CategoriesCorrective Exercise Product Review Program Design Rehab/Prehab Strength Training

Introducing Spinal Health and Core Training

For those familiar, Muscle Imbalances Revealed has slowly engrained itself as one of the more sought after, consistent, and continuously revered fitness product series out there.

Seemingly, every year (give or take a few months) the man and mastermind behind the scenes, Rick Kaselj, is releasing a new version to the masses.

If I had to equate it to anything, it’s basically like the Fast and Furious franchise where we can expect a new(er) and more badass upgrade of some sorts every so often. Except in this case there’s no tricked up cars, high-speed chases, hot chicks (bummer), or cheesy Vin Diesel dialogue (even more of a bummer).

High-octane gear head talk aside, some of you may recall a little trip I took to Canada last summer where I went alllllllllllll the way up to Edmonton to “party” with my Muscle Imbalances Revealed Upper Body alumni Rick Kaselj, Dean Somerset, and Dr. Jeff Cubos.

And by “party” what I really mean is the four of us decided to combine our collective minds, go all Professor X on the world, and set up an epic 2-day seminar all dedicated to a multi-disciplinary approach to core training and keeping spines bullet proof.

We video’d the entire thing in all of our high-definition glory (I even shaved!) and have finally made it available for everyone.

===> Spinal Health and Core Training Seminar <===

Outside of being completely freaked out by the fact that it was still daylight at ten o’clock at night, it was an awesome two days where everyone involved – the presenters as well as the 15+ attendees – had the rare opportunity of learning from four high-quality, uber smart, and unwittingly handsome professionals with varying backgrounds and expertise.

Rick has extensive experience working with and dealing with a wide array of injured clientele, and is a straight up Jedi when it comes to assessment and understanding how to program around injury.

Dean, too, has a plethora of knowledge with regards to rehab, assessment, and working with the general public. He also broke a deadlifting PR that weekend with me just standing in his presence.  True story.

Dr. Jeff is a chiropractor and manual therapist with tons of experience working with elite athletes. His knowledge base with regards to corrective exercise, posture, and the newly minted “it topic” in the industry, breathing patterns, is second to none.

And then, you know, there’s me.

Because I don’t want to leave anyone hanging, I felt it only fair to give a sneak peak into each person’s presentation so that everyone on the fence would have a general idea of the material and topics covered:

Me Discussing Assessment

Dean Discussing Assessment as Well

Dr. Jeff Discussing the Importance of Self Mobilizations Drills

Note:  This is a clip from the actual finalized product!  HD baby!!!!

Rick Discussing Parameters Writing Programs Around Pain

And there you have it!  That should give everyone a sense of what to expect.  And remember, there’s roughly TWELVE hours worth of this stuff – including more “hands-on” lecture, some talk on breathing patterns and how that effects core function as well as posture, exercise technique, programming, and there may even be some shadow puppets thrown in the mix for good measure.

Okay, I’m kidding on that last one. Needless to say there was no stone left un-turned, and I really feel this is something that can (and will) help a lot of trainers and coaches out there stay on top of their game.

And the general public shouldn’t feel left out in the cold either.  This is a very “user friendly” product for all the general fitness enthusiasts who may be reading as well.

I’ll finish by saying that I’m often asked what I feel differentiates the “good” trainers and coaches from the bad ones, and what – if anything – I feel separates the masses.

While I could sit here and come up with some arbitrary rationale as to why bald trainers and coaches are far superior compared to those who are more “follicly” endowed (you know, cause I’m kinda bald), the real truth is that those who tend to be more successful and have a long shelf-life are those who don’t view continuing education as burden, or more to the point……as a “cost.”

I’ve always used the mantra that even if I only learn ONE thing from any DVD or book, and it leads to me picking up ONE client, it essentially paid for itself.

It was a goal of ours to make this product as easily “accessible” as possible (while still being profitable enough to satiate my impending beef jerky addiction).  To that end, Spinal Health and Core Training is on sale NOW (2/12) through this Friday (2/15) for $97 (. Which is a steal given the amount of information provided, and the fact that you’ll see videos of me from when I had hair.  I mean come on: That’s worth the price alone.

After this week the price climbs to it’s regular price of $197. So get it while the gettin is good….;o)

===> Spinal Health and Core Training <===

CategoriesCorrective Exercise Rehab/Prehab

Introduction to Spinal Health and Core Training

Some of you may recall I took a little trip out to Edmonton, Alberta back in June to take part in the Spinal Health and Core Training seminar alongside my fellow cohorts Rick Kaselj, Dean Somerset, and Dr. Jeff Cubos.

While I’d like to sit here and state that what transpired was a Hangover inspired two-day extravaganza of hookers, cocaine, tigers, and babies wearing oversized sunglasses, what really transpired was completely not that.

Nope, our Wolfpack was all about program design, corrective exercise, assessment, and anything and everything that you can think of as it pertains to core training and spinal health.

Okay, maybe there was a tiger involved……but that was Dean’s idea, not mine.

All kidding aside, it was an amazing weekend and everyone who attended walked away with a gulf of information.  Lucky for you we taped the entire thing and plan on releasing it as a product in the very near future.  And by “very soon,” I’m talking about within the next few weeks.

To wet everyone’s palette, Rick K. is releasing a series of “sneak peeks,” and for those interested below is a quick 22-minute clip of my presentation.

And there’s A LOT more where that come from. I ended up speaking for close to three and half hours that day (how, I have no idea), and Dr. Cubos finished off with another three hours himself.

Day 2 revolved around Rick and Dean, and while I had to take off for Vancouver that day for a friend’s wedding, I heard it was equally as informative and awesome.

Like I said, we’ll be divulging more information on the actual release within the next few weeks, so keep your eyes and ears peeled.

CategoriesProduct Review

Muscle Imbalances Revealed – Assessment & Exercise Edition

Trilogies usually suck. Sure we have the golden standards like Lord of the Rings, Star Wars (the first one, don’t even get me started on that piece of crap Phantom Menace that Lucas tried to pawn off on us), The Godfather, and The Dark Knight. But for every one that raises the bar, we have ten “sequels” that are just absolute garbage: Police Academy V, anyone?????

So what the heck does this have to do with anything?

Well, as far as fitness info products are concerned, you’d be hard pressed to find any series more impressive than the Muscle Imbalances Revealed franchise.  Having been a part of the last installment – Muscle Imbalances Revealed – Upper Body – I can attest that the information routinely provided is top notch and will undoubtedly help any professional take his or her “game” to the next level.

I mean, if you want to become the best, you need to learn from the best.  Right?

Today, as well as sporadically throughout the rest of the week, I’m going to be discussing the latest in the series (the third, in fact), Muscle Imbalances Revealed – Assessment & Exercise, which includes presentations from the likes of Rick Kaselj, Anthony Mychal, John Izzo, and Nick Rosencutter.

Assessment and Exercise for Knee Injury Recovery – Rick Kaselj

Since Rick is the “Oz” behind the Muscle Imbalances Revealed curtain, doing all of the behind the scenes work that never gets recognized (as well as serving as the figurehead of the series) I figured it only made sense to start here.

Before I begin, though, I just have to say that Rick is probably one of the most genuine and jovial human beings I’ve ever met, and his thirst for knowledge (and spreading it to others) is unparalleled.

As such, Rick has a lot of experience working with injured people (and healthy ones, too) and he’s recognized as one of the “go to” professionals with regards to assessment and rehabilitation.  For those who aren’t familiar with Rick’s work, you can check out his website HERE.

Rick’s presentation spoke volumes to me personally because I’ve had a history of knee issues for the better part of the past decade, and he has an uncanny ability to break things down into manageable, “why the hell didn’t I ever think of that!?,” nuggets of information that can easily be implemented on day one

After giving a brief overview of general knee anatomy, here are a few bits of awesome that Rick provided:

1. When it comes to assessment, it’s important to test the knee in both PASSIVE and ACTIVE ranges of motion.

Passive = gravity or someone else is doing the movement.

Active = the individual themselves is doing the movement.

2.  In terms of general ROM guidelines, we’re typically looking at an individual to be able to get to -5 degrees of knee extension, and around 140 degrees of knee flexion.

This is important because we need anywhere from 2-70 degrees of flexion in order to walk, and a loss of around ten degrees of extension can result in a limp, which, not surprisingly, will place a lot of undue stress on the ligaments and muscles.  Not to mention put a damper on your ultimate frisbee plans this weekend.

Rick also noted we need 93 degrees of flexion to get out of chair, 106 degrees to tie shoe, 136 degrees to take bath, and 141 degrees to swift kick someone in the face.

I made that last one up, but the key point is that having full knee ROM is important for every day activities.

3.  Speaking in more specific terms, Rick noted that a lack of knee extension also results in loss of what he referred to as the “screw home mechanism,” which serves its purpose by reducing stress on the quads and placing more on the passive restraints (cartilage, menisci, and bones).

This seems counterintuitive, and when I first heard Rick say this I tilted my head to one side and was like “what the what!?!?!?”

But once he explained his rationale in more detail, I was picking up what he was putting down.

In short, in stealing a line from Mike Roberston:  stacked joints, are happy joints.

4.  As far as the actual assessments are concerned, I like Rick’s approach because he takes more of a simpleton approach, which I dig.  A lot.

There’s no smoke machines, or laser show,or any theatrics for that matter. I think a lot of fitness professionals fall into the trap that the more advanced or seemingly “cool” the assessment looks, the better it must be.  I disagree.

Using one example from Rick’s presentation (and there are several):  he likes to incorporate a bilateral standing calf raise into the mix to see whether or not someone can get onto their toes and attain knee extension.

For the record:  When Rick demonstrated this, I couldn’t help but notice that basketballs he has for calves.  Well played, sir. Well played.  I hate you.

5. Rick then goes into several common exercises to regain ROM, and then progressing depending on how the knee responds.

I’ve poo-pooed on Terminal Knee Extensions (TKEs) is the past – namely because I feel they’re woefully OVERemphasized  in knee rehab – but Rick does a good job of demonstrating several variations progressing from unloaded (d0ne actively) to loaded, to adding resistance.

On top of that, he even demonstrated several Terminal Knee FLEXION exercises using a towel that I thought were pretty neat.

If anything what I took most from Rick’s presentation is that we can’t always be meatheaded with our rehab. It’s REHAB for crying out loud!!!  But there’s also a lot to be said about not treating our clients and athletes like they’re patients, and giving them a training effect.

As much as we want to think that squats cure everything from global warming to cancer, when it comes to knee pain and fixing it, that’s not necessarily the case.

More often than not, we must take it down a notch (or 20) to re-teach the body proper motor learning engrams, to teach it which muscles actually need to fire, and to prevent someone from overreaching their pain threshold.

Muscle Imbalances Revealed: Assessment and Exercise is on sale starting TODAY (Tuesday, August 14th) until this Friday for a redunkulous introductory price of $37.  Considering you can get your learnification on from some of the industry’s best, all in the comfort of your own home, without having to spend an inordinate amount of money travelling, and you’ll simultaneously earn some CECs in doing so, well, that’s a bargain if there ever was one.

—> Muscle Imbalanced Revealed: Assessment and Exercise <—

CategoriesUncategorized

Mark Your Calander: PTDC Hybrid Training Seminar!!

June is looking to be an epic month.  For starters, as mentioned a few weeks ago, I’m going to be heading to Edmonton, Canada on the weekend of June 2nd to join the rest of the Muscle Imbalances Revealed – Upper Body crew for the Spinal Health and Core Training Seminar.

We’re looking to keep this to more of an “intimate” setting – I’m bringing the wine and Best of Sade cd – in an effort to give all the attendees first-hand access to all the coaches speaking…so spots are VERY limited. Even still, we’re going to be offering a gulf of information with regards to anything and everything dealing with core training and spinal health: a topic that pretty much appeals to any fitness professional out there.

For more information, click HERE (<— that tickles!). And, just to throw it out there, May 1st is the last deadline to save yourself $100 off the initial registration fee.

Secondly, Prometheus – Ridley Scott’s return to the genre he essentially revolutionized (Alien, Blade Runner, etc) – opens on June 8th.

Seriously, I just peed myself a little bit watching that again.

Finally, and something that only came to fruition within the last few days, I’m proud to announce:

The PTDC Hybrid Training Seminar, June 16-17th!!!

I’ll be making another trip up to Canada, this time to Toronto, to participate in what’s shaping up to be a really cool weekend.

Both Nick Tumminello and I will be hosting a PRE-SEMINAR event on June 16th titled The Ultimate Coressessment.

When Jon Goodman approached us to see if we’d be interested, both Nick and I came to the (no-brainer) conclusion that there are essentially two topics that are like catnip for trainers and coaches: core and assessment.

Hence, this day-long workshop will cover assessment (both upper and lower extremity), as well as many of the core training concepts and exercises we use with our own athletes and clients.

The following day, however, is the main event:  The Hybrid Training Seminar.

Featuring FIVE presenters (one-hour talk each, followed by a roundtable discussion):  Jon Goodman, Nick Tumminello, Mark Young, Dan Trink, Geoff Girvitz, and some schmuck named Gentilcore.

This should prove to be one of the more anticipated “fitness” events in Canada all year, so don’t miss out.

For more information pertaining to topics and registration costs, go HERE.

 

CategoriesUncategorized

Spinal Health & Core Training Seminar

I have some pretty cool news to share today, and I’m not even going to sugar coat it.  Instead, I’m just going to cut right to the chase and say it:

I’m going to Canada, baby!!!!!!!

More specifically, I’m heading out to Edmonton to participate in what should be a pretty kick-ass weekend of learning, networking, and immersing myself in Canadian culture.  Which is to say, watching hockey and listening to Jagged Little Pill……on repeat. Get it? Canadians love hockey and Alanis Morissette. LOL!!!  Okay, I’ll shut up.

In all seriousness I’m heading to Canada to participate in the Spinal Health & Core Training seminar, which is just the abbreviated title. The actual title is a bit too Tolkein’esq to use as the lead for a blog post.

Here it is in all it’s glory:

Spinal Health and Core Training:  An Interdisciplinary Approach for Health, Fitness, Rehabilitation, and Performance.

Now THAT’S a title. The only thing that’s missing is a huge neon light and a dancing Ewok (or two).

Much like I was with Muscle Imbalances Revealed – Upper Body, I’m honored to be included in such a cast of other top-notch fitness professionals as Rick Kaselj, Dr. Jeff Cubos, and my brotha from another motha, Dean Somerset.

I like lists, so here’s the general breakdown of pertinent info:

1. As the title suggests, the seminar will cover anything and everything as it relates to spinal health and performance. Furthermore, it will include assessment, programming strategies, exercise technique, and will contain a heavy hands-on emphasis.

2.  I really need to update me head shot.

3.  The date will be Saturday, June 2nd and Sunday, June 3rd at the World Health Centre Club in Edmonton, AB, Canada.

4.  Registration starts TODAY (3/13) and costs $295.  We’re limiting this to roughly 30 spots, as we’d really like to make this as intimate (non-creepy) an event as possible.

Everyone who signs up BEFORE Friday (3/16) can save $100 off the regular price by using the coupon code ‘Edmonton.’

All you need to do is go HERE.

Like I said, this should be a really cool event, and a great opportunity for any fitness professional interested in taking their skill set to the next level.