This past weekend (April 17, 2010), I attended the Perform Better One-Day Learn-By-Doing Seminar here in Phoenix, AZ. It was pretty neat to start with since several of my friends and colleagues from around here were there including: Patrick Ward and his wife Ivonne, Carson Bodicker(down from Flagstaff), the GluteGuy himself, Bret Contreras, and Don Miller (an incredible massage therapist colleague). The seminar was broken up into four 1-hour lectures in the morning and various hands-on practical exercise sessions in the afternoon.
The speakers and topics presented for this seminar were as follows:
Mike Boyle- owner of MBSC (Mike Boyle Strength & Conditioning) and the Strengthcoach.com website that is quickly becoming one of the best sites on the web for everything about performance enhancement and injury prevention). I’ve been a member of Strengthcoach.com for over a year now and I highly recommend any fitness professional or fitness enthusiast to check it out! At only $9.95 per month it’s a steal for the quality of information that’s available to the members in the form of articles, videos, and the lively and highly active forum discussions.
In Mike’s talk, he opened by saying that “change is good,” and that Alwyn Cosgrove says that people should never be punished for learning;great point! As many people might know, Mike Boyle is famous for his recent stance on eliminating back squats (and many bi-lateral lower body movements in general) and replacing them with mostly single-leg exercises instead. To say Mike is controversial is an understatement but when you hear him lecture. a lot of his stuff really makes sense.
The remainder of Mike’s lecture went over his approach to designing the pre-workout warm-up by utilizing the “joint-by-joint approach” to mobility and stability. This concept, which Mike says he originally learned from Gray Cook, has gained popularity over the last few years and is really starting to change the way people look at how we train for increases in tissue length and functional range of motion (ROM) about a joint. The basic jist of is that certain joints require more or less mobility or stability based on it’s architecture and that basic programming should reflect these needs from joint to joint. Of particular interest, Mike talked about the importance of ankle and hip mobility to decrease risk of injuries to the knees and lumbar spine. And as you may now guess, the knees and the lumbar spine should be trained for more stability rather than mobility. Back to Mike’s recipe for the pre-workout warm-up…
Mike’s basic “recipe” for warming up is as follows:
1) Frist, foam rolling is done to improve tissue quality by reducing what Mike calls “tissue density.” This can help reduce “knots” or trigger points and help improve subsequent stretching and mobility work.
2) This is immediately followed up by a bout of the always-controversial static stretching; that’s right….you heard me…STATIC STRETCHING! Mike is very un-apoloegtic about his inclusion of stretching prior to training and his rationale really makes sense. Although most research on stretching show immediate decreases in power, Mike’s explanation is that the research is flawed since nobody really stretches hard for several minutes and than immediately goes into sprinting, jumping, or some other explosive type of movement. Instead, if static stretching is followed by bouts of more dynamic activities, the negative effects from stretching are mostly eliminated while the benefits of having more supple connective tissues (i.e. fascia) are obtained and accumulated over time if stretching remains in the program.
3) Following the static stretching, dynamic joint mobility work takes place which helps to bridge the gap from foam rolling/stretching to more dynamic and “game-like” performance. After this, plyometrics and/or speed work could be done or a transfer to more general strength training and explosive-type of lifts.
Mike’s talk was great and we were able to experience first hand how he organized his stretching with his clients and athletes in the afternoon session, where Mike took everyone through a timed stretching and then active mobility session in real time.
Alwyn Cosgrove- is the co-owner of Results Fitness and a sought-after presenter. He is hands down, one of the funniest presenters I’ve ever seen! Alan talked about theSecrets of Successful Semi-Private Training Programsand gave a lot of the myths that keep fitness professionals from realizing their full business potential. So the talk went over both the practical, training part of training small groups of people and also the business and marketing side of things that can help make semi-private training a reality for many trainers and coaches. In a nutshell, Alan thinks that one-on-one training is mostly DEAD and that most people would actually prefer to train in groups because we are after all, social animals! I think he has a great point here for sure…
He finished with some great practical examples of how he sequences training programs from the warm-ups, corrective exercises, strength moves, and metabolic conditioning. In the afternoon he treated us all to a challenging sessions that involved both dynamic warm-up with core and activation exercises. This definitely got our bodies warmed-up and a little sweaty!
Todd Durkin- is the owner of Todd Durkin Enterprises and Fitness Quest 10,one of San Diego’s premier health and fitness facilities. To say this guys is inspirational or motivated is a vast understatement. Quite frankly, he was one of the most driven and intense speakers I’ve seen in a while and he clearly has TONS of passion for what he does! His talk was called “The 3-D Approach to Program Design for a Successful Fitness Business.”
Todd’s speech was full of energy and enthusiasm that it was possible that he had a lot of Red Bull that morning! He talked a lot about his approach to training people which is to train almost everyone as an athlete. He utilizes a lot of different tools and modalities in his training approach and really promotes a sense of pride in doing whatever you do for your training. One of his repeating mantras was “What can you do to improve yourself today? In the afternoon sessions, Todd took everyone through a sample of training elements including TRX exercises, the Battling Ropes, Agility Ladder drills, and a cameo appearance from my friend and colleague Josh Henkin, who was slaughtering us with an assault of tough sandbag exercises!
Gray Cook- need I say more…the legendary Physical Therapist and co-creator of the Functional Movement Screem (FMS) talked about Dynamic Stability Training. Here are some of my notes:
*tightness is a survival mechanism. Most people train for Synthetic Strength (appearance-based) rather than Authentic Strength (function based). What do you train for?
*Why do non-contact injuries really occur? Movement problems are really to blame, not just “tight” or inflexible muscles but faulty timing and the improper use of them. Assymetries have been shown to be a big factor in predicting injuries.
*Flexibility in and of itself has almost zero ability to predict injures..why? Because isolated flexibility tests tell nothing of how a given person integrates their body or “puts it all together” from a movement pattern perspective.
*The FMS (functional movement screen) is just a risk-assessment. Stop micro-managing muscles and look at movement “patterns.”
* The top 5 Bio markers for Injury: Previous Injury, Asymmetries, Motor Control (the real deal according to Gray), BMI (larger people can have more injuries), Stupidity (dumb-ass training).
*Motor Control and proprioception are key: if they can’t feel it…they can’t fix it!
* Don’t use tests/assessments as exercises. If you can’t do a fundamental movement pattern, then your inner core (TA) is out. Look at breathing…it is a BAROMETER of your CORE function!
* Authentic Breathing= Diaphragmatic Breathing. Best way to improve or reset the core is to not do any core exercises at all. Establish better breathing strategies and work on improving worst asymmetry or movement pattern in the FMS and then train static and eventually dynamic stability as skill improves.
Gray also presented a wonderful session in the afternoon demonstrating 1 lb. Indian Clubs and some basic movement drills you can do with them. He then demonstrated some great Reactive Neuromuscular Control exercises on myself and Patrick as well as some great ideas on how to use the bottom’s up Kettlebell exercises as a way to assess and train full body integration and core activation..cool stuff for sure.
The real pearls of knowledge came after the seminar when Carson, Patrick, Bret and myself asked him specific questions over various issues with FMS, rolling patterns, and even some great advice on how to treat my stiff big toe problem that us causing my Achilles tendon to be so irritated on my left leg. This was worth the price of admission by itself.
All in all this was an informative and entertaining seminar. Boyle and Cook were very solid with their theoretical and training recommendations and Cosgrove and Durkin gave great business advice! I would recommend these seminars to anyone who hasn’t seen these presenters before.
Thanks for reading!
Keats
