Home 2014 September

Strength and Conditioning Stuff You Should Read: 9/30/14

This week's recommended reading is a day late in light of my travels, but fortunately, I've got some good content to make up for my tardiness. Here you go!

Contagious: Why Things Catch On - I listened to this audio book from Jonah Berger on my ride down to FL in early September, and really enjoyed it. If you like Chip and Dan Heath's writing, you'll like Berger's, too.

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The Return of the Oriole Way - I'm a big Buck Showalter fan. I think his preparation and leadership is very admirable, and every guy I've ever trained has raved about how we'll he's prepared his team. This article delves into how his approach - and Dan Duquette's effective work as GM - helped to get the Orioles to where they are.

Fitness and Menstrual Health - Dr. Spencer Nadolsky presents a comprehensive look at a topic that has a significant influence on how our female readers feel, look, and perform. I especially like the fact that he differentiated between "energy deficit" and "nutrient deficiency" as causes.

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Get with the Program: Strategies for Individualizing Baseball Development

Today's guest post comes from physical therapist Eric Schoenberg, who is an integral part of the Elite Baseball Mentorships team. Enjoy! -EC

Regardless of your profession with respect to the baseball world, chances are that you spend a good portion of your days writing programs. Whether it is a home exercise program for a physical therapist, a training program for the strength and conditioning specialist, a throwing program for the pitching instructor, or a practice plan for a head coach, the quality of your programs can differentiate you from your competition. As opposed to writing a daily “workout,” a detailed, individualized program gives the athlete structure and sets expectations similar to a curriculum in education.

Each time we host an Elite Baseball Mentorship, the topic of programming comes up in our wrap-up roundtable discussion. As professionals, our job is to add value to our services and give our athletes a competitive advantage over their peers. A big way in which we can do this is by writing great programs for our athletes. It should be noted that writing such detailed and specific programs takes a lot of time and effort, but the athletes that we work with deserve nothing less. A “one size fits all” program with empty promises may sell well online, but most are a disservice to the athlete. This article will outline examples of different programs that we write on a daily basis.

There are many ways to subdivide programs to suit the needs of your athletes. For the purposes of this article, I’ve divided programs into three different categories: Temporal (length of program), Age, and Time of year/Season.

Within each category, athletes are divided into into three sub-categories: Lax, “Middle of the road”, and Stiff. Determining an athlete’s degree of laxity or stiffness is critical to determine whether an athlete needs to focus on mobility (“loosen up”) or stability (“tighten up”).

In addition, it serves as a more logical way to group athletes together when an individualized program is not possible based on time, space, and resources – most notably in the high school or college team settings.

Let’s take a look at each category, starting with temporal, and hit on some different points worth considering when designing programs for your athletes.

temporalchart

Daily programming:
• Practice vs. Gameday
• Prehab/Rehab
• Pre-game warm-up
• Pre-throwing
• Throwing (Long toss, bullpen, in-game)
• In-game (between innings, reliever warm-up)
• Nutrition
• Post-game/Recovery

Weekly:
• Strength and Conditioning – frequency of strength and mobility sessions
• Rehab/Physical Therapy treatments (includes soft tissue work)
• Home exercise programs
• Throwing (5-day, 7-day, Reliever)
• Recovery work

Monthly/Season:
• Early season vs. late season (adaptive changes will require change in programming)

Year:
• Pre-season, in-season, post-season, time off

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Next, age must be appreciated when considering program design. There are major differences between these age groups in terms of laxity, injury history, injury predisposition, activity tolerance, recovery time, and a host of other factors that must be considered when programming for your athletes. As an athlete gets older, the number of games played in a season dramatically increases and must be accounted for in their programs. The table below illustrates a breakdown of the age category:

agechart

Lastly, we need to pay attention to season when designing programs. An interesting study by Posner et al, found that MLB injuries were 10x more likely to occur in April than September. It is critical to appreciate that exercise selection needs to change based on season out of respect for throwing volume. In addition, the importance of adaptive changes such as decreased (or increased) ROM, pain, fatigue, weight loss, among others must be appreciated. Also, competing demands such as multiple sports in season, travel, schoolwork, and family commitments need to be taken into consideration as we create programs for our athletes.

seasonchart

Other considerations for varying volume, duration, and intensity in your programs include:
• Position (pitcher, catcher, IF, OF)
• History of injury in past year
• Multi-Sport vs. Early Specialized (include multi-sports in same season – high school athlete)
• Geography: Athletes from the Northeast will have a shorter competitive season with less games vs. their southern counterparts.

In conclusion, once you determine an athlete’s degree of laxity and define time, age, and seasonal considerations, you can use these templates in combination to help organize your programming and become more efficient.
For example:

➢ A daily in-season program for a lax 17 year old left-handed pitcher (and 3-sport high school athlete) with a history of medial elbow pain.

It is important to appreciate that this program design will vary greatly from:

➢ A weekly off-season program for a stiff 30 year old RHP (big leaguer) with a medical history of 2 shoulder surgeries and currently experiencing left knee pain.

If you found this information helpful in organizing your thoughts when it comes to managing the baseball players with whom you work, we encourage you to sign up for one of our upcoming Elite Baseball Mentorships. We have events in both October and November, and you won't find a more intensive baseball educational course.

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Random Thoughts on Sports Performance Training: Installment 6

It's time for this month's sports performance training musings. Many of these thoughts came about because we have a lot of our professional baseball guys back to kick off their off-season training, so I'm doing quite a few assessments each week. In no particular order...

1. There is a difference between "informative" assessments and "specific" assessments.

I recently spoke with a professional baseball pitcher who told me that his post-season evaluation included a 7-site body fat assessment, but absolutely no evaluation of scapular control or rotator cuff strength/timing.  Skinfold calipers (especially in the hands of someone without a ton of experience using them) are hardly accurate or precise, but they can at least be "informative." In other words, they tell you something about an athlete. 

However, I wouldn't call a body fat assessment a "specific" assessment. In other words, it's really hard to say that "Player X" is going to get injured because his body fat is 17% instead of 15%.

Body_Fat_Caliper

Conversely, we absolutely know that having poor scapular control and rotator cuff function is associated with a dramatically increased risk of injury in throwers. Checking out upper extremity function is a "specific" assessment.

This example, to me, illustrates why good assessments really are athlete- and sport-specific. Body fat assessments mean a lot more to hockey players than they do to baseball players, but nobody ever attributed a successful NHL career to having great rotator cuff strength.

Don't assess just for the sake of assessing; instead, assess to acquire pertinent information that'll help guide your program design to reduce injury risk and enhance performance.

2. Extremes rarely work.

Obviously, in a baseball population, most athletes have at least some kind of injury history. It's generally a lot of elbows and shoulders, but core and lower extremity injuries definitely show up on health histories. When I see these issues, I always try to ask plenty of questions to get a feel for what kind of training preceded these injuries. In the majority of cases, injuries seem to come after a very narrow focus - or specialization period.

Earlier this week, I saw a pro baseball guy with chronic on-and-off low back pain. He commented on how it flared up heavily in two different instances: once in college, and the second time during his first off-season. In both cases, it was after periods when he really heavily emphasized squatting 2-3 times per week in an effort to add mass to his lower body. Squats were the round peg, and his movement faults made his body the square hole. Had he only squatted once a week, he might have gotten away with it - but the extreme nature of the approach (high volume and frequency) pushed him over the edge.

I've seen command issues in pitchers who threw exclusively weighted balls, but rarely played catch with another human being. I've seen plenty of medial elbow discomfort in athletes who got too married to the idea of adding a ton of extra weight to their pull-ups.

General fitness folks, powerlifters, and other strength sport athletes can get away with "extreme" specialization programs. Heck, I even co-created a resource called The Specialization Success Guide!

SSG

However, athletes in sports that require a wide array of movements just don't seem to do well with a narrow training focus over an extended period of time. Their bodies seem to crave a rich proprioceptive environment. I think this is why "clean-squat-bench press only" programs leave so many athletes feeling beat-up, unathletic, and apathetic about training.  

3. Consider athletes' training experience before you determine their learning styles.

I'm a big believer in categorizing all athletes by their dominant learning styles: visual, kinesthetic, and auditory.

Visual learners can watch you demonstrate an exercise, and then go right to it.

Auditory learners can simply hear you say a cue, and then pick up the desired movement or position.

Kinesthetic learners seem to do best when they're actually put in a position to appreciate what it feels like, and then they can crush it.

ECCishek

In young athletes and inexperienced clients, you definitely want to try to determine what learning style predominates with them so that you can improve your coaching. Conversely, in a more advanced athlete with considerable training experience, I always default to a combination of visual and auditory coaching. I'll simply get into the position I want from them, and try to say something to the point (less than ten words) to attempt to incorporate it into a schema they likely already have.

This approach effectively allows me to leverage their previous learning to make coaching easier. Chances are that they've done a comparable exercise - or at least another drill that requires similar patterns - in previous training. As such, they might be able to get it 90% correct on the first rep, so my coaching is just tinkering.

Sure, there will still be kinesthetic learners out there, but I find that they just aren't as common in advanced athletes with significant training experience. As such, I view kinesthetic awareness coaching as a means to the ultimate end of "subconsciously" training athletes to be more in tune with visual and auditory cues that are easier to deliver, especially in a group setting.

4. Separate training age from chronological age.

This can be a difficult concept to relate, so I'll try an example.

I have some 16-year-old athletes who have trained with us at Cressey Sports Performance for 3-4 years and have great anterior core awareness and control. I'd have no problem giving them the slideboard bodysaw push-up, which I'd consider a reasonably advanced anterior core and upper body strength challenge that requires considerable athleticism.

Conversely, I've had professional baseball players in their mid 20s who've shown up on their first day with us and been unable to do a single quality push-up. The professional athlete designation might make you think that they require advanced progressions, but the basics still work with the pros. You might just find that they picked things up quicker - and therefore can advance to new progressions a bit more rapidly than the novice 13-year-old.

Quality years of training means a lot more than simply the number of years a young athlete has been alive, so make sure you're working off the right number!

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4 Reasons We Struggle With “Diets”

It's been a while since we featured some nutrition content on EricCressey.com, so today, I've got a guest post from Sohee Lee, whose last contribution here was a big hit. It's very timely, as her new resource, Reverse Dieting, was just released and is on sale this week. Enjoy! -EC

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Dieting necessarily implies some form of restriction – normally starting with some sort of calorie suppression. The truth is, most dieters take the restriction a little too far – a combination of too few calories and too many foods on the forbidden list.

It should go without saying that resorting to extremes when it comes to fat loss will rarely end well. Yet perhaps due to the mentality that working harder should yield better results, this crash dieting phenomenon refuses to let up.

What’s ironic, however, is that the United States is the single most diet-obsessed nation in the world, but we’re also the most obese. This is no coincidence. The National Weight Control Registry reports that we spend a grand total of $20 billion a year on the diet industry (books, drugs, products, and surgeries), with approximately 108 million people on a diet in the U.S. at any given moment.

While there are a multitude of socioeconomic, technological, and environmental factors that contribute to this alarming rate, the truth is that when it comes to fat loss, we humans are fighting an uphill battle from the get-go. Our bodies were not designed to subsist on a food-deprived state. By embarking on crash diets, then, we fire up the biological and psychological mechanisms that protect against starvation and incline us, ultimately, to more weight gain.

Here are four common mistakes that you might be making with your diet.

1. You don’t consume enough protein.

Of the three macronutrients – protein, carbohydrates, and fats – protein is the most important when it comes to muscle retention while on a diet. Dietary protein is considered muscle sparing, meaning that it increases protein synthesis, and it can also be utilized for the synthesis of glucose, or glycogenesis. Additionally, protein is considered an "expensive" molecule to be used as energy, so to speak, and consequently has a thermic effect.

When it comes to dietary consumption, people tend to fall in two camps: the first camp, mostly the general population, doesn’t consume nearly enough, while the second camp, consisting primarily of athletes and bodybuilding aficionados, perhaps consumes more than necessary. The majority of people tend to fall in the former category.

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found that the average American male ingests 102 grams of protein per day and the average American female consumes 70 grams. Is this too much or too little?

The reality is that the body is actually highly efficient at absorbing amino acid, the constituents of protein. The small intestines and liver use a good portion of these amino acids for their own energy and protein synthesis before the remaining gets shuttled into the bloodstream – and at that point, they are further utilized by other tissues, including your heart and skin. Only after all of this happens do the amino acids get used in muscle building.

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As for the myth that high protein intake is damaging to the kidneys, those whispers can be laid to rest. A number of studies and reviews suggest that “there is no reason to restrict protein in healthy individuals” and have found no adverse effect with an intake up to 1.27 grams per kilogram of bodyweight per day (1). In fact, those same studies make one question whether low protein intake may actually be a cause of renal function decline.

What happens when you’re in a caloric deficit with insufficient protein, then, is that you lose lean body mass. Which, when you think about it, is not desirable, because the ultimate goal is fat loss, isn’t it? With loss of muscle mass, you become a softer, doughier version of your former self – not anymore defined or chiseled. And ultimately, your relative bodyfat actually increases, which thereby increases your bodyfat percentage as well. Doesn’t sound so great, does it?

We can then flip the question to: if a high protein diet is not harmful to my health, then how much is optimal? More specifically, how much should be consumed per meal when dieting?

The general rule of thumb is to aim for your body weight in grams of protein each day. So if you weigh 150lbs, then you should be consuming approximately 150g protein. Obviously the exact number is going to vary from one individual to the next based on age, exercise regimen, dieting history, level of leanness, and other factors, but it’s a good starting point.

2. You go too hard, too fast.

It’s true that we live in an obese nation, consisting largely of folks who eat way beyond their bodies’ caloric needs. Sitting on the opposite end of the pendulum, however, are those who grossly undereat in an effort to shed fat faster.

Ah, you might be saying, but clearly the more I undereat, the faster progress I will make.

To that end, you swear off all your favorite foods, and exercise all of a sudden becomes your part-time job. You swap out burgers and fries for spinach and dry chicken. You’re convinced that if you push yourself to the extremes, you will reap extraordinary rewards.

The thinking is logical enough. Work hard, do well; work harder and do even better; work the hardest you possibly can and achieve the best body of your dreams. Right?

If only it were that simple.

Unfortunately, the body is incredibly complex – far more than we tend to give it credit for. We fool ourselves a la the Dunning-Kruger effect (2), which is a cognitive bias by which people tend to overestimate their competence in any given task.

We are equipped with a number of psychological and biological mechanisms that work to ensure that fat loss does not occur.

Don’t think of a pink polar bear.

Polar Bear (Sow), Near Kaktovik, Barter Island, Alaska

Don’t do it.

Anything but a pink polar bear.

Don’t!

Hard to resist, isn’t it?

From a psychological standpoint, we do not fare well with being told that we cannot do something. In fact, research has shown that being forbidden from something actually increases our desire for that very thing (3). Why? Simply because it focuses our attention onto that specific matter instead of away from it, and all of a sudden, that’s all we can think about it.

Moreover, crash diets rely heavily on willpower – which might seem like a good thing at first glance, but willpower is incredibly exhaustible. What’s more, self control when it comes to work, family, relationships, dogs, and diet all rely on the same willpower storage (4). So if you’re facing a good deal of work stress, that will deplete your willpower, leaving less room to adhere to your strict diet. Eventually you’ll reach a point at which it’s impossible to say no to those cookies, and you’ll find yourself scarfing down everything but the kitchen sink.

There are a number of physiological changes that take place as well. A reduction in energy intake leads to the body’s anti-starvation mechanisms kicking in; they include decreased thermogenesis and increased appetite due to reduced levels of leptin and a spike in ghrelin, the hunger hormone (5). These, coupled with an increased in metabolic efficiency, make it exponentially more difficult to lose fat – and the more drastic the measures, the more extreme these biological responses.

What does this mean? You’re hungry, cranky, and fatigued, and all you can think about is your favorite chocolate cake that you’ve deemed off-limits. That, to me, doesn’t sound like a recipe for success.

hangry

3. You’re impatient.

Ah, but you want results yesterday.

And who’s got the time to patiently wait three months, six months, or even a year?

Is it really necessary to be diligent for that long? Can’t you just take a pill, tap your shoes together, and wake up the next morning to a new-and-improved you?

I wish there were an easier way. But the truth is, consistency is the name of the game.

Most people will give a diet program maybe five days – two weeks if they’re lucky – before they jump ship onto the next cool fad. From Atkins to Zone to Paleo, they can’t seem to make up their minds.

The truth is, most of the popular diets out there do work, to some extent. The key, however, is actually sticking with the program long enough to elicit the desired results.

Does it provide you with sufficient protein? Adequate calories? Abundant food choices? If so, then you’re probably fine.

Just because you “only” lost one pound this past week does not mean that it’s not working. In fact, it’s a sign that it’s working just fine. So, instead of throwing in the towel or lamenting the time that you’ve supposedly wasted, might I suggest a radical idea: keep going.

4. You don’t have a plan for after the "diet" is done.

Nine times out of ten, here’s what happens with fat loss: in our angst to get to the final destination as soon as possible, we overlook the fact that there’s going to come a time when the diet is over. And when that happens, we need to be just as, if not more, prepared with a plan of attack.

Assuming that you can simply go back to your former lifestyle of potato chips and drive-throughs and easily maintain your results is a naïve yet common train of thought. But what many fail to appreciate is that oftentimes, weight loss maintenance is perhaps more difficult than the actual weight loss itself.

1024px-Potato-Chips

Why? Because the body is not static. It continues to respond to external stimuli. Meaning that if you all of a sudden consume calories in gross excess, the body will react by storing that extra energy in the form extra body fat and lean mass.

There are a number of routes to entertain at this point. One, you can continue to stay in a caloric deficit on the same diet program and keep up the intense training regimen – though from a longevity standpoint, I doubt that sounds very enticing. Two, you can bump up your calories slightly and enjoy the fruits of your labor for the time being. This also means you can slowly dwindle down any conditioning or cardio you may have been performing.

Lastly, if you’re interested in reverse the negative metabolic adaptation that occurred during fat loss, you may want to consider reverse dieting. This is a process by which you slowly and methodically increase your caloric intake in an effort to increase metabolic capacity and build some muscle while keeping fat gain at bay. This is a proven system in which people have been able to more than double their daily caloric intake while experiencing exponential strength gains.

reversedieting

Conclusion

The above is the culmination of the lessons I’ve learned through years of making mistake after fat loss mistake, plus my observations from working with hundreds of fat loss clients. My hope is that I can save you a good deal of stress, time, and energy by laying out the fundamental mistakes made in dieting that backfire.

I’ve found that, for just about every individual, if they stick to the principles above, they will see sustainable results. And ultimately, that’s the goal, isn’t it – to get off the yo-yo dieting wagon and stay lean for good, once and for all?

You have all the tools you need to succeed. Good luck on your journey.

Note from EC: In Reverse Dieting, Sohee and Dr. Layne Norton created an excellent resource. If there is someone in your life who struggles with "yo-yo dieting" - the inability to keep bodyfat off after diets - then this would be a great read (and plan) for them, especially at the great introductory deal that's in place for the next few days.

Also, references for this article are posted as the first comment below.

About the Author

Sohee Lee (@SoheeFit) graduated from Stanford University in June 2012 with a Bachelor's of Science degree in Human Biology (Psychosocial and Biological Determinants of Health). Since completing an internship at Cressey Sports Performance in Hudson, MA, she has worked as a coach and nutrition consultant at Tyler English Fitness in Canton, CT as well as New York City's Peak Performance. She currently works as a fitness writer, coach, and entrepreneur. Sohee is a NSCA Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist.

Sohee faced anorexia and bulimia in the past, thus her main interests include eating disorders and the psychology behind relationships and decisions that we make as humans. She loves to talk fitness and admires those fit-minded people who can push and pull heavy weights. You can find her on Facebook and at her website, www.SoheeFit.com.

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Strength and Conditioning Stuff You Should Read: 9/22/14

Happy Monday, everyone; I hope you all had a great weekend. Here's this week's list of recommended strength and conditioning reading:

Reverse Dieting - Authors Sohee Lee and Layne Norton just introduced this resource, and I was fortunate to get an advanced copy to review. It's a great look at how chronic dieting can significantly damage metabolism and make it difficult to keep lost body fat off (or lose body fat in subsequent "dieting" efforts). Just as importantly, they outline a strategy for overcoming these challenges. I'd definitely recommend it if you're interested in nutrition, or have dealt with problems like this on your "physique journey." 

reversedieting

9 Training Concepts that Suck - While the title is unnecessarily harsh, this article from Ben Bruno is excellent.

Body Language and Leadership - I enjoy reading Gabe Kapler's stuff because he blends a successful background in baseball with a passion for training and nutrition. He also touches on everything from parenting to behavioral research and leadership. To that end, this is a great post for coaches and athletes alike. 

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Preparing for the Opportunity of Your Lifetime – Part 2

Today, I've got the second half of an article from former Cressey Sports Performance, Brooks Braga. In this article, Brooks talks about how he prepared himself for the internship with us, but you'll find that his suggestions can help you toward success in any endeavor, fitness or not. In case you missed it, be sure to check out Part 1. -EC

In Part 1, I kicked things off with some reflections on how I used Dale Carnegie and Keith Ferrazzi's advice to build relationships and improve the quality of my interaction with clients. Here, in part 2, I'll discuss how two other authors, Chip and Dan Heath, impacted everything from my study habits to how I coached. Let's get back to the tips...

1. Make use of time in the car and daily activities!

In late December of 2013, as I was preparing to leave Milwaukee for Cressey Sports Performance in Hudson, MA, I punched in the starting and destination points on Google Maps, almost afraid to look at what came up.

map

17+ hours! How was I going to pass the time? I still had one of my three yearly-allotted good ideas in the bank, so I figured I’d use it since we were so close to 2014.

As I type this, Eric’s YouTube channel has 454 YouTube videos. He has been incredibly generous on YouTube, giving out great content for free on a weekly basis that his followers can take advantage of. Now, for the good idea: take advantage of this one, as my good ideas are like Halley’s comet – they come around once every 75 years or so.

I had the idea to use a YouTube-to-mp3 converter to convert many of Eric’s YouTube videos into mp3 audio files. I was then able to fill 3 CDs worth of incredibly valuable material to listen to on my 17-hour drive to Massachusetts. There was a lot of rewinding, but I got through them multiple times. I’m convinced that listening to Eric and Greg Robins go over exercise tips and coaching cues is what allowed me to be thrown into the fire on my first day and survive during the busiest time of year at CSP.

Don’t have a 17-hour drive to your new job or internship? Consider using this method to maximize your time to and from work in the car. I had a 30-minute drive each day to CSP. That’s an hour of valuable time right there. You can also utilize time spent cooking, cleaning, and a lot more. Play YouTube interviews of the staff members if they exist, listen to videos or podcasts that will help you transition into your role, or anything else you can think of while you do daily mindless activities that eat up time.

2. Prioritize your studies.

As I was studying for a final exam in December, I had an epiphany of sorts.

What was more likely to contribute to me getting where I wanted to be in my career – spending hours studying for a class with a textbook from 1999 or using that time to study material related to my internship at one of the most well-known and connected gyms in the world?

It got me thinking about my educational priorities. As far as my career was concerned, whether or not I got an A or A- in this class was so miniscule compared to the kind of impression I made during my internship.

I'm not saying you should “dog it” in class or “settle” for mediocre grades, but rather, I’m encouraging you to ask yourself the following questions:

a. What are my goals?
b. What can I do today to work towards achieving these goals?
c. Is there something I could be doing right now that is more valuable to my long-term success than what I’m currently doing?

It will be different for you than the next person, so there isn’t a “one size fits all” approach.

3. Tweak your environment.

If you’re anything like me, you get sidetracked easily on the computer. Consider tweaking your environment. This is a technique discussed in Switch, a fantastic book by brothers Chip and Dan Heath.

switch-dan-chip-heath

For example, I regularly use the program “Self Control,” which lets me add whatever websites give me the most problems to a “block list” for a period of time that I choose. You’re unable to access these pages for the time being, and it’s actually a really great feeling. This would be “tweaking the environment.”

In my personal experience, the itchiness to check the latest news or sports scores nearly vanishes as soon as I run “Self Control.” It’s only available for Mac users, but plenty of similar programs exist.

4. Highlight exercises/ideas on which you need to spend more time.

I was pretty stunned when Pete Dupuis, the business director at CSP, sent me the “CSP Exercise Video Database,” a mega Excel-file-of-death with 600+ exercises, all of which I was expected to be able to coach on day 1. I thought I was doomed.

In full-blown panic mode, I decided to make a “notes” column and filled the cells of exercises I knew but thought I should come back to in yellow and did the same for the exercises I had no clue about, this time in orange. Highlighting these exercises really helped me figure out what I needed to work on and ensured I spent my time efficiently. It’s normal to get “stumped” here and there, but having a system to overcome these roadblocks makes it all part of the learning process.

Highlight ideas, themes, and exercises that you know you need to get better at when you come across them. It will help you allocate your time accordingly in the future.

5. Shrink the change.

You might think getting through 600 exercise demonstration videos, reading required material, etc., is a tall task when preparing for your internship, new job, or project. Another great technique from Switch is “shrink the change,” or breaking up large tasks into smaller ones so they don’t seem so daunting.

Does watching 25 short, 15-second videos a day still seem so impossible? If you accomplished this, you’d have it done in less than three weeks.

This also works great for reading. I set goals for reading 10 pages of two different books each night. It’s pretty cool being done with two books every three weeks! The best part is that you usually don’t want to stop after getting through 25 videos or 10 pages, either. The hardest part is just getting started.

Here are a few strategies to ensure a smooth transition into your internship or new job…

6. Talk in simple terms and utilize schemas.

Newsflash: most of your clients won’t understand what “lumbar extension,” “humeral anterior glide,” or “posterior pelvic tilt” mean.

I’ve been guilty of this in the past, but really try to make it point of emphasis to show the client what you’re looking for instead of using big fancy words that will leave their head spinning.

Another fantastic method is tapping into the client’s existing “schemas,” a concept talked about in another one of Chip and Dan Heath’s great books, Made To Stick.

made_to_stick_heath1

To illustrate an example, most clients have no issue posteriorly tilting the pelvis when you ask them to flatten out their lower back against the wall on a Back-to-wall shoulder flexion exercise.

If you need to cue them into posterior pelvic tilt on an exercise without the benefit of wall feedback, say something along the lines of, “Remember how you flattened your lower back on the wall for the back-to-wall shoulder Flexion drill? Let’s get in that position again.”

This would be taking advantage of the client’s pre-existing “schema” of how to posteriorly tilt the pelvis to bring the lumbar spine into an ideal position.

7. Ask questions.

It can be intimidating being around people who know so much more than you on a daily basis, but try to take advantage of all the knowledge and experience walking around while you can.

One of the first things Tony Gentilcore said at intern orientation was “Don’t be afraid to ask questions!” This is really how you grow as a trainer. If something doesn’t make sense, ask. If you’re working with a client and you can’t remember what a certain exercise is, ask! No one expects you to be perfect! The people around you will probably be glad to help, too – regardless of the environment in which you work.

8. Write down a few trigger words of what you learn throughout the day.

Here’s a little tip I picked up from Alwyn Cosgrove, but with an added twist. Alwyn is a big believer in keeping a daily journal as you get your start in the industry. He advocates writing a paragraph each day detailing what worked with clients and what didn’t work. After a few months, you’ll know what your clients respond to and start developing your training philosophy.

The sheer magnitude of what I learned on a daily basis at Cressey Sports Performance required a little more, though. If I waited until each night to write down my experiences from the day, I surely would have forgotten a lot of what I learned.

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I decided to keep a notebook off to the side at CSP and would bring it with me on break, writing down trigger words of what I had learned that day to jog my memory for later that night. If we were going through a quieter period of the day and I wasn’t needed at that second, I would repeat the process.

9. Don’t be late, ever.

There’s no better way to make a poor impression than by being routinely late.

There’s an easy way to prevent this – if you’re able, plan on getting your own training in before the gym opens for clients. This way, even if you’re running a little behind, it will only affect your workout, not your job duties or clients.

In Summary:

• Multitask whenever possible – YouTube to mp3!
• Prioritize your studies – what is most important?
• Tweak you environment for productivity.
• Highlight things you come across that you need to improve upon.
• Shrink the change – make big tasks seem less daunting to get started.
• Talk in simple terms when instructing clients and utilize “schemas.”
• Ask questions.
• Write down thoughts throughout the day for retaining information.
• Don’t ever be late.

That wraps up this two-part article, and I hope you enjoyed it! I highly suggest you check out the Heath brothers’ Amazon page (note from EC: Decisive is also an outstanding book. Buy the three-book package; you won't regret it.). As with Part 1, feel free to comment with your thoughts or strategies you’ve used that I didn’t cover.

About the Author

Brooks Braga (@BrooksBraga) is the Head Trainer of Athlete Performance Oconomowoc, a sports performance facility in the Greater Milwaukee area, where he works with everyone from professional and youth athletes to general population clients. Between playing college baseball and a brief stint in professional baseball, he completed an internship at Cressey Sports Performance. He operates BrooksBraga.com, where you can subscribe to his free newsletter and follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

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Preparing for the Opportunity of Your Lifetime: Part 1

Today's guest post comes from former Cressey Sports Performance intern, Brooks Braga. Brooks did a tremendous job during his time with us - and his preparation before and during the internship was a big reason why. Remember, success isn't accidental. Enjoy! -EC

In late summer of 2013, I began the process of looking for an internship that would complete my undergraduate Exercise and Sport Science Major. I stumbled upon the NSCA job board and found a position at a well-known university in which I was extremely interested. After I clicked on the link, I was expecting to see a job description and long list of duties and responsibilities. Instead, what I saw made my jaw drop.

The entire listing was just a few sentences long. The bulk of it said something along the lines of: “If you’re interested in the position, please read the book How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie and submit a one-page essay on how it has affected you.”

Um…what?

Then it hit me – I had seen this book referenced somewhere. I looked at the forum of Mike Boyle’s website, and it was mentioned everywhere. Checked Eric Cressey’s Resources page. Yep. Headed over to the “Amazon Best Sellers” lists:

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And that’s really just the tip of the iceberg. “How much was this thing going to run me?,” I thought. Well, about half as much as a Chipotle burrito. I thought I could do without the $4 it costs on Amazon to get my hands on a book so many successful people highly recommend, so I made the purchase and read it cover to cover.

As I worked my way through this fascinating book, I started to realize something: being a good trainer, at least in the eyes of your clients, is probably a heck of a lot more about how you understand and relate to them than it is about whether or not you have the fanciest equipment or use post-activation potentiation methods in their programming.

Although the scope of this blog post is aimed towards those in the fitness industry, it’s my personal opinion that the techniques discussed in Dale Carnegie’s book go far beyond new trainers and interns. You should be able to apply at least 10 principles from How to Win Friends and Influence People immediately, regardless of your business or fitness situation.

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In this two-part article on “Preparing for the Opportunity of Your Lifetime,” I’ll share with you how I utilized a few of the strategies from Mr. Carnegie, other resources, and personal experiences to make sure I made the most of the biggest opportunity of my life – interning at Cressey Sports Performance. Part 1 looks at techniques for building a good relationship with co-workers and clients, while part 2 will focus more on training knowledge preparation. Both include strategies to think about before and after you arrive to ensure a seamless transition into your new role.

There are too many wildly successful trainers with subpar knowledge bases running around to count. How does this happen? Well, if you had to choose to spend multiple hours per week with someone who makes an effort to understand you versus someone who doesn’t, which one would it be, regardless of his or her training knowledge? This isn’t to say you shouldn’t focus lots of time on developing your training knowledge, but you get the idea.

Here are a few relationship-boosting strategies to employ with co-workers and clients, with quotes from How to Win Friends and Influence People below.

1. Find common ground.

“If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend.”

Do your homework on the staff. Read their blogs. Read their recommended reading. Watch their interviews. Read their bios on the company website. What makes them tick? Do you share any mutual interests? Think about ways to bring up common ground in your initial conversations with the staff (without forcing it or being creepy) when you arrive and you’ll find yourself having a smooth transition into being around a LOT of new people all at once.

As for clients: ask, listen, engage. Ask where they’re from, how their weekend was, etc. Jump on the first opportunity you find of common ground and you’ll find the conversation is a lot easier. CSP is home to hundreds of professional, collegiate, and high school baseball players each winter. Having played baseball in college, and then signing a professional contract myself, I made sure to find a way to bring this up humbly to create an instant connection and credibility.

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I was pretty fortunate to have this level of common ground with the client base, but the point remains the same: find mutual interests, experiences, friends, or anything else that comes to mind.

2. Write down and remember the names of people you meet.

“A person’s name is to them the sweetest sound in any language.”

I showed up on the CSP doorstep on the morning of January 2nd. Just a few hours later after intern orientation, I was tossed right into the fire during the busiest time of the year. Dozens upon dozens of professional, college, and high school baseball players and general population clients were walking around. How was I supposed to remember so many names?

I thought back to when I had read Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi. Keith talked about how when Bill Clinton was in college at Georgetown University, he would bring an address book to parties and write down the names and information of people he would meet. Clinton would then study it and remember the individual and their story at conferences or chance encounters in the future!

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The benefits of writing down names of people you meet in public go beyond being the coolest person at the party – it gives you the chance to look over the list later on to help you remember the client’s name for the next time you see them. Believe me, using a client’s name the second time you see them can make a HUGE impression.

Keep a notebook off in the corner of the gym somewhere out of the way so that when you go on break or things get slow, you can quickly jot down the name and a few trigger words to help you remember it for the next time you see them. No more “I’m horrible with names” excuses. If you’re the type of person who remembers every name of every person you meet without trying, I envy you.

3. Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.

“…the royal road to a person’s heart is to talk about the things he or she treasures most.”

People love to talk about what their passions. Pete Dupuis, the business director at CSP, routinely talks about how general population clients are some of the most amazing people to talk with in a gym that’s known as “the home to over 100 professional baseball players.” Many live interesting lives and have amazing stories to tell, from jumping out of planes wearing a Santa Claus suit to working in product development for one of the world’s leaders in headphones.

Ask them about their lives, interests, work, children, or anything you can think of that might be important to them. Get in the habit of referring back to their interests when you see them again. You’ll be pleasantly surprised about what you hear and the relationship that ensues.

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4. Be sincerely excited for someone when they tell you about an accomplishment or cool experience.

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming genuinely interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”

Think about a time when you were telling someone about an accomplishment or great experience of some sort and they seemed genuinely excited for you. Isn’t it the coolest thing ever when someone is seriously happy for something that happened to you, even though it doesn’t benefit him or her at all? If you’re not the type of person who gets excited for another’s successes, at least try to appear like you do. It will go a long way in making them feel special.

Moving into “training” techniques to use while you’re working with clients…

5. Begin with praise if bringing up a fault.

“It is always easier to listen to unpleasant things after we have heard some praise of our good points.”

Usually, if there are 10 things you have to get right on a certain exercise, the client is doing 8 or 9 of them correctly and 1 or 2 poorly. When you ask a client to fix a certain aspect of their form, be sure to emphasize what they’re doing right beforehand.

For example, on a single-arm cable row, you’ll often see a client moving too much through the glenohumeral joint and not enough at the scapulothoracic joint. Search for something they’re doing well before addressing the fault. In this example, consider saying something along of the lines of “Great job keeping a neutral lower back. You’re 95% of the way there. Now let’s work on what your shoulder blade is doing…”

6. Talk about your own mistakes first before criticizing someone else.

“It isn’t nearly so difficult to listen to a recital of your faults if the person criticizing begins by humbly admitting that he, too, is far from impeccable.”

Personally, I stunk at half-kneeling anti-rotation core exercises on the functional trainer when I first experimented with them. The movements feel awkward for many during their first few sets. When I’m taking a new client through the exercise and they’re having a tough time with form, I make sure to point out that I could have written a short novel about my inability to do them when I started, and that they’ll get the hang of it in no time. Show empathy and the client will keep trying until they get it right.

7. Praise slight improvements and every improvement.

“When criticism is minimized and praise emphasized, the good things people do will be reinforced and the poorer things will atrophy for lack of attention.”

If you spend all of your time dwelling on what your client is doing wrong and fail to emphasize what they’re doing right, you can be sure they are going to feel inadequate and won’t come back to work with you. Sincerely acknowledging what they are doing right will give them the extra motivation to get better.

In Summary:

• Find common ground as soon as possible
• Encourage clients and co-workers to talk about their interests
• Keep a running list of the names of people you meet, and study it
• Be genuinely excited for others’ accomplishments
• Begin with praise if bringing up a fault
• Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing someone else
• Praise slight improvements and every improvement

That’s it for part 1! Check back in soon for part 2 of the series, which will focus more on training knowledge preparation and ensuring a smooth transition into your role. In the meantime, I highly suggest you take a look at Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People and Keith Ferrazzi’s Never Eat Alone. Feel free to comment with your thoughts or strategies you’ve used that I didn’t cover.

About the Author

Brooks Braga (@BrooksBraga) is the Head Trainer of Athlete Performance Oconomowoc, a sports performance facility in the Greater Milwaukee area, where he works with everyone from professional and youth athletes to general population clients. Between playing college baseball and a brief stint in professional baseball, he completed an internship at Cressey Sports Performance. He operates BrooksBraga.com, where you can subscribe to his free newsletter and follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

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Training Programs: Are Health and Aesthetics Mutually Exclusive?

Roughly once a week, I run Q&A sessions on my Facebook page. Often, they give rise to good blog ideas - and today's post is a perfect example, as I received this inquiry during this week's Q&A:

"How do you think that we, as fitness professionals, can help people move from looks-based result mentality to health-based result mentality?"

This post really got me thinking, as it can definitely be viewed in a number of different ways.

On one hand, I "get" what this fitness professional is trying to say: there are still a lot of people out there who are steadfastly adhering to old-school "body part splits" for training when it likely isn't the most efficient way to get to their goals. We want training that improves quality of movement if we're going to stay healthy and highly functional as the years go on.

On the other hand, I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with folks wanting to look better - and allowing it to dictate their training approach as the "carrot at the end of the stick."  Whether we like it or not, what one sees in the mirror does have a dramatic impact on one's health - psychological health, that is.

In order words, the question seems to imply that looking good and being healthy are mutually exclusive training goals. I simply don't think that's the case - and for a number of reasons.

First, "health" means something entirely different to everyone. We obviously have a ton of different measures of health status with respect to chronic diseases, but what about being "healthy" enough to take on life's adventures on a daily basis? I know some powerlifters who would feel incredibly "unhealthy" if they tried to play racquetball, but I can guarantee you that if you took a racquetball only guy and asked him to train with a powerlifter for two hours, he'd feel really "unhealthy" the next day, too. If you train to be "healthy" in everything you do, you just might wind up not being really good at any one thing.

Second, I'd argue that there are loads of people out there who train exclusively for aesthetics and are incredibly healthy. Natural bodybuilders come to mind, and I know of a lot of people who "recreationally" bodybuild and supplement this training with powerlifting, Olympic lifting, sprint work, and recreational sports for variety and supplemental conditioning. I'm sure there are loads of accomplished "recreational" Crossfitters out there who have perfect blood work and no joint pain to match their developed physiques, too.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, it's not our job to tell people what their goals should be; it's our job to help them work toward them, even if it does conflict with our own personal biases.

However, I don't think personal biases should be a problem in this context, though. You see, if you really look at successful strength and conditioning programs, they all have a ton of things in common. In fact, it might be 90% of the program that's comparable across "disciplines."

Everybody can foam roll and do mobility warm-ups, regardless of whether they want to look or just feel good.

Compound lower body exercise can benefit anyone, whether they want a firmer backside, better athletic performance, or just to fit in their jeans a little easier.

Most folks need extra horizontal pulling (rowing), regardless of whether they want to step on a bodybuilding stage or just not wind up with shoulder pain from slouching over the keyboard every day.

Fluctuating training stress and incorporating deloading periods is important whether you want to recovery and develop bigger biceps, or you just want to make sure you have enough energy left over after training to play with your kids at the end of the day.

I could go on and on, but the key message is that we can have both health and aesthetics - and if aesthetics are a goal that helps folks to work toward that end, then so be it. I'd be lying if I said that I don't derive more motivation from seeing my abs in the mirror in the morning than I do from a report that my blood lipid panel looks good. It's human nature that we're more concerned with what is public (our appearance) than what is private (our health), so we might as well get used to it. Health goals are awesome, and accomplishments on this front should be celebrated, but don't think you're ever going to see a population shift toward wanting the "fit look" less than the "healthy feel."

Taking it a step further, though, I think improved performance can be lumped in with aesthetics and health as a result of an effective training program. Successful programs might be 75% the same, but it's tinkering with the other 25% that delivers the benefits on all three fronts.

As an example, with The High Performance Handbook, my goal was to create a versatile "main" strength training program that initially could be easily modified based on posture, joint laxity, ideal training frequency, and supplemental conditioning. On the supplemental conditioning front, folks pick different options to shift the program to athletic performance, fat loss, strength improvement, or mass gain perspectives. Thereafter, individuals can choose from a number of different "special populations" modifications, whether it's for folks who want more direct arm work, those who play overhead throwing sports, or those over the age of 50. Then, there are the obvious nutrition individualization components.

The point is that the best programs are the versatile ones that give people the wiggle room to pursue the goals - aesthetics, health, performance, or some combination of the three - that they hold dear.

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Strength and Conditioning Stuff You Should Read: 9/15/14

To help kick your week off on the right foot, here are three recommended strength and conditioning readings for you:

Carbohydrate Tolerance: Is it Determined by your Genes? - Helen Kollias pulled together this excellent article for Precision Nutrition. It's not just a research review, though; she also provides some important action items to help you improve your ability to tolerate carbohydrates.

The Radar Gun Revolution - Those of you who are baseball fans will appreciate this candid look at how the radar gun has changed the way that players are scouted. Anecdotally, I can tell you that the best scouts I've met always seem to know when to put the radar gun away (or leave it at home).

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No Dumbbells? No Problem - A few of my online clients don't have access to dumbbells in their home gyms, and it led me to write the "High Performance Training Without the Equipment" series a while back.

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School Size, Geography, and Early Sports Specialization

I write a lot about my distaste for early sports specialization here on the blog, and I like to think I've examined it from a number of different angles. That said, I usually focus on the decision of an athlete and his/her parents in this context, but I rarely discuss the situational factors that may govern these decisions. Two perspectives to which I haven't paid much attention are the significant impacts that school size and geography have on young athletes' likelihood of specialization.  This is something I've been pondering more and more as we open the new Cressey Sports Performance in Jupiter, FL.

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Mike Robertson pointed out the school size aspect in his Elite Athletic Development Seminar DVD set, and it really got me to thinking. If you go to a small school and are a good athlete, chances are that you are going to "automatically" be a starter on three different sports teams during the academic year, as they might need you to actually be able to even field a team. Thinking back, my high school graduating class had about 180 kids. One sport athletes really couldn't exist if we wanted to be competitive over all three high school seasons. Not surprisingly, I never had a classmate go through Tommy John surgery, and I can count the number of ACL injuries I saw in my high school years on one hand.

Conversely, if a kid goes to a school with 800 kids in his graduating class, specialization is much tougher to do. If you've got 150 players trying out for the baseball team (and budget cuts are eliminating freshmen and JV teams left and right), you better be spending more time preparing for baseball, if that's your long-term aspiration. The "reward" is higher (more exclusive), but the risk has to be higher as well. In a situation like this, we almost have to ask whether it's better to have a kid that tries out for - and proceeds to get cut from - three teams, or if we'd rather have guys specialized along one course so that they can at least stay involved in organized athletics by actually making a team. I don't think there is an easy or even correct answer, but I do think we have to be cognizant of the challenges facing kids at larger schools.

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Geography certainly plays into this as well. As an example, it's much easier for baseball players in northern states to play basketball, too, because basketball season simply takes place while the snow is on the baseball fields. In Massachusetts, the high school baseball season starts on the third Monday in March, which is several weeks after basketball wraps up, in most cases. Conversely, high school baseball actually gets underway in Florida during the month of January; playing basketball is virtually impossible logistically. And, if fall sports go all the way until Thanksgiving, we're really dealing with a situation where kids might only get an eight-week off-season to work on their fitness and more sport-specific preparations.

We might not be able to change these factors, but we find ways to work around them. It might mean getting an athlete to play recreational basketball instead of "official" school hoops, if schedule won't allow the "real thing" to happen. And, it might mean that we need to work harder in our strength and conditioning programs to create an even richer proprioceptive environment where athletes are exposed to a wider variety of movements if these scenarios "force" them toward increased specialization.

As hackneyed a phrase as it might be, "Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it." I'd say that geography and school size certainly fit in the 10% category when it comes to early sports specialization; we all need to continue to improve on the 90%, though.

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