Happy New Year! Thanks for your support of EricCressey.com in 2017. I've got some great things in store for 2018. Let's kick it off with some content from around the 'net.
For the most part, you can throw "sport-specific" out the window in an untrained population. The basic movement and strength foundation - squat, hinge, lunge, push, pull - is pretty universal for all sports.
With 2017 winding down, I'm using this last week of the year to direct you to some of the most popular content of the past 12 months at EricCressey.com, as this "series" has been quite popular over the past few years. Today, we start with the most popular articles of the year; these are the pieces that received the most traffic, according to my hosting statistics.
1. Less Sickness for Better Results - The most important training goal should always be consistency, and getting sick is a big roadblock to that consistent training effect.
2. 5 Reasons to Use "Fillers" in Your Training Programs - "Fillers" are an awesome way for getting in more quality work in your training sessions. This article details the "why" and "how" of their incorporation in strength and conditioning programs.
3. Making Sense of Exercise Contraindications - If we just looked at MRIs, we could find a reason to contraindicate just about every exercise for just about every person. We need to dig a lot deeper to figure out which exercises are right for each person, though.
4. Simplified Shoulder Solutions - Don't making keeping shoulders any more complex than it needs to be. This article discusses how to "dumb things down" on this front.
5. 10 More Important Notes on Assessments - This one just went up recently, but got a lot of love in the short time it's been available. I guess folks can never get enough on quality assessments.
I'll be back soon with another "Best of 2017" feature. Up next, the top videos of the year!
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Without a doubt, program design is one of the most challenging things for up-and-coming coaches to learn. With that in mind, here are a few thoughts on the topic - and I may even turn this into a regular series.
1. Volume matters.
I just counted them up, and it turns out, I wrote 105 programs in the month of October. I've basically been doing this since 2001, and in these kind of volumes since we opened Cressey Sports Performance in 2007.
When you do anything 3-4 times per day, eventually, it becomes a lot easier. This is why I encourage young coaches to seek out opportunities to program early on in their careers as often as possible. Have a family member who wants to drop 20 pounds? Offer to write something up. Have a buddy who wants a bigger bench press? Write up a specialization program. The best learning experiences will come when they report back on their experiences and you tinker with the program on the fly, but truthfully, even if they don't actually follow through on the program, you'll get better from going through the process.
Moreover, make sure you have a wide variety of clients early on in your training career. You want to program for everyone from athletes, to general fitness folks, to post-rehab cases.
[bctt tweet="Be a good generalist to build a foundation for becoming a specialist later."]
2. Get some momentum.
Never, ever sit down to write a single program. Rather, always block off some time where you can write several in a row.
Programming is just like any other skill you practice; you need to find your groove. While I write programs every day, the truth is that I feel like the process comes more easily when it's 6-7 in a row on a Sunday night than 1-2 on a Tuesday morning. Like everything in life, "deep work" creates superior results - so try to find blocks of time devoted exclusively to programming.
If you're early in your career and don't have a lot of them to write, use it as an opportunity to write programs for hypothetical clients, or use it as a chance to review old programs you've written - and update them with new things you've learned.
3. Remember that programming is both a science and an art.
If you take two really skilled, experienced strength and conditioning coaches and have them write a program for the exact same athlete, you might get two markedly different programs. Coaches usually agree on the 90% of principles, but may disagree on the means to accomplish objectives. Just because one coach prefers to use block pulls and another likes trap bar deadlifts in month 1 doesn't make either of them incorrect. It's just an opportunity to highlight that there is an artistic component that goes hand-in-hand with the true science behind creating adaptation with training.
That said, there are scenarios where you don't get "poetic license" with your program. As an over the top example, you won't ever be able to convince me that a behind-the-neck barbell press is a good initiative in a 65-year-old man who is six weeks post-op on a rotator cuff repair. Science is so strong in some cases you can't even get to the art discussion; you have to earn the right (with your education) to get to that point.
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If you had to ask me what the single most important factor that makes or breaks someone's strength and conditioning success, I'd immediately answer, "Consistency." The ones who show up and put in the work are the most adherent to the programs, and they develop a host of habits conducive to long-term success. Nobody can really argue with that.
If consistency, then, is a huge goal in any training plan, then what are the objectives that underlay it?
A motivating training environment is obviously important. If you've got good people and energy in your culture, people will want to be consistent.
Novelty is something that inspires other people. People get excited when they experience something new, so subtle or not-so-subtle adjustments to the training program or environment can make a big difference for folks who need an extra boost for consistent attendance.
Progress is big as well. We like to do what we're good at doing - so when you're quantitatively aware of the progress you're making, it feeds back into the motivation that drives consistency.
These are all no-brainers, and I'm sure we could go on and list more key factors influencing consistency. However, one factor that is definitely overlooked is versatile programming.
In other words, you have to be able to modify things on the fly when life gets in the way. Maybe it's tinkering with training frequency/scheduling before a family vacation, shortening a training session when a young athlete is exhausted during final exams, or modifying exercise selection to work around a broken toe. The best programs are the versatile ones - and the best coaches are the ones who understand how to tinker on the fly as needed. If your program and coaching philosophy are too rigid to accommodate these necessary adjustments, consistency will definitely suffer.
What happens, however, when you don't have a coach overseeing your training? How do you make these adjustments?
First - and most obviously - you have to be honest with yourself on how you feel. This is certainly easier said than done, but in my experience, making correct choices on the most obvious decisions is the difference maker for most individuals. For instance, if your nose is running, head is throbbing, and every joint in your body aches, it's probably a much better idea to go home and sleep off the flu than it is to try to plow through a heavy deadlift training session. Most situations aren't this black and white, though. Usually, the tougher decisions are when to push for PRs, add/subtract sets, or make exercise modifications on the fly. "Feel" in this regard comes with experience, and it's usually constantly evolving as you get older and more highly trained.
Second, seek out mentors and training partners to help you along and push you to get better each day. I think this Tweet pretty much sums up this point.
It's great to learn from your own mistakes, but even better to learn from others' mistakes. Find good mentors and ask questions.
Third, you can outsource. Don't know when you should deload? Adopt a program where deloading periods are already incorporated. Don't know how to design a warm-up that covers all your needs? Have someone else structure it for you so that you don't miss anything. Want something flexible enough to accommodate a busy travel schedule? Get a program where training frequency can be rotated from week to week.
These are all problems I worked hard to solve for my audience when I created The High Performance Handbook. This resource has different programming options based on assessment outcomes, and supplemental conditioning approaches that can be individualized to one's goals (fat loss, athletic performance, etc.). Each phase has 2x/week, 3x/week, and 4x/week lifting options to provide options for various time throughout the training calendar, whether it's an in-season/off-season athlete or an accountant that needs something with less frequency during tax season. I include modifications for folks who may have equipment limitations, and also suggestions on how to tinker with the program if you're an overhead athlete, older lifter, or someone looking to add more muscle mass. In short, I worked hard to create what I believe to be the most versatile strength and conditioning resource available on the market today. For more information, check out www.HighPerformanceHandbook.com.
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Back in my graduate school days, I did some personal training at a gym not far from campus. My days were filled with work in the human performance lab and varsity weight rooms, but I felt like it was really important that I continued to train general fitness clients to become more proficient in that demographic – and help pay the bills.
Like most guys in my early 20s, I thought I had life all figured out. A few months in, my boss informed me that I was due for a performance review. She also mentioned that they were deviating from the “norm” a bit, and that my sit-down meeting would not be with her, but rather, with one of the more experienced trainers, Kris. I didn’t really think anything of it, and the meeting was scheduled for the following week.
Looking back, that meeting was profoundly impactful for me, even if I didn’t fully grasp just how important it was at the time.
Kris first complimented me on what I did well: work ethic, passion, attention to detail, coaching, and book smarts. Looking back, it was a perfect Dale Carnegie approach before I’d ever even read How to Win Friends and Influence People. Eventually, though, the conversation delved into the topic of empathy; she asked me what I thought most of my clients really wanted to get out of their personal training with me.
Here I was, a 22-year-old aspiring powerlifter who thought the world was out to train for a 600lb deadlift and get to 200 pounds at 6% body fat. My most loyal client, though, was a 68-year-old accountant who just didn’t want his neck and shoulder to hurt when he worked out and picked up his grandkids. Another was an elderly woman who was far more concerned about her risk of osteoporosis than her vertical jump.
That day, without telling me I sucked at relating to my clients, Kris taught me a ton about empathy and separating myself from personal biases. She just tactfully challenged me with a simple question. It wasn’t much different than the “guided discovery” approach we use with young athletes when we walk them into a little technique failure so that they can appreciate the wrong pattern.
“Where did you feel that?”
“Can you stop rowing when your elbow hits my hand?”
“See how your nose got to the floor before your chest on that push-up? Can you switch that up?”
Kris saw exactly what I needed to become a better coach, and she delivered the message perfectly. In hindsight, that lesson in empathy and separating myself from personal biases probably made a huge difference in enabling me to be successful in training baseball players even though I wasn’t a baseball player past eighth grade. I had to do a lot more listening and ask a lot more questions. Kris understood this all too well – and modeled it, too: she’d had clients for over a decade!
That was 2003. Now, 14 years later, Kris and I are still good friends. She sent us gifts when our twins were born. I help out with training her son, an up-and-coming pitcher. Of any of my co-workers at that time, she challenged me the most – and she’s the only one with whom I really keep in touch. How is that for impactful?
I actually reached out to her before posting this blog, and her response included the following:
"I remember this conversation well. I dreaded giving this performance review! I remember thinking that I knew how smart you were (probably smarter than I) and I knew that this trainer job was ultimately not your end point. I wanted to make sure you knew how valuable your knowledge was when applied correctly. How do you tell someone their delivery is not as sensitive as it needs to be??
"I'm so glad that I succeeded in my message and that this lesson has stayed with you. I am honored that you, who I respect immensely, learned something from me. You never really know how much you can impact a person's behavior and thought process."
Now, imagine she’d never spoken up. Or, even worse, if she had – but I wasn’t ready to accept that constructive criticism. I wouldn’t be the coach (or person) I am today. This is why we should be massively grateful to those who not only have constructive criticism to offer, but choose to provide it with the correct approach.
Hardest athlete to coach is often the one who's never struggled. Getting punched in mouth for 1st time teaches open-mindedness & work ethic.
When it really comes down to it, people struggle or fail to improve for one of three reasons.
a) They don’t know what they’re doing incorrectly.
b) They don’t have actionable strategies to address these issues; don’t understand how to employ these strategies; or haven't had enough consistency or success with these strategies.
c) They aren’t willing to change.
In terms of A, it’s important to challenge people tactfully and make them aware of their blind spots. Particularly in the youth sports realm, this is getting to be a very dicey situation. Many kids think they have it all figured out, and more concerning, many parents think coaches “have it in” for their kids, so they block constructive criticism. If we protect kids from understanding their weaknesses, they don’t grow. If we challenge kids, let them know failure isn’t a big deal, and then provide strategies to improve, they thrive. It’s been demonstrated in motor learning research, the educational realm, and social settings. As has often been said, “the success is in the struggle.”
Conversely, some people need help with B. This is the kid who is always late for practice, or always misses breakfast because he oversleeps. He needs time management strategies, and people around him to whom he can be accountable.
Scenario C is far and away the most challenging dynamic. These are situations where you may actually cheer against someone in hopes that they’ll struggle mightily and come to their senses on what needs to change. In an athletic context, it’s usually the kid who is the best player in the history of his town even though he eats fast food at every meal, skips training sessions, and stays up all night. It’s just a matter of time until he runs into genetically gifted competition that is far more prepared and motivated than he is.
Aroldis Chapman throws 105mph – harder than anyone in baseball history – and he has a 4.12 ERA this year. Mike Trout struck out three times in a game earlier this year. Ultimately, no matter who you are, sports and life will humble you in some capacity. Athletes are better off learning these struggles at a young age so that they’ll have strategies for dealing with them for the decades that follow.
What are the take-home messages?
1. Always be open to constructive criticism. In fact, seek it out. You can’t see your blind spots like others can.
2. Don’t protect your kid from constructive criticism, or immediately discredit criticisms of you. Process them before reacting. And remember the person delivering the criticism may actually be really nervous about doing so.
3. If you deliver constructive criticism, be cognizant of matching your approach to the personality of the one who’s receiving it.
4. Always reiterate that failure is part of life and not a big deal. And, if it seems like a big deal – particularly with young athletes – find ways to minimize consequences.
5. If you know why you’re struggling, find and employ strategies to address your weaknesses.
6. Thank you, Kris!
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One of the first things some individuals notice when they come to observe at Cressey Sports Performance is that we often pair “big bang” strength and power movements with lower intensity drills. This is also a common programming theme many of those who have completed my High Performance Handbook program have noticed.
As an example, we might pair a prone trap raise with a deadlift…
…or a hip mobility drill with a bench press.
We call these low-intensity inclusions “fillers.” Truthfully, though, I’m not sure that this name does them justice, as “filler” seems to imply a lack of importance. In reality, I think these drills have a profound impact on improving each client/athlete’s session. Here are five reasons why.
1. Fillers slow advanced athletes down on power and strength work.
Optimal training for strength and power mandates that athletes take ample time between sets to recharge. Unfortunately, a lot of athletes have a tendency to rush through this type of work because it doesn't create the same kind of acute fatigue that you'd get from a set of higher-rep work. Muscular fatigue is a lot easier to perceive than neural fatigue. In other words, you'll want to rest more after a set of six squats than you would after a set of six heidens, even if you were attempting to put maximal force into the ground on each rep with both.
By pairing the strength or power exercise with something a little more mellow, we “force” athletes to take adequate rest and get quality work in on subsequent sets of the “meat and potatoes.”
2. Fillers provide extra opportunities to work on basic movement competencies and corrective exercises.
If something is important, do it every day. For some people, this might be hip mobility work. For others, it might be some rotator cuff work. You might as well do it when you’d otherwise be standing around resting.
3. Fillers improve training economy – and may even allow you to shorten the warm-ups a bit.
This point is best illustrated with an example. Let’s say that I would normally do an 8-10 exercise dynamic flexibility warm-up before my lifting-specific work. Then, I’m warming up to a 600-pound deadlift like this:
On that warm-up progression, I have eight “between-set” breaks to get in a little extra work. Sure, I’m loading on plates, but that doesn’t mean I can’t bang out a few quick reps of ankle mobility or scapular control work. This can be pretty clutch – especially once I’m at the heavier warm-up sets that require a bit more rest – as it can actually allow me to shorten my earlier general warm-up period a bit.
When it comes to training economy, everyone wants to talk about exercise selection (picking multi-joint exercises) and finding ways to increase training density (more volume in a given amount of time). However, don’t forget that movement quality work is still “work.”
4. Fillers help to prevent “backups” in the training facility.
This is a double-edged sword. If you’re doing some hip mobility work between sets in a busy commercial gym, if you aren’t careful, it probably will increase your likelihood of someone stealing your squat rack.
However, in the collegiate, professional, and private sectors, incorporating fillers can be invaluable in preventing log jams where many athletes are trying to use the same piece of equipment at the same time. If you’ve got three athletes sharing the same trap bar, fillers can help things flow a bit smoother – particularly because it keeps less-than-attentive athletes from screwing around between sets.
5. Fillers may give deconditioned clients active recovery between sets to make the most of their time with you.
For some clients, the warm-up is the workout. In other words, they may be so deconditioned that even a set of the Spiderman with hip lift and overhead reach will get their heart rate up. If you paired this mobility drill with an inverted row, it might be a perfect fit for their fitness level. Conversely, if you paired that inverted row with a Bulgarian split squat, it might crush them. In this case, the filler is hardly a filler!
Fillers might have a connotation of “unimportant,” but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Try incorporating them in your programs to get higher quality work, improve training economy, and bring up weak links.
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I finished up my NYC seminar yesterday and am sticking around to spend a day in the city with my wife today, but I prepared a recommended reading list for you to enjoy in the meantime. Check it out:
Attentional Focus and Cuing - Nick Winkelman wrote this great article for Club Connect's online magazine. If you're looking for a good introduction to internal vs. external focus cues, this is a good place to start.
Source: ClubConnect.com
20 Tips for Young Coaches - Mike Robertson crushed it with this new podcast with tips for aspiring coaches.
The Ideal Business Show with Eric Cressey - Speaking of podcasts, this interview I did for Pat Rigsby a year ago, and I still think it's one of the best ones with which I've been involved.
Top Tweet of the Week -
Don't take mechanics solutions to athleticism problems. Before tinkering w/mechanics, make sure a pitcher can jog to mound w/out tripping.
Today's guest post comes from Cressey Sports Performance Director of Performance, John O'Neil.
Openly communicating expectations on an exercise-by-exercise level as a coach can go a long way in ensuring the outcome of the chosen program is as intended. A typical new client we see will give near maximal effort on every exercise, not understanding that heavier does not equal better and there’s a problem if something that’s meant to be lower intensity becomes a straining exercise. Too often I see random exercises done with an inappropriate amount of weight because the client doesn’t understand that harder isn’t better; smarter is better. While you want to pile plates on for some lifts, with others, the load is less important than the execution. The important thing is that the athlete/client understands your intentions as the person who wrote the program – and that communication is a two-way street.
In our model at Cressey Sports Performance, we will typically pair something that is meant to be heavier with something that is meant to be lighter. Only a few exercise will meant to be loaded heavily, and in the rest, precision of technique is the focus. A sample lower body day for a pitcher might be:
When we look at a day like this, we need to have knowledge of the difference between central and peripheral stress. The above day has 1 central stressor, 1-2 loadable peripheral stressors, and 5-6 exercises that are never meant to crush someone (lateral lunges are the in-between, depending on the person). Most effective training days will only have 1-3 central stressors, and the rest will be peripheral.
Think of these like main lifts vs. accessory lifts. This is not to demean the accessory lifts, as they are necessary to our programming and we will use them to assure local muscular hypertrophy, sports-specific positional stability, and general health. Exercises that affect the central nervous system will include your big bang-for-your-buck lifts like squats, deadlifts, and presses. These are the ones in the weight room that we can load up and effectively train in rep schemes of five and below.
To monitor the success of this sample day, the trap bar deadlift should be done at a high RPE (ratings of perceived exertion). This might be through a 1-10 number scale. Ask the client how many more reps they could have done and if they say 1, it was a 9. If they say 2, it was 8, and so on.
To keep this easier in a semi-private training model with many young clients drastically misinterpreting a number scale, I simply tell the person something like “this should be very hard, but never feel impossible.” If you have experience coaching, you can typically tell when someone’s technique is about to break down if they attempted another rep.
[bctt tweet="If you safely strain to just below technical failure, you chose a good weight for a main lift."]
Peripheral stressors are the exercises that you should really never come close to missing. Even if someone is extremely strong at an 8-rep reverse lunge, rep 8 shouldn’t be a grinder and rep 9 should always be possible. With clients, I like to communicate that exact idea: precision of the movement and owning the technique at a moderately challenging level will go a lot further than being sloppy and adding more weight.
This is not to say these are easy exercises, though. In fact, the peripheral stressors are often the exercises that will make you sore as they attack more localized areas and are done in rep schemes (8-12) that are more congruent with hypertrophy. The problem with not communicating the appropriate weights on these exercises is they will potentially take away from the benefits the main exercises (central stressors) will provide. Train your main exercises to a point of safely straining, and train your accessory lifts with mental intent and precision.
About the Author
John O'Neil (@ONeilStrength) is Director of Performance at Cressey Sports Performance-MA. You can contact him by email at joh.oneil@gmail.com and follow him on Instagram.
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Happy Monday! I've got some recommended strength and conditioning resources for you, but before I get to them, I want to quickly remind you that the early-bird registration deadline for my September 17 seminar near Washington, DC is this Thursday, August 17. This event will sell out, as I only have a few spots left, so if you're interested in attending, don't delay on registration. Here's the information page.
Baseball America Podcast Interview with Dr. James Andrews - This was an an excellent 18-minute conversation between Will Carroll from Motus and Dr. Andrews. They covered Dr. Andrews' latest observations on arm injuries in youth baseball players.
Do You Need a Navy Seal? - This article from Dr. Brandon Marcello is a few years old, but warrants reincarnation in light of recent developments with alternative, military-inspired training approaches in the general and athletic populations.
Sabotaging Your Sales Pitch: 4 Mistakes to Avoid - My business partner, Pete Dupuis, presents a little fitness business advice. In this post, he covers the lead conversion conversation - and how to not screw it up!
Top Tweet of the Week
Educated, motivated athletes crave structure - and input on that plan. Deny them that organization and active role, and you'll lose them.
Yesterday, Cressey Sports Performance coach Miguel Aragoncillo delivered an outstanding in-service that led to a great discussion of characteristics of our clients who've had the best long-term success. Without a doubt, the one that stands out above all else is consistency. If someone continues to show up consistently - all other things held equal - they stand the best chance of making great progress toward their goals, whether they're performance, aesthetic, or a combination of the two.
The discussion immediately made me think back to a slide from my presentation on long-term athletic development on this year's Perform Better tour. In this slide, I talked about how the path to success is actually a circle.
Everything begins with having an environment that individuals find motivating and inviting - which drives interest. This might come from them relating to the like-minded training partners, music, unique programming or coaching styles, or any of a number of factors. Very simply, it has to be an environment that drives enthusiasm, the next component of the circle.
Enthusiastic athletes are more open to learning, whether it's about their unique movement issues or how they approach nutrition. This enthusiasm opens up a window for education.
When you get a motivated, enthusiastic, educated athlete, you've set the stage for a greater level of autonomy. When someone has the education and desire to change - but also the independence to do it on their own - you've created an optimal scenario for results to take place.
And, the more results you get, the more buy-in you receive in the form of increased interest - and the circle starts anew.
None of this should seem revolutionary, but you'd be surprised at how many individuals try to jump in at the education portion. They assume that everyone who walks in their door is interested and enthusiastic, and that isn't always the case. This is one reason why I'm always particularly cautious not to overwhelm folks during their initial evaluations; I'm actually far more interested in building rapport and making them comfortable in our environment than I am in telling them all about how they have brutal hip internal rotation or a serious lack of rotator cuff strength.
[bctt tweet="Initial assessments should start a relationship while tactfully delivering (not forcing) education."]
I try to view each client in the context of this circle to see how we can best optimize their experience with us and improve consistency. Do we need to do a better job of making them excited about the environment? Or, do we need to build on the enthusiasm they already have with a stronger educational component? Or, do we need to help them come up with strategies to best incorporate the knowledge they have to develop more autonomy to facilitate further progress? At the end of the day, it's a unique mix for every individual, but this framework can help you to get to the bottom of it.
I'll leave with a closing thought: when you get a 15-16 year-old athlete who has gotten to the autonomy stage that early in his athletic career, it is an absolute game-changer. These athletes not only follow everything you put on paper to a "T," but also become even better active participants in the training process. They're better communicators who ask good questions and help you to develop the best programming and coaching approaches to get them results quicker. And, when you combine this high motivation and early independence with someone who is a gifted natural athlete, you can see absolutely incredible progress.
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