AssessandCorrect.com: New and Improved!

Written on August 8, 2010 at 12:46 pm, by Eric Cressey

I just wanted to give you all a quick heads-up that we’ve updated AssessandCorrect.com.  Head over and check it out, if you haven’t already; it’s got a much better “flow” to it now.

Random Tuesday Thoughts: 7/27/10

Written on July 27, 2010 at 6:00 am, by Eric Cressey

1. I haven’t done a “Random Friday Thoughts” blog in a while, so in the spirit of randomness, I thought I’d throw you a curveball and kick off the week with some Tuesday random thoughts.

2. Last week, I booked two plane tickets to Halifax, Nova Scotia for my fiancee and I.  She’s a bridesmaid in a wedding up there in a few weeks, so I’ll be making the trip as well.  As part of being what amounts to a “third wheel” for the weekend (the only people I know other than Anna in the entire wedding are the bride and groom), I’ll have quite a bit of downtime while in the area.  Any readers out there have any suggestions for what to do in Halifax?  It’s not hockey season, and I don’t drink Molson, so I’m at a bit of a loss…

Also, just out of curiosity, when did one have to sell off all his/her internal organs in order to afford a flight to Halifax?  Roundtrip airfare was over $1,500, and Air Canada followed up with an email that said, “We also mandate that you name your first child after us.”

3. I wrote a guest blog for Men’s Health last week; check it out: A Quick Fix for Stiff Shoulders.

4. Also on the writing note, I’ve written a few guest chapters lately.  The first was a strength and conditioning chapter for an upcoming pitching book for young baseball players and their parents.  The second (which is still a work in progress) is a chapter for a new IYCA project.  So far, it’s coming along really well – and I’m really honored to be on-board for this with a group of really talented guys who are trying to do something very special.

5. Tonight (Tuesday), Boston Red Sox Head Athletic Trainer (and Optimal Shoulder Performance co-creator) Mike Reinold is hosting a free webinar: “What’s New for 2010.”  Click here for more information.

6. Speaking of Mike, he had a great post last week about Epicondylitis and Cervical Radiculopathy.  It’s a great adjunct to my “Understanding Elbow Pain” series from back in May.  If you missed it, here’s a link to the sixth (final) installment (and you can link back to the previous five).

7. I realized the other day that there is one big thing I’ve always considered in our training programs for pitchers, but failed to mention on this blog: they need both open- and closed-chain hip mobility, as the right and left hips must rotate independently of one another during the stride to the plate. Here’s a good example:

You can see that Beckett is just short of stride foot contact here – which means that he’s at just about maximal hip external rotation on the lead leg…in open chain motion.  The femur is rotating on the acetabulum.

Meanwhile, he’s riding out his trailing leg…in closed chain motion.  The acetabulum is rotating on the femur.

As such, adequate mobility training for pitchers should include a combination of both open- and closed-chain drills, although I’d say that the majority should be closed-chain.

8. Today’s Mike Robertson’s birthday; head over to RobertsonTrainingSystems.com and show him a little love.

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Who “Kneeds” Normal Knees?

Written on June 24, 2010 at 7:00 am, by Eric Cressey

Okay, this subject line was undoubtedly the worst of all time, but I promise that the information that follows will be worth reading.

A lot of you were probably hoping that you were out of the woods after I told you how bad your lower backs and shoulders look on diagnostic imaging such as MRIs.  I’m sorry to say that these “normal” structural disasters also apply to the knees.

A 2010 review from Flanigan et al. looked at studies that collectively examined the (1,862) knees of 931 athletes (40% of whom were professional athletes) using MRI and arthroscopy.  They found that 36% of these knees had full-thickness chondral defects, but 14% of these subjects had no symptoms when diagnosed.  The researchers concluded that “Over one-half of asymptomatic athletes have a full-thickness defect.”

Years earlier, Cook et al. screened 134 elite junior basketball players (268 total knees) for patellar tendinopathy.  At the time, only 19 (7%) of the 268 tendons presented with symptoms (pain) of tendinopathy.  Interestingly, though, under diagnosis with ultrasound, researchers actually found that 26% of all the tendons could be labeled tendinopathy based on the degenerative changes observed.  In other words, for every one that actually presents clinically with symptoms, more than three more go undiagnosed because people either haven’t reached threshold, or they move well enough to keep symptoms at bay.  Or they are Kurt Rambis and can just look so awkward that nobody even pays attention to their knee sleeve.

On the “move well enough” side of things, check out this study from Edwards et al.  They showed that these athletes with asymptomatic patellar tendinopathy actually land differently – both in terms of muscle recruitment and sequencing – than asymptomatic athletes without tendinopathy.  Fix that movement pattern neurally and strengthen the right muscles, and those issues never reach threshold.  Leave it alone, and they’ll be presenting with knee pain sooner than later.  Mike Robertson does a great job of outlining ways to improve knee health via movement retraining in his Bulletproof Knees Manual.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.  You’ll see loads of chronic ACL and meniscus tears that folks never realize they have.  I could go on and on. The take-home messages?  Yet again, diagnostic imaging is just one piece of the puzzle, and how you move is far more important.

Related Posts

The Importance of Ankle Mobility
Healthy Knees, Steady Progress

Shoulder Health: Forearm Wall Slides with Band

Written on May 24, 2010 at 3:34 am, by Eric Cressey

On the recommendation of Mike Reinold, my co-creator of the Optimal Shoulder Performance DVD set, we’ve been using forearm wall slides as part of our warm-ups and shoulder health programs for the past year or so.  A variation is also featured on our Assess & Correct DVD as both an assessment and corrective drill.

With this exercise, the goal is to get to about 135 degrees of shoulder flexion without shrugging.  In other words, you’re checking just how well you upwardly rotate the scapulae.  A good progression for this is the forearm wall slides with band, where you simply wrap a band around the wrists.  The pull of the band forces your shoulder into internal rotation, so the external rotators (posterior rotator cuff and posterior deltoid) have to work isometrically to resist that movement.  As I learned from physical therapist Tim Tyler at the MGH/Harvard Med Sports Medicine 2010 conference recently, it also improves recruitment of the lower trapezius while decreasing anterior deltoid and upper trapezius activity.  In other words, it’s one of the best bang for your buck scapular stability and rotator cuff exercises out there:

For more information, check out our Optimal Shoulder Performance DVD set.

Understanding Elbow Pain – Part 4: Protecting Pitchers

Written on May 21, 2010 at 5:53 am, by Eric Cressey

This is Part 4 of a series specifically devoted to elbow pain in athletes.  Be sure to check out Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 if you haven’t already.

As I presented in Part 3 of this series, there is absolutely nothing healthy about throwing a baseball, as the body is being contorted to extreme positions as the arm accelerates in the fastest motion ever recorded in sports.  These outrageous demands warrant a multi-faceted approach to protecting pitchers from injury.  In my eyes, this approach consists of four categories, and that’s what I’ll cover today.

1. Avoiding Injurious Pitching Mechanics

Let me preface this section by saying that I do not believe there is a single mechanical model that governs how one should pitch.  Everyone is different, and those unique traits have to be taken into consideration in determining what is or isn’t considered potentially harmful.  For instance, only a tiny fraction of the population could ever even dream about pitching like Tim Lincecum because of ideal blend of congenital laxity and reactive ability he possesses.

I’ve trained Blue Jays left-handed pitching prospect Tim Collins for the past three seasons.  At a Double-A game earlier this year, Tim introduced me to his good buddy Trystan Magnuson, a right-handed pitching prospect who is also in the Jays system.  While Tim was a whopping 5-5, 131 pounds when he was signed right out of high school (now 5-7, 170), Trystan stands 6-7.  Check out this picture I recently came across from spring training:

Anyone who thinks these two are going to throw a baseball with velocity and safety via the same mechanics is out of his mind. As an aside, if you’re interested in watching both of them throw, there is some decent warm-up footage of both HERE.

While we can never expect all pitcher to fit the same mechanical model, we can look to the research (a great 2002 study from Werner et al. is an excellent place to start) to educate us about certain factors that predispose pitchers to increased elbow stress.  To start, leading with the elbow too much  increases valgus stress by about 2.5N per degree of horizontal adduction that the arm must travel.  The problem with this is that every successful pitcher you’ll ever see leads with the elbow to some degree, so it becomes an issue of “how much” and “when.”

Getting to maximal external rotation too early also increases valgus stress on the elbow.  According to Fleisig et al. (1995), the typical thrower is going to have about 67 degrees of shoulder external rotation at stride foot contact.  The more external rotation there is, the more elbow stress you’ll see.  Unfortunately, this is one contributing factor to one’s velocity, so these results must be intepreted cautiously.  If you take away that external rotation, you may take away a few miles per hour.  Again, the same goes for horizontal abduction.

Lower extremity sequencing problems can also wreak havoc on an elbow.  Pitchers who fly open early tend to let their arm lag behind their body, increasing valgus stress in the process and making it harder to get good contribution from the lower half.

Likewise, guys who stay closed and throw across their body can wind up with medial elbow issues.  If a pitcher maxes out his shoulder internal rotation and scapular protraction in coming across his body, the only choice to continue getting that range of motion is the elbow.  If you create more range of motion, you have to slow down more range of motion.

This last point kicks off a brief, but important discussion.  Many pitchers stay closed to improve deception.  Others use it to help them get movement on sinkers.

Changing these mechanics could take away everything that makes these pitches successful, so you have to look to the other three factors to prepare them physically and protect them from these stresses.  It’s like making sure you give a guy a helmet if he is going to be banging his head against a wall!

All that said, finding the right mechanics is important for little leaguers and professionals alike – and it’s the first step in protecting the elbow in a throwing situation.  As we realize that the very issues that increase elbow stress happen to be the same ones that a) increase velocity and b) are often demonstrated by elite pitchers, we appreciate once again just how unnatural an act throwing a baseball really is!

2. Avoiding Acute and Chronic Overuse

One of our high school kids threw 188 pitches in a game last week.  I’d like to think that I’m pretty good at what I do, but nothing I can do to keep a kid healthy if his coach asks him to do that time and time again.

Acutely, fatigued pitchers put more stress on their arms.  There is less trunk tilt at ball release as the lower body gets more tired.  And, the usually elbow drops. “The next thing you know, there’s money missing off the dresser, and your daughter’s knocked up. I’ve seen it a hundred times.”

Gold star to those of you who caught that movie reference, but kidding aside, just about every case of elbow pain we see who comes through our door has been mismanaged in terms of pitch count – either acutely, chronically, or both.  They think they can pitch year-round.  They blow money on showcases.  They play on three teams team at a time.  They throw bullpens with their teams and with their private pitching instructors.  The research is out there and the answer is very clear: there is only so much stress an arm – especially a skeletally immature arm – can take.

3. Being Chronically Physically Prepared to Pitch

This is the topic of which I’ve written the most on this site, and it encompasses everything I’ve written with respect to strength training for pitchers and targeted flexibility work, not to mention my absolute hatred for distance running for pitchers.  Long story short, throwing a baseball is an action that takes its toll on the body; if you aren’t functionally fit to pitch, you’re just asking for an injury.

4. Being Acutely Physically Prepared to Pitch

This is a very overlooked component of not only staying healthy, but also performing at a high level.  I’m amazed at how many young pitchers just “show and go” when it comes to pitching.  That is, they get to the field and just go right to throwing.  In other words, they throw to warm up.

We teach our athletes, “You warm up to throw; you don’t throw to warm up.”  I’ve spent the last 57 paragraphs (give or take a few) outlining how incredibly stressful the throwing motion is, yet some kids can’t wait to jump right into it before getting their body temperature up, optimizing joint range-of-motion, activating key neuromuscular connections, or doing anything that even vaguely resembles an appropriate “rest to exercise” transition.  We encourage athletes to go through 8-10 dynamic flexibility drills followed by some easy sprinting progressions before they ever pick up a ball.

It’s not just about what you do before an outing, either.  It’s also about what you do in the 24 hours after an appearance that determines how you’ll bounce back in your subsequent outing.  While the schmucks out there are doing “flush runs,” the #1 thing I am worried about after a start is regaining lost range of motion.  Reinold et al. found that pitchers lost both shoulder internal rotation and elbow extension range-of-motion during a competitive season when an adequate stretching routine was not implemented.  It’s no surprise, when you consider the overwhelmingly high eccentric stress that’s placed on the shoulder external rotators and elbow flexors as they try to decelerate the crazy velocities we see with pitching.  As such, following an outing, the first thing we want our guys to do is get back their shoulder and elbow ROM (and get the hips loosened up).  There are some athletes who don’t need to be stretched into internal rotation, so be careful about using this as a blanket recommendation (more on that in our Optimal Shoulder Performance DVD set).

For a bit more information on what we recommend for our pitchers between outings, check out A New Model for Training Between Starts: Part 2.

In closing, an important note I should make is that pitchers rarely get hurt because of just one of these factors; it’s usually a combination of all of them. So, when evaluating a pitcher’s health and performance, be sure to broad perspective.

We’ve got four down and two to go in this elbow series.  Stay tuned for more!

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29 Reasons to Smile

Written on May 20, 2010 at 2:27 am, by Eric Cressey

I turn 29 today. And, while a lot of people look at birthdays as a reason to feel badly about getting old, I like to think of them as a reason to reflect on the cool stuff that’s happened in the past year.  Or, at the very least, I look at a birthday as good blog content!  So, without further ado, here are 29 reasons I’m smiling on my 29th birthday.

1. I’m still not as old as Tony! (okay, that was wrong).

2.  Several of our high school athletes have gone off to college and been among the strongest (if not the strongest) in the weight room.  The really rewarding aspect of it, though, is that they have an appreciation for the fact that it isn’t just about strength; it’s about combining that strength with a host of other factors – flexibility, soft tissue quality, etc. – to stay healthy.  I just love that they are informed consumers and advocates for themselves.

3. Lincoln-Sudbury Baseball has been #1 in the state, according to the Boston Globe Rankings. We train over 30 players who are currently in the LS program, plus quite a few younger guys and LS alumni.

4. Along those lines, LS junior Carl Anderson was batting .500 with 6HR and 21 RBIs through the first 11 games.  He was also 4-0 with a 0.78 ERA and 25K in 18 innings pitched.

5.

Enough said.

6. A reader sent me a great article in response to my Is Pitching Velocity Really that Important? Blog: Change-up has become Great Equalizer.  Awesome article!

7. CP athlete and Toronto Blue Jays prospect Tim Collins has 32 strikeouts in 18 innings pitched.  Opponents are hitting just .206 against him.  He also made a surprise cameo in the office at CP the other day on his only off-day of the month and hung out for the whole afternoon.  Tim, one of our college prospects, and I all went over to watch a high school game in which a lot of our guys were playing.  It’s pretty cool to see pro and college ballplayers coming back to watch high school kids’ games when it’s usually the other way around!  It makes me really proud of the camaraderie we’ve built among all our clients at Cressey Performance.

8. A buddy of mine is involved with Humblecock clothing (www.humblecock.com), so he sent me some free goodies.  I like this stuff!  I passed out a few samples to my pro guys and they loved it.

9. Brian St. Pierre, our first employee at Cressey Performance, is unfortunately leaving us at the end of this week as he returns to school to do his master’s degree.  While we’re really bummed to be losing him, I can say that I’m really proud of how tremendous a job he’s done for us since early 2008, when we first hired him.  He’s improved tremendously as a coach and really turned himself into an industry leader (actually just had his first article published at T-Muscle HERE).  It’s funny how good things happen for great people who work hard.  Check him out at BrianStPierreTraining.com.

10. Recently, a local scout informed me that the Massachusetts baseball class of 2011 was ranked as the 5th best in the country.  In other words, our juniors here in little ol’ Massachusetts are competing with the likes of Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Texas, and North Carolina – where the populations are not only bigger, but they can also play baseball year-round.  Whoever said that early sports specialization was necessary to compete with these big dogs doesn’t understand development at all.  While the Southern boys are having Tommy Johns and labral repairs in the winter, our guys are training their butts off and attacking things with a specific plan.

The results?  At Cressey Performance alone, we have eight juniors verbally committed to play for Division 1 baseball programs – including Virginia, Vanderbilt, Boston College, and UCONN.  And, there should be at least a half-dozen more on that list by the time everyone signs national letters of intent this fall.

11. Head over to Amazon.com and check out the reviews on Maximum Strength HERE.  This sucker is getting more stars than an astronomy textbook!

12. It gets even better than that.  In the next few months, I’ll release a new product that’ll blow the doors off of what I did with Maximum Strength.  If you liked Maximum Strength, you’ll LOVE this one.  Subscribe to my newsletter at the right of this screen to be among the first notified.

13. Awesome!

By the way, when I was watching this video on YouTube, one of the recommended videos was Will Ferrell’s 2003 Harvard Commencement speech.  It is absolutely hilarious; talk about a way to make a graduation actually interesting!

14. In the past few months, I’ve gotten invitations to present in both St. Thomas and South Africa.  For those of you who prefer visual representations of how sweet this is, please take note (respectively):

We still have to plan our honeymoon soon as well, so it’s going to be a very sunny year for a couple of Bostonians!

15. It’s getting to be that time of year when pitchers come in and act all surprised that they are hitting homeruns now.  It just goes to show you that when you get more athletic, a lot of things fall into place – and not just in terms of pitching!  Rotational power is rotational power; the hitting just requires more hand-eye coordination.

16. I’ve got my own office now!  Unfortunately, it’s still buried under boxes and clutter from the move, but it is nice to know that I have a little bit more organization coming to my life soon!

17. I am pretty darn proud of the Cressey Performance website.  It’s a huge improvement from our old one, and I’m psyched to have an online presence that reflects how much hard work we put into making CP a special place to train.

18. CP athlete and San Diego Padres prospect Will Inman has a 3.03 ERA through 38.2 innings pitched in AAA.  Opponents are hitting just .221 against him.  For those who aren’t familiar with the Pacific Coast League, this is the single-hardest league in which one can pitch at any level of professional baseball.  There are small ballparks and insane winds that turn pop-ups into 450-foot HRs.  Will is doing awesome and we’re all really happy for him; it’s a lot of hard work rewarded.

19. This one really cracks me up.  We uploaded this video of CP athlete Sahil Bloom back in October of 2007, and it’s become the second most popular of all-time.  The funniest part is all the 13-year-olds arguing in the comments section about how this is “just good for football players” and how they all throw 97mph at age 13.

The funniest part is that Sahil is now pitching consistently over 90mph – and doing so at Stanford.  He’s 1-0 with a 0.00 ERA through six outings in his freshman year. It’s amazing that he’s had this success just “training for football!”

20. The past year has brought some collaborative efforts for me that have been absolutely tremendous in not only enhancing my productivity, but also educating me (and my readers/customers).  Matt Blake has brought a great new dimension to Cressey Performance with his pitching instruction and video analysis, and to EricCressey.com with his blog contributions.  Nate Tiplady has been a huge addition to our programs with the Graston and ART services he provides to our clients.  It was also great to collaborate with both Mike Reinold and Bill Hartman on projects for the first time, with Optimal Shoulder Performance and Assess & Correct, respectively.

At the end of the day, you are only as strong as your network, so I’d encourage you all to seek out collaborative efforts with other professionals who complement your skill set as well.

21. Slacker.com.  This thing is an awesome source for music; I listen to it all the time when I’m at the computer writing programs.

22. Just got this feedback from a very happy Optimal Shoulder Performance customer:

“Awesome job on the Optimal Shoulder Performance DVDs with Reinold. I just finished watching them this past weekend (I need to get a life) and I found them extremely educational and helpful. I really thought the information you both provided complimented each other well. There were some variations to some movements that I will definitely be implementing into some of my programs.”

While the financial side of things with product sales is nice, the thing that I actually enjoy the most is knowing that the information we’re putting out is helping people to improve their bodies and stay out of pain.  It’s even better when I know it is helping a fellow fitness professional or some rehabilitation specialist, as it means that they’re taking that knowledge to help more people beyond just themselves.  At the end of my career, I really want to be known most for the always putting my athletes first and always doing my best to contribute to the body of knowledge.

Click here for more information on Optimal Shoulder Performance.

23. On Tuesday morning, I had an absolutely terrible training session.  I felt weak the entire time, and couldn’t even stomach a shake post-training.  About an hour later, every joint in my body hurt and I had a raging headache.  That night, I was in bed early and was pouring sweat in my sleep.

I almost never get sick.  We are taking once every 3-4 years.  My attendance is so good at work that my business partner, Pete, has to force me to take days off.  Surely, there is something to the idea that regular exercise and proper diet reduces one’s likelihood of getting sick – and this is certainly demonstrated in the reduced absenteeism

Wednesday morning, I woke up feeling a ton better.  It turned out to be a really productive day.  This little experience reminds me that taking care of your body doesn’t just prevent you from getting sick; it also helps you to bounce back quickly when the unavoidable illness happens.

24. CP athlete Danny O’Connor looks to run his professional boxing record to 12-0 this weekend at Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut.  A huge CP contingent will be out to support him.  Danny works his butt off five days a week at CP in addition to all his boxing training, and deserves all the success that comes to him.

25. Chris Howard is the newest addition to the Cressey Performance staff, and we’re excited to have him on board.  A former CP intern, Chris went on to massage therapy school and is now a LMT – on top of his CSCS and master’s degree in nutrition.  Needless to say, we’re lucky to have a guy who brings so much versatility to our facility. I especially like Chris right now because he’s motivated me to brush up on my anatomy knowledge since he just retook it all in school!

26. Bill Hartman is in town for a seminar at Northeastern this weekend, so it’ll be a nice birthday present to catch up with him.  He’s joining us at CP today for the day.  His blog is always full of good stuff, but chatting with him in person is even better!

27. Tony Gentilcore wrote a great two-part series called “It All Starts in the Kitchen.”  There are some great tips in there for those of you who might struggle on the diet side of things.   Check out Part 1 and Part 2.

28. One of our pro baseball guys told me to check out the “Baseball Made Easy” series on YouTube, and it’s absolutely hilarious.  Check a few of them out:

29. I already knew I had the greatest girl in the world, but when she took me to a Sox game last night for my birthday for the third year in a row, I was reminded once again!  Here we were last year – when I had more hair.

EC on “Let’s Talk Baseball” with Ron and Jill Wolforth

Written on March 31, 2010 at 10:46 am, by Eric Cressey

Recently, I was on the “Let’s Talk Baseball” show with Ron and Jill Wolforth, where we talked baseball development in the context of assessing pitchers and correcting their inefficiencies.  Check it out:

Let’s Talk Baseball

We discuss the Assess & Correct DVD set quite a bit – and you can pick up a copy HERE.

Random Friday Thoughts: 3/19/10

Written on March 19, 2010 at 11:08 am, by Eric Cressey

1. I thought I’d kick this post off with a little technique troubleshooting.  Yesterday, one of the “guinea pigs” for my new project emailed this video to me and asked for some suggestions on bench press technique:

BP from Caleb Chiu on Vimeo.

My suggestions to him were as follows:

a. Your feet are antsy and jumping all over the place.  Get them pulled up a bit more under you so that they can’t move around.  Then, focus on pushing them into the floor the entire set.

b. Get more air in your belly.  Notice how the stomach sinks in?  That’s because you don’t have any air in it!

c. Get a handoff.  The #1 reason guys flair the elbows out is that they lose scapular stability – and you lose that the second you hand off to yourself.

2. I’m headed to a Postural Restoration Institute Myokinematic Restoration Seminar this weekend up in Portland, ME – while my fiancee and my mother work on stuff for the wedding.  It is amazing what lengths guys will go to in order to escape wedding planning, huh?

Just kidding; I’m actually really excited about it.  Neil Rampe of the Arizona Diamondbacks turned me on to the PRI stuff and it’s really intrigued me from the get-go.

3. It’s been a fun week around here with the start of the high school baseball season.  I got over to help out with some warm-ups and movement training with the Lincoln-Sudbury guys during tryouts on Mon-Tue.  In all, we saw 33 Lincoln-Sudbury high school baseball players – from freshman to seniors – this off-season, so it was pretty easy to pick up where we left off with them in the weight room.  There was great energy, and lots of excitement about the new season.

4. Here’s a great feature on Blue Jays prospect Tim Collins and his training at Cressey Performance.

5. I was interviewed last week for an article about pitch counts.  It’s now featured HERE.

6. Some feedback on Assess & Correct:

“I was pretty excited when I received an e-mail from Eric and Mike saying that I was getting an advanced copy of their new Assess and Correct product.  Mike and Eric have had a history of putting out top notch information and products and when I saw that Bill Hartman was also involved in this new product I knew that this was going to be even more special.

“Since I own a fitness facility, I’m always looking for cutting edge information that I can recommend to my trainers.  After viewing the DVDs and reading through the manuals, my first thought was, ‘Wow, a home run!’

“Finally, a product that I could wholeheartedly recommend to all of my trainers as an excellent go-to reference tool to enhance their abilities in assessing their clients needs; pinpointing their weakness &/or imbalances and then effectively addressing these findings to make sure their clients can achieve their goals safely.”

Joe Dowdell, CSCS – Founder & Co-owner of Peak Performance, NYC
www.peakperformancenyc.com

Click here to pick up a copy of Assess and Correct.

7. Last, but certainly not least, CP athlete Danny O’Connor aims to run his professional boxing record to 11-o tonight with a bout at Twin River Casino in Rhode Island. Good luck, Danny!

Cressey/Robertson/Hartman Roundtable with Pat Rigsby

Written on February 24, 2010 at 3:50 am, by Eric Cressey

Mike Robertson, Bill Hartman, and I recently participated on a roundtable with Pat Rigsby at his blog.  The discussion is all about assessment and its role in the training process.

You definitely ought to check it out – not only for the content itself, but also the special offer in place for Assess & Correct.  Here it is:

Are You Making Your Clients Better or Just Making Them Tired?

The Latest Assess & Correct Review

Written on February 21, 2010 at 9:48 am, by Eric Cressey

We just got this feedback the other day from Adam Campbell of Men’s Health:

“Assess and Correct is the most useful physical evaluation tool I’ve ever seen. It’s like having instant access to the knowledge that Hartman, Robertson, and Cressey have gained through years of experience studying anatomy and human movement, and working with real people.

“But most important, it’s presented in a way that you can put it to use immediately. In fact, the design of the manual is genius because you’re given a series of simple tests to identify postural and movement problems, followed by smart exercise progressions-which you can tailor to a client’s ability-to correct any issues. So it’s a powerful tool that will help any coach create more effective training plans, customized to an individual’s true NEEDS. The upshot: Assess and Correct will make any fitness professional better at what he or she does.

“One other note: Because I’m a fitness journalist, the authors offered me a free manual for review (common in the industry), but I had already purchased it. When they tried to refund my money, I requested that they not. The reason: I found the material to be so valuable that I felt like I SHOULD paid for it. I’m not sure there’s any testimonial I could give that’s better than that.”

Adam Campbell
Fitness Director, Men’s Health

Click here to check out Assess & Correct for yourself.