January Archives

is kidding themselves.  Or, most likely, has never really lifted anything other than pink dumbbells or their remote control.   Not too long ago, one of my female clients told me an awesome story where she was finishing up her training session at her other gym, when some older gentleman (hello Creepy McCreepypants!) approached her and said something along the lines of:

I notice you working really hard, and was wondering what program you’re following?

When my client showed him her sheet, he then asked:

This looks great, but uh, where’s the cardio?

Meanwhile, my client was literally hunched over, hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath after having completed a “finisher” of overhead med ball stomps paired with spiderman push-ups – for ten minutes.  Without stopping.

She got a good chuckle out of that one, and I certainly can’t blame her.  Similarly, I’m always amused whenever someone asks me how much “cardio” I do on any given week, and I see their reaction when I tell them zero, zip, nada, none.

People are often left dumbfounded when I tell them I never do any “cardio.”  Of course, this isn’t to say that I never get my heart rate elevated, which, speaking technicaly, is what “cardio” really is (i.e., anything that elevates your heart rate).  I elevate my heart rate all the time.  Just the other day, for instance, I performed a set of ten reps with 510 lbs on the trap bar deadlift, and afterwards I felt like my left ventricle was going destroy the back of it’s pants.

I challenge anyone to tell me that that isn’t cardio.  It’s not aerobic (a sustained elevated heart rate), but it is cardio.

Even still, and this is just the strength coach in me talking, I feel that “cardio” is drastically over-emphasized in today’s society.  Now, before everyone starts reaching for their pitchfork, hear me out.  I am not in any way saying that including some direct cardiovascular training is wrong, or a waste of time – it’s obviously a component of a well-rounded program.

All I’m saying is that I feel it’s waaaaaaay over-emphasized, and that people have no idea what the term “cardio” really means –  as if all that “BRISK” incline wallking you see many people do on the treadmill six times per week while they watch The Price is Right (or Grey’s Anatomy, depending on the time of day) is somehow superior to placing a barbell on their back and squatting it.

Please.

Again, I AM NOT saying that traditional cardio is bad, or dumb, or shouldn’t be included in a program.  If anything, I just want people to understand that lifting weights can be “cardio” in nature, too!  You don’t have to be on a treadmill, or stair-master, or ellptical trainer for 45 minutes a day, 4-5-6 days per week, hating life, contemplating Sepuku, in order to get a cardiovascular benefit.  I know I just rocked someone’s world out there, but it’s true.

So, to summarize:

1.  Older guys who admit to “watching you,” is downright creepy.  Nuff said.

2.  Anything that elevates your heart rate is technically “cardio.”  Taking it a step further,  I think it’s the semantics that people often get confused on.  There’s a difference between “cardio” (elevated heart rate) and aerobic (a SUSTAINED elevated heart rate).  As Alwyn Cosgrove has noted on several occasions:

“Everything that’s aerobic is cardiovascular, but not everything that’s cardiovascular is aerobic.”

3.  Who’s getting a gold star for pulling 510 lbs for ten reps?  I AM, that’s who.

4.  Traditional cardio is important – no doubt about it – but if we’re honest with outselves, I think most would agree with me that it’s over-emphasized.

5.  Donna Feldman is hot.

*Cue Mrs. Doubtfire voice*

Well, heeeeeellllllllloooooooo.

*Cue end of Mrs. Doubtfire voice.*  And note to self:  never do that again.  Ever!

Welcome to the new site!  So yeah, after a few months of development, this is what the end result is.  First and foremost I have to give credit where credit is due and just say thank you to Jason Lengstorf and his crew at Copter Labs for doing such an awesome job.  Believe me, I was completely and utterly out of my element with all the CMS conversion talk, WP browser checks, PSD to HTLM jibberish, integrated flux capacitors, and what have you.  Jason was more than professional, and I really can’t thank him enough other than to wholeheartedly recommend his services to anyone reading.

Now, on to the website itself:  a brief tour if you will.  First and foremost, the content and overall tone is going to stay exactly the same.  Which is to say, I’ll continue to mix content demonstrating how smart I am with fart jokes and pics of hot girls being hot.

In addition, and I think this goes without saying, there are still a few things (aesthetically speaking) that need to be fixed.  For example, you see all those boxes to the left of each blog post with the letters TG in them?  Well, from now on those will contain a picture – much like the one from today (it worked!).  Considering I have well over 600 posts on this site, I highly doubt I’ll go through and fill them all in, but you never know.

As well, many of the tabs above (About Tony, Services, Resources, Testimonials, etc) will also be tweaked here and there as the days (weeks) go by.

Blog:  is the blog itself.  Self explanatory

About Tony:  again, self explanatory – but I’ll be updating this section shortly.  Most notably, I need to go into more detail on why I like long walks on the beach and butterfly kisses.

Services:  explains – in brief detail – the services I offer.

Resources: this serves as a great starting point for anyone interested in what I feel are the best websites, books, manuals, dvds, etc in the fitness industry.  I’m constantly updating this section, and I’m currently in the process of adding pictures of each product.  Go me!

Articles:  iinks to every article I’ve written.

Testimony:  hear what other people have to say about me.  The good, the bad, and the ugly.  But mostly good.  Okay, it’s all good.

Contact me:  Especially you – Alicia Keys.

You’ll also notice that to the left of each post there are links to social media (Facebook, Twitter, Stumble Upon, Feedburner) – please, please, please, with (dark) chocolate covered (organic) strawberries on top, feel free to share posts that you like with your friends, family, and/or significant others.  While the site has grown a lot in the past year, I’d really love to see it grow even more.  And, it can only do so through the support of all of you who stop by and read it on a daily basis.   So, spread the word!

At the bottom of the homepage, “we” included links to MY social media (me, me and ME).  You can find me on Facebook (hi!), as well as Twitter, and you can also peruse updated pictures I post on Flickr (I need to remember to take more pics at the facility).

Additionally, on the bottom right-hand side, a random video from my Youtube page will pop up where you can view videos of me demonstrating exercises or just view various athletes and clients and CP being badass.  I’m toying with the idea of doing more ‘how-to’ or tutorial videos, so when that happens, this is the section where you’ll be able to view them.

And that, kids, is all she wrote.  So, what do you think?  Feel free to chime in below – I definitely want to hear what you all have to say!

In any given month, I’d say I get at least 1-2 emails from people asking me if I’d be willing to promote their fitness-information product. As you can imagine, much of what is sent my way I’d rather use as toilet paper; or a coaster for my coffee table at best. They’re poorly written, sloppy, and to be perfectly honest, it’s pretty clear what the author’s intentions were/are: to make a quick buck.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that the underlying rationale to sell something is to make a profit – I wasn’t a Sports Management major for one semester for nothing people! But to say that 75% of what’s produced in the fitness community is about as useful as a ham sandwich at a Barmitzvah, would be an understatement.

Every now and then, however, I come across a product that I’m more than willing to endorse. My checklist (if you will) of whether or not I’ll do so is as follows:

1. Does said individual(s) actually train people? As in, do they have regular human interaction with other human beings and train them in person? Call me cynical, but in an age where ANYONE with a Youtube page and a digital camera can consider themselves a “guru,” I’m pretty diligent with filtering out the stupid.

2. Is the product actually going to help people? Granted this is only my personal opinion, but I’ve come to realize that when someone’s main objective is to INFORM and help people, the quality of the product is infinitely better.

3. Do I know you? I don’t mean personally, but it stands to reason that if I don’t know you or have never corresponded with you, or have never even heard of you, I probably won’t endorse your shitty e-book.

4. While not quite as important as the first three (except that it is), does it have a picture of an attractive female on the cover? Preferably Vida Guerra? Preferably Vida Guerra In a blue, zebra-stripped bikini?

Sold!

All kidding a side, with the release of their new and improved Lean Hybrid Muscle Reloaded manual next week, both strength coaches, Mike Westerdal and Elliot Hulse are sharing a pretty sweet (and FREE) PDF titled The Muscle Shifting Doctrine to help give people a better idea of what it takes to build a strong and lean physique. And trust me, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The Muscle Shifting Doctrine —–<<< FREE Report

I’ll be chiming in later this week with some more info, but suffice it to say, it’s a top-notch product loaded with tons of great information by two guys who know what they’re talking about. Heck, I may even take a video of myself going through one of the conditioning circuits: BRUTAL! In the meantime, though, be sure to check out the free report HERE.

I just realized that I haven’t done one of these in a while, so I figured I’d take today and ramble a bit.

1. Website update: I know I’ve been saying this for a while now, but the new website is literally right around the corner. Jason Lengstorf and his staff at Copter Labs have been doing a fantastic job designing what should be, pretty much the best website ever created. We’ve had a few monkey wrenches thrown our way (mainly because I’m about as organized as Eric Cressey’s desk) , but the new site should go live sometime this week barring any major catastrophe.

Stay tuned……

2. I love watching our athletes kicking ass and taking names. Take Becca, for instance. Becca’s a sophomore pitcher at Lincoln-Sudbury high school, and she’s been training at Cressey Performance for about a year and a half now, and has gained quite the reputation. As a matter of fact, some of our older female clients joke about scheduling their training sessions around whenever Becca will be in so that they can watch her train! Totally not kidding.

And while she’s probably going to give me the look of death for saying anything, Becca recently made an 18 and Under GOLD team coached by former USA and Olympic coach, Ralph Raymond. She’ll be competing against girls who are upwards of two years older than she is, and I have no doubts that she’ll hold her own. Congrats Becca!

3. And speaking of bad-assery – check this out.

I passed the ETK man among men test for lady comrades tonight!! I did the 200 snatches with the 12kg in 9:37, and that included a 0:25 break at the halfway point to gasp a little (or maybe more than a little). For the quarter-body weight press test, I used my pre-pregnancy weight as the measuring stick and pushed the 16kg no problem. Just for grins I tried the quarter of my pregnancy weight push at the 20kg and got the right arm up no problem and the left up kinda ugly. But I count the 16kg as the real test. Not bad for 35 weeks!

That’s one of my distance coaching clients, Laura M, basically taking a massive dump on any person who’s ever said that women shouldn’t train during their pregnancy because “it’s too dangerous.” HA!

4. Just a little FYI for those who are interested in nutritional consultations. Former CP nutrition guru, Brian St. Pierre, is currently having a 20% off special that runs through the end of THIS week (January 31st). As someone who has worked with Brian and knows his style, I can say that he definitely separates himself from the masses. For more information, click HERE.

5. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted someone to feel what it’s like to be un-conscious more than this guy:

I can look past the fact that every video he does he has his shirt off – whatever. What really drives me bat-shit crazy is the fact that he (and everyone who defends him) thinks that he actually squatted 225 that many times.

I love how all these people defending him in the comments section are saying that all you need to do is get to parallel and it counts. Sure, I’d agree. But he doesn’t even reach parallel on any rep. Not even once. By my calculation, if you added up the total ROM of every rep he did, you’d get, I don’t know, retarded six.

6. It’s negative two degrees outside right now, and there’s talk of yet another storm hitting us in the middle of the week. That would make FOUR storms in the past three weeks. How many more weeks until Spring again????

7. If you like quirky comedies like me (think Rushmore or The Royal Tenenbaums), than you’ll definitely want to check out Cyrus:

I’ve always been a big fan of John C. Reilly and it goes without saying that there’s usually a 50/50 chance that Marisa Tomei will end up getting naked in any movie she’s in. Alas, while she doesn’t get naked, this was definitely a great movie to watch. Fair warming, though – while this is a comedy, it’s not The Hangover. It’s a bit of zany storyline (yes, I just used the word zany), and it definitely takes a while to get going, but it’s different, and doesn’t suck. And I can dig that. Check it out if you get a chance.

Ask anyone who knows me well enough what some of my biggest pet peeves are, and you’ll undoubtedly hear things like:

• People who talk or text during a movie.
• People who honk their horn within 1/16^th of a second of the traffic light turning green.
• People who knowingly go through the express line at the grocery store even though they clearly have more than seven items in the their cart.
• Keanu Reeves.

Throw me into a commercial gym setting, however, and you’re bound to see that list grow exponentially. Admittedly, I live in a strength and conditioning bubble where I and the rest of the Cressey Performance staff are able to control everything that’s either pressed, thrown, hoisted, or lifted under our watch.

Every now and then though – whether it’s because of travel, or I just happen to have a day off from work and am unable to make it to the facility – I’ll make a cameo appearance at a local commercial gym.

Not surprisingly, I immediately get tons of great material for article ideas (like this one), not to mention I have to fight the urge to gouge my eyeballs out with a safety pin to save myself from my own personal hell.

Continue Reading………..

Q: Ok, let me have it. My Mom asked me about these new Ensure over 40 shakes promising to help regain muscle. Total BS?

Protein looks low to me and I’m sure they add all kinds of unnecessary crap to them. Having said that, even my many attempts at “see how easy it is to make virtually the same thing you’re buying in that microwavable package, only so much better” have come up short.

So assume convincing her to use protein powder and fresh or frozen fruits and veggies tossed in a magic bullet is a long shot – she’s more likely to grab something like this and drink it if handy. Thoughts?

A: I’m totally calling BS, and this is exactly the type of foo-foo, magic pill nonsense that drives me up the wall.

For starters, click HERE for the press release/smoke and mirrors show. A few things to note:

Claim: Clinical research shows that starting at the age of 40, people can start to lose eight percent of muscle mass per decade, which can lead to loss of strength and mobility.

Why They’re Idiots: Clinical research also shows that those who are physically active – even after the age of 40 – DO NOT lose upwards of eight percent of muscle mass per decade; or, at the very least, the incidence of muscle loss is vastly reduced.

Claim: When diet and exercise aren’t enough, Ensure Muscle Health shakes support muscle health with (insert obligatory proprietary blend here), and 13 grams of protein to help rebuild muscle lost naturally over time.

Why They’re Idiots: Uh, you can’t just make muscle out of thin air. What’s more, just because you ingest 13 grams of protein doesn’t mean the body is just going to get diesel. Sure, taking in adequate protein IS important to help maintain muscle mass, but you’re not just going to ADD muscle by drinking a protein shake. With regards to bone and “muscle health” you need what’s called a Minimal Essential Strain (EMS) in order to elicit a response from the body.

You want to keep muscle mass (not to mention build stronger bones)? Lift some (appreciable) weights. What makes muscle, keeps muscle. I’m not saying that everyone has to go out and put 300 lbs on their back or toss around some Atlas stones (although that would be pretty cool), but it stands to reason that those 10 lb pink dumbbells and water aerobics classes aren’t going to cut it.

Claim: Revigor (that sounds tasty) is a source of HMB, a naturally-occurring amino acid metabolite found in foods such as catfish and avocados. I helps protect muscle cells, preserve muscle tissue, and promote muscle growth.

Why I Need to Fight the Urge to Wash My Face With Broken Glass:

If I wanted to get geeky about it, I could drop a Davis’s Law and Wolff’s Law reference into the mix, which state, among other things, that soft tissue (muscle) and bone will adapt to the loads it is placed under.

Similarly, my good friend Bret Contreras had a really great quote the other day in an article he wrote:

Strong evidence suggests that the results you see in the gym are highly dependent on the efficacy of satellite cell-mediated myonuclear addition. In laymen’s terms, your muscles won’t grow unless the satellite cells surrounding your muscle fibers donate their nuclei to your muscles so they can produce more genetic material to signal the cells to grow.

In short, you need to lift things off the ground in order to make (and maintain) muscle. A simple shake won’t do the job.

Claim: Both new Ensure shakes are an excellent source of 24 essential vitamins and minerals and are low in saturated fat and cholesterol.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh: First of all, who says saturated fat and cholesterol are bad for you? Saturated fat is actually vital in terms of making just about every hormone in the body, not to mention allows us to absorb fat-soluble vitamins such as A, D, E, and K. Second of all, it’s pretty well established in the literature that dietary cholesterol has little (if any) effect on serum cholesterol levels. But whatever.

More importantly, however, are the ingredients. Okay, cool, each shake provides 24 “essential vitamins and minerals.” Here’s what else it provides:

WATER, SUGAR (SUCROSE), CORN MALTODEXTRIN, SODIUM CASEINATE, MILK PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, SOY OIL, SOY PROTEIN ISOLATE, CORN OIL, COCOA POWDER (PROCESSED WITH ALKALI), POTASSIUM CITRATE, CALCIUM BETA-HYDROXY-BETA-METHYLBUTYRATE, CANOLA OIL; LESS THAN 0.5% OF: WHEY PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, MAGNESIUM PHOSPHATE, CELLULOSE GEL, SOY LECHITHIN, SODIUM PHOSPHATE, ARTIFICIAL FLAVORS, POTASSIUM PHOSPHATE, POTASSIUM CHLORIDE, CHOLINE CHLORIDE, ASCORBIC ACID, CALCIUM CARBONATE, CELLULOSE GUM, CARRAGEENAN, SALT (SODIUM CHLORIDE), DL-ALPHA-TOCOPHERYL ACETATE, FERRIC PHOSPHATE, GELLAN GUM, ZINC SULFATE, NIACINAMIDE, CALCIUM PANTOTHENATE, MANGANESE SULFATE, CUPRIC SULFATE, VITAMIN A PALMITATE, THIAMINE CHLORIDE HYDROCHLORIDE, PYRIDOXINE HYDROCHLORIDE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID, CHROMIUM CHLORIDE, BIOTIN, SODIUM MOLYBDATE, SODIUM SELENATE, POTASSIUM IODIDE, PHYLLOQUINONE, CYANOCOBALAMIN AND VITAMIN D₃

Is that a shake or a chemistry experiment. Scrumptious!!!!

At the end of the day, is it really that big of a deal that she drinks the shake? No. I understand that they’re convenient and that they’re are worse things she could be drinking (I think). All I’m saying is that people need to be cognizant of the outrageous claims that some of these products spew out. Besides a simple glass of milk is waaaaaaay cheaper.

There are NO magic pills out there. To say that by drinking this shake alone you’ll add muscle is like me saying “I’m going to do these bicep curls and Jessica Alba will want to make out with me.”

See! I can make outrageous claims, too!

Well, I’m back in Boston! We had a bit of a scramble to make it back – first flight was canceled, second flight (with a different airline) was delayed an hour and a half – but both Lisa and I made it home in one piece last night around 1:30 in the morning.

Needless to say, I feel like I got run over by a mack truck. And, BIG SURPRISE, it’s snowing like a bastard right now. Great. In any case, for those that might have missed it, I posted a quick blog yesterday highlighting a few things from my trip to Texas. You can check it out HERE.

Also, today I’m going to post part II of Dean Somerset’s post on assessing lumbar function. For a quick refresher on part I, click HERE.

How to Assess Lumbar Function Part II

Welcome back peeps! In part one, I discussed some of the basic things I look for when assessing clients who come to me demonstrating some form of lower back dysfunction/pain. Today I want to use a real life case study to help you better understand the entire process.

Take an example of Phil, one of my low back clients. He came in almost doubled over with back pain a few months ago. He’d trained with me a few years earlier, and for whatever reason decided to stop for a little while (kids, getting a PhD, work, all BS excuses in my opinion).

Phil plays indoor soccer quite regularly, but coupled with a full-time course load for a PhD in engineering and a job that left him in front of a computer for hours a day meant he was destined for something bad.

During one game he went for a slide tackle, and felt something give. He walked it off, kept playing (slowly), and was barely able to walk the next day. He called me up to see if there was anything I could do or any recommendations I had for him.

When I checked him out, he had a noticeable spinal hinge at L3-5, where the vertebrae were moving too much at one section and not enough at the others.

There were no tender points or spastic dysfunctions that would indicate anything seriously injured or a disc problem that would make me think me couldn’t do a little moving around that day. I figured his hips were great, except in internal rotation. His shoulders moved okay, but he was limited with left flexion and internal rotation on both sides (probably from being doubled over). He had no trouble with flexion as far as pain goes, but hey, check out the pic above.

He had pain with active extension, loved passive extension, couldn’t do rotation, and had difficulty with left lateral flexion. I had him do a prone McKenzie posture for about 5 minutes, took him through some light spinal stability work in both prone and supine to get his abs going again (think: plank variations and stability ball dead bugs), and worked on an active straight leg raise with him from a supported position to make sure he didn’t torque the lumbar spine. After about 10 minutes of work, his back looked like this.

The hinge is almost gone!!! I sent him to his doctor to get a check-up and imaging if needed. The next day he said he felt 90% comparatively. After his images came back negative, we trained for another two weeks, and his back then looked like this

No intervertebral hinge, and the presence of any pain throughout the day was limited to early mornings, and was downgraded from a 8/10 all the time to a 1-2/10 for the first hour.

The quality of movement in all assessed directions went through the roof, none presented any pain. In total it took three sessions, no “treatments,” just teaching his body how to move again.

A lot of back pain can be directly attributed to mechanical strain and dysfunctional movement qualities, or in layman’s terms, “movement stupidity.” Posture, repetitive strain and deconditioning are the biggest culprits, so correcting posture, increasing core strength, and correcting movement patterns will normally fix the majority of back pain any client will feel.

TG Note: which is why, folks, you can’t always rely on MRIs to tell you jack squat. As I’ve noted in the past, 82% of you reading this post now have a disk bulge at one level. Taking it a step further, 38% of you have a disk bulge at TWO levels. Yet, I’m sure the majority of you are asymptomatic right now. Looking at your MRI, however, it’s a wonder you’re even walking!

(steps off soap box)

Obviously get them checked out to make sure they don’t have something funky going on like a disc problem, arthritis, or something really cool I’ve never heard of before.

Hopefully this little guest post has helped clear up some thoughts on how to assess lumbar function without getting too in depth into the specific anatomical considerations, but I wanted to touch on a basic overview of a system I have used with close to a thousand individuals with back pain.

I talk a lot about back pain and ways to correct it on my blog, so if you’re ever interested, swing by and check it out HERE. And a big thanks to Tony for letting me post up my thoughts here. Next time, an extra ticket somewhere warm would be a better option though. No? Just checking. I gotta get outta here, it snowed 18 inches in 2 days and I have to shovel for another three hours. God I hate winter.