I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to a nice, relaxing weekend at home. Maybe do a little writing, take anywhere from 1 to 17 power naps, read a book perhaps. Just, chill.
Riiiiggggggggghhhhhhhtttttttt.
We ALL know what’s really going down this weekend……….
Batman vs. Superman is going down this weekend.
Yeah, yeah…I agree that the trailers gave away way too much of the plot. And, much like what happened in Man of Steel when Superman and General Zod exchanged fistacuffs, I have a feeling I’m going to be super annoyed at the notion that punching Superman in the face actually means anything.
But whatever.
There’s going to be fighting, there’s going to be a bunch of explosions, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that maybe, just maybe, we’ll see zombie ninjas.1
Despite some of the early negative buzz, I’m optimistic that the movie will be two and a half hours of nerd Viagra. My boy, Lee Boyce, had this to say about it on Twitter:
BATMAN V SUPERMAN: I want to give Snyder a hug for HUGE effort. GOOD,but a rushed 1st act &a few too many characters for clear plot focus. B
I had the chance a few weeks ago to get an early trial run with a new self-massage tool called the Mysseuse.
Now, I get it: nothing will trump the skilled hands of a professional massage therapist, and there are a million and one “self-massage” tools out there…so what makes this one so special?
Well, what if I told you that it’s two things in one?
Yeah, that’s right: it’s basically a Transformer.2
Cortland for the SUNY Cortland Personal Training Conference (along with Mark Fisher, Dr. Cassandra Forsythe, Dr. Spencer Nadolsky, and Dr. John Brand). It’s a kick-ass line-up of speakers and it’s $60 for professionals and $20 for students. You can’t use price as an excuse not to come. Nice try.
On Sunday, April 3rd I’ll be at NY Sport & Fitness in Elmira, NY for a 1-day workshop titled The Athletic Shoulder. For more information you can contact Jim “Smitty” Smith: smitty.diesel@gmail.com
SEATTLE (April 9-10th) – Complete Hip and Shoulder Workshop w/ Dean Somerset
PHILADELPHIA (April 24th) – The Athletic Shoulder: From Assessment to Badass, at War Horse Barbell Club.
3) TG Apparel
You can now purchase TG t-shirts, hoodies, and sweatpants and make all your friends, colleagues, and family members jealous of how jacked you look.
I met Lori a few years ago at Cressey Sports Performance while she was still an active member of the USA Women’s National Soccer team.
In the years since she and have interacted sporadically via social media, and it’s been cool to see her take the role of fitness ambassador, helping to spread other’s (and hers!) knowledge on Twitter, IG, and Facebook.
This article describes her transition from professional athlete to bonafide fitness professional.
This was an excellent article written by a regular follower of mine on the site and Twitter. I always see her sharing my stuff, and figured it was high-time I reciprocate.
“Can we please just shut-up about Tracy Anderson!?!”
Those were some powerful words uttered by David Dellanave of Movement Minneapolis last weekend during the Expert Panel at The Fitness Summit.
Up until that point a fair amount of Tracy Anderson bashing had accumulated, partly in jest (as the brunt of some jokes), but too, partly because her name came up in several presentations (mine included) as a talking point about the the state of the industry, and I think Dave just kinda got sick of it.
The tipping point, I believe, was when powerlifter, T-Nation writer, and overall nice guy, Greg Nuckols, asked the panel a simple, albeit powerful question: “How do we promote good training information without turning people off from training?”
On an aside, I watched Greg PAUSE squat – ass-to-grass no less – 585 lbs for an easy, clean single last weekend. I secretly hate him….;o)
As my friend, Harold Gibbons, noted in his summation of the entire event, “This question was posed in contrast to a conversation at the time that discussed how we as an industry can do battle with some of the horrible training suggestions out there. I say “battle” and “horrible” because we can all be vocal about the disregard for science and safety from certain training methodologies. While I don’t agree with some of them, I don’t know if these people deserve to be cast as pariahs, as much as we can accept them as well intentioned and flawed with opportunity for growth.”
I’ll be the first to call myself out here. I’ve done my fair share of championing the charge against the likes of Tracy Anderson, Jillian Michaels, or any other example you can come up with.
On one hand it seems a bit misguided or hypocritical (and I’ve even been called jealous) given the thousands of testimonials they have from women all over the world who have followed their advice with great success and lost “x” amount of weight performing their programs.
That should be commended. Kind of.
You see, extenuating circumstances aside (medical issues), it isn’t hard to get people to lose weight. Take them from doing nothing to doing something, and “stuff” will happen. How’s that for science!?!
What I hate, what really ruffles my feathers, gets my goat, and makes me go bat-shit crazy….is the incessant fear mongering that the likes of Tracy Anderson gravitates towards and advocates.
Here’s a sampling of some of her better known gems:
“No woman should ever lift a weight above 3 lbs.”
“While running, strength training, and cycling may burn calories, they do not design feminine muscle or get rid of an imbalance that may masquerade as a “problem area.”
“I would never recommend (kettlebells) to women, even women who are fans of bulkier muscle lines. While bulkier muscles looks OK on women in the 20s and 30s, it doesn’t age well.”
And while I don’t like to use ad hominem attacks as part of an argument, I do find it somewhat “odd” that for as much as Ms. Anderson is an advocate of her own method (as she should be), and for as much as she advocates for a certain look and bastardizes strength training for women…..she’s had fair amount of plastic surgery done.
Doesn’t THAT seem a bit hypocritical? In an offhanded way, we couldmake the argument that not even Tracy Anderson got to look like Tracy Anderson by doing the Tracy Anderson Method. #Wordplay
But anyways, getting back on track, she’s a master at toying with women’s emotions and irrational fears towards lifting weights.
Does her method get results? I guess. I mean, I can Google “Tracy Anderson before and after pictures” and get a few hundred pages of evidence. And that should be commended. To a point.
Stealing some commentary from “Brent” who left this comment on an old(er) blog post the other day:
Any dipshit can teach to the test, or run a client into the ground, get them to lose x amount of pounds and show off their ‘success’ (usually its even easier in the fitness industry because clients come to you, usually somewhat motivated and willing to do what the ‘expert’ tells them to).
Setting up someone for long term success isn’t immediately quantifiable and is quite a bit harder. Kinda requires skill. It’s why any trainer can have a buttload of ‘success’ stories. The goal though is empowerment (at least in my mind) and setting one up for long-term success. This is more difficult to market though and frankly not as sexy.
Anytime I critique a trainer and someone says ‘yeah but they get good results..”) I just tell them Jillian Michaels and Tracy Anderson have thousands of positive testimonials, weight loss success stories, tweeter followers etc. Smart peeps in the fitness industry bash them though because they do nothing to empower their clients and set them up for long term success. I wonder how many of their clients or Biggest Loser winners come back years later and are like ‘wow, you really changed my life!
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
In a roundabout way, this goes back to my presentation last weekend where I talked about some of my strategies when it comes to training women.
I brought up Tracy Anderson to showcase a point: that fear mongering, feeding into, and placating into the irrational fears of (some) women is not doing anyone any favors.
At Cressey Performance we don’t feel women need to train any differently than men. 90% of what we do is the same across the board whether you have a the Y chromosome or not.
I was going to toss in a Sex and the City joke here, and showcase women’s unparalleled infatuation with it, but then I realized I’ve actually watched every episode. And [cue high-pitched voice here] looooooooooooved it.
Our gals are deadlifting, squatting, bench pressing, performing chin-ups and push-ups, and otherwise TRAINING like the guys.
What stands out, oftentimes, is the psychology that comes with training women.
Men tend to be more Temporal Comparative, where they compete or compare against themselves.
What did I deadlift last week?
What did I squat last week?
How much do I weigh now compared to last month?
Guys tend be more interested in what they, themselves, are doing.
Conversely, women tend to be more Societal Comparative, and compare themselves to other women.
She’s doing “x” amount of weight on the bench press, how come I’m not doing that much?
She has an amazing back. Why doesn’t mine look that way?
I can’t believe she’s wearing that to the gym. What a ho!
I once had a 50+ year old female client who would beat herself up and downgrade HER results, because she didn’t look like the 22 year-old former Division I female athlete who trained at the the same time as her.
Part of my job as their coach is to help them turn off the negative and unrealistic messages they’re inundated with as they watch television or walk through the magazine aisle, and teach them to compete against themselves.
While it may take some women longer than others to buy into, one of the best things I can do is to get them to focus more on performance based goals rather than less quantifiable goals such as scale weight.
Of course, some women may need to lose some weight….and that’s fine. But the sooner I get them to focus more on performance based goals like working towards performing a strict push-up on the ground or squatting their bodyweight for reps – the less they are s slave to the scale. And that’s HUGE!!!
Scale weight doesn’t tell you anything!
The work and effort it will take to eventually be able to do a push-up from the ground, or squat one’s bodyweight for reps, or to be able to perform a strict body-weight chin-up trumps ANYTHING you can do with a pink dumbbell or an elliptical machine or a Tracy Anderson DVD.
Sorry if that rubs some people the wrong way…..but that’s just the way things are.
Of course, if strength training isn’t your bag, and you prefer to use pink dumbbells, perform yoga, and run a treadmill, go for it!!! As noted earlier: anything is better than nothing. If you like the way you feel doing those things, and your proud of your body….awesome. You get a gold star.
But please don’t be the person who, despite going to the gym 5x per week, bitches and whines that you never seem to get the results you’re after – or if you do, that they never stick for longer than a few weeks or months – and then continue to repeat the same process over and over and over again.
What was it Einstein said about insanity again? If you continue doing the same thing(s) expecting a different result…….
Likewise, if you’re a fitness professional reading this post, I implore and encourage you to learn to EMPOWER your clients (both female and male). Teach them the skills they’ll need to make LONG-TERM progress, be their coach! COACH THEM!!!!!
So while I understand I set myself up for snarky comments by starting a post off with “can we please just shut up about Tracy Anderson,” and then proceeded to write another blog post on Tracy Anderson…….I hope people can appreciate the overall message/tone.
Which, in a roundabout way can be summarized like this:
One of the best compliments you can receive from a client is when they no longer need your services.
When they finally reach their goal(s), are able to make them stick, and can then look you pointblank in the eyes and say “I got this,” your job is done.
There’s no need to exploit people and cater to their fears.
My sincerest thoughts go out to all of those who live in the NorthEast (particularly New England), and it’s my hope everyone made it through Snowmeggedon 2013 safely and without much incident.
I’m not going to sugarcoat anything: Boston got its butt handed to it, with roughly 30+ inches of snow. We woke up Saturday morning, looked outside, and both Lisa and I were like “whoa!” After a few cups of tea, about a lb of bacon, a pep talk, and Lisa dressing me up like the little brother from A Christmas Story (I can’t move my arms!!!), I eventually made the trek out to do my fair share of the shoveling.
But being a central New Yorker at heart, and having grown up in the lake effect snow capital of the world, the storm paled in comparison to some of the doozies I experiences growing up.
However, just to give a bit more scope of how much snow we actually got, here’s a picture we snapped of someone’s car completely buried.
I spent a good hour digging out my car, and also did the good samaritan thing and shoveled out the two cars parked next to me as well. It never hurts to earn some quality karma points in my book!
Anyways, the city was pretty much shut down for two days – no public transportation as well as a ban on driving (and parking) – while plans were made to remove all the snow.
By late yesterday morning (Sunday), all the main roads were cleared, or at least drivable, and most of the side streets were passable (albeit most were one-lane only), which is a testament to the city and all the folks who worked tirelessly to clean things up.
Well done, everyone. Well done.
My only point of contention – and I realize I’m setting myself up as the ornery jerk here – is that I really wish the recreational runners of Boston would have some freakin common sense.
Now, I have absolutely nothing against runners, and I think any form exercise is better than nothing.
Having said that, while driving to work yesterday, on more than one occasion, I had to swerve to avoid someone running IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STEEET!!!!
As it was, the roads were narrow enough due to the mountains of snow everywhere. And it certainly didn’t make things easier to have to maneuver my car Jason Bourne style around human beings.
What really irked me was the borderline cavalier attitude many (not all) of them had. As if it was perfectly normal to be running in the middle of the street the day after one of the biggest winter storms in more than 20 years.
Okay, more power to them. And I respect anyone who will still go out of their way to not skip a workout.
But have a little feel!
La-la-la-la-la-dee-de-dum-la-la. Oh look! I-95 is clear!!! Fartleks!!!!!!!!!!
Likewise, the sidewalks weren’t much better. Most were very narrow and very icy, yet when walking to the store to get some needed items, both Lisa and I (as well as all the other pedestrians out) had to dodge all the various runners zipping past as if they were getting any benefit for being out there in the first place. I mean, it seemed like most were attempting to NOT break an ankle rather than trying to maintain a specific tempo.
Would it have killed them to skip one day, or, if they really needed to get their heart rate up, to I don’t know, shovel a sidewalk???
Okay, I’ll step off my soapbox now. Just talking about it makes me want to jump through a window.
Switching gears, the snowstorm served as an impetus for something else, too. Something a little less irritating. It gave me the opportunity to catch up on some much needed reading.
I was sent a copy of Dan John’s latest book, Intervention, a few weeks ago and unfortunately it was relegated to my “to read later when I have time” pile.
Since I wasn’t going anywhere for the foreseeable future, I decided to hunker down and read a few chapters.
Not surprisingly, I loved it! I pretty much love anything Dan John writes, and this was no different. And why not: he has over 30+ year of coaching experience.
While I still have a ways to go before I finish it, there was one passage I wanted to share that really resonated with me and helped feed into my incessant campaign on why I continue to encourage women to turn to strength training in lieu of those lame cardio-pump classes.
And yes, sometimes even running.
Here’s the passage:
Recently, a woman told me her friends can’t make a mistake.
What? Well, what she told me was this: Since they were attacking fat loss with aerobic work and strict dieting, they didn’t have any wiggle room. The woman, who holds herself nearly year-round at a very impressive 19% bodyfat, told me she enjoys desserts, cocktails, BBQs and fine food. But, and this is a big but, she can also do 10 pullups. She is very strong in the weightroom. In other words, her glass is so big, she can afford to cheat a little here and there.
That made no sense to me. Then I watched her train and thought about some other women I work with. When she presses an impressive kettlebell overhead (half her bodyweight with one hand!), her entire system has to gather up resources, and then adapt and recover from the effort. When little Edna at my gym thinks the five-pound dumbbell is heavy, she isn’t going to tax her body very hard.
Edna can’t eat cake.
Ladies: read that again and let it sink in. I’ll explain a few things in a second.
I’m not kidding, read it again.
Now for most, you may be wondering what the whole ” her glass is so big, she can afford to cheat a little hear and there” means.
What kind of glass are we talking about here? A standard 8 oz glass? A wine glass? An Optimus Prime collectors mug I got in a Happy Meal circa 1985?
Well, any glass really. The idea, though, is to make the glass bigger!
This is an analogy I first heard from Eric Cressey in his Ultimate Off-Season Training Manual, and again later on from Master RKC instructor, Brett Jones.
Think of strength as a glass, and the water inside the glass as all the “qualities” we train for: endurance, strength-endurance, power, agility, speed strength, strength speed, having the ability to somehow take F.O.R.E.V.E.R in the bathroom getting ready, you know, those types of things.
The smaller your glass, the less “qualities” you’re able to express, let alone at a high level. That said…..
Strength is the basis for everything.
You can’t be “fast” without having some semblance of strength (or horsepower) in reserve. You can’t improve your timed mile, or taking a bit further, your marathon time if you can’t generate more force into the ground to propel yourself forward.
The larger you make your glass, the more liquid your’re able to place inside said glass, and the likelihood your performance improves. Whatever your endeavors may be.
If you’re weak, the glass is almost filled to the brim, and there’s little room for improvement. And, I’d even argue for those more aesthetically minded: you can’t even come close to getting as lean as you’d like if you’re weak in the first place.
If you’re someone who’s idea of “working out” is performing endless repetitions of arm circles, curls, and extensions with those cute, 5 lb pink dumbbells – and it’s hard – guess what?
You can’t have cake.
And that sucks.
Conversely, if you’re someone who places a premium on getting stronger (maybe working towards being able to perform ten solid push-ups, or one dead hang bodyweight pull-up, or maybe 1.5x bodyweight deadlift, or something as simple as learning how to squat properly), and you actually place a stress upon your body and force it to, you know, do something…… and do it hard……
……the more “wiggle room” you have when it comes to your nutrition.
While not a concrete train of thought, I think most people reading can appreciate the general tone I’m getting at here.
For example here’s Lisa this past Saturday afternoon while we were snowed in. While she could have just as easily watched The Notebook or forced me to watch a Julia Roberts marathon, she didn’t. Instead she spent part of the afternoon randomly walking up to the chin-up bar and busting out some reps. Here’s her third set of five:
Not to brag, but I don’t think there are many women out there who could just casually walk up to a chin-up bar and start busting out reps.
Wanna know what else she can do:
– Bench press 160 lbs.
– Deadlift 225+ lbs for reps.
– Perform 10+ flawless push-ups.
– Teach 4 spin classes per week.
– Read the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy in one week (true story).
– Leap tall buildings in a single bound (less true, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she could actually do it).
Wanna know what else she does:
She feels no remorse when we go out to eat on the weekends and orders a steak (with potatoes) and dessert afterwards.
She also eats out of the bread bowl. GASP!!!!!!!!!
To her credit: she works her ass off, and has put in A LOT of hours in the gym to look how she looks.
As Coach John alluded to: she doesn’t necessarily have to be as “on point” with her nutrition (even though she is) and can get away with a few cheats here and there because she’s STRONG!
This isn’t to suggest that every female reading needs to rush out to their nearest gym and commandeer the squat rack (although, that would be pretty cool). All I’m suggesting is that it wouldn’t hurt to turn the page, turn off the Tracy Anderson DVD, and start lifting some appreciable weight.
I’m not saying all of this to be snarky, and I hope it’s not coming across as such. In every sense, I’m saying all of this to EMPOWER you.
