Cressey Performance Pro Guys’ Locations

Written on April 11, 2011 at 5:47 am, by Eric Cressey

I just wanted to put out this quick note for my readers out there who may be baseball fans located near a professional baseball park. It’s a listing of where the participants in this season’s off-season program will begin the year.  Please comment if you’re located near one of these teams and plan on heading out to support our guys, as it’s awesome to know when our players have a good audience cheering them on.

This list progresses from East to West, American to National League (by organizational affiliation):

Chad Jenkins – Dunedin, FL (Blue Jays High A)

Matt Abraham – Dunedin, FL (GCL Blue Jays)

Kevin Youkilis – Boston, MA (Boston Red Sox)

Jeremy Hazelbaker – Salem, VA (Red Sox High A)

Jeremiah Bayer – Salem, VA (Red Sox High A)

Matt Kramer – Ft. Myers, FL (GCL Red Sox)

Craig Albernaz – Montgomery, AL (Rays AA)

Kevin Moran – Kannapolis, NC (White Sox Low A)

Phil Negus – Kannapolis, NC (White Sox Low A)

Corey Kluber – Columbus, OH (Indians AAA)

Tim Collins – Kansas City, MO (Kansas City Royals)

Anthony Seratelli – Northwest Arkansas (Royals AA)

Kevin Pucetas – Omaha, NE (Royals AAA)

Crawford Simmons – Kane County, IL (Royals Low A)

Matt Perry – Lakeland, FL (GCL Tigers)

Ryan O’Rourke – Beloit, WI (Twins Low A)

Tim Kiely – Little Rock, AK (Angels AA)

Trystan Magnuson – Sacramento, CA (A’s AAA)

Shawn Haviland – Midland, TX (A’s AA)

Jeff Bercume – Phoenix, AZ (AZL Athletics)

Nick McBride – Hickory, NC (Rangers Low A)

Ryan Rodebaugh – Hickory, NC (Rangers Low A)

Chad Rodgers – Lynchburg, VA (Braves High A)

Cory Gearrin – Gwinnett (Braves AAA)

Tim Gustafson – Pearl, MS (Braves AA)

Steve Cishek – New Orleans, LA (Marlins AAA)

Matt Bouchard – St. Lucie, FL (Mets High A)

Chris McKenzie – Hagerstown, MD (Nationals Low A)

Bryan LaHair – Des Moines, IA (Cubs AAA)

Steffan Wilson – Huntsville, AL (Brewers AA)

Cory Riordan – Tulsa, OK (Rockies AA)

Dan Houston – Modesto, CA (Rockies High A)

Will Inman – Tuscon, AZ (Padres AAA)

Kyle Vazquez – Scottsdale, AZ (AZL Giants)

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Off-Season Baseball Training at Cressey Performance

Written on March 10, 2011 at 5:47 pm, by Eric Cressey

It’s been a few months in the making, but we just finished up a promo video about how we attack off-season baseball training at Cressey Performance for our professional, collegiate, and high school baseball players.

We’d love to hear what you think – and hopefully you’ll like it enough to help spread the word on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks!

A big shoutout goes out to Jamie and Matt at Lasting Memories Videotaping; these guys do an awesome job, and we can’t recommend them highly enough!

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How to Develop Your Fitness Niche

Written on March 8, 2011 at 4:15 am, by Eric Cressey

Five months ago, I wrote an article called How to Find Your Fitness Niche – and it was one of the more popular posts in my site’s history.  I realized after writing it, though, that I never bothered to talk about how I developed the niche I was in once I discovered it.

If you didn’t read the original installment, definitely check it out now.  However, as a brief background, about 80-85% of our clients at Cressey Performance are baseball players.  This past off-season, we had 44 professional players travel from all over the country to train in snowy Hudson, MA.  So, you could say that my dream “niche” came true. Here are some of the strategies we employed along the way.

1. Don’t go for the big fish right away.

People are always blown away when I tell them that I started out with training high school baseball players, not big leaguers.  That’s the truth, though; a few younger guys got great results, won a state championship, earned D1 scholarships, and – in the case of one – received state player of the year honors.  My phone started ringing off the hook when some of those results were featured in the Boston Globe.

Eventually, the high school clientele grew to include more college guys and, in turn, pro guys.  Once you have a few pro guys and you get results with them, they tell their buddies – and their agents and teams also have more guys to send your way.  Then, all the younger athletes see professional athletes training at our facility and it reaffirms in their mind that Cressey Performance is the place to be.  If a professional baseball player travels all the way across the country to train here, why wouldn’t they be willing to travel ten minutes?  You wind up with a big circle that continuously grows.

What doesn’t work is just shooting for the “red carpet” clients right off the bat.  Don’t expect to just be able to call your local professional sports team or some big time agent and “wow” them with a 15-second elevator pitch to get their best players to train with you.  The truth is that you probably won’t even get a call back.  It’s not my niche, but it works the same with celebrities, TV personalities, politicians, or anyone else who lives their lives knowing that everyone wants a piece of them.  Be patient and fish in the river for a bit before you head out to catch the big fish in open waters.

2. Start locally.

Before you can be a national expert, you have to be a local expert.  Training my local guys got me motivated to research and write more in the baseball realm.  That gave rise to more guys traveling from out of state to train with us.

3. Remember that expertise is perceived differently.

Some perceive expertise as telling them what to do so that all the guesswork is taken out of the equation.  They might think you are annoying or clueless if you try to tell them the “why” behind everything you do.

Others perceive expertise as your ability to justify everything that you do.  They might think you’re incompetent if you tell them to “just trust you” because you “know” the program will work, or if you’re simply at a loss for words when they ask you to explain the “why” behind your training approach.

Some want to see you coach athletes to be confident in your abilities, and others just want to sit down with you and ask questions to verify your competence.  Others might want to see you present at a seminar.  Some want to read your writing, and others want to ask current clients about their experiences with you.

The point is that you have to be versatile and multi-faceted in the way that you present your expertise.  I can rattle off research and tell guys why we’re doing stuff, or I can skip the science mumbo-jumbo and replace it with loud music and attitude.  People are welcome to watch me coach, ask me questions, read my writing (online and the stuff that is framed in the office), view seminars I’ve given, check out flyers in the office, and speak to our clients.  We make “perceiving expertise” easier for them.

4. Good will doesn’t run out – and costs nothing to give.  Cultivate relationships.

At the end of the day, success in your niche isn’t about making up flyers or some other advertising tactic; it’s about overdelivering relative to clients’ expectations and creating genuinely positive relationships with people.  We haven’t spent a penny on advertising since we opened in 2007 – but we’ve made a lot of friends along the way.

5. Remember that impressionable young minds ultimately become opinion leaders.

This is a cool year for us because it’s the first class of guys that we’ve seen all the way through high school.  In other words, some kids I started training when they were in eighth grade are now seniors in high school with college baseball scholarships.  They might not have been big referral sources when they were 14 years old, but as more accomplished 17-18 year-olds to whom underclassmen look up, they are huge opinion leaders who refer us a lot of business.  Likewise, we’ve gotten to know their families well over the years, so the referrals don’t just come from the kids; they also come from the parents.

Tim Collins was the second professional baseball player I ever trained.  He was a free agent signing out of high school in 2007 – and at the time, he was 18 years old, 5-5, 130 pounds soaking wet, and topping out at 82-83mph.  Tim just wrapped up his fourth off-season with us and stands an outstanding chance of making the opening day roster for the Kansas City Royals after putting up some of the best numbers in minor league baseball over the past few years.  He’s now 170 pounds, throws in the mid-90s, and has a ~39-inch vertical jump.

In the fall of 2007, Tim was as much of a longshot in professional baseball as you could have possibly imagined: undersized, underpaid, and undrafted.  Now, he’s on the big league radar screen – and along that journey, he’s generated an enormous amount of publicity for Cressey Performance and referred several of his teammates our way.

6. Research like crazy.

If you are going to be the expert, it’s your job to know everything you possibly can about your niche.  Being smart is never a bad thing; you need to be on the cutting-edge.

7. Adapt.

Whether you are training fat loss clients, pregnant women, senior citizens, or MMA fighters, we are in a dynamic field where things change daily.  New research comes out and better ways of doing things are constantly being discovered.  If you’re going to be the “go-to” expert, it’s not just good enough to learn new things; you have to be able to effectively integrate them in your existing philosophy.  It’s no good learning something if you aren’t going to use it – and let’s face it: change is hard.   Find a way to make it easy.

8. Don’t try to replicate yourself; complement yourself.

The single-worst thing I could have done in developing my baseball niche was hiring someone to be like me.  Conversely, the best thing I can do is surround myself with people who have skill sets that complement mine so that we can together offer a more comprehensive product to our niche.

With that in mind, at CP, we have a pitching coordinator, nutrition director, massage therapist, and chiropractor on hand.  My business partner handles all the billing, scheduling, and other office tasks.  We have a cafeteria in the building to help out with nutrition needs.  All these people do their thing so that I can leverage my abilities, which allows us to best serve our niche.

9. Don’t force it.

This one will be brief: you have to enjoy what you’re doing in order to be good at it.

I don’t care what sounds profitable or what your spouse or buddies tell you you’d be good at; it has to appeal to you on a level far more important than financial gain.

10. Success is about what you’re doing right, not what others are doing wrong.

Because we’re so focused on our niche, I have never really paid any attention to what surrounding training facilities are doing simply because I don’t view them as competition.  However, that doesn’t mean that I’m not asked about them all the time – almost as if people are trying to bait me into talking poorly about industry colleagues.  My policy is strict and straightforward: stay positive and never speak poorly of your competition.

I will gladly talk about what I feel we do well and how this distinguishes us from the industry “norm,” but it’s not my place to comment on what others are doing.  Speaking poorly about others only makes you look jealous and petty.  And, frankly, this time and effort is much better spent looking in the mirror to determine how you can make your own offerings better.

Closing Thoughts

Surely, these are just a few of the many factors involved in turning a fitness niche from a dream into a reality.  And, I’m sure we can all learn from one another.  In the comments section, I’d love to hear what your fitness niche is and what strategies you’ve employed to get to where you are.

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NESN Features Cressey Performance Elite Baseball Development Program

Written on March 1, 2011 at 4:53 am, by Eric Cressey

In addition to the Kevin Youkilis training feature they ran last week, the folks at NESN also profiled our overall system for working with professional baseball players.  Check it out:

For more information, check out www.CresseyPerformance.com.

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Strength Training Programs for the Pros and the Joes: Not as Different as You Might Think

Written on February 24, 2011 at 12:33 pm, by Eric Cressey

Yesterday, New England Sports Network (NESN) ran a feature on my work with Kevin Youkilis of the Boston Red Sox.  In the background of the video, you’ll notice several other professional athletes (including a pro soccer player and pro triathlete) doing their thing, too.  What’s perhaps more interesting, though, is that you’ll even see some general fitness clients getting after it at the same time.

It reminded me of an interview Chad Waterbury did with me for his website a while back; the focus was what ordinary folks can learn from professional athletes, and how they’re alike/different in the gym.  I think that there are some valuable takeaway points:

CW: You work with a lot of high-performance athletes. What are three principles that apply equally to athletes and non-athletes?

EC: I think people would be surprised to realize just how similar the Average Joe or Jane is to a professional athlete – both socially and physically.

The lay population often sits in front of a computer for 8-10 hours a day, but many pro athletes have 4-8 hour flights or 10+ hour bus rides where they’re sitting – and because they’re taller, sitting is even more uncomfortable and problematic.  Like everyone else, they spend time surfing the internet, Skyping, playing video games, and goofing around on Facebook/Twitter.  The advances in technology have hurt everyone from a physical fitness standpoint – but brought the “Pros and the Joes” closer together, believe it or not.

They’re also very similar in that they want the most bang for their buck.  Most pro athletes are no different than anyone else in that they want to get in their training, and then go to visit their families, relax, play golf, or whatever else.  They really don’t have interest in putting in six hours per day in training outside of the times when they have to do so (namely, in-season).

All that said, if I had to pick three principles crucial to the success of both populations, they’d be the following:

1.  Realize that consistency is everything. I always tell our clients from all walks of life that the best strength and conditioning programs are ones that are sustainable.  It’s not about working hard for three months and making great progress – only to fall off the bandwagon for a month.  This is absolutely huge for professional athletes who need to maximize progress in the off-season; they just can’t afford to have unplanned breaks in training if they want to improve from year to year.

If a program isn’t conducive to your goals and lifestyle, then it isn’t a good program.  That’s why I went out of my way to create 2x/week, 3x/week, and 4x/week strength training options – plus five supplemental conditioning options and a host of exercise modifications – when I pulled Show and Go together; I wanted it to be a very versatile resource.

Likewise, I wanted it to be safe; a program isn’t good if it injures you and prevents you from exercising.  Solid programs include targeted efforts to reduce the likelihood of injury via means like mobility drills, supplemental stretching recommendations, specific progressions, fluctuations in training stress, and alternative strength exercises (“plan B”) in case you aren’t quite ready to execute “Plan A.”

2. You must balance competing demands, and prioritize the ones that are the most pressing at a given time. Using our professional baseball pitchers as an example, their training consists of strength training, mobility drills, medicine ball throws, movement training, and the throwing program (which is near daily in nature).  In the Cressey Performance system, when the throwing program ramps up, the medicine ball work must come down substantially, and the strength training tapers off just a bit.  You simply can’t keep adding sets and reps without subtracting something else and making a tradeoff, as athletes only have a certain amount of recovery capacity, and it’s hard to fine-tune an exact movement like throwing a baseball if you’re fatigued from everything else.

Managing competing demands is arguably more challenging in the general population, as their jobs outside the gym are usually more stressful than those that face many professional athletes – meaning that the Joes and the Janes have less recovery capacity with which to work.  It seems logical that when you add something to a program, you have to subtract something else – but I’m constantly amazed at how many people decide to just keep adding more volume when they can’t lose fat or gain muscle mass fast enough.  Sometimes, you just need to change the composition of the program, not add more and more, thereby creating three-hour marathon training sessions. This leads to my next point…

3. The success comes from the overall program, not just the individual parts. In other words, synergy is everything.

The aforementioned pitchers can’t just go out and start a throwing program after doing nothing for three months.  Rather, they need to work to enhance their mobility and get stronger, more reactive, and more powerful first.  If they skip these important steps, they increase their likelihood of injury, make it harder to re-acquire a skilled movement, and reduce the likelihood of improvement.

In the general population, a good strength and conditioning program consists of tremendous interdependencies.  Your deadlift technique and strength depends on the training you’ve done in the previous month, week, and day – and how thorough and targeted your mobility warm-up (or lack thereof, in many unfortunate cases) was prior to that day’s training session.  Those trainees who have the best results are the ones that line everything up – from nutrition, to strength training, to mobility exercises, to movement training, to metabolic conditioning, to recovery protocols.

CW: It’s common for people to think they’re advanced when they’re really not. Can you mention a few things a pro athlete typically does that a weekend warrior shouldn’t do?

EC: I would strongly discourage non-professional athletes from holding shirtless press conferences in their driveways while exercising during contract holdouts.

Then again, I wouldn’t really recommend that to Terrell Owens or any professional athlete, for that matter, but I digress…

To be honest, in the context of resistance training, a lot of professional athletes aren’t really as advanced as you might think, especially after a long season that’s taken its toll on them.  Many of them have a ton of similarities with our general fitness clients – but just have different exercise contraindications and energy systems needs.

I think the better comparison would be between novice lifters (less than one year of resistance training) and those with years and years under their belt.  They have to do things quite a bit differently.

As a first example, the novice lifter can handle a lot more volume because he (or she, of course) is relatively neurally inefficient.  If this lifter did the volume of an advanced athlete, he might actually undertrain on volume (and possibly overdo it on intensity to the point that it’d interfere with picking up appropriate technique).

Second, a really advanced lifter will often need to deload on intensity – meaning that when it’s time for a “backoff week” – he’ll often keep the sets and reps up, but take a lot of weight on the bar. It’s just about getting reps in.  A novice lifter, on the other hand, is better off keeping the intensity up and dropping the number of reps.

Third, a novice lifter can often be more aggressive in terms of caloric intake because there is such a large window of adaptation ahead in terms of muscle weight gain.  I gained 50 pounds in my first year of lifting, but nowadays – even though I’m five times as strong as I was then – if I can go up 3-4 quality pounds a year, I’m thrilled.  Surely, lifters are the opposite ends of the experience continuum can’t have similar caloric needs – even if the more experienced ones are heavier.  Skinny novice guys can sometimes get away with eating like absolute crap as long as there are enough total calories  – and still end up getting bigger.  I certainly don’t advise it, but it’s one more way to show that novice and experienced lifters are horses of different colors, and that you have to be honest with yourself on where you fall on this continuum so that you train and eat optimally.

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Kevin Youkilis’ Off-Season Training at Cressey Performance Featured on NESN

Written on February 23, 2011 at 5:57 am, by Eric Cressey

I just wanted to give you a quick heads-up that NESN ran this feature on Boston Red Sox Third Basemen Kevin Youkilis’ off-season training at Cressey Performance. Check it out:

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NESN Films Some of Kevin Youkilis’ Off-Season Training at Cressey Performance

Written on January 12, 2011 at 7:57 am, by Eric Cressey

New England Sports Network (NESN) was at Cressey Performance the other day to check in on Kevin Youkilis’ off-season training and ask Youk some questions about the upcoming season.  As you’ll see from the training footage, Youk takes his off-season training at CP seriously and likes to work!

The Cressey Performance Elite Baseball Development Program

Written on December 22, 2010 at 6:11 am, by Eric Cressey

A few weeks ago, Kevin Gray from The Union Leader and Baseball America came down to check out our pro baseball training crew.  The result was a feature on Kevin Youkilis and his training at Cressey Performance:

Youk Flipping Back to Third

An Interview with Eric Cressey (by John Romaniello)

Written on September 22, 2010 at 10:33 pm, by Eric Cressey

Earlier this week, I did an interview with John Romaniello for his website, and it came out so well (and long) that I thought it’d make for a great post here today.  Check it out below (with John speaking in the first person).

Okay, below is a transcript of the interview I did with Eric Cressey, beast of all beasts.  He’s seriously the man.  I’ve told you in another blog post how Eric and I met, and after 8 years and never less than 300 miles of distance between us, we’re still close and still learn a lot from each other.

Eric is seriously regarded as one of the Top 5 coaches in the world by just about any authority that has any authority (if you’ll pardon the redundancy) and in my view is probably the best from a standpoint of bringing things to a practical level.

His hew program, “Show and Go” has just been released, and is basically blowing the doors off of the industry.

Now, I’ll warn you that Eric works with professional athletes most of the time, so we talk about that A LOT in the interview; however, as he notes, he started in fitness-based training. The program brings it all together, and the interview very clearly explains why you should pick it up.

Check it out!

1.  Okay, right of of the gate, I want this interive to focus on your new program.  So, let’s get to it: how is Show and Go different from the other training products out there now?

Most products are written with a specific market – trainers, females, fat loss, or something else – in mind.  In the marketing world, they tell you to not try to be everything to everyone.  Well, I’m not a good marketer – so I decided to make this resource extremely versatile and a good fit for a LOT of people.

The reason is that there are a lot of things in a comprehensive strength and conditioning program that everybody needs to utilize.  From the minutia to the big picture, I could go on all day: foam rolling, mobility warm-ups, single-leg training, more horizontal pulling, fluctuation of training stress, sufficient deloading periods, extra posterior chain work, a balance of open- and closed-chain upper body pressing, glute activation, rotator cuff strength – the list goes on and on.

So, I guess you can say that the #1 thing that is different about this product is that there are easy-to-apply modifications in it that make it a versatile resource that offers something for everyone.  From the 2x/3x/4x per week training options to the supplement conditioning options, there are ways to make it the right fit for YOU.

And, the guy who created it is also extremely good looking, charming, witty, and charismatic!

2. And modest.  Or not.  But I hate modesty anyway.  Now, like me, you’re still “in the trenches” right?  I mean, you still work clients hands on, every day in your gym?

Yes, that’s for sure – and, in fact, you could say that it’s one more thing that separates this program for a lot of the other ones that are out there in the fitness landscape right now.  In this digital retail era, there are a lot of people publishing fitness information products on the net that are largely based on theory, not trends that have proven significant over and over again in the real world.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as a lot of the most sound training practices we know today were originally just theories.  However, speculative training isn’t for me.

I think it’s one reason why I thought so highly of the Final Phase Fat Loss program you created; I know you as a guy who has put in years of efforts “in the trenches” with clients and with your own training.  If you recommend something, it’s because you know it’s legitimate and you’d stake your reputation on it.

I’m in the same boat.  We generally do over 300 client sessions per week at Cressey Performance.  Taking it a step further, I’ll have over 40 professional baseball players who come from all over the country to live in snowy Hudson, MA all winter to give themselves the best possible chance to make it to the big leagues – and have a long and healthy career along the way.

Every single person that walks through the door is on an individualized program that was written by one of our staff members in accordance with the results of a one-on-one evaluation that took place.  When you write that many programs and supervise so many training sessions, you get a feel for the stuff that should be constant in just about everyone’s programs – and it makes you appreciate that there are many important principles that can be applied to make a program like Show and Go safe and effective for “the masses.”

You’ll see that in the detail that has gone into the Show and Go program.  It features the exact printable training templates we use with our clients so that people can record their progress.  The exercises and set/rep protocols have all been test-driven with our clients, too.  And, the 175+ videos in the online database that accompanies this guide were all filmed in my facility – not my mom’s basement or the park, as you often see from folks who write books, but don’t actually train anyone.

In short, I’ve got a unique frame of reference to share with people.  And, I’ve got a lot more to lose professionally if I was to put out an inferior product – so I put my heart and soul into this one.

3. Wow, that’s pretty intense.  Lets just touch on that for a sec.  You have over 40 pro baseball players from a number of different teams move into Red Sox territory to train with you.  That’s pretty telling.  Can you talk a bit more about your experiences with pro athletes?  I know this program is for “everyone” but how has working with some of the most elite athletes in the world shaped you as a coach.

Sure thing.  One of my biggest questions as we got Cressey Performance off the ground was whether or not professional baseball players would be willing to travel to the cold, snowy Northeast during all or parts of their off-season (roughly September-March) when they could be going to warmer weather climates.  To be honest, I never really waited to find the answer; we just focused on the few guys we had when we started out, and really hammered on getting great results and making people believers in our system.  The rest, I guess, is history – and I realize now that if you have a good product, it doesn’t matter where you are: people will find you.

Business stuff aside, with respect to training needs, most people are surprised when they discover just how similar the Average Joe or Jane is to a professional athlete – both socially and physically.

The lay population often sits in front of a computer for 8-10 hours a day, but many pro athletes have 4-8 hour flights or 10+ hour bus rides where they’re sitting – and because they’re taller, sitting is even more uncomfortable and problematic.  Like everyone else, they’re on the computer or in front of video games a lot.  It’s actually quite interesting to note that technology advances haven’t just brought the “Pros and the Joes” closer together via fantasy football, but also in terms of the training they need to stay healthy.

Pro athletes are also very similar to the lay population in that they want very efficient training.  There are always competing demands for their attention – whether it’s their families, charity work, marketing stuff, playing golf, or a number of other things.  These guys live at the ballpark for 12+ hours per day for over half the year, so when the off-season rolls around, they aren’t particularly interested in long, drawn-out training sessions unless it’s absolutely necessary for their success.  Most of our pro guys train six days a week for about 90 minutes in each session; four of these days are lifting, and there is movement training, medicine ball work, foam rolling, and mobility work included as well.  Once the time comes to start throwing and hitting, this 1.5 hours might become three hours a day.

4.  That’s pretty great stuff.  And as much as you love training athletes, they love training with you, too.  Every time I pick up a publication from your area, everyone from high school athletes up to Kevin Youkilis are singing your praises, and that includes other trainers.  But let’s go back to the “regular” people.

Let’s talk about my readers for a bit: they’ve done a lot of programs, but most written by trainers who don’t train pros or (in the case of myself) only a few.

So can we assume that this is a good “next step” coming from the average fitness program?  How can we take what you do with pros, what you do with absolute beginners, and apply the “middle ground” in this program?  I guess the question is: why is it that Show and Go is going be THE program for performance?

It’s absolutely a great next step.

First and foremost, I should mention that while we’re probably best known for training baseball players, we’ve actually got a very diverse clientele.  Sure, there are athletes from everything from boxing to bobsled, but we also have an awesome group of adult clients who just want to just want to be leaner, more muscular, healthier, and more functional for the challenges that life throws their way.

In fact, this was actually the fitness clientele I was dealing with the most before the “baseball thing” blew up for me – so I’m certainly not shooting from the hip on this.

To that end, there are a lot of things in a comprehensive strength and conditioning program that everybody – from the pro athlete to the soccer mom – needs to utilize.  I could go on all day: foam rolling, mobility warm-ups, single-leg training, more horizontal pulling, fluctuation of training stress, sufficient deloading periods, extra posterior chain work, glute activation, rotator cuff strength – the list goes on and on.  All that just speaks to staying healthy and moving more efficiently – but let’s be honest: most people want to get lean, muscular, and strong.

But let me ask you this: how many of the “regulars” in the typical commercial gym are actually lean, muscular, or strong?  I haven’t lifted in a commercial gym in years, but my memory definitely serves me correct when it tells me that it couldn’t be more than 10-15% of those in attendance.  The other 85-90% are rubbing their arses raw on the recumbent bike and scratching their heads about why they aren’t getting leaner when the elliptical machine told them that they were burning 28,000 calories per hour.  After all, they made great progress in the first 8-12 weeks of their exercise program doing this – and it took them from the untrained stage to the beginner stage.  What they don’t realize is progress halts unless they change things up and kick their programs up a notch by adding strength training and interval work.

Meanwhile, you have a lot of intermediate trainees who have “been there, done that” who poke fun at beginners because they haven’t discovered the same Holy Grail of strength training and interval training that enabled them to advance from beginner to intermediate.  What’s actually quite ironic (and it is irony, because it’s tragic how badly this sabotages people’s program) is that, all the while, most of these intermediate trainees are missing out on valuable training secrets that could take them to the “advanced” stage.

You talked about a lot of those secrets with respect to fat loss when you wrote Final Phase Fat Loss.  I’ve had many of the same “epiphanies” when it comes to improving strength and performance.  You had trouble losing those last few pounds of body fat to get photo-shoot-ready, and I literally spent 14 months trying to figure out how to get from a 225 bench press to a 230 bench press.  Sad, but true.

Well, I’m happy to report that I’ve now got a 365 raw bench press at ~190 pounds, and by this point, I’ve actually kissed a girl (even convinced her to marry me!).  I learned a lot of lessons along the way – almost too many to share, in fact – which is one reason why I created Show and Go.

Here’s an example…

Beginners can make strength gains on as little as 40% of their one-rep max.  Past that initial period, the number moves to 70% – which is roughly a 12-rep max for most folks.  Later, I’d say that the number creeps up to about 85% – which would be about a 5-rep max for an intermediate lifter.  This last range is where you’ll find most people who head to the internet for strength training information.

What they don’t realize is that 85% isn’t going to get the job done for very long, either.  My experience is that in advanced lifters, the fastest way to build strength is to perform singles (sets of one rep) at or above 90% of one-rep max with regularity.  As long as exercises are rotated and deloading periods are included, this is a strategy that can be employed for an extended period of time.  In fact, it was probably the single (no pun intended) most valuable discovery I made in my quest to get stronger.

I’m not saying that you should be attempting one-rep maxes each time you enter the gym, but I do think they’ll “just happen” if you employ this technique.

Like I said, there are a lot more – but the program takes all the guesswork out and includes them.

5. Most people know you for the more “mundane ” aspects of performance…the boring stuff that we should be doing by most people don’t: soft tissue work, mobility work, all that.

On the other hand, you and I have known each other for about 10 years now, and I have a “different” perspective on you than the industry at large.  I’ve seen you in your aesthetic-focused period where you wanted to get bigger, I’ve seen you get into powerlifting and pull HUGE weights.

I know that having done these gives you insight into aspects of fitness many people don’t realize you have.  That said, for the time being you’re not known as one of the go-to guys if your main goal is to look better (which I personally know is bullshit).

Do you think Show and Go will help show the world that you can get people lean and muscular? I think—actually, let me put it this way.  I’ve looked closely at the program, and WOW have you just knocked it the hell out of the park.  I guess I’m asking, have you put your heart and soul into this because you want to show the world a new side of yourself?  What are your thoughts on that?

The thing people really need to realize is that enhancing one’s performance – particularly with respect to strength gains – really sets the stage for long-term muscle mass gains.  You’re a big dude – but what people might not know is that you’re also a very metrosexual strong dude.  That strength and size are not mutually exclusive – and some of the best bodybuilders on the planet would tell you the same thing.  What I can tell you is that I have gained more muscle mass “accidentally” in years as a powerlifter than I gained “intentionally” in years as a wannabe bodybuilder.  For me, the biggest window of adaptation was in getting stronger – and that’s what I did.  My upper back, hamstrings, and glutes just weren’t going to stay small if I did what it took to get to a 660-pound deadlift.

How does this work?  Well, the stronger you are, the most “work” you’re going to be doing in classic “hypertrophy” zones.  If Lifter A can bench press 300 pounds, and he’s doing sets of 6 (call it 83% of 1RM), he’s moving about 250 pounds in that set.  If Lifter B bench presses 260 pounds, he’s working at about 215 pounds.  If both do four sets of six reps, you’ll see that Lifter A is doing a lot more total work (force times distance). Lifter B needs to get his maximal strength up – and then return to these classic hypertrophy training zones to reap the benefits anew.

As an aside, staying healthy is a nice aside to training for performance, as you’re teaching your body to move efficiently.  I always tell people that the best program is one that is sustainable – meaning that it doesn’t leave you injured or exhausted (too badly, at least) to the point that you’re missing valuable training time.  Teach your body to move efficiently, and you’ll see that the threshold at which you get “banged up” is markedly more difficult to reach.  The high volume lifting and metabolic resistance training fat loss protocols just won’t be you up as easily if you come in prepared and take care of the “boring” ancillary stuff like foam rolling and mobility work that I advocate.

6.  Random – I’ll ask you this because I know people are interested in pro athletes: what is the one thing that makes athletes different from regular people?  Like, how do they really just differ in the way they respond to training?  What can we learn from that?

I’d say that, for the most part, the most immediate difference is in how quickly the pros pick things up.  Most of them compete at high levels in their sport because they acquire new skills so well and can immediately integrate them in their “motor program.”  In that regard, learning how to deadlift or throw the medicine ball isn’t much different than mastering a change-up.

This is also very significant when it comes to relearning movements and getting one’s body back once the off-season rolls around.  They just seem to rebound faster after periods of moderate detraining.  As perhaps the most extreme example I’ve seen, I work with Chad Rodgers, a left-handed pitcher in the Atlanta Braves minor league system.  From November 2008 to March 2009, Chad went from 200 to 217 pounds while training at our facility.  Then, he went into in-season mode – and was 206 when he arrived back at our facility the following October after a long season.  Get this, though: he was 222 within two weeks – and he finished up the off-season at 235 – and hit 95mph on the radar gun for the first time in his life.  Pro athletes de-adapt like everyone else – but they seem to readapt faster than the lay population – and that sets the stage for long-term gains in spite of periods of sometimes crazy detraining during the season.

That said, there are some high level athletes who are one-trick ponies.  I’ve met some pitchers who showed up with 17-inch vertical jumps, but just so happened to have a good curve ball.  And, I’ve seen some swimmers who seem really athletic – until you get them out of their realm and learn the true meaning of “a fish out of water.”

7. When you first opened your facility, you and I spoke and you were dead-set on making Cressey Performance stand out by having the most innovative people on staff and always trying new stuff.  At the same time, you didn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.  In looking at Show and Go, I feel you did the same:  New science-based techniques housed comfortably alongside some of the most “common” exercises that people are familiar with; whereas a lot of programs include 80 varietals of exercises people have never heard of.  Give me your thoughts that?

I couldn’t have said it better myself.  Let’s be honest: there isn’t much in this industry that’s new.  Most of the “innovations” are really just “reincarnations” of something from the past (e.g., kettlebells, strongman training) or “modifications” (e.g., accommodating resistance, modified tempo schemes, different loading parameters) of something that we already knew worked.  I wish I could say that getting people jacked was an area where earth-shattering discoveries are being made every day, but that’s just not the case; we’re repacking things and looking for the right synergy among them.

In the real world, people still squat, deadlift, lunge, push, pull, rotate, roll over, get up, get down, jump, run, frolic, prance, whatever.  My feeling is that if you stick to the basics – but at the same time expose people to a wind variety of movement patterns – you get the best of both worlds: neuromuscular efficiency for important fundamental tasks as well as a rich proprioceptive environment that keeps people healthy and “adaptable” to their surroundings.  And, when you expose them to these new exercise variations, you prevent them from getting efficient – which is exactly what we don’t want if our goal is to get bigger or leaner.

8.  Your videos on the squat were posted and re-posted all over the internet.  EVERYONE got something out of them.   Show and Go could well do the same thing for programming in general—whether you’re a trainee or a coach, you’ll learn…and in a small but real way, this could perhaps chance the way people write programs. With that in mind, if you could get people to STOP doing one thing (trainees OR coaches) and START doing one other, what would it be?

I’d tell both trainees and coaches to simply be more open-minded to learning from everyone and applying new techniques.  There are Crossfit guys, HIT guys, powerlifters, bodybuilders, kettlebell guys, speed guys, machine guys, you name it.  Lots of people have been doing lots of different stuff to get lots of different results.  If you adhere steadfastly to just one discipline, you miss out on what the others have to offer – even if it is just a few seemingly trivial things that you borrow here and there to incorporate into your philosophy.

Admittedly, I really struggled with this earlier in my career.  I hated not knowing everything – and while it was something that definitely drove me to do a ton of research, I could have saved myself a lot of frustration and energy if I’d just been open-minded enough to ask someone else about their approach – or just observe them in action.  Nowadays, I see these as opportunities to either learn something new, test my knowledge by refuting something that doesn’t fits with my philosophy, or confirm what I’m already doing.

Awesome.  Awesome, awesome, awesome.

Eric, thank you so much for taking the time for do this, and thank you so much for putting together an incredible program.

Oh, and hey…so sorry about the Jets dominating the Patriots last week.  That had to hurt.

Click here for more information on Show and Go: High Performance Training to Look, Feel, and Move Better.

Cressey Performance Athletes Excel, Reporters Write About It, Villagers Rejoice

Written on July 21, 2010 at 5:10 am, by Eric Cressey

I don’t know if there is something in the water that the reporters around the country (and particularly the Massachusetts sports scene) have been drinking, but Cressey Performance’s Elite Baseball Development Program has gotten a lot of love in the news this weekend.

Last week, CP athlete Tim Collins was part of a blockbuster trade, as he went from the Toronto Blue Jays to the Atlanta Braves.  Tim didn’t disappoint in his debut, striking out five batters in two innings pitched without allowing a walk, hit, or run.  In a recent posting about Collins in the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, beat writer David O’Brien wrote the following:

“I asked [Braves Manager] Bobby Cox if he knew anything about him, and Cox started talking about seeing video of him. Said he’s extremely athletic, a muscular little guy who’s real aggressive. Apparently the video showed him pitching and also working out, because he made quite an impression on Cox and others with the workout portion.”

Apparently, Bobby Cox is quite a fan of the EricCressey.com and Cressey Performance YouTube pages.  Hello, Bobby!

The AJC followed it up with a feature on Tim where my business partner, Pete Dupuis, was interviewed: Pitcher in Escobar Trade is 5-7 Fireballer.

Saturday night, CP athlete Kevin Youkilis had the game-tying and game winning RBIs for the Red Sox in a come-from-behind win at home against the Rangers.

These features were followed shortly by another one – this time on a talented pitching prospect from Worcester, MA, Louisville pitcher Keith Landers.  The Worcester Telegram just did this feature on Keith and the training he started up about eight weeks ago at Cressey Performance as he works his way back from a shoulder surgery.

Landers Rehabbing Repaired Shoulder

(yes, Keith is really almost as tall as I am, even though he’s kneeling)

And, last, but certainly not least, the Daily New Tribue published this feature on CP athlete Travis Dean, who was drafted in the 14th round by the New York Yankees this year: Newton’s Travis Dean Weighs Options as Yankees’ Pitching Draftee.

Finally, here’s a blog post from ESPN.com’s Brendan Hall that features a boatload of CP studs who have had great summer showings: Tyler Beede, Adam Ravenelle, Carl Anderson, Barrett O’Neill, John Gorman, Jordan Cote, Ben Smith, Matt Luppi, AJ Zarozny, and David St. Lawrence.

Click here for more information on Cressey Performance’s Elite Baseball Development Program.