I hope you all had a great holiday week. Here's some recommended reading and listening from around the 'net over the past week:

The Best Team Wins - This was an awesome recommendation from my buddy Josh Bonhothal. Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton provide some outstanding strategies for both sports team settings and businesses alike. The section on Baby Boomers vs. Generation Xers vs. Millenials was particularly fascinating.

Matej Hocevar on the Physical Preparation Podcast - Matej is an absolutely awesome guy with a wealth of information to share, and this podcast is an excellent example. He was also an amazing host to my wife and me when we visited Slovenia a few years ago.

7 Ways to Increase Your Training Density - I reincarnated this post from the archives earlier in the week and it was a hit, so I wanted to give it a mention here as well.

Top Tweet of the Week

If throwers try too hard to drive early arm speed, they may give up the core create a late arm action that sprays balls up & arm side (or accidental cutters). We coach athletes: “allow the hips to deliver the hand.” Here’s one of our favorite exercises to teach this patterning. pic.twitter.com/vKRTCsCcFr

— Eric Cressey (@EricCressey) July 5, 2018

Top Instagram Post of the Week

 

Lat strains don't happen because the lats are weak. They happen because they're heavily overused with imbalanced lifting programs, poorly executed arm care, everyday breathing, and faulty core stabilization patterns. And guys are throwing wicked hard. Lat pulldowns won't fix this. #cspfamily

A post shared by Eric Cressey (@ericcressey) on Jun 28, 2018 at 4:39am PDT

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Happy Friday! I'm a few days late with this post in light of our spring sale as well as some speaking-related travel I had this week. The good news is that the travel gave me some time to do some reading/viewing/listening and come up with some additional recommendations for you. Check them out:

Complete Youth Training - This is Mike Boyle's great new resource for those who work with young athletes. He touches on everything from the problems with early specialization to age-specific training stages. It's a good investment for parents and coaches alike. I loved how his perspective as a parent coalesced with his commentary as a strength and conditioning coach and business owner. It's on sale for $50 as an introductory discount.

The Best Team Wins - This was a recommendation from my buddy Josh Bonhotal, who's spent the past several years at the Purdue basketball strength and conditioning coach. Whether you're a coach or involved in a business in any way, this is a great book that'll teach you a lot about your interactions with athletes, fellow coaches, employees, and co-workers.

Prioritization and Success for Strength and Conditioning Success - I was reminded of this older post of mine this week when chatting with an up-and-coming strength and conditioning coach about how I've approached career development since I entered the industry.

Top Tweet of the Week

 

I think the long head of the triceps is a really overlooked structure in the development of both shoulder and elbow pain in throwers. Many people forget that it crosses the shoulder joint - and therefore effectively links the scapula to the lower arm. 🤔 In the late cocking phase of throwing, it's working eccentrically to prevent excessive elbow flexion while storing elastic energy that can be released on the subsequent elbow extension of the delivery. In other words, you can view the long head of the triceps as somewhat of a "mini-lat," as the lat serves this similar store-release function (albeit with different functions) - and they both work as shoulder extensors. 💪 It's also interesting in that it's one of the few muscles where the trigger point referral patterns can work up and down, as opposed to just down. I've seen some throwers where treating triceps has been a game changer in terms of everything from elbow, to shoulder, to neck pain. 👇 The long story short is that you have to give the triceps some love with quality self-myofascial release/manual therapy and make sure that you preserve tissue length (by stretching into shoulder flexion and elbow flexion simultaneously). Swipe right for some ideas. Thanks to @andrewmillettpt for the dry needling and manual therapy and @oneilstrength and @sooo_deep for the exercise demos. #cspfamily

A post shared by Eric Cressey (@ericcressey) on May 10, 2018 at 11:00am PDT

Top Instagram Post of the Week

“Follow your passion” is often bad advice. Passion is simply the trait that helps you deliver high-leverage skills you’ve acquired/developed. Passion isn’t a bad thing; it’s just not as highly marketable a thing as many up-and-comers seem to think. https://t.co/kjeBhtwldV pic.twitter.com/qOzFy1yruW

— Eric Cressey (@EricCressey) May 10, 2018

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