*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.
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.
I love reading books like this, which talk extensively on behavioral economics, because a lot of what is discussed (even if it isn’t directly) can be applied to what it is that I do on a daily basis: which is to help people get bigger, faster, stronger, and, if we play our cards right, make the opposite sex want to hang out with them. In short, a lot of what I do is to get people from suck to less sucky.
While the entire book was fantastic, there was one chapter in particular (We Can Walk and Chew Gum – But Not Much Else) that I felt hit the nail on the head with regards to basic human behavior.
I’m sure everyone reading this can relate to a point in time where they started one project, only to be juggling any number of things five minutes later. One minute you’re trying to iron your sweater vest for a classic poetry reading later on that night you’re taking part in to benefit the orphaned kittens foundation, only to be interrupted by a phone call from your girlfriend asking if you could pick up some milk, blah blah blah, OMG, you have to check this out!11!11!!1
Next thing you know, that sweater vest is completely ruined because you left the iron on if for too long!
You pickin up what I’m puttin down?
In a nutshell, we’re forgetful. That switching from task to task causes us to forget what we were working on in the first place; in some cases, the forgetting rate can be as high as 40%.
Additionally, using car safety as an example; driver distraction is now considered a much more frequent cause of auto accidents that safety officials once believed. One estimate, as noted by the author, found that in about 78% of crashes, and 65% of near crashes, the drivers were either looking away or engaging in some secondary task: text messaging, fiddling with stereo, etc. What’s more, it doesn’t take much to distract a driver. A two-second glance doubles the risk of an accident.
And, speaking of being distracted:
Okay, I actually have a point to all of this. Knowing what we know above (switching tasks numerous times increases our likelihood to forget things, not to mention increases our affinity to be distracted): why, then, do we think we can get away with switching our goals on a month to month basis? Nothing frustrates me more than when I’m dealing with a flip-flopper.
You all know what I’m talking about. One month you want to focus on getting stronger. The next month rolls around, and you want to focus on fat-loss. Two weeks later you read an article online that’s supposed to add 17 inches to your biceps in five minutes – you’re all over that!
Should it come as any surprise that many trainees are left frustrated that they’re unable to make any progress? Is it any wonder they’re still weak, skinny-fat, out of shape, and still living in their parent’s basement watching Glee? This is training ADD at it’s finest.
We get so caught up in trying to do EVERYTHING at once, that we often forget our original goal in the first place.
I don’t care if your goal is to deadlift “x” amount of weight, lose 10 lbs of fat, or curl in the squat rack till you vomit in your face; the real key here is, what’s really going to determine whether or not you succeed, isn’t how many different programs you can follow in a year. The answer is real simple: commitment and consistency.
I know many of you have probably heard this before, but the best program is the one you’re actually going to follow.
Take Show and Go, for example. I’ve seen first hand people lose A LOT of fat (not to mention get a heckuva lot stronger) following this program. Why? Because unlike most people who flip-flop back and forth between programs on a month-to-month basis, they actually stick with something in it’s entirety – with Show and Go, we’re talkin four months! When’s the last time you followed the same program for that long? There’s a lot to be said about being consistent.
Just ask my girlfriend.
Babe, you wanna go see The A-Team? Babe, you wanna go see The A-Team? Babe, you wanna go see The A-Team? Babe, you wanna go see The A-Team? Babe, you wanna go see The A-Team? Babe, you wanna go see The A-Team? Babe, you wanna go see The A-Team? Babe, you wanna go see The A-Team? Babe, you wanna go see The A-Team?
So, if I had to summarize this whole post it would be this: pick ONE goal and attack it like a bastard. Don’t flip-flop – you’re just going end up spinning your wheels in the end. As Dan John has said on numerous occasions, “your goal to keep the goal, the goal.” Sounds like a plan to me.
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 1/16th 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.
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:
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.”
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.
Well, I’m still here in Texas still getting ready to head back to Boston and I figured that since I had a few minutes to spare, I’d sit down and hammer out a quick post sharing a few highlights of my trip:
1. The Good News – There was absolutely no reason for Lisa’s dad to pull out his gun. WHEW! Which is a shame, because I really wanted to showcase my Matrix style, bullet-dodging prowess.
Truth be told, I think I made a pretty good impression with Lisa’s family (only dropped one f-bomb!), and I can’t wait to come back and visit more of the state.
2. Texas is big. Nuff said. And, I think I saw more NRA signs and badges in five minutes than I’ve seen in the four+ years I’ve been in Massachusetts combined. What’s more, there’s no state income tax! Pssssst, Eric and Pete, we need to move CP to Texas…….(only slightly kidding).
3. Lisa and I drove to Metroflex Gym in Arlington, TX to get a quick lift in on Saturday morning.
For those who aren’t familiar, Metroflex is known as a hardcore gym that many professional bodybuilders train at, as well as a slew of powerlifters. Most notably, Ronnie Coleman train there. Yeah buddy!
We got directions off their website, and after a quick 20 minute drive, parked in the parking lot, got out of the car, and I immediately heard the “my mother never loved me” music blaring from inside. Right then and there, I knew this was going to be EPIC.
We walked in the front door and were immediately greeted by this ginormous dude who looked like he just got done arm wrestling a bull. I asked if we could get a day pass and he said, “sure, that’ll be $20. The only rules we got is to pick up your shit, and don’t bother any of the pro guys until they’re done training if you want an autograph.”
Easy peezy.
We walked around the corner and immediately noticed the various graffiti on the walls, as well as the numerous pictures (and quotes) from all the famous people who have trained there – in the bodybuilding and powerlifting ranks, anyways.
What was most amusing was that there was a guy literally walking around with a blow torch, welding things back together. Nothing says “hardcore” than some random dude blow torching two barbells together in the middle of the madness. At one point he was like five feet away from Lisa as she was doing one-legged hip thrusters with chains across her waist.
The guy who greeted us at the door was training what looked like an amateur bodybuilder getting ready for a show. I decided that as much as I wanted to jump in on the gun show, I would start with some speed pulls vs. bands. I ended up working up to 405 (5×2), which I felt was acceptable given than I was half the size as everyone else in there.
From there I moved on to some front squats, followed by glute ham raises, and then did some kettlebell swings with Lisa. By the end, both of us felt like we needed a tetanus shot, but it was exactly the type of environment that I’ve grown to appreciate, and that most people reading would benefit from immensely if they could experience it just ONCE! As I’ve stated numerous times before, nothing (and I mean NOTHING) beats a kick-ass training environment.
4. Not surprisingly, it was a total meat fest while down here. And, I’m going to go out on a limb and just say that Texas has THE best BBQ. Ever. No competition. Saturday night, we ordered food from this place called – appropriately enough – Feedstore BBQ; and to say that it was anything other than the best meal I ever had, would be an understatement.
5. I was able to snake a couple free, three-day passes online, so we decided to train at a local commercial gym the last few days we were down here. I don’t know if it has anything to do with what they drink in the water, but I never saw so many people training with partial ranges of motion in my life.
Seemingly, almost every person I saw in the free-weight area was going out of his or her way to NOT train with a full range of motion. Bench presses, overhead presses, curls, squats, you name it, I rarely saw a full ROM.
What’s up with that Texas??????
6. And, finally, you can’t visit Texas and not attend at least one rodeo. As luck would have it, Lisa’s dad and step-mother bought tickets to the Fort Worth Stock Show, and we spent most of the afternoon Sunday walking around looking at horses, cowboys, and this:
I want to eat it!
In addition, as noted above, we attended our first rodeo which was unlike anything I have ever seen. I thought carrying around a chainsaw was manly, but after watching these guys get on the back of a bull (or horse), and risk their lives, I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that nothing I do is as bad-ass as what they do on a nightly basis.
On that note, my girlfriend is giving me the cue that I need to pack so that we can make it to the airport. See you back in Boston!
As I noted earlier in the week, I’m flying down to Texas this weekend with my girlfriend to get away for a few days, and more importantly, to meet her dad (and step-mother) for the first time.
So, um, yeah, the cat’s out of the bag folks: I’m heading down to finally meet Mr. Isweartogodihavenevergottenpast1stbasewithyourdaughterOMGisthatagun this weekend.
Okay all kidding aside, I’m really looking forward to meeting her family. Lisa’s actually been to my hometown a handful times, and after close to a year and a half together, we figured it was high time I make a cameo appearance to meet some of her family as well.
We have a pretty sweet weekend planned: eating lots of dead animal flesh, attending my very first rodeo (no, I’m not wearing cowboy boots*), and just taking in everything Texas has to offer.
And while I have every confidence that Lisa’s dad will find me uncannily witty and charming, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t just a liiiiiiiiiiiiiiitle bit nervous. Of course, the nerves are most likely due to the fact that I like flying about as much as I like passing a kidney stone.
I swear to god if this happens, I’m going to be pissed:
Nevertheless, since I’ll already be in the air when most of you are reading this, I asked my e-brotha from another motha, Dean Somerset (totally stole that from him), to fill in for me while I was gone. Dean’s a very smart dude, and, as luck would have it, has a very similar writing style to myself which I know many of you will appreciate. But lets be abundantly clear, I’m way hotter.
So, without further ado, I’ll let Dean take over from here.
See you next week. I think……..
How to Assess Lumbar Function
So Tony was gracious enough to let me do his job for him do a guest post for his blog today while he’s away lounging it up in sunny Texas. Want to know what I’m doing today?? Freezing my left one off in the middle of a -20F blast of angry Mother Earth hell in Edmonton, Alberta Canada. Who’s getting the shaft on this one? Only Tony could give you the REAL answer, folks. But here I am at any rate, ready to give you all what you’re salivating for: The tricks I use to assess lumbar function!! YEAAAAAAH BABY!!!
So to tell you a little about myself, I’ve been a trainer for the past seven years, and have worked myself into a nice little niche as a post-rehabilitation specialist. Over 90% of my clients are referred from medical sources to deal with injuries, post-surgical recovery, metabolic syndromes, you name it.
I used to be a competitive athlete back in the good old days of neon clothing and high-top fades, but I was more dumb than gifted, and resulted in a lot of injuries to my person. One was a major low back injury that caused me to dislocate my sacroiliac joint, herniated three discs, and tear a few muscles in the process. I still have trouble with the discs occasionally if I’m not careful, but I’m closing in on a 405 deadlift sometime in the next few weeks, so you could say I have a bit of a vested interest in the function of the low back and SI region. I also have a kick-ass blog, which you can check out HERE.
So let’s get down to business. When I have someone come into me with any type of non-disclosed mechanical low back pain, (meaning they have been checked out by their doctor, nothing found on their X-rays, and were found to essentially have a muscle imbalance or movement impairment) I follow a pretty set pattern in what I go through and look at.
Before we start moving around, though, I HAVE to ask them about lifestyle and nutrition, as those play as big a role in back health as anything. If they’re spending 20 hours a day in front of a computer, move as much as a glacier, and eat like a crackhead, there’s a lot of room to improve.
Note from TG: See!! He’s w whipper snapper this one. HA!
Water is the first thing I could recommend to anyone with any type of low back pain. Dehydration, even as little as 1%, can reduce the disc height to a stage of impairment, which can lead to degeneration and pain, so pound a litre or two and you’ll feel like a champ.
Next up, we look at basic posture in standing to see if anything jumps out as odd. We all know the basic bad postures like kyphotic, lordotic, scoliotic, forward head, and all that jazz, but it bears repeating. Kind of like free throws at the end of every practice, it’s best to just keep doing them, or else you’ll end up shooting like Shaq.
Once I figure out what their posture looks like, I take them through a couple of movement patterns testing the spine, hips and shoulders to find out not what tissues are impeded, but what MOVEMENT PATTERNS are impeded. The basic patterns I look at are as follows:
Spine flexion – touch the ground, essentially
Spine extension from prone
Lateral bend, plus lateral bend with flexion/extension
Rotation
Hip flexion, abduction and external/internal rotation
Shoulder flexion, abduction, and external/internal rotation
When going through these patterns, I look for the quality of movement, as well as if there are any movements that cause any amount of pain, and have the person rate it on a 1-10 scale. From here, I can find out what movement patterns the client is weak in, which ones they are strong in, and which ones cause pain and should be avoided.
From here, I get the person to go through a corrective exercise or two in the desired movement pattern, and then check their quality and level of pain again to see if there was any change. If there was an immediate improvement, I am a God in their eyes, and they will give me their first born should I ask. I usually don’t.
Once I know I’m on the right track, I explain to them how long it will take to get stronger in the movement patterns that will decrease their pain and help correct the problem, and what they need to commit to in order to get those results. I’ll admit, there are occasionally people I can’t help because I can’t figure out where the problem is coming from, so I have to refer them on to someone else who would have a better idea.
I have a network of physios, chiropractors, sports med doctors, and allied health practitioners who I work with to help my clients out. If you’re a trainer and you don’t have a network like this, YOU WILL GO OUT OF BUSINESS!!!
Get out and meet a few people, tell them who you are and what you do, and they’ll probably send people to you and help you when your clients get an owie every now and then. Seriously, this is a common concept a lot of trainers don’t act on, and I’ve given seminars all over North America on the importance of having a medical referral network to increase your business.
If there are no trainers in your area who do this and you are the only one, you’re going to get more clients than they will, and eventually put them out of business because everyone is coming to you for advice and assistance, so get on it. I could do a few thousand pages on this topic alone, but maybe I’m exaggerating a little.
Of course, I’m simplifying the process a bit here, but that’s really the nuts and bolts of an assessment with me. Find what’s strong, what’s weak, what’s painful, and what needs work; test the hypothesis; reassess; re-test if necessary; get them all jacked up about training with you like they’re straight-lining a bottle of Mountain Dew into their left ventricle, and the rest is history.
Note from TG: That will do it for part I. In part II, which I’ll post early next week, Dean will take us through a real life case study using one of his own clients as an example. Stay tuned……
In the meantime, you can check out more of Dean’s stuff HERE and HERE.
I’m a little late in getting this post up because Mother Nature is currently beating the snot out of us up here in New England. I spent the better part of the morning digging mine and my girlfriend’s cars out from the snow, and then had to put off all my plans of catching up on work when the electricity went out in her building for the entire afternoon.
Anyhoo, here’s the dealski: I am up to my ears in emails and programs I need to catch up on. Thankfully, I have a pretty cool video to share with you instead of writing up some lengthy blog post.
Earlier this week, NESN (New England Sports Network) came to CP to film a segment on Red Sox third basemen, Kevin Youkilis’ off-season training.
As you can see, Kevin is kicking ass and taking names and should be ready to go for what should be a pretty exciting 2011 season!
On an aside, I’m traveling down to the Dallas/Ft. Worth area this weekend, and outside of eating copious amounts of dead animal flesh, I was hoping to get some good training sessions in as well. To that end, I was wondering if anyone reading could point me in the direction of a good gym down there? Any insights or recommendations would be greatly appreciated!
