Miscellaneous Miscellany Monday: 2/7/2011
1. Well, congratulations to the Green Bay Packers for a crushing win last night. And an EPIC fail goes out to me for falling asleep in the fourth quarter – I think I fell into food coma by the middle of the first half.
It goes without saying, though, that this was by far my favorite commercial of the night:
2. I made a cameo appearance at Mike Boyle’s 5th Annual Winter Seminar on Saturday, which featured Coach Boyle (obviously) and the one and only, Dan John.
To say that Dan John as been a huge influence on my career would be an understatement., and I’ll be the first admit that I felt like a giddy school girl when I walked in and saw him standing there in person.
Of course, both his presentations were brilliant – I mean, how can you not listen to a guy with well over 30 years of coaching experience under his belt?
I plan on covering the seminar in more detail later on this week, but I had to share the funniest line of the day.
We all know those guys who walk around with very impressive physiques, but ask them to do something as simple as skip, and it’s readily apparent that they don’t move very well – not a hint of athleticism. In fact, I’d pick them last if I were picking a kickball team.
Dan John shared a phrase that I felt hit the nail on the head:
Looks like Tarzan, moves like Jane.
I got a laugh out of that one.
3. And speaking of Dan John, after reading his latest article on t-nation, I decided to dedicate a day to ONLY carrying heavy things. Saturday morning, I got to the facility early to get a training session in before clients arrived, and I did the following:
A1. Kettlebell Racked Carries: 3×2 trips (1 trip = 25 yds)
A2. Overhead Sledgehammer Hits 3×8/side
B1. Kettlebell Crossbody Carry (suitcase carry in one hand, bottoms-up carry in the other): 3×2 trips
B2. Kettlebell Windmills 3×5/side
C1. Farmer Carries w/ Sled Drag: 4x 1 trip (1 trip = 40 yds)
C2. Shit a kidney
I felt really good after this session, and it’s going to be interesting to see if it will help boost my deadlift up a little bit. To be continued………
4. While at the seminar I was able to catch up with a lot of friends and colleagues whom I haven’t seen in a while, but it was also nice to have a lot of new faces introduce themselves to me and know that people actually read my stuff. Surprisingly, one question that I was asked quite a bit was: “how do you write/blog so much?”
Truthfully: I’m just uncannily awesome, witty, and intelligent. But all kidding a side (even though I’m not kidding), I just make it a priority. As it stands now, I generally get up anywhere between 5-6 AM every morning to do work before I go to work. Generally speaking, I arrive to the facility around 10 AM every day, so getting up earlier in the morning allows me a few hours to catch up on programming, emails, reading, and blogging.
Even talking with Jim “Smitty” Smith over the weekend, puts things into perspective: he said that he stays up till 1-2 AM every night doing work. And this is AFTER coaching all day.
So, again, it comes down to priorities. Do you want to write or watch Amercan Idol?
5. Cressey Performance athletes have been getting a lot press recently.
HERE is a nice piece on both Omri Geva and Micah Goldberg as they attempt to re-build and eventually represent Israel in the Winter Olympics in the 2-man and 4-man bobsled team.
And HERE is a great feature on CP athlete, Tim Collins, as he makes a bid to earn a spot on the Kansas City Royals roster this spring. It’s a really great story, and Tim deserves all the success coming his way.
6. For all of you Born to Run fans out there (and I’m one of them, too), I watched a really great presentation in between slices of pizza yesterday by author, Christopher McDougall titled “Are We Born to Run?”. The guy is obviously a fantastic writer, but he’s also a very engaging speaker as well:
7. And lastly, as many of you know, I like to read, but one of the things that I regret most when I look back at mistakes I made as a trainer, is not reading more books on personal development. As it stands now, whenever I get emails from upcoming trainers asking me for advice, I tell them that for every book they read on blasting the biceps, they should also read a book on personal development/psychology/business.
To that end, I started another really fascinating book titled Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely.
Why do we make certain decsions despite knowing better? I’m only about half way through, but this is easily one of the most interesting books I’ve read in a while. For those geeks out there that like behavorial economics, this book is legit.
Comments for This Entry
Smitty
great seeing you this weekend bro.February 7, 2011 at 7:26 am |
Rafe
I always heard that line with reference to football players -- "Looks like Tarzan, hits like Jane."February 7, 2011 at 7:31 am |
R Smith
Tony's blog read: check. Day can officially begin. I'm soooo NOT kidding.February 7, 2011 at 8:04 am |
Michael Roussell
Tony, Make sure to check out Dan's follow up book 'The Upside of Irrationality" really good as well (I liked it better). The VW commercial was the best! -MikeFebruary 7, 2011 at 8:04 am |
Ernie OMalley
Hey, really looking forward to here more about what you learned at Michael Boyle's. Read Dan Ariely's book a while ago and was also very overwhelmed by the stuff he talks about. Really interesting, as I never read about such things normally as a scientist. Well worth reading!February 7, 2011 at 8:10 am |
Chris
@ "Born to Run" - Awesome presentation, thanks for sharing. If we were "persistence hunters" where did the fast twitch dominant body types originate from? I sure wasn't born to run for more than a few seconds. I don't believe we have had enough to time to evolve from the persistant hunter model?February 7, 2011 at 10:25 am |
nock
Tony, I know you don't know me personally but I faithfully read your blog everyday and has been doing it for the last year or so. Keep it up and thank you for all the hard work.February 7, 2011 at 11:13 am |
Tony Gentilcore
@ Roussell: Dude, we haven't talked in ages - glad to see you stop by! Definitely going to check out Ariely's other back once I'm done with this one. @ Nock: Thanks! Very much appreciated.February 7, 2011 at 11:32 am |
Jose Silva
Ariely's Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality are great books. Many of the insights in there help not just the business side but also the personal side and the training (how to frame gains from exercise to maximize the motivational effect of "relativity," for example.)February 7, 2011 at 6:12 pm |