Tim Collins Featured on ESPNBoston.com

Written on July 29, 2011 at 11:34 am, by Eric Cressey

Cressey Performance athlete and Kansas City Royals pitcher Tim Collins was featured in an article yesterday on ESPNBoston.com, in light of his Fenway Park debut.

They talk a bit about his training at Cressey Performance as well.  You can check it out at the link below:

Kansas City Royals Lefty Tim Collins Coming Up Big Despite Small Stature

Also, keep an eye on my blog for a sweet announcement about an awesome free opportunity to watch me speak live on Saturday.

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Four Years of Cressey Performance: Time Flies When You’re Having Fun

Written on July 13, 2011 at 11:14 am, by Eric Cressey

When I woke up this morning, it seemed just like any other Wednesday morning.

I didn’t even realize that it had been four years since July 13, 2007: the day we opened the doors at Cressey Performance.  I would have blown right through today if my business partner, Pete, hadn’t reminded me of July 13′s significance when I came in to the office today.

On our first anniversary in 2008, I was absolutely swamped, as we’d just moved into a larger facility.  I was 100% aware of the significance of the day, but literally didn’t have time to enjoy it.

On the second anniversary, things had settled down a bit, and I wrote up a blog to celebrate the day: The Two Year Mark.

Last year, on the third anniversary, I went “all in” and wrote up this bad boy: Three Years of Cressey Performance: The Right Reasons and the Right Way.

This year, I celebrating by simply forgetting.

Is this my first “over 30″ moment, or is there something to be said for the fact that I forgot?

This has been, unarguably, our best year on a variety of fronts.  Some highlights:

Tim Collins – one of our first pro guys and longest tenured clients – went to the big leagues this year.  The same goes for guys like Cory Gearrin, Steve Cishek, and Trystan Magnuson.  We also saw more professional athletes (and clients overall) than any other year before.

Tyler Beede – also a long-time Cressey Performer – was drafted in the first round of the 2011 MLB Draft…and we celebrated in my living room.

Tyler was one of 12 players with CP ties taken in this year’s draft.

Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School won the Division 1 State Championship, and they epitomize everything that effective strength and conditioning can do to help keep a high school team healthy and performing at high levels.

Over 30 CP athletes in the Class of 2011 signed letters of intent to play Division 1 baseball.

We expanded our staff to include some great people who complemented our existing skill sets and program offerings nicely.

We added about 1,000 square feet more office space and polished up our look with some new paint and more framed/autographed jerseys on the walls.  I even got my own office – which is shared with our new mascot, Tank, of course:

Most importantly, though, we continued to have an absolute blast each and every day we came to “work” – and that, to me, is what it’s all about.  We made new friends and further developed already-existing friendships.  The CP family grew, and we offered a service to people that helped them get to where they wanted to be.

You’ll notice I didn’t mention financial gain – and the reason is pretty simple; I view it as secondary.  It’s the destination, and I’m a lot more concerned about the process.  Cultivate relationships, deliver a quality service, and genuinely care, and the money will take care of itself.  Before the business gurus out there start crapping on me, I’ll add that our business has grown by more than 30% over the past year in spite of the fact that I usually forget that I’m supposed to receive a paycheck at month’s end.  Pete just surprises me with it.

Don’t get me wrong; you need effective business systems to make things work.  If you’re an organizational disaster and can’t make your rent, it’s going to be pretty hard to put on a happy face and make someone’s day with your smile.  However, the overwhelming majority of “savvy business decisions” are actually a combination of common sense, courtesy, and a genuine desire to help someone.

Most of the people that ask us business questions want to know how much we charge, how much our rent is, how we schedule, what our hours are, who painted Tony’s t-shirt on him, what our start-up costs were, and why we don’t use electronic funds transfer (EFT).  What they should be asking us:

1. How do you remember so many people’s names?

2. How can you possibly know everyone’s health history who walks through your door?

3. How do you write individual strength and conditioning programs for everyone?

4. What do you do to build relationships?

5. How do you find time to get to so many baseball games?

6. How do you do to educate and retain staff?

7. How is it that all of your clients seem to be friends with each other? (As a little aside to this point, Tim Collins was at the facility the past two days while home for the all-star break, and he greeted every person who walked through the office door.  He even answered the phone for us twice.  That’s big-league customer service.)

There are some brilliant business consultants out there.  Pat Rigsby and Alwyn Cosgrove, for instance, are super bright guys and great friends who have helped loads of fitness professionals increase their incomes and improve their quality of life.  They are also the first guys to tell you that if you don’t know how to cultivate relationships and treat people right, then you’re studying for the wrong test by looking for the perfect business plan.

Spend more time focusing on the process, and worry less about the destination.  Four years from now, you’ll probably enjoy your “job” a lot more – both psychologically and monetarily – and have a lot more friends and experiences that make you smile each time you think of them.  You’ll probably even forget it’s your business’ anniversary!

Thank you, as always, to everyone for all your support.

As a mini-celebration of this day, I’ll do a little promo: if you purchase a CP hat HERE before Friday (July 15) at midnight, I’ll send along a video of a 37-minute staff in-service I did on shoulder assessment that’s uploaded to the ‘web.

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Relief Pitchers: How to Warm-up

Written on April 15, 2011 at 6:59 am, by Eric Cressey

Q: I have followed Tim Collins’ story on your website and was very impressed with his quick path to the big leagues. Obviously, preparation has been a huge part of success and that’s where my question lies. Like Tim, I am a relief pitcher and often wonder what pro guys and in Tim’s case knowledgeable pro guys, do for a warm-up prior to throwing in the pen to get in the game. I was wondering if maybe you can shed some light on what guys at your facility do as far as a warm-up to throwing. It seems like every time I see a pro guy throw, they get up after not moving for seven innings and just throw and come in the game blowing 96mph without their arm tearing in three different spots. Is there a warm-up routine your guys do before they might come in? I appreciate any info.

A: This is actually one of the more common questions that I receive, and I’m kind of surprised at myself for never covering it in a blog post. There are a few important prerequisite considerations to take into account before I tell you what I encourage our guys to do:

1. Sadly, most guys don’t do anything. That doesn’t make this right; it just means that they are setting the stage for getting hurt further down the line.  Just because you throw with sloppy mechanics  or muscular weakness doesn’t mean that you’ll get hurt the second you pick up a ball; you get hurt from the cumulative effect over time.  So, just because a guy can go in and throw hard with a short, insufficient warm-up doesn’t mean that he’ll be doing that a few years from now.

2. You can’t compare professional guys to lower level guys for a lot of reasons. First, professional bullpens usually have powerful heaters in place to keep guys’ body temperatures up – which makes it easier to warm up when the time is right.  Additionally, most professional pitchers (whether they make use of them or not) have plenty of access to massage therapy and manual stretching from team personnel, so their “resting state” is probably more prepared than most college pitchers I see.  High school kids tend to be the most “indestructible” of the bunch, as they haven’t accumulated as much wear and tear on their bodies.

That said, regardless of experience and what you have at your fingertips for massage and other amenities, warming up to come out of the bullpen can be pretty stressful for guys.  On one hand, you kick out some serious stress hormones, which can get you fired up and ready to go, but on the other hand, it’s not good to be excited and ready to roll hormonally and psychologically if you aren’t there physically just yet.

With that in mind, I encourage guys to do their normal pre-game warm-ups like everyone else and try to sustain that body temperature and transient mobility increase by dressing warmly and trying to move around in the bullpen as much as possible.  Then, as it gets closer and closer to the time that they may need to enter the game (I usually just tell guys to start at the end of the fourth), I have guys start doing 2-3 multi-joint dynamic flexibility drills every half-inning.  An example would be a walking spiderman with overhead reach, which is going to take you into hip abduction and extension, thoracic spine extension and rotation, glenohumeral horizontal abduction and external rotation, and elbow extension (among other movements).

By doing a few of these each half-inning, you ensure that your body temperature and mobility never drop off transiently.  Plus, you ensure that you don’t lose mobility over the course of a long season, as you’re working on it even if you don’t wind up pitching.

As an interesting little aside to all of this, is a reliever that much different than, say, a center fielder when it comes to needing to stay warm throughout the entire game just in case?  He might do his pre-game warm-ups and then spend the next few hours alternating standing around and sitting with bursts of 100% effort with swinging, throwing, and sprinting.  Have you ever heard of a center fielder complaining that he can’t get loose enough to track down a fly ball, crow hop and throw a laser to the plate, or leg out an infield single?  Of course not!  And, it’s simply because he is more active than relievers even when he isn’t actively participating in the game.  Every inning, he’s playing catch and jogging to and from the outfield on top of making a contribution defensively or at the plate every 20-30 minutes.

So, in summary, do a thorough pre-game warm-up, do more “fidgeting” in the bullpen, and then hit 2-3 multi-joint dynamic flexibility drills (check out Assess and Correct for dozens of examples) every half-inning starting in the 4th.  Then, go to your specific throwing warm-up and head out to start blowing 96mph…safely.

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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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Tim Collins: Why Everyone Should be a Kansas City Royals Fan (at least for a day)

Written on March 30, 2011 at 5:52 pm, by Eric Cressey

Professional baseball really is an enigma.

On one hand, some professional players are bad-bodied one-trick ponies who aren’t athletic enough to train their way out of a wet paper bag. And, many of them are okay with it.

On the other hand, you’ve got players getting arrested for crimes so stupid that you wonder if they even appreciate the fact that they get to play a game for millions of dollars each year. They’re just so anxious to take it for granted that they let waste it away.

It would be a really depressing picture if it wasn’t for optimism and enthusiasm of the millions of up-and-coming baseball players around the globe who dream of one day playing in the big leagues. And, we DO have some diamonds in the rough in professional baseball who stand out as fantastic role models for these aspiring players with their efforts both on and off the field.

I’m thrilled to say that the major leagues gained another Ambassador of Awesomeness today when the Kansas City Royals announced that Cressey Performance Athlete Tim Collins would be on their opening day roster – and that’s why I’m probably on a plane to Kansas City as you read this. While hundreds of young athletes (and our staff and adult clients) in the Cressey Performance circle alone already appreciate Tim as a tremendously positive influence in our community, with this promotion, a lot more people are going to appreciate just how special Tim’s story is.

If you’ve read this blog at all in the past, you’ve probably come across Tim’s story as the ultimate longshot. In case you missed it, check out this article.

The long story short is that Tim was overlooked by every single Division 1 school in the country in spite of being the ace of a high school team that compiled a record of 91-5 over Tim’s four years of school. His high school numbers were absolutely video-game-like, but he was overlooked because he was only 5-5, 130 pounds. Former Toronto Blue Jays general manager JP Ricciardi came across Tim by accident in the summer of 2007 when scouting an American Legion game – where Tim struck out all 12 batters he faced with a low 80s fastball, but an absolute “Kaboom” curveball. Two days later, JP and the Blue Jays took a leap of faith, and in the single greatest baseball scouting story I’ve come across, signed Tim – who, at age 17, had never left the Northeast – and sent him to rookie ball…the next day!

This is where Cressey Performance entered the equation. Tim had been committed to play at the Community College of Rhode Island on a baseball scholarship – and he was going to be roommates with another one of my athletes. The two had played against one another in high school extensively and stayed in touch – and when Tim got back from his first few months in minor league baseball, this “roommate that never was” encouraged me to reach out to Tim because he thought I could really help Tim. I made the call, and the next day, here’s what walked in to CP on October 12, 2007:

That, folks, is what 5-5, 131 pounds looks like. And, that’s a body that was lucky to touch 82-83 on the radar gun. That’s only the tip of the iceberg, though.

That first week, my business partner, Tony, and I took Tim to the track with us to do some movement training. I figured, “Hey, this is a professional athlete; he’ll be able to move pretty well.” I couldn’t have been more wrong. Tony and I whipped him all over the track. He got beaten by a good 8-10 yards on every single sprint, and spent more time wheezing than he did training. He had the fuzzy dice (curveball), but no horse power in the engine. His vertical jump was 25.0 inches (a peak power of 4497 watts, considering the body weight of 131).

It would have been very easy for Tim to tap out that morning at the track. He could have just resigned himself to being a slug in the off-season like so many professional baseball players. Pitchers aren’t athletes, right? Well, this one committed himself to becoming one.

Over the next three off-seasons, the entire Cressey Performance community watched Tim transform. Each year, his weight and athleticism shot up – and he’s now about 172 pounds with a vertical jump of 38.7 inches (7453 watts – or a 66% improvement in 3.5 years).

More importantly, this athleticism directly carried over to increased throwing velocity and pitching performance. In 2008, he jumped up to 87-89mph. In 2009, it was 90-92, and 2010, he was 92-94 – while reportedly touching a 97 on the stadium gun. Oh, and entering the 2011 season, Tim had a career ERA of 2.26 in 223 professional innings, – with 329 strikeouts (13.3 per 9 innings). And, he just turned 21 in September.

That’s the tip of the iceberg, though. We’ve had lots of guys get more athletic and perform better in their chosen sports. There are a few things that make Tim’s story even more special.

First, of course, is the simple fact that he defied the odds and has made it to the big leagues as a long-shot – when only 3% of players ever drafted ever make it this far in their career. And, he did it as an undrafted free agent signing. Nobody ever crunches the numbers on these guys because, frankly, it almost never happens; they are scouting “afterthoughts.”

So, it’s an awesome story because it meant that every time Tim went out and “shoved” against opposing hitters on his way through the minor leaguers, he also “shoved” against baseball traditionalism. He showed that pitchers need to be athletes, that strength and conditioning really can change a career significantly, and that there are some situations where scouts really don’t know a stud from a dud. And, he has shown – and will continue to show – loads of impressionable young athletes that working hard really does pay off, even while other professional athletes are being lazy and destroying their bodies and careers, or being unethical and taking the easy way out.

Second, and more interestingly to me, I’ve watched Tim mature exponentially as a person – far moreso than anyone else his age who went to college. He was thrown into the real world quickly, and he matured and thrived, coming out of his shell and becoming a wildly popular part of Cressey Performance. The kid who used to barely talk when he came in to train now spends about eight hours a day at CP – between training and just hanging out in the office chatting with other clients and our staff. In perhaps my favorite story, last spring, we watched Tim sell over 90 boxes of Girl Scout cookies for one of our adult client’s daughter. He literally set up a makeshift desk in our office and met everyone at the door. And, even against the objections of CP nutrition expert, Brian St. Pierre, just about everyone obliged because, well, it was Tim – and he makes people smile.

Simply, changing his body and surrounding himself with the right people in the right environment played a big part in shaping Tim as a person. While quantifiable results are certainly very important, these more subjective changes are ones that every fitness professional and strength and conditioning coach hopes for with their clients and athletes. As I see Tim signing autographs, doing charity work, and taking younger players under his wing, I’m thrilled that he’s “paying it forward.”

The Kansas City Royals might not be a favorite to win the American League Central, but there’s still something to be excited about in Kansas City right now: a great guy getting to live a dream to which he has dedicated himself relentlessly to achieve.

Congratulations, Tim. I know I can speak for all the Cressey Performance staff and clients when I say that we couldn’t be more proud of you and happy for you. Thanks for having us all along for the ride!

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In-Season Baseball Strength and Conditioning: Part 1

Written on March 21, 2011 at 2:30 am, by Eric Cressey

Over the past few weeks, I’ve received literally dozens of emails, Facebook posts/messages, Tweets, and phone calls on the topic of in-season strength and conditioning for baseball players.  While it was a daunting task to try to organize my thoughts on the subject, I was glad to do so, as all these inquiries mean that people are finally starting to “get it:” in-season strength and conditioning is extremely important!  Plus, today is the first day of the high school baseball season here in Massachusetts, so the timing is just right.

To that end, over the next four days, I’ll outline my general strength and conditioning approach to dealing with position players and pitchers during the season.  Every athlete and every schedule is different, so it might take some tinkering to make this work for you.

First, though, I want to throw out a few quick FYIs, as some of what I “omit” will actually surprise you.  In terms of my in-season strength and conditioning beliefs, I’m different from many people in that:

1. I’m not big on lots of band stuff at the field – I discussed my thoughts on rotator cuff exercises frequency and overall scheduling in Clearing Up the Rotator Cuff Controversy.  In a nutshell, I tend to stick with 2x/week “conventional” rotator cuff exercises (mostly external rotations) and 2x/week rhythmic stabilization drills.  In conjunction with the rest of our overall program – which includes compound upper body strength exercises ( horizontal and vertical pulling exercises, in particular), deceleration catches, core stability drills, lower half strength exercises, soft tissue work, mobility work, etc – we cover all our needs for keeping an arm healthy.  Why on earth would I add more rotator cuff exercises to my program when I’m already increasing throwing volume, intensity, and frequency?  The cuff is already getting abused – so there is no need to crush it any more with daily tubing circuits unless they are incredibly light and just aimed at improving blood flow.

I firmly believe that many pitchers (and position players alike) overuse their arms during a season simply because they add, add, and add more to their program without fully understanding the outrageous eccentric stress that’s placed on the arm during throwing.  And, for those who insist that doing lots of in-season rotator cuff exercises has kept them healthy, I’d argue that this is probably the case because they weren’t that prepared at the end of the off-season.

2. I don’t do much medicine ball work in-season – If you haven’t already watched my video, the Absolute Strength to Absolute Speed Continuum, watch it now:

During the season, players are about as far to the “absolute speed” end of the continuum as they can be, as they’re hitting, throwing, and sprinting.  With the overwhelming amount of “accidental” power training taking place, I feel that it’s best to stay at the other end of the spectrum.  You can spend more time in the middle during the off-season.

That said, we do utilize a small amount of medicine ball work during the season.  Usually, it’s predominantly done in the opposite direction of a player’s swing/throw; in other words, a right-handed hitter would perform left handed medicine ball throws.  We might also do a small amount of overhead work just to maintain power within this range of motion (as well as the thoracic spine and shoulder flexion mobility that goes with it).

3. I don’t do any distance running for my guys – There’s no need to reinvent the wheel here, as I already barbequed this sacred cow in A New Model for Training Between Starts.  So, this time around, I’ll just be abrasive: coaches who have their baseball players run long distances are either lazy or flat-out stupid (or both).

4. I am a big believer in “less is more” and “quality over quantity” for in-season training – Rarely will an in-season strength training program session last more than 35-40 minutes.  It’s usually roughly 10-14 sets worth of work.  A guy might be in the gym longer than that for foam rolling and targeted mobility drills, though.

5. Volume and intensity should be lower in week 1, but higher for the remaining weeks with in-season strength training programs – I usually keep the volume and intensity lower in the first week of the program to minimize initial soreness.  Then, once the familiarity with the exercises is in place, we can load up a bit more in weeks 2-4 (or 2-6, if you opt to extend the program a bit longer).

6. Strength exercise selection changes a bit in-season, but the basics still apply – We’re still using a lot  of compound, multi-joint strength exercises, but there are a few modifications.

In-season, I tend to utilize more horizontal pulling (rows) than vertical pulling (pull-ups/chin-ups).  We use a lot of vertical pulling throughout the year, but never really go above once a week during the season, as some guys can get a bit cranky in the elbow with the amount of weight it takes to make them challenging.  If you want some of the benefits without the elbow issues, you can always plug in the crossover reverse fly.

This doesn’t mean, however, that I think chin-ups and pull-ups are bad for pitchers.  Far too many coaches have (unsuccessfully) tried to beat that dead horse; let it go, fellas.

Especially with pitchers, I utilize more push-up variations than dumbbell bench pressing during the season.  If we wind up doing three days of horizontal pushing, two will be push-ups and one will be dumbbell pressing.  If we do two days, it’s one of each.  If it’s only one, it’s a push-up.  We have several different variations (as I wrote here and here) from which to choose, so athletes are actually far less likely to get bored with them than with dumbbell pressing, anyway.

7. Don’t overlook maintaining mobility – It’s called “Strength and Conditioning,” but the truth is that we could probably scrap the conditioning part with respect to baseball and replace it with “mobility.”  Guys don’t just get hurt in-season because they lose strength; they get hurt because they lose mobility.  All the eccentric stress leads to significant losses in mobility, as does all the standing around leads athletes to miss out on basic functional movement patterns like squatting and lunging.  Don’t just be a “weights coach;” there are other things to address!  This is probably the primary reason why Assess and Correct has gotten such great reviews among baseball coaches; it’s one piece that they were missing!

It took me over a thousand words, but it would appear that I’ve gotten all my prerequisites out of the way.  Tomorrow, we’ll talk about in-season training for the high school baseball player.

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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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Weight Training Programs: You Can’t Just Keep Adding

Written on February 1, 2011 at 1:29 pm, by Eric Cressey

Can I just add some sets and reps of direct arm work?

How about cardio?  Would a few 30 minutes interval training sessions work?

What if I did extra rotator cuff stuff every day?  Just a little tubing, you know?

I’m going to add two extra days of calves, abs, and forearms.  It shouldn’t be a problem, right?

These are just a few of the common questions I receive from people for whom I write strength training programs (plus all the other components of a comprehensive program).  And, it’s these kind of questions that make me appreciate just how challenging it is to teach someone how to effectively write strength and conditioning programs – and why everyone gets all flustered when they first start writing training plans.

Very simply, most people don’t understand the concept of competing demands.  Everybody wants to add something to their weight training program – but not everyone is willing to take something away in order to do so.

How many elite powerlifters or Olympic lifters do you know who regularly do interval training as part of their quest to get strong?

How many elite triathletes do you know who just want to add a few sets of biceps curls along the road to improving endurance performance?

The answer is, of course, none.  And, it’s because – whether they appreciated it or not – these high-level athletes were effectively managing competing demands.

In some cases, different fitness qualities compete with one another; an example would be extensive aerobic training while trying to increase strength.  You can’t get strong quickly if you’re doing hours of cardio each week.  Somewhat similarly, in an overhead throwing population, it’s challenging to regain shoulder internal rotation and flexion range of motion (ROM) and pec minor length when an athlete is throwing – so you have to do your best to get the ROM during down-time in their training year.

In other cases, you may have multiple qualities that contribute to an overall training effect, but you can’t prioritize all of them at once.  For example, my professional baseball clients need a host of different qualities to be successful, but the body has limited recovery capacity, so their training programs have to target their most readily apparent weaknesses – and do so at the right time of year.  We cut back on the medicine ball and upper body strength exercises and volume when their throwing volume increases.

And, we can’t do as much lower body strength exercises when guys are doing more sprinting and change-of-direction work.  Stress is stress, so you have to apply it judiciously.

Taking this into consideration, I think that one of the best drills for someone looking to get better at writing programs is to take a full-on comprehensive weight training program with supplemental conditioning/movement training where someone is training 6x/week – and then cut it back to 3x/week.  Assume that there is a whole lot of of “other” stress in this athlete/client’s life – whether it’s work, illness, family issues, or just being an in-season athlete – and figure out how to scale a program back in order to make it productive and safe for that individual.

Lots of factors have to be taken into account: the volume and intensity that individual can handle, how long each session can last, and what specific factors one needs to address most.  A good example to check out would be the differences between the 4x/week, 3x/week, and 2x/week weight training programs (and accompanying optional supplemental sessions) in Show and Go: High Performance Training to Look, Feel and Move Better.

There are loads of factors you have to take into account when you write a comprehensive training plan – from the weight training program, to soft tissue work, to mobility work, to movement training, to energy systems training.  The most important consideration, though, is how they all fit together synergistically to make the program as a whole effective.

So, try the challenge I listed above and see how you do; I think you’ll find that it’s a lot harder to subtract than it is to add to your weight training programs.

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Helping High School Athletes: A Sweet Deal on the IYCA High School Strength Coach Certification

Written on January 24, 2011 at 11:30 pm, by Eric Cressey

A lot of people know me as the guy whose products and articles have helped strength training enthusiasts prevent and correct movement inefficiencies that ultimately lead to injuries.

Others know me because we train about four dozen professional baseball players each winter.

The truth, though, is that the majority of our clientele at Cressey Performance is high school athletes.  In the class of 2011 alone, we’ve had 17 athletes sign letters of intent to play Division 1 baseball.  Still, that doesn’t tell the most important story.

For every kid who gets drafted into professional baseball or commits to play a college sport, we have 3-4 young athletes who train with us simply to build confidence, stay healthy while they play their sports, and foster fitness habits that will hopefully carry over to the rest of their lives.  I take that job extremely seriously not only because I genuinely care about each teenage and enjoy my job, but because it is a huge deal for parents to trust me with part of their kids’ physical and mental well-being during a crucial developmental time in an adolescent’s life.

And, it’s also why I’m psyched about tonight’s announcement: the IYCA High School Strength Coach Certification is now available.

Along with Brian Grasso, Mike Robertson, Pat Rigsby, Wil Fleming, and Dr. Toby Brooks, I contributed to this new certification, which features both a textbook and accompanying DVD set.  Among the topics covered are:

Strength Training Technique, Functionality and Programming
Speed and Agility Mechanics or Sport Specificity
Mobility: Isolate and Integrate
Coaching the High School Athlete
Administration for the High School Strength Coach
Sample Programming for football, baseball, and basketball

The certification alone is something that, in our eyes, can not only dramatically help a high school strength coach’s career, but also help all the young athletes he/she encounters.  I’m going to sweeten the deal, though.

The early bird price runs now through Friday (1/28) at midnight.  If you purchase the product (HERE) before midnight on Friday and forward me your receipt, I’m going to send you an upper extremity assessment tutorial video that I am filming this week as an in-service for my staff and interns.  This feature will teach you how to assess and manage the upper body in athletes – with a particular focus on overhead athletes.

All you need to do is sign up for the certification and then forward your receipt to ec@ericcressey.com.  Then, next weekend, I’ll send out the video to everyone who contacts me.

There are a whole lot of high school kids out there learning some really bad habits in the weight room, and you’re in a position to change that – and the IYCA High School Strength Coach Certification can help you do it.  Whether you’re in a high school or the private sector, there is a tremendous amount to be gained by checking this out.