You could say I like to write about deadlifts. Well that, and zombies. Or zombies fighting ninjas. Or how adorable my cat is, which has nothing to do with zombies.
Oh, and speaking of cats……cats vs. zombies.
But mostly I like to write about deadlifts.1
In my latest article that went up on T-Nation today, I break down 13 quick-n-dirty tips that many people can incorporate TODAY and see immediate improvement in their lift.
Check it out and let me know what you think.
If you were to tell me ten (0r even five) years ago that I’d see my name plastered on a t-shirt as some sort of “brand,” I would have laughed at you.
“Yeah, right” I would have said back then. “What’s next, lightsabers are real? Donald Trump will be considered a viable presidential candidate?”
And here were are, in 2016, my name is plastered on a t-shirt and Donald Trump is considered a viable presidential candidate.2
For those who want to skip the foreplay, you can go HERE to order your fancy schmancy TG apparel.
For those looking to be wined and dined a bit more and seduced with a little word play and backstory, continue reading….
To be fully transparent: there’s still a small part of me who feels like an impostor, a fitness industry fraud. Who am I to put my name in a t-shirt?
I graduated college in 2002 with a degree in Health Education and was lucky enough to find an internship at a local corporate gym that summer.
For eight weeks I was an intern.
I opened the gym some days, and closed it on others. I worked long hours and felt woefully unprepared the entire time. I remember when I was handed my first “client” and felt like crawling into a corner and hyperventilating into a paper bag.
That internship led to a full-time job, which then led to several simultaneous part-time gigs as a personal trainer in local commercial gyms.
I did that rigmarole for three years.
And then I met some guy named Eric Cressey and we immediately became good friends. I ended up leaving central NY and moved to CT where Eric encouraged me to interview at a gym where he was hired out of grad school.
We worked together for a year and through a series of events decided to move to Boston in the Fall of 2006. It was during this time when I started dabbling in fitness writing. I wasn’t any good then (some may argue I’m no good now), but seeing my first article published on T-Nation was an amazing feeling.3
It wasn’t long after moving to Boston and getting a job at a swanky downtown establishment that an opportunity arose to write a fitness blog for the Boston Herald.
Some of you reading may remember the Step-Up blog. If you do….my sincerest “thank you” for sticking around. I owe you a steak dinner or something.
In the summer of 2007 Eric, myself, and Pete Dupuis opened up Cressey Sports Performance. The rest, as they say, is history.
Since it’s infancy, CSP has grown into one of the most recognizable and respected training facilities in North America (if not the world).
And up until a few months ago, that’s where I happily resided in my little strength and conditioning bubble.
It’s where “the magic happened.”
Yes I was (and am) a co-founder, but as far as the ‘business’ was concerned my main role was to serve as an ambassador for the CSP brand. To help build an army of deadlifting Terminators and 95 MPH baseball throwing assassins.
On the side, however, I was given free-reign to build my own brand underneath the CSP umbrella; to try to make Tony Gentilcore a thing.
I had hoped.
I transitioned my blog on the Boston Herald to my own website and continued to hammer away at building that. The more I wrote, the more I started getting inquires from the likes of T-Nation, Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Men’s Fitness, and various other sites and magazines.
Mind you: this was all happening 5-6 YEARS into my career.
I’m now 14 years into my career, and finally feel accomplished enough to have a t-shirt.
It’s a lesson I wish more fitness professionals would understand – particularly those just starting out. Many are more enamored with building a brand before building anything.
I’ve seen some trainers who have been training people for less than six-months writing ebooks on how to train people. Worse still, I’ve witnessed some people act as consultants on how to build a successful fitness business, yet don’t run a business.
Let alone a successful one.
And don’t even get me started on Insta-celebrities:
Then again, I’m not the one with millions of followers. FML.
Impostor Syndrome (source Wikipedia):
“Also known as impostor phenomenon or fraud syndrome) is a term coined in 1978 by clinical psychologists Dr. Pauline R. Clance and Suzanne A. Imes referring to high-achieving individuals marked by an inability to internalize their accomplishments and a persistent fear of being exposed as “fraud”. Despite external evidence of their competence, those exhibiting the syndrome remain convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have achieved.”
I know it’s my own stupid negative self-talk talking, but when people place my name amongst many of the elite coaches in the industry (Mike Boyle, Dan John, Robert dos Remedios, Gray Cook, EC, Mike Robertson, Bret Contreras, Mr. Miyagi, to name a few) I can’t help but revert back to when I was handed my first client back in 2002, and feel woefully ill-prepared and ill-suited to accept such claims.
I mean, these are coaches who I still learn from, who I still feel indebted to for making me better. Who have numerous gyms, products, and speaking tours amongst them.
And now people are inferring I’m on the same level or on par with them? Pfffft, maybe if you gave me a +47 handicap.
Okay, that’s enough: I know I’m good. I know I’ve helped a lot of people. I feel I’ve done things the right way. I don’t think I’ve made many enemies. And I’ve stayed in my lane.
I’ve written over 1,700 blog posts, countless articles, and have coached innumerable athletes throughout the years. The past few months, since leaving CSP and venturing off on my own, have been equal parts amazing and scary as balls.
I don’t even know what “scary as balls means,” but for the sake of argument lets say it’s somewhere in between Indiana Jones in a snake pit and watching an episode of The Biggest Loser.
As a good friend told me last year:
“There’s a reason who’ve worked so hard to build your own brand the last 10+ years. You’re going to be okay. People want to listen to and support you”
First off: props to Nor East Apparel for their amazing work in getting this t-shirt design made.
I’ll be selling t-shirts directly at the studio, but I’ve also partnered with the site TheLoyalist.com who will be handling both domestic and international orders.
Basically, you go HERE and:
THANK YOU, everyone, for all your support throughout the years. None of this would be possible without your continued readership.
NOTE: Whether you’re breaking PRs, hanging at home, or out fighting crime, be sure to post pics via social media of you wearing your TG apparel. I’d love to see it!
Happy House of Cards Day!
Earlier this week I reminded my wife that season 4 of House of Cards came out on Netflix on Friday (today), and to say she was a wee bit excited would be an understatement.
On Wednesday she was like, “I can not WAIT for House of Cards weekend.”
That’s more or less going to be our weekend this weekend. Binge watching the shit out of HoC.
I picked out which pair of sweatpants I’m going to wear and Lisa picked out her bottle of wine. Who says romance is dead?
On that note, lets jump into this week’s list of stuff to read.
Quick Reminder: SEATTLE – there are spots still available for mine and Dean Somerset’s Complete Hip and Shoulder Workshop at Vigor Ground & Fitness Performance on April 9-10th. Go HERE for more details.
I’ll just quote myself from the Tweet I made the other day:
“This article made me sexually excited.”
This article is why Bryan is one of my favorite writers. Not just fitness writers…I mean, WRITERS.
There’s no talk of drop sets, biceps, or how everyone should eat Paleo in this article. Just some damn fine writing on a heart-wrenching topic.
TODAY (3/4) is the last day to take advantage of the initial sale price (50% off) on Complete Jumps Training by strength coach, and guy I hate because I can’t jump as high as him, Adam Feit
Simply put…
If you are looking for a blueprint for jump training that you can add immediately to your own sports training program to make your athletes more explosive, then I recommend you check out Complete Jumps Training.
No BS and no stupid ankle weights. Just smart, intelligent, well-thought out progressions to make you and your athletes beasts. Go HERE for more info.
I was invited onto the Legendary Life Podcast hosted by Ted Ryce recently.
It was an awesome experience and Ted is one of the greats when it comes to interviewing and producing a highly entertaining podcast.
But I can’t help but ask: Me? Legendary?
I can understand if I hit the winning home run in Game 7 of the World Series, or, I don’t know, somehow beat Jason Bourne in a fist-fight.
That’s legendary.
Then again, I did clean my cat’s litter box this morning and washed the dishes. Soooooooo, I’m pretty much Batman.
The warm-up.
Lets be honest: most of you reading either skip it altogether or discreetly brush it to the side as something you know you should be doing, but, you know, don’t.
I’m not here to judge. I do it too.
I don’t feel I need to sit here like an overbearing parent and type out all the reasons why you should be doing a thorough warm-up prior to training. But I will anyways.
A warm-up:
All that said – and despite many, many, MANY – smart people telling us how important it is…people still tend to skimp on their warm-up.
NOTE: HERE is an article I wrote a few years ago on “The Perfect Warm-Up?” As well as THIS one I wrote for STACK.
This video was part of the article linked to above. I only post it NOW for Eric Cressey’s EPIC video-bomb. Wait for it…..
Long story short: including a warm-up prior to training is a smart use of training time, will help to offset many of the poor sitting (and standing) positions we tend to be stuck in on a daily basis, and it only takes maybe 10 minutes.
DO IT!
So now that we’ve established that you’re not going to warm-up, lets discuss the concept of the over warm-up, a term popularized by strength coach and powerlifter Paul Carter.
You’re TOTALLY going to be down for this…so keep reading!
For any uppity strength and conditioning snobs reading this can also, technically, be referred to as Post-Activation Potentiation.
Rather than attempt to define what Post-Activation Potentiation (PAP) is, I’ll defer to Bret Contreras:
“PAP is a phenomena by which muscular performance characteristics are acutely enhanced as a result of their contractile history. The underlying principle surrounding PAP is that heavy loading prior to explosive activity induces a high degree of CNS stimulation which results in greater motor unit recruitment lasting anywhere from five to thirty minutes.”
Traditionally, PAP is performed by utilizing a close to max-effort lift (think: bench press, squat, deadlift, arm wrestling a Terminator) followed suit with an explosive activity with the same “pattern” (think: medicine ball throw, vertical jump, 10-40 yd sprint, high-tailing it to local florist when you forget it’s your anniversary).
To take advantage of the phenomena most strength coaches agree that PAP is best utilized using the “lift something heavy then perform a similar explosive movement after” approach.
NOTE: I’d encourage you to read Bret Contreras’s full article HERE on PAP if you really want to dive into the nitty-gritty stuff.
However, for strength purposes I’ve found using a similar approach useful. Essentially you’ll take your “main” movement of the day – squat, bench press, deadlift – and extend your warm-up/build-up sets so that you work above your intended, scheduled work load.
So, for example, lets say you’re performing squats today and your program calls for 4×4 @ 75% of your 1RM. For the sake of argument lets say your 1RM is 350 lbs.
1) 75% of 350 = 262 lbs (rounded up to 265).
2) A traditional warm-up may look like this:
1×8 @ 40% (140 lb)
1×6 @ 50% (175 lb)
1×5 @ 60% (210 lb)
1×2 @ 70% (245 lb)
4×4@ 75% (265 lb)
3) The OVER warm-up will look like this:
1×8 @ 40% (140 lb)
1×6 @ 50% (175 lb)
1×5 @ 60% (210 lb)
1×2 @ 70% (245 lb)
1-3×1 @ 80-85% (280-300 lb)
4×4@ 75% (265 lb)
So in this case the objective is to hit a weight above or past the intended work sets to “potentiate” the nervous system, and thus (hopefully) making them feel easier/lighter.
The idea is to ENSURE your “over warm-up weight” is one you KNOW you can crush. Meaning, it’s not close to a 1RM and bar speed should still be, well, speedy.
Something else to consider is that this should only be utilized when you’re using sub-maximal weight with your work sets (60-80% of 1RM). DO NOT attempt this when you know you’re working at percentages higher than that.
I mean, you could…it just (probably) won’t end well.
Also, this isn’t something you’re going to want to perform long-term. Maybe use it for a block (3-6 weeks) and then revert to something else.
Give it a try and let me know what you think.
