It was an eventful weekend in the Cressey household, as we had our first trip to the emergency room with one of our daughters. Everything is fine, but it was another not-so-subtle reminder of how two-year-olds can change your plans on a moment's notice! Since I didn't do any writing myself this weekend, here's some good stuff from around the 'net:
Forget Career Hacks - Dr. John Berardi penned one of the more insightful articles on professional success that I've read in recent years. I love this equation because it demonstrates to folks that passion is necessary, but ineffective by itself:
I really love strength and conditioning. I see athletes as similar to choose-your-own adventure books where you have to find the right assessment, programming, and coaching strategies to get them to where they need to be. Each case is unique, so I get genuinely excited in trying to solve new puzzles every day.
Early in my career, though, that excitement often got the best of me. My brain would race faster than my mouth could keep up, and I used my mouth more than my ears and my eyes. Looking back, I threw way too many questions, observations, and cues at athletes. In talking so much, I probably not only confused them, but also missed out on invaluable chances to listen more and learn about their stories - which would help me solve these puzzles. Now, I talk much less and do a lot more listening. My goal in every assessment is to listen 80% of the time and only talk the remaining 20%. And, in my coaching interactions, I try to be as to-the-point as possible, using fewer words and more body language and gestures to convey my points.
This one never gets old: "You've got two eyes, two ears, two legs, and one mouth. Use them in that order."
Not surprisingly, I feel strongly that shutting up more often has made me a far better coach. Improving in any of life's challenges - athletics included - is about learning to tune out the noise - and too many coaching cues are just distractions as you're trying to learn how to move correctly. Interesting, as author Adam Grant recently pointed out on Twitter, there are academic parallels to this. A 2014 study (described here) reported that "when kindergartners were taught in a highly decorated classroom, they were more distracted and scored lower on tests than when they were taught in a room with bare walls." When we're trying to learn - whether it's our ABCs or how to trap bar deadlift - loads of distractions are our biggest enemy.
With that in mind, you have to ask yourself: "As a coach, am I a facilitator or just another distraction?"
If you're giving an athlete 58 visual, verbal, and kinesthetic cues all at the same time, you're overcoaching and overwhelming them. Moreover, if you're asking them asking them about their weekend while they're in the middle of sets, you're likely taking them further away from their goals. As I've written time and time again:
[bctt tweet="Good coaching cues are clear, firm, concise - and TIMELY."]
As much as it may hurt to admit it, sometimes, the best way to get athletes to where they want to be is to shut up. The next time you're struggling to get an athlete to make the adjustments you're trying to accomplish, take a step back and simplify your coaching approach with fewer words.
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I hope you all had a great weekend. My wife and I had a fun time in Chicago over the weekend at the Perform Better Summit and got a chance to catch the White Sox/Indians game. Here are a few good reads for the weekend:
2017 Cressey Sports Performance Fall Seminar - We just announced that this popular annual event will take place October 22 at our Massachusetts facility. We hope you can make it!
Mike Irr on Winning an NBA Championship - I've been friends with both Mike Robertson and Mike Irr for close to 15 years now, so how can I not love this podcast? There are some excellent insights from Irr, who just won a world championship with the Golden State Warriors.
Teammate - I just finished David Ross' autobiography and really enjoyed it. I'd highly recommend it to any baseball player, coach, or parent without hesitation.
Top Tweet of the Week
If Mom put on your sunscreen, carried your baseball bag, & dropped you off a Gatorade in the dugout, you definitely didn't "grind" today.
I've been crushing audiobooks, print books, and DVDs of late, so it's generated some good material for these weekly installments.
Certified Program Design Specialist Course - Robert Dos Remedios just released this course, and I'm working my way through it right now. Program Design is this huge "hole" in industry education; it's so incredibly complex to teach that I'm impressed that Dos even tried to tackle the project! I've enjoyed what I've seen thus far, and this could be a great resource for up-and-coming coaches. It's $100 off this week as an introductory discount.
Smart Baseball- I really enjoyed Keith Law's new book, as it delved heavily into the world of advanced statistics in baseball. If you're a casual observer to the sabermetric world, this would be a good read for getting up to speed - and it'll help you watch baseball through a different lens.
The Quadruped Rock-Back Test: RIP - Doug Kechijian just published this article that asserts that this classic test probably doesn't hold as much merit for predicting squatting success as one might think.
Top Tweet of the Week
1-leg RDL anti-rotation taps: great balance drill for throwers. Research shows improved balance equates to improved pitching performance. pic.twitter.com/4KvLAXQMDh
Happy Monday! I hope you had a great weekend. We missed last week's installment of recommended reading in light of the 4th of July, but today I've got a little extra for you to make up for it.
Specificity, Delayed Transmutation, and Long-Term Progress - I was reminded of this video during a conversation with our CSP-MA pitching coordinator, Christian Wonders. He commented on how several coaches have remarked lately that a lot of our rising juniors and seniors seem to surge once June/July roll around. It's surprising to them, but not to us.
"Scap does the lifting & elbow comes along for the ride." Good upper back, scap & humeral positioning helps minimize elbow extension stress. pic.twitter.com/JwnGo85xUh
Like most competitive powerlifters, when I want to lift some really heavy weight, I bench press with a good sized arch in my lower back. It shortens the range of motion, allowing me to press more weight. This positioning actually makes my shoulders feel better, but it's surely not "healthy" to take my spine into these more extreme ranges of motion while lifting a bunch of weight.
You know what else? I probably spend a grand total of 30-45 seconds per week in this potentially injurious position. The dose is incredibly low, so the response just has never been there (and I'm going on 14 years of doing it). I'm sure my likelihood of staying healthy is a bit higher because:
a) the rest of my training features a ton of variety
b) I don't arch to this extreme on every bench press rep
c) I’m able to reverse that lordotic curve just fine (I'm not locked in that position)
If a kid has a bowl of ice cream as a treat once a week, it’s no big deal. If he has it for every meal, that’s a problem. But what if he has only one bite of ice cream at each meal? Over the long haul, it probably isn't a huge deal. And what if the ice cream is watered down? Or plain vanilla instead of cookie dough? "Dose" is a function of a number of factors - and while you can "give" on one or two, it's hard to "give" on all of them and not wind up with an overweight kid.
There are countless parallels to this in strength and conditioning. Some exercises may be a bit more dangerous than others.
On the exercise selection front, back squatting and conventional deadlifts probably should be used sparingly (if at all) if you've got chronic low back pain.
In terms of training technique, everyone should try to avoid deadlifting with a rounded lower back, but many lifters "get away with it" because they exposure to this dangerous pattern is so limited.
A high-volume training program can be an amazing stimulus to kickstart new gains, but used to excess, it can be a problem.
Frequency wise, if you go high volume seven days per week, you'll break down, too.
From an intensity standpoint, testing your one-rep-max in every training session would be a great way to destroy your joints and make sure that you actually get weaker.
The point is that many different factors influence the "dose" of training you impose on your system, and that dose yields a very specific response. Understanding this complex relationship of programming variables and training techniques is paramount for yielding successful training outcomes.
However, this discussion should also bring you to an important realization: you usually can't comment on someone else's training program or technique unless you have knowledge of all these variables and their training history. Each situation is completely unique, so we should all resist the urge to be Monday Morning Quarterbacks. Seek to understand the processes at work instead of just judging the outcomes.
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It's been a rainy few days in Massachusetts, but that won't put a damper on a productive week. I've been staying plenty busy with this week's $30 off sale on The High Performance Handbook.
Here are a few good reads/listens for the week:
The Power of Sleep (Infographic) - Brian St. Pierre (author of The High Performance Handbook Nutrition Guide) created this quick and easy-to-understand reference for Precision Nutrition. It's a great one to share with clients.
The Truth About Your Future - This book was written by a financial advisor and can seem "pitchy" at times, but it did include a lot of fascinating research on technological advancements and how they'll impact everything from life expectancy, to college planning, to occupational outlook.
EC on Raful Matuszewski's Podcast - I was a guest on Rafal's show a few weeks ago, and we talked about everything from parenting to athlete motivation.
It's almost MLB Opening Day, which is just about my favorite "holiday" of the year. With that in mind, Mike Reinold and I decided to put our Functional Stability Training products on sale for 20% off. Using the coupon code MLBFST, you can pick up the individual components or get an even bigger discount on the entire bundle.
Good vs. Bad Stiffness - With FST on sale, I thought it would be a good time to "reincarnate" this webinar except from my presentation in the Optimizing Movement component. Relative stiffness is an important concept for all fitness and rehabilitation professionals to understand.
Work, Sleep, Family, Fitness, or Friends: Pick 3 - This was an interesting article at Inc.com on the topic of balancing life's demands. It resonated with me because it was another good reminder that it's our job as fitness professionals to make people realize they CAN still be fit even if they don't have a ton of time. And, fitness might be a great avenue through which to spend time with family and friends, so it can "check a few boxes" in folks' busy lives.
Top Tweet of the Week
Strength & conditioning progress comes down to 2 things: add stress (^ training) & buffer stress (^ recovery) - but the 2 are synergistic.
Here's some recommended reading from around the strength and conditioning and nutrition worlds from the past week:
What to Do When You Don't Like Vegetables - I liked this article from Precision Nutrition because it touched on good long-term strategies more than just creative ways to "hide" veggies in what you normally eat. The infographic at the end is clutch.
I've got a wonky shoulder. Actually, the term "wonky" probably doesn't do it justice. As of a MRI in 2014, here's what I've got:
"There is a high-grade partial thickness articular surface tear of the posterior fibers of the supraspinatus that measures 15 mm AP x 15 mm RL. The undersurface tendon fibers are delaminated and retracted 15
mm.
"There is a high-grade partial-thickness cartilage defect over the posterior medial aspect of the humeral head
(near the posterior-superior labrum) with cartilage flap formation that measures 8 mm SI x 5 mm AP."
That was about three years ago, and it may be worse now. The truth is that it started with internal impingement during my high school tennis career, and gradually progressed over the years. In comparing the 2014 MRI to one I'd had in 2003, you see that the damage has progressed (as expected), but the symptoms have actually gotten substantially better.
My (occasional) pain is your gain, though. You see, the symptoms (or lack thereof) can actually teach us a lot about how we view contraindicating exercises.
I can bench press as heavy as I want with zero issues. Pull-ups, rows, pullovers, overhead carries, landmine presses, Turkish get-ups are all completely asymptomatic. They're in my safe exercise repertoire.
And, as long as I don't go crazy with volume or intensity, I can throw a baseball just fine. I long-tossed out well over 200 feet with my pro guys consistently this offseason and it wasn't a problem.
Overhead pressing is weird for me, though. If I tried to push press 135 pounds, my shoulder would hate me for the next 6-8 weeks. Interestingly, though, if I keep the weight lighter, stick to dumbbells in the scapular plane, control the tempo, focus on perfect technique, and don't go crazy with volume, overhead pressing actually makes my shoulder feel better. I'll work it in as an assistance exercise every other month.
Interestingly, though, back squatting is what destroys my shoulder the most. This is consistent with an internal impingement diagnosis, but doesn't make a whole lot of sense when you consider that I can throw pain-free. Even if I just try to put a 45-pound barbell on my shoulders, it lights my shoulder up in a very bad way.
This weird collection of symptoms can actually teach us three really big lessons, though.
1. Everyone's symptoms and provocative patterns are completely different. Two people might have a very similar medical diagnosis, but dramatically different safe exercise repertoires.
2. Too often, we contraindicate simply contraindicate exercises. In reality, we should be looking much broader, considering factors such as absolute loading, tempo, volume, and exercise technique.
[bctt tweet="We should contraindicate people from exercises, not exercises for people."]
3. An individual's "safe" exercise repertoire may evolve over time due to changes in movement quality, tissue quality, recovery capacity, and structural integrity. Our programming needs to evolve to accommodate those changes, too.
Certainly, some exercises are inherently bad and not worth the risk, but it's important to evaluate each individual and situation individually to make the determinations on all those "middle of the road" exercises that deliver great training effects and make strength and conditioning fun.
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