I hope everyone had a great weekend. I made my second Massachusetts-to-Florida drive over the weekend. I was going crazy not being able to watch playoff baseball, but I did manage to crush some audiobooks and podcasts along the way.

EC on the Jim Laird Show - I really enjoyed being interviewed in Jim's podcast, and feel like we covered a lot of great stuff.

ADHD Nation - I listened to this audiobook on my ride from MA to FL over the weekend, and it was eye-opening, to say that least. One statistic that really blew my mind: there are over 10,000 2-3 year-olds in the U.S. who are on some kind of ADHD medication.

The Absolute Worst Fitness Trend - This is a T-Nation compilation to which I contributed. There are some really good observations here.

Top Tweet of the Week -

Anyone who has read "Legacy" should understand the significance here: LeBron James seen tidying up Cavs' locker room https://t.co/QOkbcugKme

— Eric Cressey (@EricCressey) October 11, 2016

Top Instagram Post of the Week - 

 

Not too shabby. #elitebaseball #cspfamily

A photo posted by Cressey Sports Performance (@cresseysportsperformance) on Oct 12, 2016 at 5:33am PDT

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Happy Monday, folks. I hope everyone had a great weekend. We brought our twin daughters to their first MLB game yesterday, and they did surprisingly well, behaving through all nine innings! Hopefully, this momentum carries over into the rest of the week. Here's some good strength and conditioning reading to get the ball rolling: 

How to Prepare to Avoid Early Season Pitching Injuries - I was interviewed for this article by Dan Weigel for Sporting News. The second half of the article ran a few days later: The Dangers of Spring Training. 

Pump the Brakes on Bashing Higher Education for Fitness Professionals - My business partner, Pete, did a solid job of outlining another perspective on the topic of college education in the fitness industry. These come as follow-ups to my popular articles, Is An Exercise Science Degree Worth It - Part 1 and Part 2. 

7 Truths About Strength Training - This was an excellent post from Jim Wendler for T-Nation. He hit a lot of nails on the head.

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Happy belated Mother's Day to all the mothers who read this blog; I hope you all had a great day yesterday! As a belated gift, here are some recommended resources for the week:

A Doctor's View of CrossFit - I thought this was an excellent interview at T-Nation with Dr. Stuart McGill, arguably the world's premier spine specialist. He definitely covered some points that haven't been mentioned previously in the Crossfit debate, and you'll find quite a few one-liners you'll want to commit to memory. One that stood out to me: "Olympic lifting must find the lifter. Not the other way around given the special anatomical gifts needed to lift with efficiency and injury resiliency."

An Interview with Eric Cressey, by Jason Glass - Jason and I talked shop a few weeks ago, and you can listen to the podcast online now. We covered a lot of topics, the foremost of which was training rotational sport athletes.

Hip Extension and Rotation in the Baseball Swing - I had a great conversation with a seminar attendee this weekend about this very topic, so I thought I'd bring this great guest post from Jeff Albert (minor league hitting coordinator for the Houston Astros) back to the forefront.

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The stage system is one of the most versatile programming strategies around.

Training for scary strength? It excels at that. Training to build size so you can upgrade those extra-medium T-shirts? It can be adjusted for hypertrophy. Want to get faster for sports? The stage system has you covered.

Read more...

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In my latest article at T-Nation, I take a close look at training on unstable surfaces and how it impacts performance and health. Check it out:

--> Unstable_Surface Training: The Good, Bad, and Ugly <--

While this is a lengthy article, it's still just a quick glance at a very complex topic. If you're interested in learning more, I'd encourage you to check out my e-book, The Truth About Unstable Surface Training.

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

Cressey Performance Week at T-Nation - Three members of the CP staff had articles published at T-Nation this week. Greg Robins was up first, with Bench Press More in Four Weeks. Tony Gentilcore followed, with Building a Superhuman Core. Then, finally, I had an article published yesterday: How to Build Bulletproof Shoulders.  Suffice it to say that I'm a very lucky guy to have such an awesome staff!

Elite Training Mentorship - In this month's update, I provided a presentation called, "20 Ways to Build Rapport on a Client's First Day."  Additionally, I've got an article, as well as two exercise demonstrations - and this complements some great stuff from the rest of the ETM crew.  Check it out.

10 Nuggets, Tips, and Tricks on Energy Systems Development - Mike Robertson wrote this last week, and I thought it was a fantastic look at some key points coaches need to understand with respect to "conditioning."

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I had a new article published today at T-Nation.  As you'll see, it builds on some of the thoughts I published here at EricCressey.com a few weeks ago.  Check it out: 

---> How to Build Bulletproof Shoulders <---

Enjoy!

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

What's in a Toe Touch? - This outstanding article from Gray Cook and Don Reagan serves as an awesome adjunct to my static stretching post from two weeks ago, as I talked about some of the ways to "cheat" a toe touch.

Ultimate Speed Drills - I think Jim Kielbaso is one of the best guys around for teaching speed and agility development. I've enjoyed his previous publications, and he just wrote up this new resource for the International Youth Conditioning Association.  It's very affordably priced, so I'd encourage you to check it out if this is an area of your coaching development that needs improvement.

5 Loading Protocols Under the Microscope - In light of a recent conversation I had during a recent training session, I thought it would be a good time to bring back this T-Nation article I wrote back in 2011.

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

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

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

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

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Here are some good strength and conditioning reads to peruse this week:

Do You Have a Management Problem?  - Martin Rooney always has some great content not only in terms of training, but also with respect to how to take control of your life and make all the pieces fit together.  This is one such example.

10 Mistakes Coaches Make - My good friend John Romaniello reminded me that yesterday was the tenth anniversary of my first article at T-Nation.  While it certainly wasn't my best of all time, I thought I'd use this opportunity to highlight a different one that I wrote over the past decade that stuck out in my mind.

Training the Lactate System - Patrick Ward brings to light some great points that a lot of folks overlook with respect to understanding work capacity, optimizing recovery, and training sport-specific energy systems. If you liked the discussion of heart rate variability that I posted last week, you'll enjoy this as well.

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