CategoriesStuff to Read While You're Pretending to Work

Stuff to Read While You’re Pretending to Work: 2/3/17

It’s been an eventful week. You’ll know why when you read below. Lets get to the meat and potatoes shall we?

Copyright: urfingus / 123RF Stock Photo

Stuff to Check Out Before You Read Stuff

1. Oh, Hello

Meet Han Gandalf Gentilcore Julian Lewis Gentilcore. Born 1/31/17 at 12:22 PM.

Lisa and I are so happy, excited, and tired….;o) Lisa, by the way, was a CHAMPION. Thanks to everyone who sent well-wishes via email, social media, and texts.

And so it begins…..

2. Appearance on Ben Coomber Radio

I had the pleasure of being invited onto the Ben Coomber Radio Show recently.

In typical fashion I was witty, intelligent, and cunning. But that’s just my own assessment. Ben’s a pro and has one of the most successful health/fitness podcasts over in the UK. We dive right into things and start talking about “effective” gym training. At about 30 minutes, it’s the perfect thing to listen to on your commute. Or to pass time as your significant other watches The Bachelor/Walking Dead (depending on gender).

Direct download HERE.

iTunes download HERE.

3. Latest article on MensHealth.com: 4 Push-Up Mistakes You’re Making

Despite it’s popularity and recognition as an exercise staple, nothing gets more eye-rolls when I plan them into a program (especially from guys) than push-ups.

Stop being a nimrod and do them right…..HERE.

4. 2 Workshops Coming Up

Complete Shoulder & Hip Blueprint – Vancouver, April 1-2nd.

Dean Somerset and I will be in Vancouver that weekend to talk shoulders and hips and to start a tickle fight.

For more information and to sign up you can go HERE.

SUNY Cortland Health & Wellness Conference – Cortland, NY, April 8th

I’ll be at my alma mater the weekend of April 8th speaking at what I believe is the 4th or 5th annual SUNY Cortland Conference. Other guest speakers include my wife, Dr. Lisa Lewis, Mark Fisher, Brian St. Pierre, and Dr. David Just.

For more information you can go HERE.

The “Stuff” to Read

The 10 Most Overrated Workouts and Diets – T-Nation

The combined years of experience of the coaches who contributed to this article is 5,798. Give or take. With that much experience giving their insights, you should listen.

What Are the Best Anti-Rotation Exercises? – Todd Marsh

Woo-hoo for the Pallof Press!!!

Improve Your Bench Press & Posture With This Technique – Joel Seedman

Not many people think quite as much outside the box as Joel Seedman. Here’s a perfect example. I’m going to try this with some of my clients soon.

Social Media Hightlights

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CategoriesMedia

PT Prophet Podcast and Pallof Presses

I’m back home in Boston after spending the weekend in Sterling, VA (just outside of DC) where Dean Somerset and I had the honor of presenting our two-day Excellent High-Five Workshop at Underground Athlete to a group of 30 coaches and trainers – a few of which traveled all the way from Alabama and Massachusetts.

Giving credit where it’s due, I wanted to thank Underground Athlete owner Justin Case, his soon-to-be wife Cristal (they’re getting married in April, which led to a bit of wedding talk since Lisa and I set our date for late May), and the rest of UA coaching staff for being such gracious and welcoming hosts.

Photo Credit: UndergroundAthlete.com

I know I can speak for Dean in saying that we had an incredibly engaged group this past weekend, and a large reason for that was due to Justin and his staff helping to set the tone and for having such insatiable appetites to learn.

It was two-days chock full of assessments, taking people through the ropes (and learning that things like crawls, deadbugs, and birddogs are, in fact, challenging when done right), squats, deadlifts, talking about fascial lines, and me mistakingly using the word “intercourse” for “discourse” at one point, which made for some good laughs.

Plus, it didn’t hurt that they facility itself was/is beautiful (pretty much an athlete’s or serious weightlifter’s wet dream)  and that there was enough beef jerky on hand to feed a small army.

One of the highlights for me – albeit a seemingly random one – was watching Justin and his staff spend a legit half hour yesterday after the workshop trying to one-up one another other with various athletic feats. Vertical jumps, broad jumps, 1-legged broad jumps, back flips, and a host of other shenanigans. Hell I’m surprised they didn’t attempt to run through a pane of glass to see 1) who could do it and 2) who could do it while being set on fire. And juggling swords.

It was just really cool to see the camaraderie and enthusiasm amongst the coaching staff.

Also, it was great to catch up with a few friends.

Steve and Kelsey Reed, two excellent VA/DC based coaches at SAPT Strength, and who some of you may recall got engaged on this very blog, attended this past weekend’s workshop. 

I also had the chance to finally meet DC-based physical therapist and Girls Gone Strong contributor, Ann Wendel (and her fabulous shoes!).

She, her husband, Dean and I met up for some good eats.

We….ate….all….the…..food.

Shout out to Mokomandy located in Sterling for their delicious food (particularly their pot roast sliders.  UNBELIEVABLE!!!!). I highly recommend checking it out if you live in that area.

Annnnnnyways

As is the case every time I travel, the day after I pretty much want to curl up on the couch with a vat of tea and watch Walking Dead episodes.  There’s that and the umpteen million programs I need to write (give or take), in addition to some writing projects I need to get a head start on.

Note to my editors: please be patient…..;o)

Instead of writing a full blog post today, I wanted to share with you a few things that popped up on the internet that I was involved with.

1. PT Prophet Podcast

I had the opportunity to hop on a call with Hayden Wilson, the host of the PT Prophet Podcast, a few weeks ago and had a blast!

The podcast is geared towards personal trainers and fitness professionals who want to learn more about online training, internet marketing, and how to build your own brand/business.

We covered a lot of material, but the gist of it was to cover Cressey Sports Performance (and what I feel separates it from the masses as far as private training facilities are concerned), training athletes, my mentors, how I developed my writing style, and a plethora of other stuff.

Like I mentioned above, I had blast doing it and if you’re sitting there at work bored out of your mind, pop on some headphones and give it a listen HERE.

2. The Ultimate Pallof Press Guide 

Anyone who’s read my site for any length of time knows how much I like Pallof Presses. I’d go so far to say that myself and Eric Cressey are the two guys who helped popularize the movement and introduce it to the masses back in the day.

In this article which I wrote for BodyBuilding.com I discuss not only where the name “Pallof Press” comes from, but why I feel it’s one of the best core exercise out there in addition to offering several ways to vary things up.

I’d also like to take this moment to put forth a motion that Jen Jewell – the lovely female model for the article – from this day forward, must demonstrate every exercise I discuss on this website. No excuses.

Can we make it a law or something? Seriously, gun control can wait. Priorities people!

CategoriesExercises You Should Be Doing Strength Training

Exercises You Should Be Doing: Half Kneeling Vertical Pallof Press

It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of Pallof presses – and all their variations. While I’ve definitely curbed my views with regards to core training and the whole anti-everything mantra most of the fitness industry adopted in recent years (lets be honest:  it’s perfectly okay for the spine to go into flexion every now and then. Loaded flexion is one thing, but lets try not to shit an EMG every time someone has the audacity to bend their spine.  Life……will…..go…….on), I’d still be remiss not to note that the bulk of my core training, and that of my clients, revolves around stability and preventing “unwanted” motion.

Maybe a year or two ago my good buddy, Nick Tumminello, described a cool Pallof variation called the Vertical Pallof Press, which I thought was a simple – albeit brilliant – twist into the genre.

Fast forward to two weeks ago, another buddy of mine, Philadelphia based strength coach, Andrew Zomberg, asked my thoughts on half-kneeling or even tall-kneeling Vertical Pallof Press variations.

In a nutshell he was curious as to whether or not I’ve tried them or if I saw any efficacy in including them into my programming.

Of course!

Half Kneeling Vertical Pallof Press

What I like most about this variation are a few things:

1.  It trains anti-extension.

2.  With the half kneeling version, you can “encourage” a bit more posterior pelvic tilt by squeezing the crap out of the kneeling side glute.  And when I say “squeezing the crap out of the kneeling side glute,” what I really mean is “squeeze that badboy as if you’re trying to crack walnut.”

3.  Additionally, we get an awesome active “stretch” in the kneeling side hip flexor.  I put the word stretch in quotations there because for those people who feel as if they have chronically tight hip flexors (despite going out of their way to stretch them to death with little or no improvement), it’s more likely the fact that the hip flexors are pulling “double duty” for an unstable spine.  Hence, they feel tight because they’re firing 24/7 to prevent the spine from wrecking itself before it checks itself (Ice Cube fans will enjoy that reference).

In a sense, we could make a solid argument that the reason why many people feel as if they have “tight” hip flexors is NOT because they’re short/stiff, but rather their core is weak and unstable.

If I just blew your mind or if that piques your interest at all, I’d HIGHLY encourage you to check out Dean Somerset’s post on Reasons Why You Should Stop Stretching Your Hip Flexors.

If you’re too lazy to read it:  just know that working on core stability could help resolve those “tight” hip flexors of yours.

Outside of those key points, I’d note that the other things to consider would be on the technique side of things:

– Keep your chin tucked (make a double chin).

– As you extend your arms above your head, try to prevent your rib cage from flaring out.

– For those who need to work on improving scapular upward rotation (especially overhead athletes), once your elbows hit shoulder height, you could  lightly shrug at the top of the movement.

– Try not to make this a tricep exercise.  Those who tend to feel it more in that area are pressing the cable too far outward and focusing on elbow extension.  Instead, you need to literally press straight up, preventing the cable from pulling you backward.

For an additional challenge, you can try a one-arm variation

Half Kneeling 1-Arm Vertical Pallof Press

All the same benefits apply here:  it trains anti-extension, but because you’re using one arm at a time there’s also a significant anti-rotation component as well.

Too, it’s great for glute activation, encouraging more posterior pelvic tilt, and serves as an active hip flexor “stretch” (seriously, read Dean’s post).

About the only thing it doesn’t do is multiplication tables and buy you dinner.

And there you have it.  Try it out today, and let me know what you think!

 

CategoriesUncategorized

Exercises You Should Be Doing: Band Pallof Press Squat & Split Squat

I have two surprises for you today.

1.  Normally when I do an Exercises You Should Be Doing post, I give only one recommendation.  Today, however, I’m giving you TWO!

2.  In addition, not only do you get two new (to you) exercises to try out, but you also get to see me in all my high definition sexiness, because I used my new iTouch to film the videos.

Actually, scratch that.  There’s nothing remotely sexy about filming myself demonstrating videos after a brutal eight hours of coaching on the floor.

My arms look gunny though.  So that’s a plus.

Anyways, for those who have been reading this blog for an extended length of time, you know that I have a few obsessions:

  • Ninjas
  • Matt Damon
  • Eggs
  • Might as well throw beef jerky in there, too
  • Star Wars and Lord of the Rings (or any other fantasy/sci-fi movie that was equally as likely to not get me laid in high school and college).

  • Boobies – yeah, they’re pretty awesome!
  • And, Pallof presses

The latter, of course, is something I’ve written on extensively here on this blog.  For those you need a refresher or haven’t the faintest idea what the hell I’m referring to, it may help to read this: 

Click Me – I’m Ticklish.

Needless to say, I love me some Pallof presses, and I’d argue that they’re the most versatile “core” exercise you can implement into a program regardless of one’s training experience or history.  If you’re a complete beginner, you can perform a standard Pallof press to teach the whole concept of anti-rotation and core stability.

Conversely, for those with a little more experience under the bar, Pallof presses can easily be progressed to more challenging variations like the ones below.

Band Pallof Press Squat

Who Did I Steal It From:  No one.  I think.  I may actually be the first on the interwebz to combine a Pallof Press with a squat.  Genius!

What Does It Do:  As with any Pallof press variation, the name of the game is training core stability. As you extend your arms out – and thus, increase the lever arm – the more you have to RESIST the pull of the band inward. Adding in the squat is just a great way to make the movement more challenging (since you’re implementing movement into the mix), and well, it just looks pimp.

Key Coaching Cues:  Don’t try to be a hero and start with the thickest band possible.  This exercise is deceivingly harder than it looks, and I’d highly recommend doing what I did and start with a 1/2 inch band.

Furthermore, make sure that you LOCK YOUR ELBOWS out to start.  From there, assume a basic squat position and have at it.  The narrower the stance, the harder the exercise becomes.

Focus on sitting back, while pushing the knees out as you descend towards the floor (maintaining more of a vertical shin angle).  Perform 8-10 reps/per side.

Band Pallof Press Split Squat

Who Did I Steal It From:  I’d like to take credit for this one, but Jim “Smitty” Smith blogged about this bad boy not too long ago, so he gets the credit.

What Does It Do:  For those looking to kick it up a notch, the Band Pallof Press Split Squat is a beotch!  Again, start with a 1/2 inch band. That’s what I was using in the video, and as you can readily see, I was struggling.

I love this variation because it allows us to pattern the lunge, which is important, but it also hammers the external rotators of the forward leg, which is equally as important because pretty much everyone has weak external rotators from sitting on their keesters all day.

Key Coaching Cues:  Seriously, start with the 1/2 inch band.  Don’t be an a-hole. Likewise, the pull of the band is going to be significantly greater here because your base of support is narrower.  As such, try to be more cognizant of taking your time with this one. Don’t rush, and control the movement.

And there you have it.  Yet a few more Pallof Press variations you can throw into your exercise repertoire.  Try them out today, and let me know what you think!

UPDATE:  come to find out, my iTouch isn’t in high definition after all.  My bad.  Sorry ladies.