1. Last weekend, my girlfriend and I headed down to Florida for a quick three-day escape to warm weather, but today, we'll be shooting up to Southern Maine to visit with my mother's class. She's a teacher at my old stomping grounds, Kennebunk High School (Go Rams). I'll be chatting with her students about fascinating topics such as:
a. how to make a fried egg without a spatula
b. how I became a ninja without ever receiving a degree in ninjalogy from an accredited institution
c. why Tony Gentilcore's knee sleeves smell worse than...well...anything
d. why they should wear belts and stop turning the brims of their baseball caps off to the side
2. I had a new article published yesterday at T-Nation: Seven Habits of Highly Defective Benchers
In reality, this article could have been called "Why Kevin Larrabee has missed a 300-pound bench press 931 times."
And, a second attempt, just because the first one was sooooo close...
Don't worry, Larrabee; you're still my boy.
3. Speaking of writing, I actually got started on a new project this week. Things quiet down a bit for me during the high school baseball season, so it is when I focus more on seminars, writing, and rescuing kittens from trees.
4. This week's 16x16 sled relay went a lot more smoothly than last week. In fact, we beat our best time by about 45 seconds. We've got one more week of this madness, and then we'll find something new for the Thursday insanity.
5. Just a quick note of congratulations to the Lincoln-Sudbury hockey team, whose season came to an end with a tough loss in the state semifinals last night. Nine guys from the team trained with us last off-season, and these guys deserved all the success that came their way. Nice job this season, fellas.
Q: I have rigid supinated feet that seem to aggravate my Achilles which keeps me from performing my HIIT on a treadmill.
What can I do to overcome this? (I am expecting you to tell me to run on a track)
By the way, I bought your Maximum Strength book and I am working my way through it. I wish I had you for a strength coach when I was in high school as I know I could have landed a full ride scholarship at a 1A school. I worked my beach muscles my whole life and now I have serious imbalances that I am working on with your help. You have really made a big difference in my life and I look forward to training since discovering you, your articles, books, etc.
A: First off, thanks for your kind words! I’m glad you enjoyed Maximum Strength.
With respect to your feet, believe it or not, one of the best things you can do is just pick up a pair of cushioned insoles. They shouldn't change the contour of the shoe; they should just offer added padding. I actually wrote about it in The Prehab Deload (toward the end).
On a related note, to be honest, I’m not a fan of HIIT on a treadmill (or much of anything on a treadmill). It just doesn’t afford the same benefits of running outside, although I do understand that weather gets in the way in the winter in many areas. At these times of year, I prefer to have clients gravitate toward rowing, cycling, and jumping rope.
Q: I do intervals as part of hockey training, which is basically year-round – but especially now in pre-season. In Maximum Strength, you use a pattern of high-medium-very.high-low training stress for weeks 1-4. Would the interference with intervals that you talk about decrease if I do interval work mainly during the medium and low intensity weeks? What is your experience?
A: I certainly wouldn't increase the volume of the intervals during the medium and low-intensity weeks. If you do, you simply negate the effects of the deloading period; it’s still stress on your body.
Instead, I'd just keep the interval work constant and make all your training stress fluctuations occur within your weight training.
That said, interval training isn’t necessary year-round if you are a hockey player. Check out my Ultimate Off-Season Training Manual for more information on that front.
Q: My question concerns the combination of your Maximum Strength program and HIIT workouts. Comments I have read by you indicate that HIIT training is detrimental to progress in your program. Could you explain why? Thanks for all that you do.
A: Give this article a read; it should answer your questions:
Of course, some things change if you are a guy who is more focused on getting lean, maintaining/improving cardiovascular fitness, or conditioning for a particular sport that warrants a lot of interval training. It's the give and take between maximal strength and performance in some other discipline.
There are a lot of elite strength and power athletes who couldn't run a mile in under 12 minutes - or even finish a mile at all! These are the folks who either a) have to keep body fat levels in check with diet, lifting, and very low intensity supplemental activity or b) not worry about body fat levels much at all, as strength and power are the name of the game.
For more information, check out Maximum Strength.
An EricCressey.com Exclusive Interview with Mike Roussell – and a Special Offer!
A while back, Alwyn Cosgrove and Mike Roussell introduced a new product together. Both these guys are really bright (and good friends of mine), but to be honest, this summer at Cressey Performance was crazy and I never got around to checking it out - until last week. Frankly, I'm pretty annoyed with myself for waiting this long, as Warp Speed Fat Loss blew me away. I emailed the guys right away about an interview for this newsletter, as I think this product would be right up a lot of our readers' alley. Mike agreed - and also decided to throw a special offer our readers' way. So, without further ado, Mike Roussell...
EC: There are about 6 million fat loss products out on the market right now. What sets Warp Speed Fat Loss apart from the rest of them?
MR: Warp Speed Fat Loss is different from a lot of the other fat loss stuff out there today (even stuff that Alwyn and I have previously made) for a few major reasons. The most important one that Alwyn and I focused on while building and tweaking this program is that we wanted the diet and exercise to work together in a synergistic fashion and not as two separate components. So, the Warp Speed Fat Loss diet is specifically set up to work with the Warp Speed training program; calorie manipulation and carbohydrate cycling, for instance, are both “in tune” with the program.
EC: I noticed that right away. A lot of people overlook synergy in training and nutrition, just focusing on one or the other at a single time. You really took the guesswork out of this, didn’t you?
MR: Yes, and that’s the second big difference with Warp Speed Fat Loss. We tell you EXACTLY what to do. There is no wiggle room. I think a lot of times people don’t give specific instructions because they don’t have 100% confidence that their system works. We have tested and tweaked this enough to know that it works. So, in the program we tell you exactly what to eat every single day and exactly what to do for training. It is black and white. Follow this exactly and lose a bunch of weight FAST. It is pretty cool.
EC: You make some bold claims about how quickly people can drop body fat with a program like this – but the results thus far seem very promising. Can you please fill our readers in on them a bit?
MR: You are correct. We do make bold claims, but we didn’t make them up. People went on our program and started losing 15-20lbs in 28 days. So we decided to start saying “Hey – do this and lose 15-28lbs in 28 days.” Your readers will be familiar with Bill Hartman and Mike Robertson; they both used the program (actually, I don’t believe they used Alwyn’s training, but they used the diet). Bill lost 17lbs in just over 3 weeks; he wanted to lose 10lbs. Mike lost 12lbs in 2 weeks (I emailed him back and called him a liar – but it turned out to be true).
EC: Yeah, I figured Robertson would be reluctant to skip his step aerobics class on Alwyn’s recommendation. He loves those 1980s leg warmers.Those guys are in-tune with the industry and know what it takes to succeed from years of watching clients get lean. What about others who don’t do this for a living?
MR: One of the best email’s I’ve gotten is from Paula Gawlas in Scottsdale, AZ. She said, “Your program rocks! I've exceeded my goals! I am so happy because whereas before every morning I would have to search for some pair of ‘elastic’ somethings to wear, now I know I can wear anything in my closet! (And there's a lot in my closet, so I can go weeks without doing laundry now!).
I work out at an LA Fitness here in Scottsdale and a girl was watching me work out and she questioned me about my program. Thought it was some sort of national challenge! I told her about you guys--I kind of hate saying "fat loss" at this point because I don't have any more fat to lose, but I just love the total body workouts! So thank you, thank you!
EC: Rave review, indeed. What blew me away the most was the amount of time you put in to the meal plans. When all is said and done, you’ve got about 350 pages of meal plans; that’s insane! Why so many, and what makes these meal plans different?
MR: Yes you are right; it is INSANE. The reason why there are so many meals plans is because I wanted everyone to have a meal plan that fit their body. So, I created meal plans for bodyweights ranging from 115lbs to 240lbs in five-pound increments. This way the program will automatically be tailored to the person the second they download it. Initially we didn’t have meal plans lower than 125lbs but people asked for them so I put them together.
On a side note, this is really a gem for trainers, as you have so many meal options to use with your clients.
EC: Let’s talk training. What tricks does Alwyn have up his sleeve? How much synergy is there between the diet and training components? Would an athlete be able to use your dietary recommendations with his current training model and still get appreciable results?
MR: For best results, you need to do the diet and training together. As I mentioned, though, Bill and Mike modified AC’s training program and it still went really well. The training program that Alwyn put together is really awesome. It is different from anything else that he has released. There are no barbell complexes in the program at all. Instead, he uses Metabolic circuits, some heavy weight, low-rep stuff, and a mixture of interval and steady state cardio.
EC: What about athletes? Is this suitable for them?
MR: We’ve gotten the question about athletes using the program before. In an ideal scenario, an athlete would not use the program until he/she has 28 days to fully dedicate to it. 28 days isn’t very long – especially when you consider most transformation contests are 84 days.
EC: Awesome stuff. You’ve got a special deal on this e-book for our readers today, right? Please fill them in.
MR: Yeah. So the price of Warp Speed Fat Loss has recently increased to $97 but since you are as big of a Patriots fan as I am, Alwyn and I will knock $20 off the price for your readers. Here’s the special link for that discount:http://www.warpspeedfatloss.com/ec_deal.php
This link will be good until – Monday September 22nd
EC: Thanks for taking the time, Mike. Here’s that link again, folks:http://www.warpspeedfatloss.com/ec_deal.phpNew Blog ContentRandom Friday ThoughtsAn Epic BattleFeedback on Maximum Strength
Have a great week!
EC
What are ten things our readers can do RIGHT NOW to become leaner, stronger, faster, and more muscular?
1. Set goals – SMART goals so that you know where the journey is going to take you and how you are going to get to your destination.
2. Keep a training diary – You need to track your progress.
3. Train consistently – Set a plan and stick to it. It’s all too easy to say, “Hey, I’ll train today.” If you don’t schedule a time to train, chances are you will get to the end of the day and you will have missed your session.
4. Recover well – You’ll understand why when you read the rest of the interview!
5. Concentrate on the 98% - I’ll explain this one later on.
6. Include conditioning work (prehab/remedial/injury prevention….call it what you like….my choice is conditioning) in your training session. Superset between the main lifts – that way the work gets done and you will be on the way to becoming “bulletproof.”
7. Replace steady-state running with high intensity intervals – Come on, do I really need to explain this one? Intervals will give you more bang for your buck than slow steady-state running.
8. Don’t get hung up on TVA recruitment – Isolating a muscle will not necessarily transfer to improved core strength during athletic movements. Train how you are going to perform; make sure you hit all of the major muscle groups (rectus abdominus, obliques, erector spinae, etc.).
9. Learn to handle your bodyweight – I’ve worked with elite gymnasts – these guys are super strong. I don’t really care what your bench is if you can’t even handle your own bodyweight with good form. Don’t neglect the basics.
10. Whole body hypertrophy programmes – I’m with Alwyn Cosgrove on this one. Why go for split routines when you can get a greater training effect from a whole body hypertrophy routine?
Nick Grantham
