crazy busy summer schedule and I only got around to looking it over a few months later.  I regretted that it took me so long, as I really enjoyed what I viewed.  That said, I thought I'd use today's piece to comment on my favorite take-homes from one presenter, Dean Somerset, who I thought did an exceptional job.  Be sure to read through to the end, as Rick has a great discount on the entire Muscle Imbalances Revealed series in play this week.

Anyway, Dean's presentation was a pleasant surprise for me in the initial Muscle Imbalances Revealed collection, as I had not been familiar with his work prior to the product.  As it turned out, he did a great job of delving into the fascial system, which is no easy task, considering that even the foremost experts on "fascial fitness" recognize that we still have a tremendous amount to learn in this regard.

His presentations this time around didn't deviate from that initial trend, either; I really enjoyed them for a number of reasons; here are my top seven:

1. Dean did the best job of outlining a clear rationale for foam rolling that I've seen in the industry thus far - and did so in a very layman-friendly format.  In highlighting the role of Ruffini endings - which are slow adapting, low threshold mechanoreceptors that respond to direct pressure (like foam rolling) - Dean showed that they can decrease tone of tissues in the presence of stretch and inhibit sympathetic nervous system activity.

2. Another way he made his point was with a great analogy.  Much like we have fast-twitch and slow-switch muscles, we have receptors that may act in similar ways.  On one hand, we have "fast twitch" receptors like golgi tendon organs and muscle spindles that function with the musculotendinous units.  On the other hand, we have "slow twitch" receptors like Ruffini endings and Pacini fibers that exist in the fascial tissues.  Because the muscules, tendons, ligaments, and fascial tissues are really all continuous with each other, there exists a great amount of interaction between these slow and fast twitch receptors - much like the interaction of different muscle fiber types.  They are all responsive - in both positive and negative directions - to chronic training stimuli - and sitting on your arse in front of a computer screen for years on-end.

3. Dean noted that fascia carries an electrical charge that is never off; it’s just "on" at different levels.  Certainly, it's far more "on" with exercise than at rest - and it's the reason that contractions can last for hours post-exercise.  If you have an individual who isn't able to tone down (pun intended) that contraction in the post-exercise period, you're likely dealing with someone who'll have chronic movement impairments.  If this electrical charge is always present, it can ultimately alter movement to the point that joint structure can actually change (think of the reactive changes in an acromion process, as an example).  Appropriate training enables one to get the benefits of exercise without creating negative long-term adaptation in this regard.

4. What is appropriate training for fascial fitness, though?  Dean cites the same seven components to an appropriate program that I outlined here, but he does so with a very valuable qualifications: adequate hydration status is absolutely crucial to making the most of any training status.  Repeated stretch bouts during the warm-up period allows for more water content for the fascia; each successive stretch improves hydration to allows for better elasticity and tensile strength, which in turn provides better joint stability and force production.

5. I like guys who solve problems.  I love using spiderman variations in our warm-ups, as they are great hip mobility drills.  Unfortunately, though, they don't always look so hot when you have someone with poor thoracic mobility trying to get their elbow down to the inside of their thighs.  Many folks will wind up rounding over - which is certainly not ideal.  Imagine Quasimodo doing this drill and you'll get what I mean.

Dean's solution - which provided me with a "why didn't I think of that?" moment - was to bring the thigh up to the torso.  In other words, do the forward lunge component onto a 12-inch plyo box so that folks can get the hip mobility benefits without compromising thoracic positioning.  Sweet.

6. I thought Dean did an excellent job of highlighting that it can take years to improve fascial fitness substantially.  Super-immobile individuals usually take years and years of either sedentary lifestyles or terrible training habits to get to that point, and unless they're ready to dramatically overhaul their mindsets and daily habits, it can be like swimming upstream when correcting bad posture.  Be consistent when addressing these limitations, but also be patient.

7. I love the fact that he commented on all the normal roles of the core - force transfer, resisting movement, returning from a position outside of neutral - but also highlighted that optimal core function is essential for optimal respiratory function.  Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that we use a lot of specific breathing drills, so I was glad to see a bright dude in the industry backing me up on this one!

This is really just the tip of the iceberg with respect to not only Dean's two presentations, but the entire Muscle Imbalances Revealed - Upper Body package, which also includes webinars from Rick Kaselj, Jeff Cubos, and my business partner, Tony Gentilcore.   I'll highlight a few more of my favorite takeaways in my next post, but in the meantime, I'd strongly encourage you to check this great resource out for yourself.

To sweeten the deal, Rick has put the entire Muscle Imbalances Revealed product on sale for $210 off the normal price through tomorrow (Friday) at midnight.  It's a fantastic deal on a product that I highly recommend - and one that comes with a 60-day money-back guarantee, plus several cool bonus features (including two interviews Rick did with me).  Click here to check it out.

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I got an email from Dean Somerset a while back asking if I'd be willing to write up a post for his blog about how I built up a popular fitness blog myself.  I thought it over, and while I like Dean and enjoy reading his blog, I really didn't think I was the right person to write such a piece.  There are folks who are much smarter when it comes to behind-the-scenes stuff that goes in to running a blog - from Wordpress updates, to HTML formatting, to SEO optimization.   And, there are certainly folks out there who have monetized their blog far better than I ever will.

That said, I do feel that there was one incredibly valuable point I should make to the aspiring fitness bloggers out there:

If you don't have good content, your blog won't get consistent traffic.  It's really that simple.

I started this blog in early 2006 with really no idea what I was doing on the technology side of things.  I loved my job and was passionate about teaching - and writing gave me an avenue through which to do it.  Sometimes, I wrote about what I knew well, and sometimes, I wrote about topics where I wanted to improve - and researching them and teaching them to others was the best way to get better in these areas.  Before I ever hired someone to make my site look pretty, I'd built up a solid following of people who knew me purely for my content, enthusiasm, and accessibility to readers.

A trend I see with "rookie" fitness bloggers nowadays is to design a spectacular site from the get-go and devote all their resources to SEO optimization, pop-up ads, Google Adwords, and the like.  Unfortunately, these efforts are sabotaged by these bloggers' poor grammar/spelling and, more significantly, a complete lack of valuable information to offer to readers.

In any industry, you look for commonalities among those who succeed at what we do.  For ease of calculating "success," let's just use Alexa ranking.   You can learn more about it (and download a free toolbar) at www.Alexa.com, but for the sake of brevity, just understand that it is a measure of the popularity of a website.  Get more hits, receive more inbound links from popular sites, and have people spending more time on your site, and your Alexa rank will go down (a lower number is better).  Google is #1, Facebook is #2, Yahoo is #3, and so on.  It’s not a perfect measure by any means, but when you are dealing in the top one million sites or so, it’s generally accepted to be pretty good. I’m lucky to be at around 96,000 right now, and have been as high as 89,000 in the past.

If you’re in the top one million or so, you’re likely doing some very good traffic – and certainly enough to monetize your blog.  My buddy Tim Ferriss’ blog, for instance, currently has an Alexa ranking of 5,953, and he’s an absolute ninja on the entrepreneurial side of things, with two New York Times bestsellers and ownership stakes in the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Stumbleupon, and several other companies.  He’s a success, in part, because every single one of his posts (and books) provides outstanding content that readers not only enjoy – but pass along to their friends.

Translating this message to the fitness industry, look at a guy like Charlie Weingroff.  He might be one of the few guys out there who understands technology less than I do, and there is absolutely nothing flashy about his site.  To be candid, it’s pretty basic.  You know what, though?  Charlie is an extremely bright (and strong) dude with a ton to teach, a passion for teaching it, and a knack for relating complex information in a user-friendly manner.  I don’t think his blog has even been out for 18 months, yet he’s ranked around 827,000.  And, he’s used his blog to make his expertise known, build a loyal following, and launch a successful product (which is outstanding, by the way).

There are several other fitness bloggers who’ve become “top one million” success stories purely with content.  John Berardi dominates with Precision Nutrition (54,000), which has been built with science, integrity, and an ultra-personal touch to great content all along.  My business partner, Tony Gentilcore (321,000) kicks out great content and entertains people like crazy.  My good friend Mike Robertson (125,000) is an awesome teacher and genuinely great guy.  Ben Bruno (314,000) innovates like crazy to build a following, and Chad Waterbury (509,000) only recently created his own web presence and has used content to quickly ascend the ranks.  Nate Green (202,000) is an excellent writer who has carved out a great niche for himself and built a great following at a young age because of his unique content.  Mike Reinold (412,000) has built a great following in a smaller internet segment (physical therapists) with consistent content featuring up-to-date research, attention to many different clinical perspectives, and a specific focus on upper extremity dysfunction.  These guys all offer something others don't.

You know who hasn’t built a big following?

• The random fitness dudes who send Facebook friend requests to my wife because they have mutual friends – and these guys want to build their lists.  I’ve yet to meet a single one who is in the top 2 million.

• The “fitness business guru” who emailed me four times, called my office twice, and snail-mailed me once (each of which was ignored) to try to get me to promote his product, which he guaranteed would make personal trainers “rich.”  His website ranked at higher than 6.6 million – which essentially means that he has zero traffic other than himself (and he’s probably just checking in to see if he’s gotten his first hit yet).  Instead of focusing on content (and moving out of his parents’ basement), he’s putting the cart in front of the horse and trying to sell a product on a topic (success) that he doesn’t even understand.

• The random dude who wants to exchange links with me or be added to my blogroll so that he can improve his rankings without doing a thing, much less providing some value to me (or society in general).

The only thing that's worse than sucking at what you do is sucking at what you do and spending time and money to draw attention to it.

I started out thinking that this would be a short, to-the-point, blog, but as I now realize, that one little point was actually a very big one.  Pretty websites and behind-the-scenes tinkering are undoubtedly important components of taking an online presence to the next level, but the truth is that they don’t matter a bit unless the content that accompanies them is useful and entertaining.

If it’s not, then you’ll have a hard time even getting Mom’s attention.

Looking for more information on how to get your name out there in the writing world?  Check out some great information from three guys - Lou Schuler, Sean Hyson, and John Romaniello - who have been there, done that. They collaborated to create a great product, How to Get Published, that focuses heavily on writing success in the fitness industry.

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