Strength Training Programs: Training Speed to Get Strong

Written on August 25, 2011 at 8:38 pm, by Eric Cressey

Imagine two lifters standing near one another – each with a barbell loaded to 405 pounds on the floor in front of them.

Assume these two are identical in every way – except for one key fact. Lifter A was a high-jumper, but Lifter B got his physique from more traditional bodybuilding methods.

Neither of these guys has ever deadlifted 405 previously.

Which of the two do you put your money on to hit the PR if you don’t know anything else about them?

Ten times out of ten, I take the high jumper – and I’d guarantee you that most folks in the human performance industry would do the same. Why?

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11 Years, 11 Lessons, 100 Pounds

Written on June 17, 2011 at 8:12 am, by Eric Cressey

People Magazine has a yearly feature called “Half Their Size.” This year featured the stories of morbidly obese readers who’ve managed to cut their body weight in half. It’s a huge accomplishment and I respect these folks immensely, but to me, it’s a lot more impressive to double your body weight through proper training and nutrition.

T NATION readers can surely appreciate this feat as it’s incredibly rare and takes a lot of time and persistence. I can appreciate it simply because, I’ve done it.

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My Top 5 Single-leg Strength Exercises

Written on May 11, 2011 at 6:18 am, by Eric Cressey

Single-leg work has been a pretty controversial topic lately.

Some folks say that it’s the only safe way to train the lower body for the long haul and that bilateral exercise is the devil. Others insist that you can’t possibly build size relying on unilateral lower body strength  exercises and that they’re a cop-out for those who don’t want to squat and deadlift heavy in a strength and conditioning program.

What’s my take?

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What I Learned in 2010

Written on February 28, 2011 at 4:29 am, by Eric Cressey

This is year 5 of my “What I Learned in” series here at T-Nation, and it’s actually being written in February of 2011 because I needed an extra month to process everything and put it down on paper.

Apparently, I also learned in 2010 that I was disorganized and senile. So, before I digress too much, let’s get to it.

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Five Strength Loading Protocols Under the Microscope

Written on January 6, 2011 at 3:04 am, by Eric Cressey

There are loads of different ways to get stronger. Similarly, there are all sorts of different classifications of strength, whether you’re a powerlifter, strongman, Olympic lifter, manual laborer, or just some random dude who wears his hat like Sylvester Stallone in “Over the Top” and constantly seeks out arm wrestling matches in airports, bingo halls, or massage parlors.

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Weight Training Programs: 11 Ways to Make Strength Exercises Harder

Written on November 17, 2010 at 4:06 am, by Eric Cressey

If you search through the archives here at T-Nation, you’ll find hundreds of programs you can try. In fact, there are probably enough for you to rotate through for the rest of your training career without ever having to complete the same one twice.

However, I’d venture to guess that most of you aren’t here just because you want to be told exactly what to do. Rather, in the process, you want to learn why you’re doing something, and how to eventually be able to do a better job of programming for yourself.

It’s no different than being a guy who’s given a sample diet plan — but wants to know what to order off the menu when eating out; a little education on thinking on the fly goes a long way.

So, to that end, I want to use this article as a means of educating you on how to take that next step. The 11 tips that follow should help you progress the strength exercises in your program from one month to the next to make them more challenging.

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Expanding Clients’ Social Networks: An Overlooked Role of the Fitness Professional

Written on September 10, 2010 at 6:48 am, by Eric Cressey

Back in the early 2000′s, during my early years of personal training, I also worked at a tennis club during the summer. It had been my job throughout high school during the summers, and I’d really enjoyed it and made a lot of friends – so it was a nice adjunct to me learning the ropes in the fitness industry. Because I had two jobs going simultaneously, two of my first personal training clients wound up being a new member of the tennis club and his wife.

This couple – we’ll call them Mr. and Mrs. H – had recently retired and purchased a summer home in Southern Maine, and the tennis club and gym were two opportunities for them to make friends in a new place. Knowing that they were the new kids in town, I went out of my way to introduce them to as many members in both arenas as I could; it just seemed like the right thing to do, and I didn’t mind at all, as they were great people.

Little did I know just how much these introductions meant to this couple.

I trained them both in the summers up until August of 2003, when I left for graduate school at the University of Connecticut. About a month after I started at UCONN, I received a note in the mail from Mr. H talking about how much they enjoyed training with me, how they admired my work ethic and passion for improving at my chosen craft, and how much they appreciated all the introductions I’d made for them when they first came to Maine.

Enclosed was a $500 check with the message “Consider this our contribution to the ‘Eric Cressey Student Loan Repayment Fund.’” Needless to say, it was completely unnecessary and unexpected, but very much appreciated by a poor graduate student!

The story doesn’t end there, though. Unfortunately, just a few months later, Mrs. H died unexpectedly during a surgical procedure. I heard the news from my grandmother, and immediately sent a card and written note to Mr. H expressing my sympathy. A week or two later, he called me and we chatted for about an hour on the phone. I was absolutely heartbroken for him. Here he was, ready to enjoy years of retirement – travel, grandchildren, and relaxation – with his wife, only to become a widow out of the blue.

Fortunately, there is somewhat of a silver lining to this cloud – and a message for the fitness professionals reading this. Mrs. H’s passing led to an even stronger friendship between Mr. H and I. We’d chat on the phone on most holidays and exchange holiday cards, he’d have dinner at my grandparents’ house with us each summer, and I’d stop by to see him in the summers when I was back at home visiting. In fact, my fiancée and I just saw him over Labor Day weekend. For geographic reasons, he’s not a client anymore, but he’s a great friend – and he’s taught me an important lesson without me ever realizing any teaching was going on.

He still summers in Maine, and the introductions I (in part) made for him that first summer have led to lasting friendships at the tennis club and gym to keep him upbeat. While nothing could ever replace his wife, the social circle he built up has helped to sustain him in spite of the challenges life has thrown his way.

Nowadays, you’ll find 897 customer retention strategies available on the web. Sure, sending thank you notes and birthday cards (among other strategies) is valuable, but nothing will ever replace the common sense that tells you to make quick introductions between new clients and existing clients when they first arrive in your program.

In the context of our business, I’d estimate that we have a lead conversion rate of about 99% – because just about every time an up-and-coming athlete and his/her parent enters our facility for the first time, there is a professional or high-level college athlete hanging out in the office. That’s a pretty cool experience – and one that could turn into a lasting friendship or mentor/mentee relationship down the road. This actually shapes our business model, as we only have to focus on lead generation, and not lead conversion; the people and environment take care of themselves.

This isn’t something for which you need to shell out big bucks, either; making an introduction is free. Next time you have clients in front of you, think of a way to connect them.

I’ve introduced kids who have had jaw surgeries to oral surgeons, brides-to-be with women who have recently wed, and pitchers who struggle to learn a change-up with those who have already mastered the pitch. The possible connections are endless – and frankly, you don’t even need a connection. Introducing someone is pretty easy even without a middle ground; just say “Joe, this is Bill. Bill is usually here around the time that you’re going to be training, so I figured you ought to get familiar with one another sooner than later.”

While you may not see the benefits right away, trust me; in the months and years to come, you’ll be glad you made these introductions.

Quick Fixes to Common Training Injuries

Written on August 11, 2010 at 8:59 am, by Eric Cressey

Call it a law of weightlifting: no matter how careful you are, at some point you’re gonna get hurt. Now you probably won’t decapitate yourself with a barbell or tear a pec or even rupture your spleen—the weightlifter’s injuries are rarely that cool or sudden.

Nope, you’ll probably just end up with a bum shoulder, a pinched elbow, a bad back, or creaky knees, all the result of years of faulty movement patterns, poor training habits, or just general wear and tear. And while these injuries are always frustrating, they’re often manageable.

Because it’s hard to build a good-looking body when you’re hurt, I talked with Eric Cressey and Mike Robertson about how these body parts probably got jacked up in the first place, and asked them for simple strategies to get you healthy.

Continued Reading…

Cueing: Just One Piece of Semi-Private Training Success – Part 2

Written on July 25, 2010 at 8:04 am, by Eric Cressey

In Part 1, I talked about the importance of having an extensive set of effective cues to use with clients to get the ball rolling on a great training experience. However, cueing was just one piece of the coaching puzzle. It’s these other pieces that, in my eyes, make or break someone in the semi-private model. Here are a few of the factors you need to be successful as a semi-private coach:

1. Knowledge and Programming – As the adage goes, “failing to plan is planning to fail.” You need to have done your homework in order to not only write effective programming, but also know how to modify it based on individual needs. For this reason, I think that a lot of up-and-comers are actually smart to start off with some one-on-one training because it allows them to program specifically for a small number of clients and meticulously monitor the responses to those programs. And, it forces them to think through any modifications they need to make on those programs.

As a frame of reference, when we hire a new employee, it takes approximately 6-12 months of education before I’m truly comfortable with them writing programs without me reviewing every one of them before the client sees the program.

2. Friendship – Here’s a straightforward one: if you’re a dork, loser, pain-in-the-ass, arrogant prick, or you smell bad, people aren’t going to want to be your friend. If they don’t want to be your friend, they certainly aren’t going to want to become your client – regardless of how good your programs and cues are.

As an example, I’ve started a tradition of asking for reviews of interns at the six-week mark of their internship from some of our trusted clients. We just hand them a slip of paper with each intern’s name on it, and ask for the first two sentences that come to mind. One recent intern was not a popular one, as he received several negative responses, most notably “Kind of a douche. Not a good fit for CP.” Here was a kid who was enthusiastic, proactive, well-read, and had a strong resume – but none of it mattered because he sucked at making friends.

This is a more crucial success factor in the semi-private model than one-on-one training, too. In personal training, you have time to cultivate very solid individual friendships with clients from the get-go because you have 2-4 hours of complete one-on-one time with them each week. You can ask about their kids, their vacation, their hemorrhoids, their stock portfolio, and their divorce settlement. When you have 3-6 other clients rolling at the same time, though, they chat with one another and not you – because you need to be busting your butt to keep things rolling on the training front.

Don’t get me wrong; you’ll learn a ton about your clients over time and cultivate awesome friendships. In semi-private training, though, they’ll make a lot more friends beside you, too – and get results more affordably while you enjoy your job more.

3. Continuity – Semi-private models give rise to larger clienteles. A personal trainer might only be able to keep 20-30 clients at most, while in the semi-private model, coaches see a lot more people than that. As such, in businesses with more than one employee, you can’t expect to be present for every single training session. To keep the right flow, you have to hire and educate great people who you know will keep the trains running on time in your absence – whether it is with respect to programming, coaching, answering the phones, or just maintaining an unconditionally positive and energetic training environment.

As a funny little example, I went on a quick trip to Orlando back in January after a speaking engagement in Tampa – so my business partners, Pete and Tony, were “manning the CP ship.” My fiancé and I were at Sea World, and I got a text message from CP client Kevin Youkilis of the Boston Red Sox:

“Tony is fantastic. He really got the most out of me today. And Pete’s vert is legit.”

I, of course, knew that Youk was screwing with me, and my business partners were laughing hysterically in the background because

a) I am a workaholic and worry too much when I’m out of the office

b) Pete’s vertical jump (37”) is slightly higher than mine (36”), and he doesn’t let me forget it.

Truth be told, I was happy to be the target of the joke, as it meant that my staff was executing the exact program I’d written to a “T,” and they were joking around in the office (a sign that the place wasn’t in chaos, and they were keeping things fun and entertaining with the clients).

At the same time, as much as you want continuity, it’s important to have employees with different abilities and unique traits that complement your own. For instance, Chris Howard, our newest employee, is a licensed massage therapist and has a master’s degree in nutrition. And, on a funnier note, the running joke among clients is that the second I leave, Tony puts techno music on the stereo. The clients get continuity with some variety, and Tony gets just a bit more feminine!

4. The Individual Touch – While it can be hard to completely make every client’s day when you might see 60-80 people over the course of a day, that doesn’t mean that you can’t go out of your way “after hours” to find ways to put smiles on their faces. One example: in our case (predominantly baseball players), we follow all our players – from middle school all the way to the pros – in the papers and email/text guys whenever they get some love in the press. I also make a ton of introductions between our high school players and college coaches from my extensive network on that front, or I make a phone call to find a place for our pro guys to train or get soft tissue work when they’re on the road in a city where I have a contact. Sometimes, it’s as simple as just going out there to watch a game and cheer for them.

Other examples include sending thank you notes for referrals or merely connecting a client with a practitioner (e.g., manual therapy, sport-specific coach) in a related field. You may only see them five hours a week, but that gives you another 163 hours each week to be a valuable resource and friend to them.

5. Organization – My general rule of thumb is that every hour of training requires at least one hour of planning. Here are Cressey Performance’s hours:

Mo: 12-7:30PM
Tu: 8-9:30AM, 12-7:30PM
We: 12-7:30PM
Th: 12-7:30PM
Fr: 8-9:30AM, 12-7:30PM
Sa: 9AM-2PM

That’s 45.5 hours (closer to 50 during busy seasons). My business partner, Pete, puts in about 40 hours a week on his own just handling billing, scheduling, phone duties, website maintenance, the CP blog, and other behind-the-scenes organizational tasks. I can tell you that both Tony and I spend about 6-8 hours per week on programming in addition to our coaching responsibilities, and I handle a lot of the phone calls and inquiries from agents and teams, plus the more complex questions that aren’t in Pete’s scope of expertise (exercise science). Chris Howard puts in a few hours a week on programming. There is always a staff in-service on Monday morning of at least 30 minutes.

None of this includes the reading/continuing education we all do on our own, or the work Tony and I put in with our personal blogs, which are undoubtedly very influential in driving clients to Cressey Performance. And, it doesn’t cover any of the “after-hours tech support” from phone calls/text messages and Facebook/email messages that I think really separates us as a business. We are here to set the clients up for success, not just punch the clock and unlock/lock the doors.

Wrap-up

These are only five factors that quickly came to mind, and there are certainly many more that could have made this post much longer. Many of them will be influenced by your niche, business model, client-to-coach ratio, facility size and “flow,” hours of operation, amenities, and a host of other factors. Just make sure you’re looking past just the cues; there is much more to being a successful coach in a semi-private model.

Cueing: Just One Piece of Semi-Private Training Success – Part 1

Written on July 22, 2010 at 5:00 am, by Eric Cressey

With the boom of semi-private training in recent years, there has also been a boom of questions from fitness professionals on how on Earth it is logistically possible to train several people when they may all come from different backgrounds and have different needs. Back in 2006, I was one of those people – so I can certainly speak from perspective.

I did almost all one-on-one personal training for about a year from the summer of ’05 to the summer of ’06, when I moved to Boston and went out on my own as an independent contractor. When I arrived in Boston, all these questions on how to make it work in the semi-private model were rattling around my head. Admittedly, I entered this model cautiously, doing 50/50 private and semi-private training as I got my feet wet with it.

By July of 2007, when I opened my own facility, every client was involved in the semi-private model and loving it for the affordability, camaraderie, and increased training frequency it afforded. It took time, but I’d learned the ropes. Now, three years in, I’ve taught it to an entire staff, plus the 22 interns we’ve had since we opened our doors.

Looking back, I had been an idiot. I’d spent the overwhelming majority of 2003-2005 in college strength and conditioning settings – watching 18-22 year-old athletes thrive in a semi-private model (in the weight rooms, on the field/court, in the athletic training room, and in their courses and study halls). During my undergraduate years, I’d done an internship in cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation, where I watched people rehabilitate from near-death experiences – in a semi-private model. Physical therapy? Semi-private model. And, as Alwyn Cosgrove reminded me, his cancer treatments were done in a semi-private format – and he’d beaten Stage 4 cancer twice. There must be something to that.

What was I missing, then?

Very simply, I thought that “cueing” and “coaching” were synonymous.

Basically, “cueing” amounts to knowing what to say, when to say it, and to whom to say it in order to elicit a desired change from a client. Ask anyone who has been successful in this industry, and they’ll tell you that your cues get better as you become more experienced as a coach. It’s why my staff and I can teach a new exercise to a client much faster than an intern can; we’ve built our “cueing thesaurus” to know what to say – and what to say as a modification if the first cue doesn’t get the job done.

No doubt, having a good “cue” arsenal is huge. It’s essential for us in the first 8-12 weeks when we’re intensively teaching new clients technique and getting them ingrained in our system. If done correctly from the get-go, good cueing sets a client up for tremendous future success. If they know what “chest up” means on a deadlift, they’ll get it on a lunge, split-stance cable lift, or medicine ball drill.

And, for me, this speaks volumes for why client retention of those who have been with us for 2-3 months or more is so imperative; they become “students of the game” and are actually easier to coach because they have more experience and a bigger exercise pool from which to draw because a) they’ve learned compound exercises (or derivatives of those exercises) and b) we’ve ironed out a lot of their imbalances. As a cool little story, since the summer of 2007, I’ve been training a kid who is has just finished his freshman year on a scholarship to pitch for a PAC-10 powerhouse. I know his college strength coach now – and he told me that this pitcher is like having an additional strength coach in the weight room. You want clients like that – because it means that you just have to write good programs, crank up the music, and continue to develop the friendships you’ve built with them.

In reality, though, it isn’t always that easy. Cueing is just one piece of the coaching puzzle – and those other factors will be my focus in Part 2.

- Eric Cressey