It’s continuing education time again

Every 3 years it happens. I start getting the reminders in May or June. Polite at first, “don’t forget it’s time to recertify,” then more urgent, “time is running out,” and i’m sure if given the opportunity it would turn into DO IT NOW.” (in best Arnold voice)

For the last few weeks I have been going through the requirements for re-certifying my CSCS. I don’t know what causes me to get all twitchy about it each time, I always end up learning a ton of new stuff and uncovering more than a few great ideas.

 

This year some of the Articles and quizzes I completed were:

“Progressing from the Hang Clean to the Power Clean, A 4 step approach”

“Strength and Conditioning considerations for the 100m sprinter”

“Pre-season S&C for the Preseason Collegiate Tennis Player”

“Supplements for the Endurance Athlete”

“Nutirion Periodization for Athletes”

“The Biomechanics of Squat Depth”

Some geeky stuff at times, but definitely worth the time and effort that it took to get through them.

I have always appreciated the NSCA for the fact that they do require a decent amount of continuing education, and supply plenty of options and opportunities for completing the requirements.

Time to get back to work. Have a preseason track plan to develop and some off season football clients to beat up on.

GOOD TIMES!!!!

Back in the gym

Today was my first day back in the gym in a couple weeks. I have been undergoing physical therapy for my back and have been fairly laid out the last few weeks.

Today i kept it simple.

warm up
complex: squat, clean, press 3×5
core: SB roll outs 3×10
done

feel good at this point, hopefully I can say the same tomorrow morning.

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Talking Training with Sean Donegan of Bad Attitude Gym

This is what happens when you have a 45 minute training phone call with Sean Donegan of Bad Attitude Gym. The amount of info he threw out during our talk was incredible. It is going to take me days to actually transcribe all of it. This is just one “page” of notes. I took 4 total.

Bad Attitude has produced a lot of great lifters over the years and Sean has had his hand in training them all, so when he is willing to take time and share what he knows… it’s time to break out the note pad.

As i get through this stuff and organize it into a usable mass i will pass along some of the highlights and “greatest hits.”

ZK

SPF Pro-Am Sean Donegan Results

I wanted to throw this out real fast. Sean Donegan, the owner of Bad Attitude Gym in Texas, just posted up his results from the SPF Pro-Am. Sean went 650-410-640 for a 1700# RAW total. If there is video I will get it up as soon as I get it.

Great job Sean!!!

Another Bad Attitude lifter, Henry Thomason, will be lifting tomorrow and if his training is any indication he should be putting up some terrifying numbers. Check out his videos here.

Which personal training certification is best for you?

This is a message I sent to a friend in response to his request for the value, quality, and reputation of the top Personal training/strength coach certifications and their attending organizations. As you can expect I got straight to the point…

“In terms of history and reputation NSCA, ACSM, NASM. In terms of hands on validity NSCA, NASM, ACSM. In terms of front of the class geek factor NASM, ACSM, NSCA.

All other certifications aren’t enough to get me to look at an applicants resume. ISSA, NESTA, etc are barely worth the paper they are written on.

The NSCA has the largest professional network I have found so far and they are still the gold standard when it comes to strength and conditioning. NASM’s PES credential is nice but not applicable to a large scale college strength and conditioning setting. Also their programs are too equipment and time (in terms of months) intensive to be considered top of the class for performance enhancement.

The ACSM leads the way in terms of cardiac based fitness programs and established prescreening and testing of clients. Hiw ever they are too slow to move on new developments and their view of resistance training and it’s efficacy in both at loss and CRE improvements are evidence of that.

NASM is for the geeks, and I say that in love. The people that want to sit at the leading edge of the latest research love the NASM. The other side of this coin is that these people may not be the best with regards to client care or personal relationships. A little too lab coat geek for most.

All of these organizations require a certain level of post high school education to receive credentials beyond their basic personal training certification. As a gym owner and PT manager I love this.

Where the rubber hits the road. I have and have maintained my CSCS through the NSCA for 7 years. I will keep it as long as I spend anytime at all in a gym or strength and conditioning setting. If I get a second cert it will most like be through the NASM. I like the blend of the traditional large group info provided by the NSCAas well as the instant recognition that the credential provides. Nothing starts an interview off better than when someone finds out you have your CSCS. It’s what personal trainers aspire to, being a strength and conditioning coach. It’s a misguided goal but that’s a different conversation. But the NASM has done a great job at keeping in front of the latest trends and thankfully the legitimate research that supports them. In fulfilling the CEU requirements for the CSCS I have spent more money and completed more units through the NASM than all other sources combined.”

If you know someone who could benefit from any of this info don’t be afraid to forward it on, or share it using one of the links below.

Z

Block Periodization week 1, day 2 and a lesson learned

I have a couple things to fill you guys in on about the happenings of the last couple days, but first i want to let you know how my first deadlift workout went in the Block Periodization program that I’m working through.

Two Words: IT SUCKED!!! and it was 100% my fault. For those of you that haven’t done your reading on the Block Periodization Concept (BPC) the first stage, or block, is an accumulation phase. Nothing really heavy, but the volume is massive. Here is what my workout should have been:

Deadlift 5x6x225

1 leg RDL – 30 reps

Step up – 30 reps

Calf Raise – 50 reps

Back extension – 50 reps

Abs – 250 reps

The point of the accessory work isn’t to move as much weight as possible but to get the volume in. Well, put simply… I FAILED.

I cut everything by 2/3 and still got squished flat. This did teach me a couple things though. My conditioning is CRAP! It also showed me that this phase should have some pretty astounding effects on my fat loss efforts. I did my best to either super set exercises or run them in a circuit training fashion. Both of these are great ways to burn off body fat and since volume not intensity is the point of this block, it seemed like a great idea.

At least until i got started. With the supersets you get the revved up fat loss through condensing the amount of work you do within a specific time frame. Say you usually do three sets of an exercise with 2 minutes in between and you do this for four exercises. If each set takes a minute to complete the workout should take 48 minutes to complete. If you superset 2 exercises you spend a minute doing exercise 1, rest 1 minute, do exercise 2, rest 1 more minute and then repeat. You are still starting exercise 1 every 3 minutes, but instead of waiting around you are using your rest period to do exercise 2. This effectively cuts your workout time in half.

Its a great idea and it will do wonders for your conditioning and fat loss, but if you push too hard right at the start then it will leave you feeling “green around the gills.” Think about trying to sprint the first 400m of a 5k roadrace as fast as you can and then trying to complete the race. odds are it won’t turn out well for you… well, that was me today. It was rough enough that i ended up leaving a decent portion of my lunch in the parking lot next to my truck.

I plan on sticking with my supersets and circuits, but i am going to really stretch out the rest periods as i get started. This way i can shoot to cut down my total workout time over a period of a few weeks and use that as another gauge of my progress.

Combining this with an increased protein intake and plenty of stretching and active recovery should lead to steady improvements in both my conditioning and body fat levels.

I am looking forward to what my next workout, which is focused on the upper body, so hopefully things won’t get quite as ugly.

As always, please tell your friends or anyone else you think might enjoy this site about us. Just click on one of the share links below and help spread the word.

 

Thanks for reading,

Z

Great Bench Press article by Mike Robertson

This is a great article about benching from Mike Robertson over at Robertson Training Systems. It covers everything from the set-up, often neglected in articles about benching, performing the bench, and ways to un-stick your bench if things have gone wrong in your training. MR is always good for information about lifting and in particular preventing or correcting problems with your lifting. He got labeled as the “corrective exercise guy,” but that is short changing his abilities.

I have 4 of his DVD offering so far, Magnificent mobility, inside-out, building the efficient athlete, and assess & correct. They are all great and are my go to resources for warm ups and mobility work.You can pick up copies through his website, Robertson Training Systems.  (I’m not making any money for saying this, i am just that impressed with the products.) For the last few months I have been using the powerlifting warm up from assess and correct and have noticed much better movement during my sets, like my body isn’t fighting with itself, and better recovery from heavy sessions.

So check out mikes article, sign up for his newsletter if you want, and check out the rest of the info on his site.There’s enough to keep you busy for a long, long time.

Be Strong, Get Stronger! -Z

I did it again…

So i’ve managed to let this page slide once again. I don’t have a good reason for it, it just happened. I can say that I have been away from training and have had plenty of other things going on in my life.

Over the next few weeks i am going to be changing somethins up on the site and redirecting it’s focus a bit. In the past I have tried to offer tips and suggestions on how to get more out of your coaching and lifting, the changes will focus more on the lifter and how to get more out of your own training. I will be keeping my own log on here as well.

There are a couple of things that I want to put out there to give everyone some ideas about my motivations. 1) I set a goal for myself back in late winter of totalling 2000#. That’s still a goal and to add fuel to the fire one of my good friends and lifting partners, Tim Pigeon, did just that a few weeks back. 4 years ago tim and i were neck in neck in terms of totals, i even had a better pull than him. Needless to say, at this point he is kicking my ass. 2) for the first time ever i am going off a program that someone else is writing. I have always written my own programs or flown by the seat of my pants on these things. Recently a number of the guys that i have lifted with for years have been seeing great gains so i asked one of them to write one out for me. I’ll hold off on mentioning his name at this point, because if I F this up I want everyone to know that it was my fault. If it’s awesome, trust me you’ll know who he is.

Thanks for sticking around for all this and let’s see how it goes.

Z

Warming up, Joe Defranco, and Assess and Correct

Warm ups have become the hot topic in the lifting world lately. To do them or not to do them, that is the question. Personally, I feel it is a stupid question. Simply put if you don’t have time to warm up you simply don’t have time to train. And if you are just too lazy to warm up then you are full of it, it takes way less motivation and energy to warm up properly that it does to train. Then again if you don’t know the difference between training and working out then you probably also don’t see the need to warm up.

The basic concepts behind a warm up are to prepare your body for the training session ahead, increase joint mobility, and address muscle/tension imbalances. Depending on how beat to hell you are a warm up can last between 10-30 minutes. This can also be influenced by wehat training day you are on. I actually spend more time warming p for my bench days than i do for either squat or deadlift. The reason being that my arch in the bench is comically bad and i need all the help i can get due to my go-go-gadget arms. One of my training partners likes to remind me that I can pick pockets from across the room. So when I bench i not only have to warm up my shoulders/chest,back but also my hips and in particular my hip flexors, which are extremely tight after a few too many years working at a desk.

A thorough warm up should consist of tissue work, stretching, and mobility work. Don’t bother chirping in that stretching before you lift will make you weak. That defense shows two things 1) you aren’t actually strong and 2) you never bothered to read the research. (Read the study you think you are referencing and you’ll see the discrepancy that I am referring to.) Just in case you insist on keeping up with that line of thinking let me ask you a question. Which input negatively influences strength more stretching or major muscle tear/joint injury? Moving on.

Think of your warm up as having 3 phases. The first being Tissue work, i.s. foam rolling and lacrosse ball work. What do do? Roll whats stiff, or hurts, or tends to tighten up after a training session. Second ohase is stretching, and static stretching is fine but if you are still paranoid that static stretching is going to hamper your 135# bench max, go with some dynamic work… just don’t over do it. The final piece is mobility work. This is where you address issues with hip/shoulder/t-Spine/knee-ankle mobility. At the base level you need to be able to get into the positions that your sport or activity require. I.e. can’t hit depth in the squat without a board or 10# plate under your heels, your ankle and hip mobility probably suck.

As far as warm ups go there are two real choices in my opinion. On the simple side you have Joe Defranco’s Agile 8 (lower body) and simple 6 (upper body) and then you havethe more clinical, and the big dog in the yard in this category is Assess and Correct by Mike Robertson, Eric Cressey, and Bill Hartman.

That’s the bottom line on getting a good warm up and why you should be doing one. If you have any questions or any good resources drop them in the comments below.

Keep Hitting!!! -Z