Baseball Showcases: A Great Way to Waste Money and Get Injured | Eric Cressey | High Performance Training, Personal Training

Baseball Showcases: A Great Way to Waste Money and Get Injured | Eric Cressey | High Performance Training, Personal Training A good time of the year to re-post this article. Must read for all baseball parents.

Movement Proficiency: A Reserve of Movement Competency

   It is important to build your training around a foundation of movement competency. This then serves as a reserve or cushion upon which your sport movements can operate.
  In other words, if your reservoir of movement is vast then the movements within your particular sport can be done well and safely.
  If, on the other hand, you have very limited movement proficiency then it is highly likely that at some point your sport will put a demand on you that your movement competency simply can't handle which will lead to injury.
   This injury event can be due to long term repetitive trauma (overuse injury like shin splints for a runner or shoulder "soreness" for a throwing athlete) or it could be due to a traumatic, one time event (ACL injury).
  The point of training is to make you more resilient from such insults. There is no training program that can absolutely guarantee that you won't get hurt. On the other hand, if your training program injures you that is an absolute, inexcusable mistake. If you do it to yourself, shame on you and use some common sense. If you are training with a coach and they do it to you, fire them.
  So bottom line is your training should enable you to move through a variety of movements through full ranges of motion with no pain. If it doesn't then it should at least be heading you in that direction.
  If it isn't doing that then time to re-evaluate and choose a different path.

Train hard and train smart!
http://fitnesstogether.com/media for our website and all of our links.

Is Your Training Building Resiliency?!?

  First, you may ask is, "What is resiliency?"
   Good question! :0
   I would define resiliency as the ability to withstand whatever life throws at you, be it everyday or in sport, without undue harm or injury.
  If you are getting hurt while training that is a cardinal sin. That should never, and I repeat, never happen.
  If it does then you are doing something terribly wrong. Here are some of the common reasons people don't build resiliency with their training.

• Poor technique and/or movement skills
• Too much load (that can be weight, range of motion, speed or combination thereof)
• Progressing too quickly; trying more advanced/challenging exercises that you are simply not ready for yet.
• Too much volume--this is especially prevalent in this era of Insanity, P90X, Crossfit and the like where there seems to be a "no pain, no gain" attitude. Don't confuse how "tough" a training session is with how effective it is especially in the long run.
• "Training through pain"" that is sheer and utter BS....period. If it hurts you shouldn't be doing it no questions asked. Now you have to be able to distinguish between muscular discomfort and joint/muscle pain but you get the gist.
• Training is too one sided, not comprehensive or well rounded. In a good training program the following qualities should be addressed: strength, mobility, balance, coordination, power, agility, conditioning/endurance, etal. If you get too focused on one aspect, i.e. strength, at the expense of others you will not build true resiliency and not be prepared for the rigors of life let alone sport. 
• Making training a competition. Training should be means to an end however you define that end. In rare exceptions should training become a competition i.e. military fitness training/law enforcement where you life may depend on it but even that has limits. 
• Not valuing the importance of recovery/rest. After a certain point, in the beginning of one's training life when one is young, careful thought should be given to how to integrate regular and consistent recovery into one's training program. This is easier said than done. 
• Not getting enough high quality sleep. Though this could be considered recovery, and it is, I think it merits a separate category because of it's importance. If you aren't sleeping well you are much more accident prone and injury prone. 
• Poor nutrition/hydration habits. Again, this could be considered part of recovery but it is so vital to avoiding injury that it should be given special consideration. If you want your body to be a high performing "machine" then you must use high quality fuel...plain and simple.                                                                                                                                        
• I hope these 10 tips give you some guidance on how to structure your own training for success.   
• http://fitnesstogether.com for our website and all of our links

Can children do push-ups? Republican American

Can children do push-ups? Republican American Have to keep beating this drum because there is so much propaganda/belief on the other side with no science to back it up.

What Santa Can Teach You About Sports Medicine | Eric Cressey | High Performance Training, Personal Training

What Santa Can Teach You About Sports Medicine | Eric Cressey | High Performance Training, Personal Training Really valid points about our approach to pain/poor movement. Treat the symptoms not the underlying movement dysfunction.

Staying Active No Matter Where/What

  When you get to the Masters athlete level, hopefully you have enough perspective to realize that you are playing your sport for the enjoyment, competitive outlet and fellowship it provides.
  As we have talked about before training is a means to an end especially if you are a Masters athlete. Training should first keep you active and healthy and second it will help improve/enhance your performance in your chosen sport.
  But training should not be an obsession as it has become with some.
    I say this somewhat with the benefit of hindsight as I'm sure I could have been accused of this behavior in the past.
  But I've come to understand and realize that training should not be an obsession as not only does it prepare you for your chosen sport(s)/activiity it also allows you to experience and try new or infrequent activities or sports that you don't do regularly.
  This was the case this past week as I was away in Florida for our annual Thanksgiving gathering.  I golfed 3 times ( I play very infrequently---perhaps 6-7 rounds yearly), went sea kayaking (lucky to go 2-3 times yearly) and rollerblading 3 times. I do that regularly during the summer and spring but not so much in the fall and the winter when weather in the northeast isn't so conducive to rollerblading. Oh, and I ran a 5 km. road race as well. I probably haven't done one of those in several years.
  The point is that I could undertake those activities without thinking about the consequences short of embarrassing myself on the golf course! :)
  I believe if a training program is properly designed it makes you more resilient and less prone to injured. And as a Masters athlete that should be your number one priority as it will take you longer to recover than when you were younger and the chances are the injuries will be more severe.
   The bottom line is that good, smart training will allow you to be more active, miss less time due to injury and perhaps try new activities that you might not otherwise attempt. That sounds like a a better quality of life to me!

Train hard and train smart!
http://fitnesstogether.com/media for our website and all of our links

Where Have I Been?

 The title is a legitimate question so I will explain what I've been up to lately.
  We held a couple of workshops this fall including one with Steve Maxwell, my original kettlebell coach, from over 10 years ago. Steve is a great coach and literally travels the world, living out of a duffel bag, and gives workshops on training: kettlebells, bodyweight, clubbells, mobility, etc. His two workshops for us were on bodyweight training and clubbells. Very good, physical weekend of learning and training.
  As a result of these workshops and other things I really concentrated on bodyweight training esp. with rings and the only real barbell work I did was with deadlifts. The break seems to have given my joints a little rest and recovery . There's a lesson in there somewhere! :) I plan to get back to the 5-3-1 program of Wendler's for a few cycles starting in December.I am testing my "core" lifts this past couple of weeks.
  We are also trying to expand our small group training business and I've been working on marketing for that as well.
  That's it for now. Talk soon!

Train hard and train smart!
http://fitnesstogether.com/media for our website and all of our links.