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Stuff to Read While You’re Stuck at Home Not Wearing Pants: 5/8/20

Copyright: maglara / 123RF Stock Photo

THE WEEKLY BRIEF UPDATE

We fucking did it!

My wife and I packed our shit (and Julian) into our car last Saturday night and took off for Florida early Sunday morning. It took us three hours on the dot to get from Boston to NYC.

And then we went 55 MPH across the GW Bridge (when normally a Hobbit walking to Mordor is faster)

In all we drove eleven hours on the first leg with a pitstop in Fayetteville, NC for a sleep break. We were up early again Monday morning and on the road by 7 AM to complete the last nine hour leg to Jensen Beach.

We arrived at 4:15 PM and Lisa was in the hot tub by 4:45 (not exaggerating).

Not to downplay anything, but if (and this is a BIG if) there’s a silver lining to any part of this pandemic it’s that traveling on the highways has never been more pleasant.

As I type these words I’m sitting poolside with my chill, deep house mix playing and Julian out cold taking his nap. We’re still doing the respectful thing and practicing good social distancing hygiene, but damn it’s waaaaaay easier to do with a pool (and a Grandma) in the mix.

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Two weeks ago my wife (@drlewisconsulting ) was like, and I’m paraphrasing here (but not really): . “Fuck this shit, why don’t we drive down to my mom’s place instead of being packed in our city apartment for the foreseeable future?” . The prospect of a yard, swimming pool, and a GRANDMA was just too enticing. . We’d been quarantining aggressively for several weeks (outside of some grocery store pit stops) and after talking through everyone’s comfort level we packed the car and drove from Boston to Jensen Beach, Florida this past Sunday and Monday. . The sole drawback was leaving a well equipped gym in lieu of performing poolside workouts for the next several weeks. . Okay, poolside workouts aren’t THAT much of a drawback. . We raided CORE prior to leaving to bring some bands, KBs, and other portable miscellany with us.. . (You can catch a glimpse of the full arsenal in my stories). . This morning marked Day #1. Lisa and I set up shop and away we went. . Here’s a nifty single leg hybrid movement I had us perform. It’s sorta a cross between a split squat and a RDL. . I don’t know what to call it, but it torches your glutes and hamstrings. . KEY COACHING CUES: . 1️⃣ Keep the KB close to the body and start with a forward lean. . 2️⃣ Stay low on the transition; the idea is to hinge back on the working leg. Another way to think of it is a “rocking” motion back, not a (full) squat up. . 3️⃣ Maintain aggressive brace with abdominals throughout (the anterior placement of the KB will help with that…😉). . Give it a try and let me know what you think.

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STUFF TO READ WHILE YOU’RE AT HOME NOT WEARING PANTS

Dynamic Lifestyle Podcast w/ Chris & Eric Martinez

Here’s a quick 15-20 minute episode I did with Chris & Eric Martinez of the Dynamic Lifestyle Podcast

 

Four Challenges Boston Fitness Businesses Face in Surviving COVID-19 – Tessa Yannone

This isn’t just a Boston thing.

I’m sure all of my colleagues across the USA (and world) can commiserate with this article. Shout-out to my good friends Steve & Lindsay Bergeron of AMP Fitness who helped contribute to this article.

The Positive Impact of Strength Training for High-School & College Athletes – Matthew Ibrahim

Speaking personally, I started lifting weights because I wanted Nicole Kot to notice me in 8th grade.

She never did.

Thankfully, as this article more poignantly points out: I got much, much more out of the process.

CategoriesStrength Training

5 Reasons Your Glutes Aren’t Growing

The Dynamic Duo – Chris and Eric Martinez – are back!  This time with a vengeance, as they set their sights on the glutes (or lack thereof).

In this lighthearted, “investigative” report, Chris and Eric discuss some of the top reasons why your glutes aren’t growing.

Enjoy!

Have you heard the breaking news about people’s glutes plateauing and not growing? Well, word on the street and from the media is they are known as the “Top 5 Glute Killers”. Reports say that they are going around destroying people’s glutes and restricting further muscle growth and strength in today’s modern era.

We have heard certain reports saying the investigation is top secret and the authorities have no clue whether it’s one person or multiple people committing these glute crimes. All we know is that these criminals have been leaving messages saying “Glute killers are on the rise, glute hypertrophy will not be allowed and we will not be stopped, MUHAHAHA!”

Not many people seem to be doing anything about these glute killers, so we will have to take matters in our own hands. We will solve these crimes ourselves and be known as the “Glute Slayers!” Along this investigation we will have the help of the one and only Bret Contreras aka “The Glute Guy.”

In this investigation we will be using some of The Glute Guy’s awesome articles, research, and of course good ole anecdotal evidence to catch these monsters. We promise we will find these “Top 5 Glute Killers” and put them to rest at once.  Each glute killer will be exposed for their crime and will be sentenced with a solution, so they can never harm one’s glutes again…Get ready!

Glute Killer #1: Too Much Sitting!

Crime: Recently we just caught our first suspect. This criminal has confessed to us that he has been advising people to sit around all day long. We asked the suspect why they would do such a thing to one’s glutes? The suspect replied, “I want more and more people to live a sedentary lifestyle with no exercise, that way by them sitting all day they will accumulate chronic back pain, tight hip flexors, and tight hamstring muscles. I want to create more inhibitory consequences to excessive sitting, as compression slows down vascular function and interferes with nerve function.”

Sentence/Solution: Try your best to get up as much as possible and move around. We understand people have to work desk jobs for 8 hours. But this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get up from time to time to stretch, walk, and keep your blood flowing in your body. Try getting up every 1-2 hours to walk for 5-10 minutes, do some dynamic stretches, do some body weight glute bridges, practice your hip hinge, use the stairs when going places. Main point is to keep your glutes firing throughout the day.

Glute Killer #2: Glute Imbalances

Crime: When we caught the next glute killer, the suspect had a little more sympathy than glute killer #1. But the suspect still confessed to causing glute imbalances in harmless people’s glutes, so we still had to nail him. Glute killer #2 said “there are 3 main causes of Gluteal Imbalances,” he heard this from a man by the name of Bret Contreras, we didn’t believe the suspects allegations but we still let him state his 3 main causes:

1.)   Asymmetrical Human-Nature: By nature, we are asymmetrical beings; our anatomy itself can be asymmetrical. Therefore, it comes as no surprise then that one glute or region of the glute might be stronger and more coordinated than the other (1).

2.)   Inactivity: When considering the human body, we know that some muscles are more prone to inhibition than others, and the glutes are one of these “easily-inhibited” muscles. Neural and mechanical inhibition involving opposing muscles can interfere with gluteal activation, and therefore could shut them down. Gluteal inhibition can negatively impact posture, and poor posture can further inhibit glutes, thereby creating a downward spiral in gluteal function. Probably the biggest reason why the glutes shut down is due to inactivity (1).

3.)   Pain, Prior Injury, and Structural Issues: Pain is a huge inhibitor of the gluteus maximus, which is a pretty big deal at the end of the day. Research shows that glutes can become inhibited with just about any lower body or spinal injury. The glutes are major propulsion muscles. They produce powerful locomotion. Inhibiting the glutes will cause an individual to slow down so they can heal. The problem is that the glutes don’t necessarily turn back on automatically. They must be reactivated, restrengthened, and recoordinated back into every day movement and activity. Following injury, most people continue to keep working out, and their movement patterns suffer and other muscles will then compensate for others (1).

Sentence/Solution: This suspect was being very hard headed when we asked him for a solution to Gluteal Imbalances. He pretty much said you have to read this blog on how to correct Gluteal Imbalances or else they cannot be fixed.

Glute Killer #3: Improper Glute Activtion

Crime: Luckily Glute Killer #2 made our investigation a bit easier and turned in the next glute killer on our list. When we found out who this was, we were not surprised. This is a very common mistake many people make and it doesn’t help when you have criminals like our glute suspect showing you the wrong way to activate your glutes. For those that are not familiar with the term “glute activation,” it’s just a fancy way of saying warming up your glute muscles properly.

So we asked this suspect why he had been showing people the wrong way to warm up their glutes. The suspects reply was “glute activation is not important in my book, when people don’t activate their glutes properly they have a higher probability of getting injured and not gaining strength and muscle MUAHAHA!”

This was quite a disturbing answer by the suspect but we found a solution.

Sentence/Solution: Incorporate various glute exercises in your dynamic warm-ups for 15-20 minutes prior to a lower body session. Mainly glute exercises that target the glute medius, minimus, maximus, and even your TFL. These are all extremely critical muscles to activate and are often over looked.

Some examples are Monster and Sumo Walks with resistance bands:

X-band walks:

Glute Bridges:

And a ton more. For more glute activation solutions read here. Always remember your glutes are the steering wheel to your lower body, they deserve a proper warm-up.

Glute Killer #4: Not Working Your Glute Muscles Directly

Crime: After Glute Killer #3 testified, in order to reduce his sentence he was willing to give up our next suspect on our list. We caught him red handed in a big box commercial gym, we definitely thought he was smarter than this. We wanted to know his reasoning for not having people work their glute muscles directly.

The suspect said “there is no need for direct glute work; all you need to do is squats, deadlifts, a little Zumba, and the Brazilian butt lift videos.”  While we wanted to chuckle at his answer, we knew this was a serious matter and this is a very common mistake many make when it comes to resistance training. While squats and deadlifts are awesome and do help build the booties, but at the end of the day it’s not enough direct work to the glute muscles to increase hypertrophy.

Sentence/Solution: Do not take Squats, Deadlifts, Step-Ups, Good Mornings and, Lunges out of your routine. These are your vertical loading exercises. Simply add in other superior glute exercises such as the famous Hip Thrusts, American Hip Thrusts, American Deadlifts, Glute Bridges, Back Extensions, and Reverse Hypers.

These are all considered horizontal loading exercises (2).

Also, one must not overlook the importance of mechanical tension, metabolic stress, and muscle damage to promote hypertrophy in a muscle. Brad Shoenfeld says “hypertrophic benefits associated with eccentric exercise may be due to a greater imposed mechanical stress compared with concentric or isometric actions. Indeed, muscles are capable of generating greater absolute force when contracting eccentrically vs. concentrically. Despite this fact, however, muscle activation during maximal eccentric actions is generally less compared with those performed concentrically (4). So try and use different methods of resistance training: eccentric, concentric, or isometric when training the glutes. You never know which method your glutes are going to respond to best.

Glute Killer #5: Disuse of glutes in general (Flatassitis)

Crime: To wrap up this grueling investigation we caught our last suspect. Needless to say, this suspect was very easy to find. The suspect was relatively easy to find do to the disuse and inactivity of the glute muscles in general. There really was no reason to ask this suspect any questions, it was plain and simple that the suspect was trying to get people not to use their glutes overall.

Sentence/Solution: As the old saying goes “If you don’t use it you will lose it.” Well our new version is “If you don’t use your glutes, you will lose your glutes.” So get out there and put those glutes to use or else you will never fill out those expensive jeans you buy and you will always envy another big booty Judy when they walk by.

Investigation Conclusion:

Wrapping up this very intense investigation, we are pleased to say we caught all of the “Top 5 Glute Killers” that were going around harming people’s glutes. We would like to give a huge thanks to “The Glute Guy” for helping us out with this one, not quite sure we could’ve done this on our own.

The mayor of our city has presented us with the key to the city for our duties. We are now known as the “Glute Slayers” around town. All we ask is that we hope you put all of the solutions to use from now on. These solutions are great tools and will only benefit your training and help you achieve the goals you are after. Until more glute killers break loose, we leave you with this, “If you don’t use your glutes you will lose them.”

References:

1.)   Bret Contreras (2013). How To Fix Glute Imbalances

2.)   Bret Contreras (2013). The Science of Glute Training. NCSA Conference 2013

3.)   Brad Schoenfeld. Potential Mechanisms for a Role of Metabolic Stress in Hypertrophic Adaptations to Resistance Training. Sports Medicine (2013) 43: 179-194.

4.)   Brad Schoenfeld. Does Exercise-Induced Muscle Damage Play A Role In Skeletal Muscle Hypertrophy? Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research (2012) Volume 26: number 5.

About the Authors

Chris and Eric Martinez, CISSN, CPT, BA, also known as the “Dynamic Duo” operate a world class personal training and online training business “Dynamic Duo Training.” They’re also fitness and nutrition writers, fitness models, and coaches that love helping people reach their goals. Their philosophy is “No excuses, only solutions.”

Visit them at:

Dynamic Duo Training

Blogsite

YouTube Channel

CategoriesUncategorized

Soccer Players: To Squat or Not To Squat?

Whenever people think of Cressey Performance, there are probably two things that immediately pop into their heads:

1.  Deadlifts.  And….

2.  Baseball.

And neither of the two should come as a surprise.  For starters, we kinda have an affinity for deadlifts.  Walk into the facility at any given moment throughout the day and you’re bound to find someone pulling something heavy off the ground.

Likewise, and with respects to the latter, roughly 85% of our clientele are Victoria Secret models baseball players.

And while many people are under the impression that we solely train baseball players, that couldn’t be further from the truth.  I mean come on:  I literally just said that 85% of our clientele are baseball players.  You weren’t listening were you?  WERE YOU!?!?!??!

Sometimes it’s like I’m talking to a brick wall.

In fact, we’ve had every sport imaginable train underneath our roof.  You name the sport, and it’s likely we’ve worked with them:  softball, tennis, volleyball, football, ultimate frisbee, hockey, basketball, wrestling, boxing, field hockey, swimming, lacrosse, and you can even add fencing into that pile.  Totally not kidding.

About the only sport(s) that haven’t made an appearance are ice curling, synchronized swimming, and competitive eating (if that can even be considered a “sport”).

But lets dial  in the conversation to soccer.  We’ve trained our fair share of soccer players at CP ranging from high school players to recreational players to even having a cameo appearance by the likes of USA Women’s team member Lori Lindsey on occasion.  What what!

Given that soccer is the most popular and widely played sport in the world, I thought I’d share a guest post by both Eric and Chris Martinez (AKA: the Dynamic Duo).

I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I enjoy reading research about as much as I enjoy getting dropped kicked in the face.  Which is to say:  I freakin hate it.

This isn’t to say that I don’t do it:  I just don’t like it.  At all.

But thankfully Eric and Chris were kind enough to review a recent squat study as it relates to soccer players, and I felt I’d share here on my blog.

Enjoy!

Soccer Players:  To Squat or Not to Squat?

GOOOOAAAALLL! We’ve got one question for all of you soccer players…Do you SQUAT? Although we are not expecting any answers back at the moment, we do hope you are saying yes to your computer screen while reading this.

It’s not a coincidence if you are reading this and questioning, “Well, why should I squat if I do indeed play soccer?”

In all honesty, we could sit here and explain all the great benefits of squats, but that could take a whole other article itself to school everyone on. Instead, we would like to breakdown a study that the great Chris Beardsley and Bret Contreras discovered and dissected on their fantastic Strength and Conditioning Research.  

The aforementioned study revolves around how strength training can lead to increases in power and speed for elite soccer players.

So, if you’re a soccer player or coach soccer players we highly recommend you sit back, relax, turn off the FC Barcelona game on the flat screen for a bit and take some notes.

If you are a current soccer player or former soccer player, you should know that the sport involves movements that involve speed and power. Ask any Strength and Conditioning coach how important those two elements are for athletic performance. We promise they will tell you it is very damn important for sports performance. If you want to be the best, you have to train like the best!

Back to our original question:  If you play soccer do you squat?

We asked this question because the study we are about to break down by Keiner et al. shows strong correlations that sprint performance and leg strength can improve by doing both back squats and front squats. Man, if only we knew this back in our days when playing futbol, aka soccer. We probably would have been bending it like Beckham 😉

So What Did the Researchers Do?

The researchers wanted to track the development of 30m sprint performance in youth soccer players over a 2-year strength training intervention. So, they recruited 134 elite soccer players, not world cup stars ladies and gents.

The players were subdivided into three age-groups (A, B and C cohorts) and the average ages of each group were 17, 15 and 13, respectively.

To be very clear here, the participants in each cohort were divided into two groups. One group (Strength training group [STG]) was subjected to regular soccer training in addition to strength training twice a week for 2 years. The other group (Control group [CG]) completed only the regular soccer training.

The strength training group performed their workouts on non-consecutive days and the exercises varied between the parallel front and back squats during the week and also performed bench presses, deadlifts, neck presses, and exercises for the trunk muscles as well as the standing row.

Squat training for the strength-training group was periodized such that following initial technique training, the subjects started with a hypertrophy training block, which comprised 5 sets of 10 repetitions with 3-minutes rest between each set.

The next training block comprised a strength period of 5 sets of 6 repetitions with 3-minutes rest between each set followed by an additional training block of 5 sets of 4 repetitions with 5-minutes rest between each set.

The researchers measured 30m sprint times, including splits every 5m, and maximum 1RM front and back squat strength after two years of training.

So What Happened After All of This?

For Maximum Strength, the researchers reported that the strength-training subgroups of all three age-groups displayed greater improvements in the front and back squat 1RMs than the control sub-groups.

For 30m Sprinting Performance, the researchers found that in the A and C groups, the strength-training sub-group displayed significantly better reductions in sprint time than the control sub-group at each 5m split time between 5m and 30m. They found that in the B group, there was a significant difference between the strength-training and control sub-groups at the 5m, 20m and 25m splits.

Correlations; the researchers performed a correlation analysis and found that there was a significantly positive but moderate relationship between strength gains in 1RM expressed relative to body weight and improvement in sprint performance in all age groups.

The correlations were highest for the first 15m of sprinting, indicating the greater importance of squat strength for accelerating rather than maximal speed sprinting.

What Did the Researchers Conclude?

The researchers concluded that a strength training program involving front and back squats led to a positive improvement in the sprinting performances of young soccer players. Pretty cool. Right?

Wrapping It All Up

As you can see the research doesn’t lie. Of course there were limitations, but all studies have limitations. And, at the end of the day if those do not agree with these findings, that’s ok too because science is always open to debate.

We can definitely tell you from anecdotal experience that squats and front squats will 99.9% of the time increase speed, power, hypertrophy, strength, and overall athletic performance. In other words, we highly agree and approve of this study by Keiner et al.

So, just too briefly recap, if you are a soccer player, coach, or just an overall jock, we highly recommend you implement some sort of squat variations into your training regimen to maximize your full potential.

Don’t get us wrong here ladies and gents, we are not asking you to go load up a squat bar and max out for 500 lbs. We are simply saying whether its conventional back squats or front squats that you chose to do, do them with proper precautions, make sure you squat deep, and don’t be afraid to progressively overload.

And hey, if you squat more often, maybe you will score more GOOOOOAAAAALLLLLSSSS than the famous “Pele” did.

“No Excuses, Only Solutions”

 References:

 1). Influence of a 2-year strength training programme on power performance in elite youth soccer players, by Sander Keiner, Wirth and Schmidtbleicher, in European Journal of Sport Science, 2012.

2.) Chris Beardsley and Bret Contreras, 2012.

About the Authors

Chris and Eric Martinez, CISSN, CPT, BA, also known as the “Dynamic Duo” operate a world class personal training and online training business “Dynamic Duo Training.” They’re also fitness and nutrition writers, fitness models, and coaches that love helping people reach their goals. Their philosophy is “No excuses, only solutions.”

Visit them at:

Dynamic Duo Training

Blogsite

YouTube Channel