Random Friday Thoughts: 9/5/08

Written on September 4, 2008 at 11:09 pm, by Eric Cressey

I’m actually publishing this at about 11:30PM on a Thursday night, but I guess that’s close enough to Friday. It’s going to be a busy Friday and then I’m headed to Maine with my girlfriend for a wedding (not ours).

1. Speaking of weddings, congratulations to CP staff member Brian St. Pierre, who got engaged to his girlfriend of 8,726 years over the weekend. At the pace they’re going, they should be married in the spring of 3047. Brian couldn’t out-deadlift or out-bench me – and he surely isn’t going to even come close to me in fantasy football – so he decided to beat me to eternal bliss. Congratulations, buddy.

2. And, on a related note, apparently, 93% of fantasy football participants are white. I’m happy to report that the Cressey Performance Fantasy Football league has, in fact, crossed the double-digit percentile in the quest to end fantasy sports inequality. Our league is actually 10% African-American; Clark is our Jackie Robinson. And, if you really think about it, Larrabee does a mean Terry Tate impersonation, so we’re more like 12%.

3. Speaking of Terry Tate, I’d love for him to track down whoever originally proclaimed that bagels are healthy. Everyone born in the past 40 years knows that white bread is bad for you, and a bagel is just a round piece of white bread with a hole in it. Does the hole make it healthy? No! In fact, it makes it suck more because it’s more deceptive than a regular slice of white bread.

4. I found this article about youth gymnastics really interesting – but probably not for the reason others took interest in it. The quote that caught my attention was: “He added that the coach-to-athlete ratio should be about 6 to 1 in preschool and about 8 to 1 for older athletes.”

Amen! I am a firm believer that small groups are an absolute must when dealing with at-risk sports like gymnastics and, specific to my occupation, weight-training. It makes me sick to my stomach when I see one coach supervising 15-20 young, impressionable, untrained athletes. It’s the reason why so many cookie cutter facilities just do 30-minute dynamic warm-ups, some agility ladders, and then a little running. They are insufficiently staffed – both in terms of the total number of employees and the knowledge and coaching abilities of those employees.

At Cressey Performance, we never go over six athletes per coach – even in our advanced athletes – and generally speaking, it’s more along the lines of 3-4 athletes per coach at a time.

5. While on the topic of misdirected training for kids, are these people for real? I seriously hope not, because Brookline isn’t far from me, and I’m afraid that I’ll get dumber from just being within 50 miles of these quacks. Seriously, treadmills for kids?

Why don’t you just buy a pet gerbil? You don’t have to drop $200K to send them to college, and they won’t wake you up in the middle of the night with a diaper full-o-poo. Developmentally, this is flat-out stupid; they shouldn’t be on treadmills at all. They should be out playing. If they aren’t playing, it’s because the parents haven’t set them up for success in this regard by integrating them socially. I totally hope that one of these kids meets up with one of the 9-12 year-old beasts that train at CP in our kids’ groups; our guys would take their lunch money and then overhead press their dorky treadmills.

And ellipticals for kids? Do we really need to show kids how to be too lazy to walk? You know what elite triathletes call the elliptical? The fat girl machine.

6. Last rant, and then I’m done – at least for the weekend: Skateboarder Wanted for Speeding. Instead of trying to arrest/sanction him, shouldn’t authorities be rewarding him for finding an efficient, environmentally friendly transportation alternative in a time of high gas prices and global warming?

The Continued Wussification of American Children

Written on August 26, 2008 at 8:41 pm, by Eric Cressey

On the radio this morning, they were talking all about this 9-year-old in Connecticut who was banned from his little league for being too good. Yes, folks, you read that correctly; we’re discouraging achievement and instead rewarding and encouraging mediocrity.

To illustrate my point…

When I was in elementary school, I played the trumpet. I use the word “play” very loosely because I was absolutely terrible – the last trumpet in the band, in fact. I was so bad that I used to fake playing a good 75% of the time. When concert time came around, I’d pretend to huff and puff and blow into that sucker – and while I looked like I was making sweet music, the truth was that my cheeks were just getting redder and redder – and I wasn’t making a sound. This great “front” was even better because I was pudgy, and let’s be honest: there really isn’t anything funnier than a pudgy kid with red cheeks pretending to play the trumpet.

You know what, though? Nobody ever told the first trumpet guy to skip the concert. He deserved his success. For all I know, he might still be playing the trumpet today. Hell, I didn’t even practice; I was too busy focusing on what I enjoyed more (which coincided with what I was good at: sports).

What if this 9-year-old really does have what it takes to do something special in the world of baseball? Are we really going to risk his development – both physically and psychologically – so that we can make future lawyers, astronauts, and proctologists feel good about themselves? If that’s the case, we better start telling the smart kids in school to stop studying.

The truth is that just as success is great for teaching us what we enjoy and what our place in this world is, humility teaches us countless valuable lessons. Take it from the fat trumpet faker who wore sweatpants to school straight up through sixth grade. I turned out okay.

Lifting at a Young Age

Written on March 15, 2008 at 12:40 am, by Eric Cressey

Thanks for your great articles and for the guidance you provide here.

I’m planning to buy your Ultimate Off-Season Training Manual and had asked a question over on EricCressey.com and Omri asked me to post it here:

I have enjoyed lifting for the past 30 years and now my 11 and 12-year-old nephews are training with me in the weight room. They are making tremendous gains in strength and are very enthusiastic about our workouts. Family members are appreciative of the time I spend helping them and can see the results, but they are also expressing concerns because of their young age.

The boys are in early and mid-puberty and are both tall for their age (5’7″). They have a great-uncle who is 6’10″, so they will possibly be pretty big. They’re growing very fast right now.

Their family has a history of knee problems on both sides of the family. Also three generations of hernia weaknesses on one side of the family. The older boy has very flat feet, but they seem to still enjoy running and sports (tennis and volleyball).

Are there any lifts that we should be avoiding at this stage? Any dangers of bone damage, hernias, etc? I realize that you would have to send them to a Dr. for a physical in order to give a certain answer, and standard disclaimers apply, but considering that they both seem to be perfectly healthy and doing very well, it doesn’t seem like the program is doing anything but good at this point.

I have helped them see what proper form looks like and they are both adamant about form (and they tell ME when I’m not using proper form!).

Would appreciate any insight, especially things I need to watch out for which could be doing more harm than good.

Thanks again.

Your goal should be to expose them to a wide variety of movements and set them up for success. Keep it interesting and FUN. Avoid maximal loading, obviously, but do work to incorporate quantifiable progressive overload for the kids; it’ll keep them motivated. Start with plenty of body weight drills; get them stable at the lumbar spine, shoulders, and knees, and mobile at the ankles, hips, and thoracic spine. That’ll set them up for success long-term. Getting them barefoot more often is great.

The weight-training will actually help tremendously in avoiding that “clumsy” stage that occurs when guys grow a lot in a short amount of time.

Avery Faigenbaum from The College of New Jersey has some good writing on this subject, and Brian Grasso (IYCA.org) is the king of training young athletes. GREAT reading material.

Good luck!

Eric Cressey

Public Access: Not Just for Wayne and Garth

Written on February 28, 2008 at 3:17 pm, by Eric Cressey

Click the link below to view an hour-long interview I did on the Audrey Hall Show alongside Rich Gedman (former Red Sox catcher and current manager of the Worcester Tornadoes) and Bunky Smith (head coach of Framingham’s American Legion Team) on the topic of youth baseball training.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1137806189/bclid1408993191/bctid1424672868?src=rss