We're excited to welcome recently retired MLB infielder Kevin Youkilis to this week's podcast. We cover a range of topics, including how Kevin was overlooked during recruiting/scouting; how he moved quickly through the minor leagues; what learning opportunities players commonly overlook; and how he learned from some of the best hitters in the game. With him now involved in player development, "Youk" comments on the status quo and direction of the game, and reflects on the adjustments he's made to transition from player to coach/mentor.
This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. It’s an all-in-one superfood supplement with 75 whole-food sourced ingredients designed to support your body’s nutrition needs across 5 critical areas of health: 1) energy, 2) immunity, 3) gut health, 4) hormonal support, and 5) healthy aging. Head to www.AthleticGreens.com/cressey and claim my special offer today - 20 FREE travel packs (valued at $79) - with your first purchase. I use this product daily myself and highly recommend it to our athletes as well. I'd encourage you to give it a shot, too - especially with this great offer.
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Today marks the fifth anniversary of the day my business partners and I founded Cressey Performance. In that time, we've gone through two expansions, and we're now in the process of a third one, which will effectively double the size of our space to over 15,000 square feet.
It's been somewhat of a tradition for me to write something about Cressey Performance on EricCressey.com every July 13 in honor of the occasion. To that end, in light of the fact that I know I have a ton of current or aspiring facility owners reader this site, I thought I'd use today's post to outline one of the most important considerations I want our entire staff to understand.
Success isn't just measured in revenue.
Most business owners look to at a net income total at the end of each month to determine if they're successful. While this certainly governs whether or not they'll be able to keep the lights on at the facility and feed their families, it doesn't speak to the far-reaching implications that a successful business has.
In the case of a fitness business, how many chronic diseases have thousands of exercise programs helped prevent? How many bum shoulders have become asymptomatic so that a father can throw 400 pitches at his son's team's batting practice? How many kids have gained confidence that's gone far beyond the weight room, impacting school performance and social interaction? How many shoulder and elbow surgeries have been avoided by proactive strength and conditioning program initiatives? How many young athletes have spent 10-12 hours a week at Cressey Performance surrounded by professional and college athlete role models when they could have been out getting into trouble with the wrong crowd? How many families have collectively started eating healthier because a young athlete came home from CP with some healthy food options for them to try? How many young athletes have been inspired to pursue fitness as a career? How many people have learned to stand up for their beliefs in vigorously defending their answers to the Tim Collins Question of the Day?
It excites me to see our former interns doing absolutely fantastic things. Many have gone on to master's degrees and doctorates in physical therapy, and two are in medical school. Some have started their own training facilities, and others have gone on to college strength and conditioning positions. Kevin Neeld is working with the U.S. Women's National Hockey team and loads of high-level hockey players. Brian St. Pierre and Jay Bonn are having a huge impact on a number of lives through their work with Dr. John Berardi and Precision Nutrition. Brad Schnitzer can drink a bottle of water really fast, too.
I could go on and on, but suffice it to say that I'm very proud of all these interns and what they've accomplished.
Taking it a step further, I'm always psyched to see guys like Tim Collins (Royals), Steve Cishek (Marlins), Kevin Youkilis (White Sox), and Bryan LaHair (Cubs) doing as much stuff as possible in terms of charity work.
And, I'm even more psyched when I see our minor league guys wanting to follow their lead, and that's why getting involved with charity initiatives is an important part of our off-season pro baseball training crew. These little gestures of kindness mean a lot to people, and they mean even more when you're on the biggest stage and have a rare opportunity to impact thousands of people with your words and actions. My hope is that the Cressey Performance experience has helped to not give our younger guys the the awareness to appreciate these opportunities to help others, but instill in them the humility to properly make use of them.
Additionally, in our case, Hudson, MA isn't a tourism hub by any means (although we do have an Applebees, for what it's worth). Yet, CP brings anywhere from 80 to 120 clients per day to Hudson from all over Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, and Rhode Island. They spend money on food (including at our building's cafeteria), gas, and any of a number of other things while they're in town. Additionally, we have a lot of clients and interns who travel from all over the U.S. and abroad to train with us, and they support local hotels and rental properties. Finally, in Tony's case, he single-handedly keeps a local auto body shop in business with all the repairs on his car; in fact, I think their owners would vote for him if he ran for mayor because of all the "economic stimulus" he's provided them. At least these kids got some exercise and entertainment pushing his car to the mechanic.
All these considerations in mind, recognize that you don't go into business solely to make money. When you're six feet under and looking up at the grass, nobody remembers you for your net income in August of 2010, but rather the impact you had on the world before you left it. And, on a related and interesting note, looking at ways to overdeliver and add value to someone's experience is often the best way to make a business more profitable. As my friend Pat Rigsby would say, pursue "value addition" opportunities, not "value extraction" ones.
To all our clients who have supported us for the past five years, thank you very much. Our entire staff is deeply appreciative of your continued support.
Speaking of Pat, he, Mike Robertson, and I collaborated on a product called the Fitness Business Blueprint last year. It discusses all the mistakes we made when opening our fitness businesses, as well as the common mistakes Pat sees in the businesses for which he consults. Mike and I complement Pat's business teachings with training-specific information like assessment and program design. Taken all together, it's a great product for someone looking to start their own fitness business, or improve upon the one they already have. In honor of CP's fifth birthday, we've put it on sale for $100 off for this weekend only (sale ends Sunday, July 15 at midnight). You can pick up your copy at the special sales page HERE.
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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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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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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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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:
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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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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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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!
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
