Today, we've got part 2 of a great guest blog series from Kelly Baggett. You can find Part 1 HERE.
In the first installment, I talked about several of the common problems athletes have that make them perform more like an oversized truck and less like greased lightning. In this installment, I’ll give you some solutions to those problems. Let’s get to it!
Problem #1: Bad Feet
Solution: Spend Some Time Training Barefoot.
One simple thing you can do for bad feet is spend a little bit of time each week training barefoot. Your body won't let you move in a rearfoot dominant posture when you're barefoot because it'll hurt too much.
As an experiment, try taking your shoes off and lightly jog a few steps down the street. You’ll probably find the ONLY way you can do it is to get up on your forefoot.
Also, pay attention to which muscles you "feel" the movement driven by when you run barefoot. I don’t recommend training on concrete regularly. but if you have access to a fairly soft surface (grass is ideal and most carpet works fine), don't hesitate to scrap the shoes for a while.
Here is a video that clearly shows the difference between running with shoes on and off.
The idea is to do enough barefoot training that your feet strengthen and begin to favor the barefoot posture even when wearing shoes. Even 20 minutes once a week on grass is helpful.
If barefoot training isn't an option you can always train in lighter footwear that helps mimick barefoot running. Shoes like Nike Free 5.0 or 7.0 and Vibram 5 fingers can be an option here.
Problem #2: Lack of Glute Dominance.
Solution: Really Focusing on Strengthening the Glutes!
In short, if you want glute dominance, you need to spend significant time strengthening the glutes. Try this experiment.
Go in the gym, warm-up and knock out a couple of sets of 10 paused manual reverse hyperextensions. If you don't have a dedicated machine, find a bench, hang a dumbell between your shins, and do a couple of sets of 10 reps with a slight pause at the top.
Now that you have a good glute pump, take a casual stroll and see if you notice any differences in how you're walking. You'll likely notice that your strides are longer and you’re better positioned to drive off the balls of your feet when you walk because your hips inherently want to extend more.
That's a good thing from a speed perspective! Strong glutes favor a longer, more efficient, and more powerful stride. They also keep you injury free.
Problem #3: Lack of End-Range Strength in the Psoas.
Solution: Get Strong at 90 Degrees Hip Flexion or Higher.
The key for a strong psoas (and proper knee lift in sports) is strengthening the muscles that lift your knee up to 90 degrees or higher. Here is an example of that and an exercise for that.
Being strong in 90 degrees-plus of hip flexion also helps ensure optimal femur control, or put simply: it ensures the muscles high on your hip are controlling your thigh bone.
Problem #4: Lack of Mobility in Key Muscle Groups.
Solution: Regularly Stretch/Mobilize the Quads, Hip Flexors, and Ankles.
Stretching the quads and rectus femoris turns off what are often tight and overactive muscles controlling the knee - and that promotes better hip dominant movement.
The psoas must be strong, as I talked about earlier, but it also must be mobile enough to not negatively impact posture. An excessively tight psoas will negatively impact gluteal recruitment. If you’ve ever looked closely at a picture of the psoas, you can see the majority of the muscle lies up above your hip joints in more of the deep abdominal region.
I’ve noticed many people are both weak and tight in the psoas. People that are really tight often have adhesions in the upper psoas. The upper psoas is hard to get to and in my experience requires a solid twist of the upper body to reach effectively.
When it’s dealt with effectively, it’s not uncommon to hear an audible “pop” in your lower ab region as the adhesions release, followed by an immediate ease in breathing and increased feeling of looseness in the hips.
Here is a good all-in-one stretch I recommend for the quads, rectus femoris, and the psoas:
And here is one for the ankles:
Most people should stretch daily and the more extensive your impairments the more frequently you should do so. I've had some people stretch for 20 seconds every hour of the day while others can get away with one short session per day. Many people can improve significantly simply by implementing proper mobility work for these muscles.
Problem #5: Lack of Strength and Power in Relevant Muscles
Solution: Give Resistance Training an Honest Effort.
To move like lightning, you have to be able to get lots of force into the ground - and that means you have to have strength in the right places. That means the hip extensors, knee extensors, and plantarflexors must be strong and powerful. How do you get them strong and powerful?
You must do some form of progressive resistance training. That means some type of squatting or lunging for the knee and hip extensors, and some type of toe press or plyometrics for the plantarflexors. You then must take that base of power and apply it into progressive sport-specific movements.
Fortunately, all the specific stuff is taken care of in The Truth About Quickness Insiders System. The important thing from a longer term perspective is that you or your athletes spend time developing a base of strength through common strength exercises like squats, Bulgarian split squats, lunges, and deadlifts.
That about covers it! Hopefully you’ve found this short list of problems and solutions beneficial in your training or coaching. Stay strong and good luck with it!
As you may already know, Kelly and Alex Maroko just released The Truth About Quickness Insiders System, a resource I highly recommend. This outstanding product will be on sale at a great introductory price ($40 off) only through this Thursday at midnight.
As promised, today, we've got a guest blog from Kelly Baggett, one of the brightest minds in the field of high performance training for athletes.
Today I’d like to talk a little about some of the common problems I see in athletes that prevent them from being as fast, quick, and explosive as they could be.
You need a good combination of optimal movement patterns and force. Movement patterns are affected by things like your posture, muscle balance, mobility, and coordination. Force is affected by your strength and power.
You can be strong with the ability to exert lots of force, but if your movement patterns are off you won't transfer that force efficiently, and thus won't move very fast and explosively.
You can have great movement patterns, but if you don't have force behind those movement patterns, you wont move very fast and explosively either - so the key is creating the balance. Now that I've talked about the type of problems, let's get to the problems themselves.
Problem #1: Bad Feet
For years, coaches in a multitude of sports have belabored the key, "Stay on your toes!" Although literally being on your toes is a bit of an exaggeration and is likely to lead to a trucked toe, staying on your toes really means you drive off the balls of your feet and less on your heels.
Watch many great athletes when they accelerate or sprint and their heels barely seem to hit the ground. This is without any conscious input on their part. Most people are rearfoot dominant, which means they carry too much weight on their heels when they walk, run, or move in general.
Moving more towards the mid and forefoot favors quicker, more efficient, less stressful movement, and also makes it easier to activate the powerful hip extensors, which have the capacity to really make you fly. If you want to be a good athlete, you need to get off your rearfoot and onto your mid and forefoot.
How do you do that? Well, unfortunately you’re unlikely to find much in the way of relevant scientific or laymen’s information specifically delving a great deal into this topic. That doesn’t change the fact that there are no shortage of gimmicks out there that promise this. There are even products like jumpsoles out there designed to make you move on the balls of your feet.
The problem is the verbal cues and training aids are relatively worthless because most people don't have the inherent muscular recruitment patterns and strength to move in this posture naturally. If you have to think about it or force yourself to move a certain way it's generally not gonna be very effective.
The key is optimizing your muscle development and movement patterns so your body inherently takes an "on the balls of the feet" posture without you having to voluntarily force yourself to get in that position. When that happens it'll feel natural and efficient. I’ll talk about how to do that in the next installment. Now let’s get on to some of the other problems.
Problem #2: Lack of Glute Dominance
When the hip extensors are strong, they tend to "want" to drive your movements a bit more than someone who's glute deficient. Generally speaking, walking, running, jumping, and most other athletic movements can be driven primarily either from the muscles acting on the hip or the muscles acting on the knee.
When referring to muscles that act primarily at the hip, I'm referring mainly to the glutes and psoas. Muscles that act more at the knee include the quads, rectus femoris, and tensor fascia lata. When movement is primarily generated from muscles acting higher on the hip, it promotes a more efficient and less stressful movement pattern.
When movement is primarily generated by the muscles acting on the knee, it tends to promote more rearfoot dominant movement as well as knee pain, hip pain, and a ton of other common problems. Guess which pattern fast and slow athletes favor, respectfully?
Have you ever noticed that really fast athletes often hardly even look like they’re trying? They’re quiet and effortless when they move. Slower athletes often sound like a bull when they move. Their feet SLAP the ground like a pancake and you can hear their tension a mile away.
A large reason for that discrepancy is one group is using their hips to drive their movements while the other group is using their knees. Knee dominant movement is typically inefficient, loud, and it often hurts. Hip dominant (glute driven) is quiet, fast, and smooth.
Problem #3: Lack of End-Range Strength in the Psoas
The psoas works in concert with the glutes to control the femur from the hip. A strong psoas promotes optimum hip and foot mechanics. Everyone has heard coaches yell, "High knees, high knees!!"
Some athletes inherently run with high knees while others barely lift their feet an inch off the ground. Those who don't do it naturally aren't really helped much by the cue. The psoas is the muscle responsible for raising your knee up to 90 degrees and above from a standing position.
When the psoas is weaker than the rectus femoris and tensor fascia latae you will have a more difficult time getting proper knee lift when you run, and also, due to the influence on the posture of your hips, also be succeptible to overuse injuries like IT band issues, knee pain, and plantar fasciitis.
Problem #4: Lack of Mobility in Key Muscle Groups
The quads, rectus femoris, ankles, and hip flexors often tend to be tight. This favors improper/faulty movement and prevents the optimum transfer of power through the lower kinetic chain. It also favors common injuries like patellar tendonitis or plantar fasciitis.
If you’ve had knee or foot pain, chances are you have at least one of these mobility impairments. Anyone that has considerably increased the muscular development of their thighs will have a tendency to lean towards having tight quads.
That's not to say that muscular development of the thighs is a bad thing by any means, but one must pay attention to mobility.
Problem #5: Lack of Strength/Power in Relevant Contributing Muscles
This is the simplest problem of all - and also the one that will arguably have the biggest impact of all. It encompasses the "force" part of the speed and quickness equation. The more force you exert against an object, the faster you can move that object. In the case of speed and quickness, the moveable object is your body and the object you're applying force to is the ground.
The problem is most people are too weak to be explosive and quick. I’ll give you all the information on how to address and fix that and the other problems in Part II of this article series - which will run tomorrow.
Tomorrow (Monday) at midnight, Kelly and Alex Maroko will be releasing The Truth About Quickness at a huge introductory discount. I've reviewed the product and can say without wavering that the information it contains is outstanding; this resource will make for an excellent addition to any coach or athlete's library. For more information, head over to their early-bird discount page HERE.
Today, I'm psyched to have my old friend Kelly Baggett on-board for an EricCressey.com exclusive interview. Kelly and I go back about ten years, and to this day, he stands out in my mind as one of the brightest guys in the business of making people more athletic - and he's also a heck of an athlete himself.EC: Thanks for taking the time to jump in with us on this interview today. Let’s talk first about where the “need” for this product came about; what made you and Alex decide to create it?
KB: Several years ago I had started using a particular style of movement work with my athletes designed to boost what I like to call “movement efficiency.” The premise was to rapidly and economically get people moving faster, quicker, and more efficiently on their feet without spending a lot of time doing so. Each workout would start off with this movement work, which was a short ~10 minute section of the workout.
Alex was actually a client of mine back when he was just out of high school. He went through some these workouts and really seemed to benefit from them. Well, a few years later he’s coaching people himself and is nearly out of college. He had taken the workouts I’d given him several years before and continued doing parts of them and expounded upon them with an emphasis on really boosting his first step in basketball. I had always believed that quickness and explosiveness weren’t necessarily the same thing. A person can be “quick” without being explosive and vice versa. Alex was a perfect example of that. He has some videos somewhere out there of him with a basketball: I don’t know if he’ll ever be all that fast and explosive, but you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone quicker with the ball in his hand on the basketball court.
Several years after he was a client of mine, Alex is now a coach himself and has a pretty good training business going. A little while back, he calls me and tells me how he’d been using these movement progressions with athletes and how well they’ve been working – and, in the process - comes up with the idea of putting the concept into a product based on “The Truth About Quickness.”
The first thing was to address some of the common myths surrounding quickness training and talk about the difference between quickness and explosiveness. The next was to introduce simple progressive quickness promoting exercises that don’t take a lot of time that can be incorporated into any existing program. The foundation for that were the progressions I had started using several years prior.
EC: Let’s talk about your “evolution” as a coach. What were you doing a decade ago that you thought was high performance training that you realize now just wasn’t cutting the mustard when it came to making people more athletic?
KB: When it comes to actual sprint, agility, and plyometric work, nowadays, I’m sort of known as a low volume guy. It’s all about quality over quantity. However, believe it or not, I used to be one of those coaches who would run guys to death. I spent too much time focusing on sport-specific movements and not enough on foundational training and recovery. I was one of those coaches who believed that if you wanted to get faster, you needed to do a ton of running. If you wanted to be more agile, you needed to do a ton of agility and SAQ (speed-agility-quickness) work. If you wanted to jump higher, you needed to do a lot of plyometrics. The result was that my programming wasn’t near as efficient as it could be.
I guess sometime around the late 1990s, I started discovering by accident that most people could substantially improve sports specific movements without much focus on them. I’d get these athletes that would come to me and say something like, “Hey I’m not going to play football or basketball anymore, but I still want to look good. I want you to train me to get me big, lean, and strong”. So, I would. Then, two months later, the guy goes out and hits a personal best vertical jump and 40 time.
I had experienced that myself in my own progress as an athlete but I always thought I was sort of an anomaly because I wasn’t doing what was considered “traditional” explosive power and speed training. But then I experienced it many, many times with other athletes. From there things sort of evolved into a challenge of finding the right volumes of movement and strength work, discovering why certain approaches work for some athletes and not for others, and tailoring the approach to the athlete.
EC: It doesn’t sound altogether unfamiliar with the approach I took in The Ultimate Off-Season Training Manual, a program that a lot of people worried was too low in “SAQ” volume. Without getting off topic too much, it’s my humble opinion that the “need” for more and more SAQ work was a provider-induced demand initiated by training facilities that realizes that they could get more young athletes through and make more money by running them ragged and messing around with agility ladders than they could with actually individually assessing kids, addressing imbalances, and getting them stronger. They traded development for babysitting.But anyway, along those same lines, what are you thinking is a better bet instead for nowadays?
KB: Establish proper movement patterns (which include optimizing recruitment/compensation patterns and optimizing coordination), then simply increase the horsepower behind the movement pattern. You’re obviously one of the masters at establishing proper recruitment patterns and I have a ton of respect for your contributions to the field in those areas. The recruitment aspects would include anything done with the focus of getting the body to operate more efficiently - stuff like corrective exercise, activation drills and stretches.
You then have to engage in enough sport-specific movement training (sprints, agility, jumps etc.) to optimize intra- and inter-muscular coordination in those tasks – and honestly, since those are gross movement patterns, it really doesn’t take a ton of volume. Then, it’s just a matter of maintaining those things while progressively increasing the power of the relevant contributing muscles – which is easily done through strength training. Put all that together into a plan that properly addresses recovery between all the elements and you can’t help but get better as an athlete.
EC: Just because this is fun, let’s talk about a few things you see in everyday programming from some strength and conditioning coaches that isn’t blatantly terrible (e.g., squatting on stability balls), but rather only marginally effective – and far from optimal?
KB: I guess one of the biggest things is all the complex training I see. Don’t get me wrong; I like complexes for some purposes (like fat burning and time-efficient training), but I don’t think they should make up the entire workout for athletes looking to build a foundation. For example, yesterday I saw some people doing step-ups with a curl and press. The step-up is good, the curl is good, and press is good but when you combine them altogether the effect is rather limited. My motto is if you’re going to load an exercise with the purpose of building strength in that exercise (and in the relevant muscles), then put your body in a mechanically advantageous position to do so.
EC: How do your recommendations change from a relatively inexperienced 15-18 year-old athlete versus an athlete who is older and has more experience?
KB: The goals don’t change but the focus on the elements does. For the older athlete, I REALLY focus more on corrective exercise, stretches, and recovery. Older guys tend to have so many recruitment impairments, flexibility issues, and pre-existing injuries that they can be a disaster waiting to happen unless those issues are addressed. They not only tend to have more recruitment and compensation impairments than younger athletes, but their tissues also don’t tolerate these issues as well. While a young athlete can often overcompensate for years and get away with it, older athletes will toast themselves the first trip around the bases at their first weekend softball game. With movement work, I work them into it gradually and also limit the effort. A young kid can go out and run max sprints or max jumps no problem. But with older weekend warriors, I like to work them in gradually as far as their rate of perceived exertion goes.
EC: This question is more for me than my readers, but I’ll ask it anyway. Say you’ve got a 14-year-old kid who has never lifted a weight in his life – and he comes to you on his first day of training. Do you do any sort of sprinting, agility/change of direction, or jump training with him? Or do you stick purely with resistance training?
KB: The movement work would be VERY limited and would be incorporated into part of his warm-up. It’s the basic concept behind The Truth About Quickness. The movement part of the workout likely wouldn’t be more than 10 minutes – tops. It’s enough to warm him up and give him a bit of movement stimulation, but not enough to fatigue him for the rest of the workout. Short, sweet, and effective.
We’ll be back in a few days with a guest post from Kelly in conjunction with the launch of The Truth About Quickness.
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Based on feedback on Show and Go: High Performance Training to Look, Feel, and Move Better, one of the most popular components of this strength and conditioning resource has been the exercise modifications section. This section features recommended modifications for everything from mobility deficits (e.g., can't squat deep without rounding the back) to equipment limitations (e.g., no cables or squat rack).
That said, I know it's never possible to use a single chapter to cover absolutely every equipment modification one will encounter, so I wanted to get a series going here that highlights some quick and easy substitutions that you can use in your strength training programs. To that end, here is the first installment of High Performance Training Without the Equipment. Today's focus will be what to do in your home gym if you don't have access to dumbbells.
If we're talking about regular bilateral dumbbell pressing, the modification is quick and easy: just use a barbell, and get your variety by using a collection of floor presses, board presses, full range-of-motion presses, and various inclines and declines.
If we're talking about either unilateral or alternating dumbbell pressing variations, then try out the 1-arm push-up. You can make the exercise easier by performing it off the pins in a power rack - and as you get stronger, gradually move the pin down lower.
On the "flip side," you can obviously use barbell rowing variations to replace dumbbell rowing variations. One that I particularly like is the 1-arm corner row, in lieu of the 1-arm DB Row. You just stick the end of a barbell in a corner.
Or, you can just do the 1-arm barbell row - which requires a ton more grip and forearm strength to keep the bar from tipping.
Of course, there are plenty more options in this regard; your imagination is your only limit!
1. The most obvious reason, of course, is that at midnight tonight, the early bird discount (40% off) ends. Forever. There won't be any of this "our system was maxed out, so we're extending the sale by 2 days because I really care about you, friend!" You know you've all heard it before - but you won't hear it here.
2. To follow up on that one, let's be honest: I'm not really sure if you're my "friend." You could be a crazy internet person, for all I know. In fact, many of you probably are - and acquiring a program like Show and Go could be really good for you to attend to your social awkwardness by heading to the gym to do the program and, in the process, meet some new people. You might even get diesel and attract a member of the opposite sex, settle down with them, and name your first child "Eric Cressey." No pressure on that one, though.
3. The feedback thus far from customers has been excellent. In addition to all the testimonials you'll see from the "guinea pigs" I put through the program, I've gotten some immediate one from people who have purchased the program via email; here's one quick example that just came in this morning.
"Eric, I've just purchased Show and Go. Have started to use this straight away, and can definitely say that it makes training and writing programs for clients very easy and effective especially with the massive data base available. Plus all the add-ons from the other coaches - such as conditioning and glute exercises - are awesome." - Chris Carter
4. At first glance, this simply looks like one demonstration from the huge Show and Go video library (don't worry; trap bar deadlifts are not mandatory).
However, if you look closely, what's going on in the background is possibly more significant. You'll see a few of my pro baseball guys starting up their sessions with foam rolling and mobility warm-ups. Most of these guys are just now arriving for their off-season training - as the product is released. In other words, this video was filmed back in February or so - which tells you that it literally took seven months (an entire professional baseball season) to bring this sucker to market because we spent so much time tinkering with it and trying to make it perfect (and putting a host of people through it as a pilot program over a four-month period). In a day and age when some folks are kicking out new products each week, you have my word that this is not a fly-by-night operation; we invested a lot of time, thought, and energy into making this something of which we could be really proud.
5. On the financial side of things, I'm getting married next weekend...and it would be nice to use this book to pay for a wedding, honeymoon, and protective helmet to wear for the rest of my life. Just kidding, honey!
6. On a more urgent note, tomorrow night is my bachelor party - and we're going to need bail money to get Tony out of prison after he's incarcerated for causing a scene at the casino when he realizes that they only serve free alcohol - and not almond milk - at the blackjack tables.
7. One afternoon earlier this week, just for the heck of it, I counted the professional baseball players in our facility. There were 12 - two Royals, one Blue Jay, one National, four Braves, one Met, two A's, and one Tiger - and this is just minor leaguers, without the major league season even having wrapped up. All told, we'll be over 40 professionals from all over the country. This is not to blow sunshine up my own butt; it's to make a very important point: I actually train people six days a week. I write a ton of programs, do a ton of evaluations, and love to coach. And all this give me a great perspective from which to program for the "masses" - as I see everything from 10-year-olds to 70-year-olds in just about every athletic and weekend warrior population.
This shouldn't even be something I have to mention, but I do - because you'd be surprised how many people write and sell programs when they aren't out there seeing it first hand. Theories are all well and good, but the best programs are rooted in principles that have proven effective time and time again in the real world.
Give it a shot; you've got nothing to lose: www.ShowandGoTraining.com.
I've gotten several inquiries about whetherShow and Go will be a good fit for women trying to get fitter and stronger. I guess it really depends on whether you want to be able to do stuff like this.
My lovely fiancee just showing up and banging out eight pull-ups - in her work attire, without a warm-up.
Or Cressey Performance client Natalie putting on a show of her own with some rope pull-ups.
And a little something for the deadlifters in the crowd...
"At the beginning of this program, I was very out of balance, where my lower body was much stronger than my upper body and I will give Eric the credit for balancing me out. I found incredible strength gains in my chest, back and shoulders and was still gaining at the end of my 4 months. Working with Eric I knew the mobility and stability throughout my body would improve in the areas it needed to; I have never had any shoulder issues, but now my shoulders have never felt healthier, more stable or stronger. By the time I got to the third phase, I found my 1RM for the bench press climbed almost 30 lbs and I was working with weight I have never worked with before. Beginning the program I could not do any pull-ups .. I finished with being able to do 3 complete reps for 4 sets ... that's success to me! This program gave my body the perfect base to go in any training direction afterward."
Kelsey Pettengill - Saco, ME
"My fiance, Mathew, and I completed Eric's 16 week strength program in June. We were both extremely pleased with our results. I increased my squat by 55lb, my deadlift by 33lb, my 3-rep maximum chin-up by 12lb, my bench press by 8lb and my standing jump by 7.5"- great results in just 16 weeks.
"This is the first intensive strength program I have undertaken. The program will produce amazing results if you are completely committed, determined and motivated for the 16 weeks. I even managed to complete my training with international travel and demanding work pressures.
Mathew was an ongoing source of support and this program highlighted the importance and value of a committed and motivated training partner.
"As a female who up to three years ago focused their entire fitness regime on cardio, I highly recommend Eric's program and his strength and conditioning expertise for maximizing strength gains and sculpting a lean physique."
Cassandra Lees - Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea
"I have nothing but glowing praise for Eric Cressey's program. I have been a recreational lifter for many years. Eric's program has helped me overcome some sticking points in mobility and strength that I wasn't able to address on my own. Even though I am relatively strong, I have never been able to chin. Now, I can do several sets of chins with various grips.
"Because of all the unilateral work that Eric recommended in this program, my basic lifts (deadlift, squat, bench) have gone up significantly.
"My favorite lift, the deadlift, has gone from 225 to 280 and that's at my body weight of 130 lbs.
"I was always a good conventional squatter, either free squat or box squat, but was never comfortable with the front squat. This program provided me with the tools to finally perform a decent front squat.
"I could go and on and on and tell you about all the other lifts and how they improved. Suffice it to say...THIS PROGRAM WORKS! Thanks, Eric!"
Arlene Robbins - New York, NY
"I can't say enough to describe the positive experiences I had with the Show and Go Program. Obviously, I gained significant strength across the board and got leaner, which in itself is rewarding, but the amazing part to me is that I did so as a 40 year old female with an office job and not as a younger elite athlete with access to more training resources. And my progressions weren't solely strength oriented as I also made improvements in my flexibility and range of motion in spite of having past issues in these areas. With the enhanced strength and flexibility, I'm now enjoying the best fitness, strength and health I've had at any point in my life. And, it's incredibly empowering to be a strong woman and reach strength levels I never thought were possible for me. There is no question in my mind that I got more than a 16 week training manual from the Show and Go Program. Rather, this program provided a road map for me to be able to continue to optimize my strength and overall health because I experienced the power of mixing of mobility exercises along with innovative strength gaining techniques."
Earlier this week, I did an interview with John Romaniello for his website, and it came out so well (and long) that I thought it'd make for a great post here today. Check it out below (with John speaking in the first person).
Okay, below is a transcript of the interview I did with Eric Cressey, beast of all beasts. He’s seriously the man. I’ve told you in another blog post how Eric and I met, and after 8 years and never less than 300 miles of distance between us, we’re still close and still learn a lot from each other.Eric is seriously regarded as one of the Top 5 coaches in the world by just about any authority that has any authority (if you’ll pardon the redundancy) and in my view is probably the best from a standpoint of bringing things to a practical level.His hew program, “Show and Go” has just been released, and is basically blowing the doors off of the industry.Now, I’ll warn you that Eric works with professional athletes most of the time, so we talk about that A LOT in the interview; however, as he notes, he started in fitness-based training. The program brings it all together, and the interview very clearly explains why you should pick it up.Check it out!
1. Okay, right of of the gate, I want this interive to focus on your new program. So, let's get to it: how is Show and Go different from the other training products out there now?
Most products are written with a specific market – trainers, females, fat loss, or something else – in mind. In the marketing world, they tell you to not try to be everything to everyone. Well, I’m not a good marketer – so I decided to make this resource extremely versatile and a good fit for a LOT of people.
The reason is that there are a lot of things in a comprehensive strength and conditioning program that everybody needs to utilize. From the minutia to the big picture, I could go on all day: foam rolling, mobility warm-ups, single-leg training, more horizontal pulling, fluctuation of training stress, sufficient deloading periods, extra posterior chain work, a balance of open- and closed-chain upper body pressing, glute activation, rotator cuff strength – the list goes on and on.
So, I guess you can say that the #1 thing that is different about this product is that there are easy-to-apply modifications in it that make it a versatile resource that offers something for everyone. From the 2x/3x/4x per week training options to the supplement conditioning options, there are ways to make it the right fit for YOU.
And, the guy who created it is also extremely good looking, charming, witty, and charismatic!
2. And modest. Or not. But I hate modesty anyway. Now, like me, you’re still “in the trenches” right? I mean, you still work clients hands on, every day in your gym?
Yes, that’s for sure – and, in fact, you could say that it’s one more thing that separates this program for a lot of the other ones that are out there in the fitness landscape right now. In this digital retail era, there are a lot of people publishing fitness information products on the net that are largely based on theory, not trends that have proven significant over and over again in the real world. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as a lot of the most sound training practices we know today were originally just theories. However, speculative training isn’t for me.
I think it’s one reason why I thought so highly of the Final Phase Fat Loss program you created; I know you as a guy who has put in years of efforts “in the trenches” with clients and with your own training. If you recommend something, it’s because you know it’s legitimate and you’d stake your reputation on it.
I’m in the same boat. We generally do over 300 client sessions per week at Cressey Performance. Taking it a step further, I’ll have over 40 professional baseball players who come from all over the country to live in snowy Hudson, MA all winter to give themselves the best possible chance to make it to the big leagues – and have a long and healthy career along the way.
Every single person that walks through the door is on an individualized program that was written by one of our staff members in accordance with the results of a one-on-one evaluation that took place. When you write that many programs and supervise so many training sessions, you get a feel for the stuff that should be constant in just about everyone’s programs – and it makes you appreciate that there are many important principles that can be applied to make a program like Show and Go safe and effective for “the masses.”
You’ll see that in the detail that has gone into the Show and Go program. It features the exact printable training templates we use with our clients so that people can record their progress. The exercises and set/rep protocols have all been test-driven with our clients, too. And, the 175+ videos in the online database that accompanies this guide were all filmed in my facility – not my mom’s basement or the park, as you often see from folks who write books, but don’t actually train anyone.
In short, I’ve got a unique frame of reference to share with people. And, I’ve got a lot more to lose professionally if I was to put out an inferior product – so I put my heart and soul into this one.
3. Wow, that’s pretty intense. Lets just touch on that for a sec. You have over40 pro baseball players from a number of different teams move into Red Sox territory to train with you. That’s pretty telling. Can you talk a bit more about your experiences with pro athletes? I know this program is for “everyone” but how has working with some of the most elite athletes in the world shaped you as a coach.
Sure thing. One of my biggest questions as we got Cressey Performance off the ground was whether or not professional baseball players would be willing to travel to the cold, snowy Northeast during all or parts of their off-season (roughly September-March) when they could be going to warmer weather climates. To be honest, I never really waited to find the answer; we just focused on the few guys we had when we started out, and really hammered on getting great results and making people believers in our system. The rest, I guess, is history – and I realize now that if you have a good product, it doesn’t matter where you are: people will find you.
Business stuff aside, with respect to training needs, most people are surprised when they discover just how similar the Average Joe or Jane is to a professional athlete – both socially and physically.
The lay population often sits in front of a computer for 8-10 hours a day, but many pro athletes have 4-8 hour flights or 10+ hour bus rides where they’re sitting – and because they’re taller, sitting is even more uncomfortable and problematic. Like everyone else, they’re on the computer or in front of video games a lot. It’s actually quite interesting to note that technology advances haven’t just brought the “Pros and the Joes” closer together via fantasy football, but also in terms of the training they need to stay healthy.
Pro athletes are also very similar to the lay population in that they want very efficient training. There are always competing demands for their attention – whether it’s their families, charity work, marketing stuff, playing golf, or a number of other things. These guys live at the ballpark for 12+ hours per day for over half the year, so when the off-season rolls around, they aren’t particularly interested in long, drawn-out training sessions unless it’s absolutely necessary for their success. Most of our pro guys train six days a week for about 90 minutes in each session; four of these days are lifting, and there is movement training, medicine ball work, foam rolling, and mobility work included as well. Once the time comes to start throwing and hitting, this 1.5 hours might become three hours a day.
4. That’s pretty great stuff. And as much as you love training athletes, they love training with you, too. Every time I pick up a publication from your area, everyone from high school athletes up to Kevin Youkilis are singing your praises, and that includes other trainers. But let’s go back to the “regular” people.
Let’s talk about my readers for a bit: they’ve done a lot of programs, but most written by trainers who don’t train pros or (in the case of myself) only a few.
So can we assume that this is a good “next step” coming from the average fitness program? How can we take what you do with pros, what you do with absolute beginners, and apply the “middle ground” in this program? I guess the question is: why is it that Show and Go is going be THE program for performance?
It’s absolutely a great next step.
First and foremost, I should mention that while we’re probably best known for training baseball players, we’ve actually got a very diverse clientele. Sure, there are athletes from everything from boxing to bobsled, but we also have an awesome group of adult clients who just want to just want to be leaner, more muscular, healthier, and more functional for the challenges that life throws their way.
In fact, this was actually the fitness clientele I was dealing with the most before the “baseball thing” blew up for me – so I’m certainly not shooting from the hip on this.
To that end, there are a lot of things in a comprehensive strength and conditioning program that everybody – from the pro athlete to the soccer mom – needs to utilize. I could go on all day: foam rolling, mobility warm-ups, single-leg training, more horizontal pulling, fluctuation of training stress, sufficient deloading periods, extra posterior chain work, glute activation, rotator cuff strength – the list goes on and on. All that just speaks to staying healthy and moving more efficiently – but let’s be honest: most people want to get lean, muscular, and strong.
But let me ask you this: how many of the “regulars” in the typical commercial gym are actually lean, muscular, or strong? I haven’t lifted in a commercial gym in years, but my memory definitely serves me correct when it tells me that it couldn’t be more than 10-15% of those in attendance. The other 85-90% are rubbing their arses raw on the recumbent bike and scratching their heads about why they aren’t getting leaner when the elliptical machine told them that they were burning 28,000 calories per hour. After all, they made great progress in the first 8-12 weeks of their exercise program doing this – and it took them from the untrained stage to the beginner stage. What they don’t realize is progress halts unless they change things up and kick their programs up a notch by adding strength training and interval work.
Meanwhile, you have a lot of intermediate trainees who have “been there, done that” who poke fun at beginners because they haven’t discovered the same Holy Grail of strength training and interval training that enabled them to advance from beginner to intermediate. What’s actually quite ironic (and it is irony, because it’s tragic how badly this sabotages people’s program) is that, all the while, most of these intermediate trainees are missing out on valuable training secrets that could take them to the “advanced” stage.
You talked about a lot of those secrets with respect to fat loss when you wrote Final Phase Fat Loss. I’ve had many of the same “epiphanies” when it comes to improving strength and performance. You had trouble losing those last few pounds of body fat to get photo-shoot-ready, and I literally spent 14 months trying to figure out how to get from a 225 bench press to a 230 bench press. Sad, but true.
Well, I’m happy to report that I’ve now got a 365 raw bench press at ~190 pounds, and by this point, I’ve actually kissed a girl (even convinced her to marry me!). I learned a lot of lessons along the way – almost too many to share, in fact – which is one reason why I created Show and Go.
Here’s an example…
Beginners can make strength gains on as little as 40% of their one-rep max. Past that initial period, the number moves to 70% - which is roughly a 12-rep max for most folks. Later, I’d say that the number creeps up to about 85% - which would be about a 5-rep max for an intermediate lifter. This last range is where you’ll find most people who head to the internet for strength training information.
What they don’t realize is that 85% isn’t going to get the job done for very long, either. My experience is that in advanced lifters, the fastest way to build strength is to perform singles (sets of one rep) at or above 90% of one-rep max with regularity. As long as exercises are rotated and deloading periods are included, this is a strategy that can be employed for an extended period of time. In fact, it was probably the single (no pun intended) most valuable discovery I made in my quest to get stronger.
I’m not saying that you should be attempting one-rep maxes each time you enter the gym, but I do think they’ll “just happen” if you employ this technique.
Like I said, there are a lot more – but the program takes all the guesswork out and includes them.
5. Most people know you for the more “mundane ” aspects of performance…the boring stuff that we should be doing by most people don’t: soft tissue work, mobility work, all that.
On the other hand, you and I have known each other for about 10 years now, and I have a “different” perspective on you than the industry at large. I’ve seen you in your aesthetic-focused period where you wanted to get bigger, I’ve seen you get into powerlifting and pull HUGE weights.
I know that having done these gives you insight into aspects of fitness many people don’t realize you have. That said, for the time being you’re not known as one of the go-to guys if your main goal is to look better (which I personally know is bullshit).
Do you think Show and Go will help show the world that you can get people lean and muscular? I think—actually, let me put it this way. I’ve looked closely at the program, and WOW have you just knocked it the hell out of the park. I guess I’m asking, have you put your heart and soul into this because you want to show the world a new side of yourself? What are your thoughts on that?
The thing people really need to realize is that enhancing one’s performance – particularly with respect to strength gains – really sets the stage for long-term muscle mass gains. You’re a big dude – but what people might not know is that you’re also a very metrosexual strong dude. That strength and size are not mutually exclusive – and some of the best bodybuilders on the planet would tell you the same thing. What I can tell you is that I have gained more muscle mass “accidentally” in years as a powerlifter than I gained “intentionally” in years as a wannabe bodybuilder. For me, the biggest window of adaptation was in getting stronger – and that’s what I did. My upper back, hamstrings, and glutes just weren’t going to stay small if I did what it took to get to a 660-pound deadlift.
How does this work? Well, the stronger you are, the most “work” you’re going to be doing in classic “hypertrophy” zones. If Lifter A can bench press 300 pounds, and he’s doing sets of 6 (call it 83% of 1RM), he’s moving about 250 pounds in that set. If Lifter B bench presses 260 pounds, he’s working at about 215 pounds. If both do four sets of six reps, you’ll see that Lifter A is doing a lot more total work (force times distance). Lifter B needs to get his maximal strength up – and then return to these classic hypertrophy training zones to reap the benefits anew.
As an aside, staying healthy is a nice aside to training for performance, as you’re teaching your body to move efficiently. I always tell people that the best program is one that is sustainable – meaning that it doesn’t leave you injured or exhausted (too badly, at least) to the point that you’re missing valuable training time. Teach your body to move efficiently, and you’ll see that the threshold at which you get “banged up” is markedly more difficult to reach. The high volume lifting and metabolic resistance training fat loss protocols just won’t be you up as easily if you come in prepared and take care of the “boring” ancillary stuff like foam rolling and mobility work that I advocate.
6. Random – I’ll ask you this because I know people are interested in pro athletes: what is the one thing that makes athletes different from regular people? Like, how do they really just differ in the way they respond to training? What can we learn from that?
I’d say that, for the most part, the most immediate difference is in how quickly the pros pick things up. Most of them compete at high levels in their sport because they acquire new skills so well and can immediately integrate them in their “motor program.” In that regard, learning how to deadlift or throw the medicine ball isn’t much different than mastering a change-up.This is also very significant when it comes to relearning movements and getting one’s body back once the off-season rolls around. They just seem to rebound faster after periods of moderate detraining. As perhaps the most extreme example I’ve seen, I work with Chad Rodgers, a left-handed pitcher in the Atlanta Braves minor league system. From November 2008 to March 2009, Chad went from 200 to 217 pounds while training at our facility. Then, he went into in-season mode – and was 206 when he arrived back at our facility the following October after a long season. Get this, though: he was 222 within two weeks – and he finished up the off-season at 235 – and hit 95mph on the radar gun for the first time in his life. Pro athletes de-adapt like everyone else – but they seem to readapt faster than the lay population – and that sets the stage for long-term gains in spite of periods of sometimes crazy detraining during the season.That said, there are some high level athletes who are one-trick ponies. I’ve met some pitchers who showed up with 17-inch vertical jumps, but just so happened to have a good curve ball. And, I’ve seen some swimmers who seem really athletic – until you get them out of their realm and learn the true meaning of “a fish out of water.”
7. When you first opened your facility, you and I spoke and you were dead-set on making Cressey Performance stand out by having the most innovative people on staff and always trying new stuff. At the same time, you didn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. In looking at Show and Go, I feel you did the same: New science-based techniques housed comfortably alongside some of the most “common” exercises that people are familiar with; whereas a lot of programs include 80 varietals of exercises people have never heard of. Give me your thoughts that?
I couldn’t have said it better myself. Let’s be honest: there isn’t much in this industry that’s new. Most of the “innovations” are really just “reincarnations” of something from the past (e.g., kettlebells, strongman training) or “modifications” (e.g., accommodating resistance, modified tempo schemes, different loading parameters) of something that we already knew worked. I wish I could say that getting people jacked was an area where earth-shattering discoveries are being made every day, but that’s just not the case; we’re repacking things and looking for the right synergy among them.
In the real world, people still squat, deadlift, lunge, push, pull, rotate, roll over, get up, get down, jump, run, frolic, prance, whatever. My feeling is that if you stick to the basics – but at the same time expose people to a wind variety of movement patterns – you get the best of both worlds: neuromuscular efficiency for important fundamental tasks as well as a rich proprioceptive environment that keeps people healthy and “adaptable” to their surroundings. And, when you expose them to these new exercise variations, you prevent them from getting efficient – which is exactly what we don’t want if our goal is to get bigger or leaner.
8. Your videos on the squat were posted and re-posted all over the internet. EVERYONE got something out of them. Show and Go could well do the same thing for programming in general—whether you’re a trainee or a coach, you’ll learn...and in a small but real way, this could perhaps chance the way people write programs. With that in mind, if you could get people to STOP doing one thing (trainees OR coaches) and START doing one other, what would it be?
I’d tell both trainees and coaches to simply be more open-minded to learning from everyone and applying new techniques. There are Crossfit guys, HIT guys, powerlifters, bodybuilders, kettlebell guys, speed guys, machine guys, you name it. Lots of people have been doing lots of different stuff to get lots of different results. If you adhere steadfastly to just one discipline, you miss out on what the others have to offer – even if it is just a few seemingly trivial things that you borrow here and there to incorporate into your philosophy.Admittedly, I really struggled with this earlier in my career. I hated not knowing everything – and while it was something that definitely drove me to do a ton of research, I could have saved myself a lot of frustration and energy if I’d just been open-minded enough to ask someone else about their approach – or just observe them in action. Nowadays, I see these as opportunities to either learn something new, test my knowledge by refuting something that doesn’t fits with my philosophy, or confirm what I’m already doing.
Awesome. Awesome, awesome, awesome.
Eric, thank you so much for taking the time for do this, and thank you so much for putting together an incredible program.
Oh, and hey…so sorry about the Jets dominating the Patriots last week. That had to hurt.
Like just about all lifters, I got a lot bigger and stronger in my first 1-2 years of training in spite of the moronic stuff that I did in my weight training programs. In hindsight, I was about as informed as a chimp with a barbell – but things worked out nonetheless. That is, at least, until I hit a big fat plateau where things didn’t budge.
Think I’m joking? Sadly, I’m not; otherwise, I wouldn’t have spent about 14 months trying to go from a 225-pound bench to 230. When you’re finished laughing at my past futility (or about how similar it sounds to your own plight), we’ll continue.
Ready? Good – because self-deprecating writing was never a strong suit of mine. I have, however, become quite good at picking heavy stuff off the floor – to the tune of a personal-best 660-pound deadlift at a body weight of 188.
My other numbers aren't too shabby, either, but this article isn't about me; it's about why YOU can't necessarily get strong as fast as you'd like. Let's look at a few mistakes many people make in their quest to increase strength. Sadly, I made most of these myself along the way, so hopefully I can save you some frustration.
Reason #1: You're only doing what's fun - and not what you need.
As you could probably tell, deadlifting is a strength of mine - and I enjoy it. Squatting, on the other hand, never came naturally to me. I always squatted, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that it took the back seat to pulling heavy.
Eventually, though, I smartened up and took care of the issue - by always putting squatting before deadlifting in all my lower-body weight training sessions (twice a week).
In addition to me dramatically improving my squat, a funny thing happened: I actually started to love to squat. Whoever said that you can't teach an old dog (or deadlifter) new tricks didn't have the real scoop.
Reason #2: You're not taking deload periods.
One phrase of which I've grown quite fond is "fatigue masks fitness." As a little frame of reference, my best vertical jump is 37" - but on most days, I won't give you anything over 34.5" or so. The reason is very simple: most of your training career is going to be spent in some degree of fatigue. How you manage that fatigue is what's going to dictate your adaptation over the long-term.
On one hand, you want to impose enough fatigue to create supercompensation - so that you'll adapt and come back at a higher level of fitness. On the other hand, you don't want to impose so much fatigue that you dig yourself a hole you can't get out of without a significant amount of time off.
Good weight training programs implement strategic overreaching follows by deloads - periods of lower training stress - to allow for adaptation to occur. You can't just go in and hit personal bests in every single training session - and if you try, you're going to wind up exhausted.
Reason #3: You’re not rotating movements.
It never ceases to amaze me when a guy claims that he just can’t seem to increase strength on his bench press (or any lift, for that matter), and when you ask him what he’s done to work on it of late, and he tells you “bench press.” Specificity is important, folks, but if you aren’t rotating exercises in your strength training program, you’re missing out on a wildly valuable training stimulus: rotating strength exercises.
While there is certainly a place for extended periods of specificity (Smolov squat cycles, for instance), you can’t push this approach indefinitely. Rotating my heaviest strength exercises was one of the most important lessons I learned along my journey. In addition to helping to create adaptation, you’re also expanding your “motor program” and avoiding overuse injuries via pattern overload.
I’m not saying that you have to overhaul your entire strength and conditioning program each time you walk into the gym, but there should be some semi-regular fluctuation in exercise selection. The more experienced you get, the more often you’ll want to rotate your strength exercises (I do it weekly). We generally rotate assistance exercises every four weeks, though.
Reason #4: You’re inconsistent with your training.
I always tell our clients from all walks of life that the best strength and conditioning programs are ones that are sustainable. I’ll take a crappy strength training program executed with consistency over a great program that’s only done sporadically. In my daily practice, this is absolutely huge for professional athletes who need to maximize progress in the off-season; they just can’t afford to have unplanned breaks in training if they want to improve from year to year.
If a strength and conditioning program isn’t conducive to your goals and lifestyle, then it isn’t a good program. That’s why I went out of my way to create 2x/week, 3x/week, and 4x/week strength training options – plus various supplemental conditioning options and a host of exercise modifications – when I pulled The High Performance Handbooktogether; I wanted it to be a very versatile resource.
Likewise, I wanted it to be safe; a program isn’t good if it injures you and prevents you from exercising. Solid programs include targeted efforts to reduce the likelihood of injury via means like mobility warm-ups, supplemental stretching recommendations, specific progressions, fluctuations in training stress, and alternative strength exercises (“plan B”) in case you aren’t quite ready to execute “Plan A.”
For me personally, I attribute a lot of my progress to the fact that at one point, I actually went over eight years without missing a planned lift. It’s a bit extreme, I know, but there’s a lesson to be learned.
Reason #5: You’re using the wrong rep schemes.
Beginners can make strength gains on as little as 40% of their one-rep max. Past that initial period, the number moves to 70% – which is roughly a 12-rep max for most folks. Later, I’d say that the number creeps up to about 85% – which would be about a 5-rep max for an intermediate lifter. This last range is where you’ll find most people who head to the internet for strength training information.
What they don’t realize is that 85% isn’t going to get the job done for very long, either. My experience is that in advanced lifters, the fastest way to build strength is to perform singles at or above 90% of one-rep max with regularity. As long as exercises are rotated and deloading periods are included, this is a strategy that can be employed for an extended period of time. In fact, it was probably the single (no pun intended) most valuable discovery I made in my quest to get strong.
I’m not saying that you should be attempting one-rep maxes each time you enter the gym, but I do think they’ll “just happen” if you employ this technique.
To take the guesswork out of all this and try some programming that considers all these crucial factors (and a whole lot more), check out my resource, The High Performance Handbook.
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This project has been almost a year in the making, so I'm super excited to have Show and Go: High Performance Training to Look, Feel, and Move Better ready for you. As a way to celebrate, I'm offering a special introductory sale where you can save $50 off the regular price. Check it out: www.ShowAndGoTraining.com.
Today, we go over some Frequently Asked Questions and announce the winners of the free copies of Show and Go: High Performance Training to Look, Feel, and Move Better. Check out the video below:
If you're one of the winners, you can post a comment below to get in touch with me.
This new resource will be released tonight at midnight at www.ShowAndGoTraining.com at a great introductory price that'll only be around through the end of the day on Friday - so don't delay and miss out!
