Luke Worthington and I have presented this workshop twice. Once in London last year and again this past June in Boston.
We’re bringing it back to London this Fall, my most favorite place in the world.
This two-day workshop is designed to arm fitness professionals with all the tools they’ll need to hone their assessment skills and to make their clients/athletes a bunch of bonafide, resilient, strength training Terminators.
Combined Luke and I have ~40 years of coaching experience (or one Dan John) and bring different perspectives and skill-sets to the table; Luke peels back the onion on PRI (Postural Restoration Institute) concepts and assessment, while I go into detail breaking down movement and how to better “match” the exercises we prescribe to our clients.
For more information – including itinerary and how to register – you can go HERE.
SOCIAL MEDIA SHENANIGANS
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Tuesday nights at CORE is “ladies’ night.” I have a group of 4-5 women who come in and get after it.
One of my male clients just so happened to pop in, and about 30 minutes into the session he noticed most of the plates were in use.
Fitness can be fickle. We’re programmed to believe that if we can’t do something – a push-up, deadlift 2x bodyweight, put a grizzly bear in a headlock – that we’ve failed.
F = Failure.
I really enjoyed this re-frame from the crew at Spurling Fitness in Kennebunk, ME.
I just realized it’s been a good 5-6 weeks since I’ve done one of these, which is just completely unacceptable. Part of me feels like I’m doing a disservice to everyone by “wasting” a day to post about random shit.
I mean does everyone really care that I watched every minute of the Golden Globes last night?
Hell yeah you do!
1. If you missed them – all sorts of shenanigans went down. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler did a bang-up job hosting. While I didn’t get my panties all up in a bunch like a lot of people did when Ricky Gervais hosted last year, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a breath of fresh air to see that they didn’t go out of their way to “roast” all the attendees.
While on one hand I think if you’re making upwards of $10 million+ to pretend you’re someone else on screen, you should be able to suck it up if someone wants to bust your chops a little bit.
On the other, I don’t necessarily feel someone deserves to be humiliated in front of millions of viewers.
Nevertheless, I was happy to see my boy (as if I know him?) Quentin Tarantino win Best Screenplay for Django Unchained, and was equally as happy to see Ben Affleck (Ben freakin Affleck!) win Best Director (and Best Picture) for Argo.
I’ve had my qualms with Ben in the past. Namely for marrying my long-time crush (from her Alias days) Jennifer Garner, and you know, for making all of us suffer through Gigli.
But I have to say, he’s completely redeemed himself. I was really impressed when he made his directorial debut with Gone, Baby Gone back in 2007. I was dumbfounded when The Town came out.
Many – myself included – felt Gone, Baby Gone might have been some kind a fluke; beginner’s luck if you will.
But when The Town came out two years ago, anyone who loves movies could tell that he had a knack for this directing thing.
With Argo, he’s easily established himself as one of the A-list directors in H-town. And, giving credit where credit is due: the guy’s grown on me as an actor as well.
If you haven’t see it already, I suggest you do it ASAP.
I read the other day that he’s in cohoots with Jason Bourne Matt Damon to make a movie based off the life of Whitey Bulger. Which basically means that if they decide to film in Boston (which I don’t see why they wouldn’t), the entire city is going to go into apeshit mode.
OMGOMGOMGOMG – it’s going to be awesome.
The other highlights from last night: Wolverine can sing! He won for Best Actor in Les Miserables. I haven’t seen it yet (mainly because I pee standing up), but stranger things have happened and I’ll most likely check it out soon.
The Oscars are next. See you in a few weeks.
2. One of the more common questions I receive on a somewhat regular basis is Tony are those your pecs or cinderblocks you have underneath that shirt? Tony, what’s your beef against Olympic lifting?
Presumably many are under the assumption that because I don’t discuss OLY lifting that much – or that I never program it – I’m adamantly against it.
Au contraire mon soeur.
This couldn’t be further from the truth!
For starters, as a strength coach, I’d be the worst one in history if I was somehow opposed to the OLY lifts. I think it goes without saying that they’re an unparalleled tool to help build explosiveness, power, and overall athleticism.
Thing is: I don’t have a lot (if any) experience with them. As such, I don’t really go out of my way to coach them, or include them in any of my programs, because I’d be a walking ball of fail if I tried. If anything, I’m taking a huge bite of humble pie by admitting that I don’t feel comfortable as a coach including OLY lifting in my programs.
This isn’t to say that we don’t have other coaches at CP who have more hands-on experience with them and are more comfortable around them. But for me, I think I’d be doing my athletes and clients and disservice by pretending that I know what I’m talking about.
Besides, we make do with various med ball drills, sprinting drills, and the like, which get the job done.
Considering we don’t necessarily know how long we have each athlete for, it makes much more sense from a time-efficiency standpoint to utilize less “coaching intensive” protocols.
Sadly, there are quite a few coaches and trainers out there who don’t have the same mentality as myself. Instead of admitting their weaknesses, they pretend to know what they’re talking about at best coaching people with god-awful technique, and at worst……hurting someone.
That said, recognizing my weaknesses as a coach, I’ve started to delve a little deeper and started to read and watch various texts and DVDs on Olympic lifting. It’s a whirlwind for sure, but something I feel will help make me a better coach in the grand scheme of things.
As luck would have it, I was sent an advance copy of Will Fleming’s Complete Olympic Lifting DVD a few weeks ago, and it’s been awesome.
The problem isn’t deciding whether or not to incorporate these lifts into our programs. It’s getting your athletes to properly execute them.
And THAT’S what’s helped me the most.
It takes you through the process of assessing, teaching and fixing the Olympic Lifts (and their variations) in a simple, straight forward way you can begin implementing immediately.
No technical jargon. No fluff. No scientific text. No cowbell.
If you’re like me, and the thought of OLY lifting makes you cower in the corner sucking your thumb, I’d highly suggest checking this fantastic resource out.
It’s on sale this week for 40% off the regular price, which is a steal if you ask me.
3. For more of universal flavor, and because bootcamps are now all the rage in the fitness industry, Mike Robertson, along with Jim Laird and Molly Galbraith have just released a 30-minute webinar as a precursor to their Bootcamp in a Box product coming out later this week (Tuesday, Jan. 15th in fact).
This is a product geared towards bootcamp owners that want to run a smarter and safer bootcamp.
I know all you hear right now is blah, blah, blah, just another bootcamp product to throw onto the “not interested” list.
But what differentiates this from all the other similar products there is:
I personally know Mike (as well as Jim and Molly) and know they’re all passionate about the type of information they put out there, and won’t allow themselves to put out a poo-poo product.
This is a DVD and manual which gives you – on a platter – an entire training system that you can use with your bootcamp clients.
It entails 6-months of done-for-you programming, progressions and regressions for all the major movement categories, and they’ve literally taken any guesswork out of the program.
For what it’s worth, many of the principles covered are things we’ve incorporated into our own Excellence Bootcamps at Cressey Performance
Like I said, the 30-minute webinar is FREE, and will give you a better idea of what the system entails.
4. And lastly, I want to touch on the whole training women while they’re pregnant topic. I’ve personally trained a handful of women through their pregnancies, and I’m currently training two as I type this.
Well, I mean not literally as I type this, but you know what I mean.
I definitely have some strong viewpoints on this topic – and I do want to share them in more detail – but I’d be curious to hear what other’s have to say (or think).
For me there’s a massive dichotomy between what I do and what most (not all) of the research says we should be doing.
While it definitely comes down to the individual, their comfort level, listening to their body, as well as their past training history, I find it asinine that there are physicians out there (and even more articles) that suggest that “training” should revolve around light walking and what mounts to arm circles.
For me, when I’m working with someone who’s pregnant, it’s about preparing them for something a helluva lot more significant than lifting pink dumbbells or anything I’ll ever have to do.
In my eyes, if they’re able to grow and push a human being out of their body, they’re capable of lifting a barbell off the ground.
Sometimes even over their head. Repeatedly. GASP!!!!!!!!
But again, this definitely doesn’t apply to everyone. I understand that there are subtle training modifications that should be addressed trimester to trimester, and there are times where extenuating circumstances come in to play as far as complications are concerned.
In my experience, however, these are few and far between and I often feel like we’re being overly cautious.
Now, I’m not insinuating that someone carrying child should go out and try to hit deadlift PRs on a weekly basis or snatch a mack truck over their head. But I’m certainly in the camp that feels we can offer a lot more than “go walk in the treadmill.”
Like I said, I’d like to jump into this topic with more detail, but I wanted to throw out a “feeler” to see if anyone would bite and offer their insight on the matter.
For many the topic of breathing patterns can be about as exciting as doing your taxes, so I figured I’d push the envelop a bit and use a catchy title to entice people to click on the link.
And, it worked! I win!!
Don’t worry. Despite the risque title, the topic below is completely PG.
So, now that you’re here and I have your attention, lets watch this video by the Miami Dolphin cheerleaders:
Okay, so, um, yeah……breathing patterns. It’s a topic that’s gained a lot of momentum (in the mainstream fitness media anyways) in the past year or so, due in no small part to the brilliant life-long work of Dr. Pavel Kolar and the “way smarter than the rest of us” team at The Prague School.
Taken right from their homepage:
The nervous system establishes programs that control human locomotion, which is comprised of posture and movement. This ‘motor control’ is largely established during the first critical years of life. Therefore, the “Prague School” emphasizes neurodevelopmental aspects of motor control in order to assess and restore dysfunction of the locomotor system and associated syndromes.
It’s some deep and innovative stuff for sure, and it’s something that I myself have only just scratched the surface of.
Thankfully there are other fitness professionals out there like Bill Hartman, Charlie Weingroff, Jim Laird, and Dr. Jeff Cubos (to name a few), who have are doing a wonderful job of spreading the knowledge, “dumbing” it down, and exposing people to the why’s/what’s/and how’s of assessing and fixing breathing patterns.
As it happens, one of the major themes that resonated this past weekend at the Spinal Health and Core Training Seminar (of which I was a part of) was the concept of breathing patterns and how there’s a significant interplay between aberrant patterns and how they effect not only performance but everything from posture to dealing with chronic back pain, neck pain, shoulder, or lower extremity issues as well.
As it happens, one of the major themes that resonated this past weekend at the Spinal Health and Core Training Seminar (of which I was a part of) was the concept of breathing patterns and how there’s a significant interplay between aberrant patterns and how they effect not only performance, but everything from posture to dealing with chronic back pain, neck pain, shoulder, or lower extremity issues as well.
In my talk, titled Spine and Core Training: From Assessment to Badass, I dove into some of the general “drills” we’ve been implementing at Cressey Performance to help teach people more appropriate breathing patterns.
You see, most people tend to be chest breathers and completely leave their diaphragm and the other “inner” core muscles out to dry.
It’s kind of like the playground when we were kids: one group of muscles bullies the other, says their dad can kick the other dad’s ass any day of the week, someone gets called a big, fat, poop face, punches get thrown, the moms then get involved, and everything becomes one massive ball of breathing dysfunction.
The key, then, is to get everyone to play nice, and work synergistcally. Ideally, we’d like to see the smaller, inner core muscles – diaphragm, mulitifidi, etc – to work properly, so that the larger, more global muscles can do their job as well and not have to work overtime.
To do so we need to take more of a 360 degree approach to breathing. Meaning, instead of solely focusing on the anterior core (pushing the belly out: which still isn’t a bad place to start for most people), we need to take into consideration the lateral and posterior components as well.
Before we can do that, however, we need to actually learn how to breath into our bellies.
To start, here are some simple drills you can use:
1. 3-Month Pose
This is a drill I snaked from Mike Robertson, and the idea is to lie supine and focus on breathing into the belly and NOT allowing the rib cage to flair out too much. You’ll notice how I keep my fingers at my sides to ensure that I’m not only pushing my belly out, but also expanding the sides (and back, into the floor) as well. Be sure to inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth.
Of note: a regression would be to start with the feet on the ground, and then once that’s mastered, elevate the feet in the air.
2. Prone/Alligator Breathing
Lying prone on your stomach, the objective here (again) is to breath into the belly and try to get the lower back to rise. Make sure to inhale through the nose, push the belly into the ground, and exhale through the mouth.
For many, those two drills alone will be a fantastic starting point.
Now, for years (YEARS I tell you!) I’ve always been engrained to “push the belly out” or to “make myself fat” when getting ready to lift big weights – particularly when wearing a weight belt. Bill Hartman had a fantastic post on this very topic not too long ago, and he noted that when people push out they do so at the expense of going into excessive anterior pelvic tilt which can be a lower back killer.
Below is a longer video where I go into a bit more detail on how we can go about re-grooving these patterns using a weight belt (correctly) and/or regular ole tennis balls (which was an ingenious idea that Jeff Cubos brought up this past weekend). Moreover, it isn’t JUST about anterior expansion. Rather we want to start grooving more of a 360 degree expansion to help increase stability.
A Few Things to Note:
1. Yes, I’m wearing a gray t-shirt with gray sweat pants. Whatever. I’m bringing gray on gray back, baby. Recognize!
2. Clearly this is something that Rob – my demonstrator – can work on. Not to throw Rob under the bus or anything (although I kinda am…..sorry Rob), but this would be a fantastic drill for him to utilize more frequently. If for nothing else to give his body the kinesthetic feedback it needs to learn how to breath properly. Ie: through his belly and NOT his chest.
I purposely chose him for the video because it allowed me to demonstrate how most people look when you tell them to take a deep breath. With a little practice, I think he’ll be able to get it down.
3. As far as when and where to implement these drills. I’ve been doing more of them at the start of a training session, as part of an extended warm-up. I may lie down for a good 2-5 minutes and just focus on my breathing. Hell, maybe pop in a little Norah Jones and just chillax.
It’s a bit “voo-doo’ish,” but it works, and I’m willing to bet if you take the time to implement these drills into your repertoire, you’ll feel a marked difference in how you feel. Try them out today, and let me know what you think!
UPDATE: for those interested, HERE is the video done by Bill Hartman I referenced above (where he discusses belly breathing and APT). As you’ll undoubtedly realize – if you watch it – Bill is kinda smart.
