Strength Exercise of the Week: DB Goblet Lateral Lunge

Written on April 23, 2012 at 7:14 pm, by Eric Cressey

It goes without saying that poor adductor length is a huge problem in many of the athletes I encounter, particularly those participating in sports (e.g., hockey, soccer, baseball) involving a lot of extension and rotation.  As a result, we always spend a lot of time with self myofascial release, static stretching, and mobility exercises for the adductors.

As I’ve written in the past, though, after you transiently reduce stiffness in a tissue, you want to build some stability through that newfound range-of-motion.  Unfortunately, it isn’t exactly easy to load folks up in the frontal plane, and some folks still won’t be able to get in to a lateral lunge position without pitching forward.  Enter the Dumbbell Goblet Lateral Lunge, which borrows the “counterbalancing” benefits we see with a traditional goblet squat to allow us to get back “into” the hip and build some longer-term mobility in the frontal plane.

I don’t worry about folks really loading this up; in fact, form tends to break down a bit if you go heavier than 40 pounds with the dumbbell.  We’ll usually include it as the last exercise on a lower-body day, for 2-3 sets of 8-10 reps.

We spend a lot of time focusing on building strength and power, but a lot of times, movement quality gets overlooked.  Here’s an exercise that helps you to improve the latter without forgetting the former.  Give it a shot and let me know how it goes!

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Q&A: Can You Overtrain on Core Stability Exercises?

Written on April 21, 2012 at 8:31 am, by Eric Cressey

Q: What are your thoughts on the right amount of volume, intensity and frequency on core exercises ranging from bridging variations to ab wheel rollouts from the feet for the intermediate to advanced lifter looking to decrease back pain and get out of anterior pelvic tilt? Is it possible to make progress for a while, but overdue it on volume, intensity or frequency and actually have your core get weaker or stop progressing/responding, and start to experience back pain and anterior pelvic tilt again?

A: This is an outstanding question, and I can really go in a number of different directions with it.

First, let me say that the single best way to get out of excessive anterior tilt is training oneself to not live in anterior tilt!  No amount of exercise will undo the damage you can do with your daily posture.  That’s the easy part of this response, though.

Next, I’ll say that I absolutely believe that we can overdo it with “core-specific” exercises.

As a parallel, just consider the shoulder.  The glenohumeral (ball and socket) joint is heavily reliant on both active (muscles/tendons) and passive (capsule/ligaments and labrum) restraints for stability. If you overdo it with rotator cuff exercises and train the cuff to excessive fatigue, individuals lose dynamic stability and can’t maintain the position of the humeral head in the glenoid fossa. Overuse conditions and injuries can occur.  I wrote about this in an old series, How Much Rotator Cuff Work is Too Much? – Part 1 and Part 2.

Similarly, the lumbar spine relies heavily on both active and passive restraints.  People can overcome lumbar ligament and disc injuries to live pain-free if they maintain adequate soft tissue control.  Likewise, many sedentary folks can live pain-free in spite of poor soft tissue function simply because the challenges of their daily activities don’t exceed the tolerance of the passive restraints (these are the folks who often blow out their backs trying move couches).

That said, we have to be careful about overreacting to this realization.  Just as the trend of doing thousands of sit-ups in the past few decades created a ton of back pain, you see a lot of completely deconditioned individuals who are hurting, too.  There has to be a middle ground between the two.  So, you could say:

Optimizing core function is really a delicate balance of exercise selection, volume, frequency, and intensity.

Unfortunately, I don’t know that we have a perfect (or even close to perfect) answer with respect to all of these factors, as everyone is different.  Consider the following:

1. Flexion-intolerant backs must be treated differently than extension-intolerant backs.

2. Trained athletes probably need a lower frequency because of their sport participation and neural efficiency, but can handle a greater intensity and more complex exercises – and need to prepare the core for fatigue over an extended period (e.g., soccer game, tennis match, 100-pitch outing).

3. A sedentary individual probably needs a greater frequency of low-intensity exercises.

4. In-season athletes must be careful not to do too much work and pre-fatigue the core before competition.

5. Those with congenital laxity (loose joints) likely need a greater frequency of core work for “neuromuscular reminding.”

6. The general exercises we can do in a weight room or rehab setting must be complemented by sport-specific activities in the appropriate volume.  When general volume goes down, specific can go up – and vice versa.

7. Athletes with a previous history of injury – or known diagnostic imaging red flags – may need to do more just to maintain.

8. Everyone’s definitions of “core” is different.  I view the core as pretty much everything between the knees and the shoulders – but the truth is that poor core control can also lead to elbow and foot/ankle issues; should we include those joints as part of the equation?

9. Everyone’s definition of and “core stability exercises” is also different.  Rollouts – an anterior core stability exercise – were mentioned in the question above, but I’ve never had more soreness in my anterior core than after doing heavy push presses.  Simply holding a weight overhead forces our anterior core to work to prevent lumbar hyperextension (the photo below shows what happens when the anterior core isn’t properly engaged).

As you can see, the “how much is too much” question is a big, fat, hairy one.  Ask 100 fitness professionals and rehabilitation specialists, and they’ll all have different answers – and even then, it will still be dependent on the athlete/client/patient.  We can’t even effectively define “core,” let alone “core stability exercises” to answer today’s question.

Taking it a step further, only 15% of low back pain has a definitive diagnosis.  One could make the argument, therefore, that only 15% of core function can be adequately assessed/interpreted.  We’d like to think that we know exactly what is going on with a spine, but it’s just not reflected in the research.

The good news, though, is that while most people encounter low back pain at some point in their lives, the overwhelming majority of them do get better with rehabilitation.  We just don’t know what’s optimal – and I’m not sure we ever will, but we are getting a lot better, thanks to the availability of both research and anecdotal experience of rehabilitation specialists, fitness professionals, and folks who have stayed healthy.

This is one reason why I’m excited about Functional Stability Training of the Core, the new resource from Mike Reinold and me. The two of us have collaborated in the past on Optimal Shoulder Performance to bridge the gap between rehabilitation and performance training, and we have done it again with respect to core function with this new project.

This resource is on sale at an introductory price of just $77 through this Sunday at midnight, and I’d strongly encourage you to check it out.  Whether you’re a fitness or rehabilitation professional, or exercise enthusiast or athlete looking to learn more about how to effectively prepare the core, train around various lumbo-pelvic injuries/conditions, or learn about developing power in the frontal and transverse planes with medicine ball drills, there is much to be gained from watching Functional Stability Training.

Click here to purchase, or here for more information.

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Strength and Conditioning Stuff You Should Read: 4/19/12

Written on April 19, 2012 at 5:13 pm, by Eric Cressey

Here’s a list of strength and conditioning stuff you should read/watch for the week.  The theme of this week will be Functional Stability Training, our new resource.

Integrating Medicine Balls in a Strength and Conditioning Program – This is the introduction to my medicine ball presentation from the event, and it also highlights a few of our overhead medicine ball stomp variations.  FST also includes a bunch of rotational medicine ball exercise progressions we utilize, as well as mobility/activation drills we utilize as fillers between sets.

To Arch or Not to Arch? – This old blog post talks about arching when one squats.  It might not be all it’s cracked up to be.

Glute Bridge Exercise Progressions for Rotary Stability – This post from Mike Reinold shows how to progress what can quickly become a boring exercise, even though it’s super valuable.

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Strength and Conditioning Stuff You Should Read: 4/11/12

Written on April 11, 2012 at 9:55 pm, by Eric Cressey

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

Get Stronger by Doing Less – This was a guest blog I wrote over at MensHealth.com on the topic of managing training stress.

Foot Positions in the Squat – Here’s an excellent post from Charlie Weingroff.  Actually, I’d call it epic; he clearly put appreciable time and thought into it.

Why President Obama Throws Like a Girl – I usually bring this one back to the forefront every opening day, but completely forgot to do so this year.  Since there is a chance that he won’t be president next opening day, I figure I might as well milk this content for all it’s worth now. I didn’t hear about him throwing out a first pitch anywhere, so I wonder if this old post made him insecure.  I hope not, as we’re losing too many good baseball players to basketball nowadays, anyway!

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Mobility Exercise of the Week: Wall Ankle Mobilizations with Adduction/Abduction

Written on April 9, 2012 at 3:59 pm, by Eric Cressey

Assuming you haven’t been living under a rock for the past few years, you’ve surely learned that ankle mobility is imperative to long-term lower-extremity health in strength and conditioning programs and actual sport participation.  If you need to learn why, check out this old post of mine: The Importance of Ankle Mobility.

While I think the industry has done a great job of highlighting the need for incorporating ankle mobility drills in one’s warm-up, I’m not convinced that we’ve done a good job of “exhausting” our creativity when it comes to those drills, as most of them occur purely in the sagittal plane.  While poor dorsiflexion is definitely the biggest issue at the ankle – and dorsiflexion does occur in the sagittal plane – I think we miss the boat when we only work on getting dorsiflexion in isolation.  In reality, you need multi-planar ankle mobility to be prepared for life’s events, so it’s advantageous to train it a bit in your warm-ups.

So, I bring to you the wall ankle mobilization with adduction/abduction.  It’s just like a regular wall ankle mobilization, but when you get to end range, you gently rock back and forth between adduction and abduction (and internal rotation and external rotation, in the process) to make it more of a multi-directional movement that also challenges hip mobility a bit. A special thanks goes out to Kansas City Royals pitcher Tim Collins for helping with the demonstration here:

A few important coaching cues/notes:

1. Everyone always asks whether or not I care what the back foot/leg is doing, and I don’t.  Just focus on the front side.

2. The individual should feel a stretch in the posterior lower leg, not a pinching in the front.  If there is pinching in the front, it’s a good idea to refer out to a good manual therapist.  In the meantime, you can train ankle mobility more conservatively with a rocking ankle mobilization:

3. If the individual’s heel comes up off the ground, slide the foot closer to the wall to regress the exercise.

4. The drill should be performed barefoot or in minimalist footwear.

5. We usually perform this as three reps per leg, and each rep has a few glides toward adduction and abduction. You can use it during the warm-up, or as a filler between sets of compound movements.  I like it between sets of deadlifts, since you’re already barefoot or in minimalist sneaker.

6. If you’re a heavy pronator (really flat feet and knock-knees), you probably don’t need to do the adduction (rock in) portion of each rep.

For more drills like this, be sure to check out Assess and Correct: Breaking Barriers to Unlock Performance.

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Strength and Conditioning Stuff You Should Read: 4/6/12

Written on April 6, 2012 at 7:01 am, by Eric Cressey

Here’s a list of recommended strength and conditioning resources for the week:

Elite Training Mentorship – This continuing education resource we introduced last month has started off with a bang, as we’ve gotten a lot of great feedback.  It’ll update twice per month, and the first happened yesterday.  Content came from Dave Schmitz (two in-services and two exercise demonstrations) and me (two in-services and two exercise demonstrations).  My in-services this month were “Understanding and Managing Congenital Laxity” and “Understanding the Hip Adductors.”  Updates from Mike Robertson and BJ Gaddour will come later this month.  Click here for more information.

9 Strategies to Train Around Lower Body Pain – Speaking of Mike Robertson, this is a great article he had published at T-Nation this week.

Pressing Considerations for the Older Lifter – This was a super-detailed post from Jim “Smitty” Smith on what the seasoned veteran of strength training programs needs to keep in mind when doing a lot of pressing.

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Strength and Conditioning Stuff You Should Read: 3/21/12

Written on March 21, 2012 at 4:00 am, by Eric Cressey

Here’s a list of recommended reading for the week:

Exercises You Should Be Doing: Half-Kneeling Band Overhead Shrug – Here, Tony Gentilcore highlights an exercise we use quite a bit at Cressey Performance with some of our athletes who are stuck in scapular downward rotation.  It’s a big hit with those guys with low shoulders (especially right-handed pitchers).  As an aside, I actually prefer the tall kneeling version over the half-kneeling variation, but that’s minutia.

An Interview with Dr. Stuart McGill: Part 1 and Part 2 – This two-part interview by Chad Waterbury with Dr. McGill was fantastic.  All of McGill’s work is must-read material if you’re in the fields of health and human performance.

The Red Meat Scare: What Do We Make of It? – Jonny Bowden does a great job of discussing the flaws in the way some folks have interpreted some recent research on red meat consumption and its relationship to mortality.

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Strength Exercise of the Week: 1-arm Dumbbell Floor Press

Written on March 12, 2012 at 2:53 am, by Eric Cressey

I’m out of town for a few days, but fortunately, Ben Bruno was kind enough to write up this guest blog.  I enjoy Ben’s writing – particularly his ability to constantly innovate – and I’m sure you will, too.

Common sense tells us that the one arm dumbbell bench press is an upper body exercise (duh!), but if you’ve ever done them with considerable loads, then you know that the legs aren’t just passive players in the mix. They don’t just help to provide a little bit of leg drive; more importantly, they help to create a stable base so you don’t tip clear off the bench.

Don’t believe me? Try doing a set with your feet in the air and you’ll see exactly what I mean. Just make sure to put padding on the floor around you first.

To mimic this effect in a safer fashion, try one arm dumbbell floor presses with your legs straight.

You’ll find there’s a tendency for your torso to want to rotate towards the arm pressing the weight and for the contralateral leg to want to shoot up off the floor as the weight gets heavier or you get further into a set.  As such, you have to be cognizant of that and squeeze your glutes and brace your core to prevent that from happening since you can’t rely on your feet to provide the base of support.

It’s a great exercise because it’s self-limiting and reflexively teaches you how to create total body tension—no cueing needed.

It’s also a nice shoulder-friendly alternative for people who might experience pain with full range of motion dumbbell pressing, or for people with lower-body injuries that won’t allow them to push through their feet.

Start with your legs wider and move them closer together as you feel more comfortable. Similarly, you can start with the non-working arm resting at the floor at first to give some additional stability, but work towards placing your hand over your abdomen as you improve.

You’ll need to start with a substantially lighter weight than you’d use for regular dumbbell presses (I’d say 60% would be a good starting point), but your numbers will climb back up quickly as you get the hang of it.

Give it a try!

Ben Bruno publishes a free daily blog at www.BenBruno.com.

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5 Reasons to Be Excited About the Future of the Fitness Industry

Written on March 8, 2012 at 5:18 pm, by Eric Cressey

Growing up, my mother always told me that I had a remarkable ability to spot the good (and bad) in people; I generally could get pretty quick reads on what kind of folks I was encountering, and then choose my friends/colleague accordingly.  As a result, as I think back on it, this is probably why I never had “bad” friends: people who got into trouble or rolled with the wrong crowd.

More recently, my wife has commented on how I always seem to find the good in people. I shrug off not-so-positive nuances in their behaviors and can become friends with just about anyone.  I think this has helped me a lot as a coach, employer, and presenter.

So, I guess you could say that I’m an optimist.  In my eyes, this glass is half full.

This applies to not only my interaction with other people, but also to the way that I view the fitness industry in which I make my living.

Every day, I hear people pissing and moaning about how many things are wrong with the fitness industry:

1. The barrier to entry is too low and most personal trainers suck.

2. Heart disease is still on the rise.

3. People use too many machines and not enough free weights.

4. The functional training revolution has turned many personal training sessions into a circus act.

5. Crossfit butchers exercise technique and ignores periodization.

Cry me a river.  If you’re so down on our industry, do something to change it – or just pick a new one.  I’ve met thousands of trainers over the years, and there is no bigger turn-off to me than when someone goes on and on about how terrible the industry is and how awful the trainers they’re around are.  I’ve also heard people bring it up in internship and job interviews, and it’s a huge turnoff that puts them in the “rejected” pile instantly.

As I’ve said in the past, “small hinges swing big doors,” so if you’re frustrated with where the industry is headed, start with yourself and what you can change to make things better.  For me, that starts with optimism.  I look at the quotes above and think:

1. That low barrier to entry has also opened doors to some ridiculously outstanding personal trainers who are changing lives every single day.  And, having more terrible personal trainers has afforded more opportunities for others to show just how good they are, comparatively speaking.

2. That means more cardiac rehabilitation jobs are opening up.  Plus, all the research on cardiovascular disease has taught us a ton on how to modify training, nutrition, and supplementation approaches for our otherwise healthy clients.  There’s no way that we know as much about low carb diets nowadays if cardiovascular disease and diabetes research hadn’t received so much attention and funding over the past 20 years.

3. If other facilities are relying heavily on machines, but I’m not, it’s an opportunity for me to show one more stark contrast that makes Cressey Performance training a better fit.  It’s one more way for me to educate someone and win them over.

Additionally, the heavy reliance on expensive machines in the 1980s and 1990s likely gave rise to an entire industry of portable training devices like the TRX in the 21st century (remember the old business advice: if you want to be successful, do the opposite of what everyone else is doing).  Were it not for the TRX and other devices that provide similar portability and versatility, we might not be able to pull off semi-private training and bootcamp set-ups on the level that they take place in the fitness industry today.

4. The functional training revolution has also produced some outstanding coaches who effectively bridge the gap between corrective exercise and high performance training.  It’s brought about more collaboration among fitness professionals and rehabilitation specialists.  And, on an industry-wide level, it’s helped us to inform clients that exercise should enhance quality of life and improve the way you move, not just make you stronger, more muscular, and less fat while you suffer through pain.

5. Crossfit has also created a tremendous camaraderie among thousands of athletes, and motivated loads of people to exercise when they might have otherwise become sedentary.  They’ve created a competitive outlet for a lot of former high school, college, and professional athletes.  And, there are some Crossfit franchisees who actually do an outstanding job with coaching technique and catering programming to each individual’s needs.  You can’t just judge them all based on the garbage you see on Youtube.

I could go on and on all day, but the truth is, the folks doing the criticizing often ought to take a look in the mirror, as they’re usually in need of a lot of improvements in their own right.  I’m not perfect, and neither is anybody else – and that’s a great thing, as we can always find ways to get better.  To that end, in the spirit of optimism, here are five current fitness industry trends that bode well for those of us looking forward to where the next few decades will take us.

1. New fitness research every single day - For the longest time, all researchers seemed to care about was aerobic exercise, but then, in the 1990s, there was a big boom of resistance training research that continues to this day.

It’s exciting to be in such a dynamic field, as it keeps you on your toes and guarantees that you’ll be constantly improve if you simply attempt to stay up-to-date with new research.

2. Increased communication across disciplines – There are more opportunities than ever for professionals in the health and human performance fields to network and learn from each other, and collaborate on treatments/training for patients/clients/athletes.  Look at professional sports teams; they’ve gone from just having an athletic trainer in the old days, to now also having strength and conditioning coaches, physical therapists, massage therapists, nutritionists, chiropractors, sports psychologists, acupuncturists, you name it.  This same “team-oriented” approach has extended to the private sector, whether it’s under one roof or simply in collaborative efforts in similar geographic areas.

3. Improved business resources - In years past, personal trainers were supposed to work long “floor hours” at big box gyms in the hopes that they could bully gym goers into personal training with them.  It pissed most people off, made the trainer look like a super sketchy used car salesman, and didn’t exactly give this fitness professional an opportunity to demonstrate his expertise.  Plus, in the past, people would open gyms simply because they liked to exercise and thought it’d be cool – and most of those operations went belly up pretty quickly.  Nowadays, there are much more solid resources available to fitness professionals if they’re looking to do a better job of not only building a business, but managing it.  So, without having the actual numbers in front of me, the success rates are probably higher – especially if you have #4…

4. Sustainability within a niche – As you probably know, I train a ton of baseball players; it’s about 85% of our clientele at Cressey Performance.  I’m not sure that this would have been possible ten years ago.  While early youth sports specialization has been a terrible idea in the context of injuries, it has given rise to increased specialization in training to prevent injuries, and management of the injuries that are already in place.  The end result is that it is more feasible for a fitness professional to make a career out of his/her true passion.  In my case, it’s been baseball.

5. Accessibility to training information – Let’s face it: you probably would have not have heard of Eric Cressey (much less EricCressey.com) if it wasn’t for the internet.  I’d likely still be training loads of baseball players in Hudson, MA – but I don’t know that I would have as many guys coming from across the country to train with me if it wasn’t for the internet.  It’s made our expertise easier to perceive, and working with those players has made me a better coach faster.

That same ease of information gathering is available in a wide variety of formats.  In the old days, you had to hit up a library, buy a book out of a catalog, or visit a coach locally to observe.  Nowadays, you can order books, DVDs, webinars, podcasts, and video presentations completely online.  You can easily apply for an internship across the country, email a coach or facility you’d like to visit to observe, or pick out a seminar of interest – and then instantly book a flight, rental car, and hotel to make it happen.  You can hop on pubmed.com and search thousands of journals for specific information you want.  You can read free blogs, newsletters, and articles in areas of interest to you.  In short, you can get better faster than ever before.  This morning, I jokingly tweeted “Using the phrase ‘I’m bored’ is synonymous with saying ‘I’m too lazy to read to educate myself in my free time.’”  The truth is that I wasn’t joking, though; you can always be doing something to improve yourself professionally if you’re willing to put the time and effort in.

This is one reason why I’m so excited for Elite Training Mentorship, the online resource we introduced earlier this week.

You get frequent updates from four contributors – Mike Robertson, BJ Gaddour, Dave Schmitz, and me – and the information covers several facets of the industry.  You get everything from videoed staff in-services, to webinars, to sample programs, to coaching demonstrations, to articles, to Q&A with the contributors.  And, you get it conveniently, as you can access it from any computer, iPad, or phone.  There’s no need to book a plane ticket, hotel, or rental car like you would with a regular seminar.

To sweeten the deal and let you ensure that it’s a good fit for you, you can get the first month as a trial for $1 through this Friday (3/9) at midnight, and if you decide to continue with it, you’ll also lock in the monthly $37 rate thereafter (normally $47). To learn more, check out Elite Training Mentorship.

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Strength and Conditioning Stuff You Should Read: 3/7/12

Written on March 7, 2012 at 12:10 am, by Eric Cressey

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

Breathing and Soft Tissue Tension – If you’re a geek like me, you’ll appreciate this overview on the role of respiratory function when it comes to soft tissue restrictions.

Core Stability from the Inside Out - This was a great guest post from Hans Lindgren (for Mike Reinold’s site) on the role of the diaphragm in core stabilization.

Dissecting Muscle Function: Force Production – If you thought the first recommendation from above was geeky, this one is on a whole new level.  It’s great information from Kevin Neeld with some practical applications mixed in.

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