1. So you know how I mentioned on Friday that we’re hosting a young female from Colombia for the next three weeks?

FYI:  Lisa and I are hosting a teenager for three weeks.

She made it here safely on Friday night and Lisa and I spent the entire weekend showing her the sights and sounds of Boston.

While I was at work Saturday morning and early afternoon, the two of them got some serious shopping down on Newbury and Boylston St, which worked out perfectly because I’d rather jump into a shark’s mouth than go shopping.

Saturday night the three of is hit up the North End for some Italian cuisine.

Yesterday, after completing our normal morning errands (laundry, grocery shopping, and food prep), we decided to get all cultural and visit the Museum of Fine Arts.

Now as I guy the idea of spending an afternoon gazing at works by Monet, van Gogh, Renoir, Singer Sargeant, and the like sounds about as exciting as watching paint dry. But as luck would have it, the stars aligned in my favor and the MFA had what could arguably be the most manly exhibition on display outside of tanks or maybe even beards.

Freaking Samurai!!!!!

To put it mildly – it was pretty sick.  I could have easily spent hours in there reading every display, and pretending I was Tom Cruise from The Last Samurai, but alas, there were plenty of other things to see, and the ladies wanted to take a peek at all the European art.

Pffffft, whatever…..;o)

2. We announced it about six days ago and the workshop that both Dean Somerset and I are hosting at Cressey Performance the weekend of JULY 27th is already 1/3 of the way filled up!  Woo-hoo.

We’re both really excited about this opportunity and while we have a set theme which serves as the “umbrella” of the weekend, we’re still in the process of organizing the flow of each day.

What I can tell you is that we’re going to place a heavy emphasis on ASSESSMENT as well as programming, coaching cues, and increasing people’s general level of badassery.

The early bird rate is still on until the end of June, and as I noted space is filling up quickly, so get on it while you can.

===> Come hang out with Dean and Tony <===

3.  Back in April I had the honor of being invited back to my alma mater – State University of New York at Cortland – to speak to the around 60-70 undergrad and graduate exercise physiology, kinesiology, fitness training majors on my experiences in the industry. If anything it was an opportunity to give some sage advice and to give them a bit of a dose of tough love and let them know that they’re not going to walk into a six-figure job coaching professional athletes on day one.

It was an amazing weekend to say the least, and I was just forwarded THIS story which was published on the school’s website.

4.  I was asked a really simple question over the weekend as it relates to youth athletics and athletes:

What would be 1-2 tips you’d give youth athletes? This can be anything from training, fitness, playing, nutrition, parenting, directed toward youth organizations, etc. Anything you feel would be important for a youth athlete and their parent to hear.

1.  I’m sorry but your kid is most likely not going to be the next Roger Clemens, Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, Tiger Woods, and the list can go on and on and on.

At eight, nine, ten, eleven, even twelve years old they don’t need a strength coach. They need to be a kid. In this scenario I can’t help but think back to a quote I heard Mike Boyle say once:

Your kid doesn’t need a strength coach, he needs a bike.

I’m often amazed at how “aggressive” some (not all) parents can be when it comes to their child’s athletic development. I’m generally reticent to have any kid under the age of thirteen start a dedicated strength and conditioning program.  Not because I think it would be detrimental or stunt growth or any other number of fallacies like that.  But rather I think it’s important for them to be a kid!

To ride their bike, play tag, duck-duck-goose, kickball, wiffleball, hide-n-seek, tennis, basketball, climb trees, swing on the monkey bars, call girls “icky,” you name it.

2.  Along those same lines:  when working with young athletes, and especially right out of the gate, it’s ALWAYS about teaching the basics.

I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve had a parent come in and tell me that we need to make their kid “faster,” and they have visions of all these cute agility ladder drills, speed cones, parachutes, 40 times, etc.

That IS NOT what their kid need 99.99% of the time.  Speed, agility, power, and any other “quality” you can come up with has its base in strength.  You can’t have any of those things without first have a foundation of strength.

To that end, teaching things like a proper squat pattern, hip hinge pattern, push-up, row, lunge pattern, and core stability (to name a few) – and MASTERING those patterns – are paramount.

That’s my two cents.

5.  At some point or another, everyone needs a coach. I’ve reached out to other coaches in the past to help me get out of training ruts, and as it happens CP coach, Chris Howard, recently joined the masses in the Scrawny to Brawny program.

Even coaches need coaches sometimes.

Likewise, Precision Nutrition’s Lean Eating program is equally as popular and they’ve just released a FREE 5-day fat loss video course for MEN and WOMEN that is bound to be the bomb.

We’re all busy, and we’re all always looking for more efficient ways to reach our goals.  Why not let someone else do the thinking for you and help you weed through the madness?

6.  And finally a little house cleaning on my end.  I’m looking for an assistant!  Basically, I need someone who’s a little more savvy in the organization department and who can help me on the back-end side of things like helping me set-up a newsletter, blogging research, distance coaching scheduling, and maybe making me a meatloaf from to time.

Kidding.

But not really.

Anyways, it’s nothing major and nothing that would be too time consuming, but I suck at organizing.  I’m pretty good at writing programs, and I’d be willing to trade barter with anyone who’s interested.

If that seems to peak your interest, please send me an email at [email protected] and we can discuss some more of the details.

Thanks!