Z

Made sure to finish the day with some Z drills and a stretch...may dampen down the soreness tomorrow.

Tired

Too tired to sleep. More sprints today, calf muscles are wrecked. Another batch of pullups and pushups thrown in before the meaty stuff started. Field drills for two hours and Prowler + Sled drags. Protein Protein Protein and more of the same tomorrow.

Pain is good...sometimes

1st Training session of the day

Sprints! 400m slow jog interspersed with 100m dashes for 15minutes. Straight after it was onto the field for pullups and pressups. Pullups were done from a thick bar without tempo for reps to failure, 10s break and then repping out again. Participant was out when 1 pullup could not be achieved. Pressups done in the same fashion until 5 pressups could not be achieved. Finish with a 1km run back to the training centre.

Nice

Todays Warmup

Z-Health R-phase full body drills and Pavels Super joints program for the upper body.

Good to go

Another good leg blaster!

Leg Extension 3x12 reps 45kg 30X Tempo
Rest 1 min between sets and then hit 1 long drop set. aim to keep the tempo and do as many reps as possible before dropping the weight. aim for 4 drops in weight. After that stay in the bottom position and hit 10-12 short 6inch pulses.

Rest 1min and then hit 1 set of walking lunges aiming for 2mins of walking with 9kg dumbells.

Rest 1min and then rep out with a 401 tempo on the leg press. aim for 130kg and at least 2minutes worth of reps. Don't bother to count, just keep going.

Try it!

Scottie

Shamelessly lifted from the Superb blog of Eric Cressey. Enjoy!

This past weekend, Mike Reinold and I presented our Functional Stability Training seminar to an audience of about 60 people at Cressey Performance. The entire seminar was videotaped and should be available sometime in early 2012. In the meantime, though, I wanted to touch on a topic we covered collaboratively: how to categorize various core stability exercises and incorporate them into your strength and conditioning programs.

Both Mike and I are in agreement that your four general categories are anterior core stability, posterior core stability, lateral core stability, and rotary core stability.

Anterior core stability exercises teach the body to resist excessive lumbar spine extension, and encompass a variety of drills, starting with dead bug, curl-up, and prone bridging activities. In prepared individuals, they progress all the way up through more advanced exercises like reverse crunches, stability ball rollouts, and TRX flutters and fallouts.

Posterior core stability exercises are designed to train the body to resist excessive lumbar spine flexion. Your drills may include everything from the birddog all the way up through more conventional strength training exercises like deadlift variations.

Lateral core stability exercises teach you how to resist lateral flexion; in other words, your goal is to avoid tipping over. These drills may start with basic side bridging drills and progress all the way up through more advanced TRX drills and 1-arm carrying variations.

Rotary core stability exercises educate folks on how to resist excessive rotation through the lumbar spine. Examples include drills like landmines, lifts, and chops.

To be candid, this classification of core stability exercises isn’t anything new to those of you who have been paying attention over the past few years. However, introducing these categories really wasn’t my intention in this blog; rather, I had three key points I wanted to highlight:

1. It’s not just what you do; it’s how you do it.

You may be able to hold a prone bridge for 25 minutes, but if you’re doing so in terrible positioning and just relying on your hip flexors and lumbar erectors to do the work, you’re doing more harm than good. You’d be amazed at how many high level athletes can’t do a simple prone or side bridge correctly.

2. A core stability exercise rarely fits into one category, especially when you add progressions to it beyond the initial stages.

Take a kettlebell crosswalk, for instance.

In this exercise, you have different loads in each hand, which makes it a lateral core stability exercise. With each step, the athlete goes into single-leg stance, which makes it a rotary core stability exercise. With the load in the bottom hand, there is a tendency to be pulled into flexion, so you have a posterior core stability exercise. Finally, with the arm overhead, one must prevent the rib cage from flying up and allowing the arm to fall backward, so you have an anterior core stability exercise as well. This example demonstrates the role of synergy among all the muscles (and fascia) around the core in achieving multidirectional core stability simultaneously.

Taking it a step further, how you control one plane of movement impacts the benefit you derive from a core stability exercise in the intended plane. In this half-kneeling cable lift, for instance, the primary goal is to work on rotary and lateral core stability, as the pull of the cable back toward the column is the primary destabilizing torque. You will, however, often see athletes perform the entire exercise in lumbar extension, as evidenced by a rib flair in the front, a backward lean, and loss of the packed neck. I execute the first two reps with the incorrect positioning, and the subsequent reps in neutral spine with adequate anterior core control.

3. When you consider the overlap among the various core stability exercise categories, it can be challenging to determine how to appropriately sequence them in a strength and conditioning program.

Great leg blast routine!

Try this for a guaranteed John Wayne walk the following day

Pre Exhaust-Leg Curl 3x8 @55kg 201 Tempo 30 seconds rest between sets
Follow immediately with 4 drop sets of as many reps as possible dropping the weight each time you reach concentric failure and then carrying on immediately

Rest 1 min and then Back Squat full range 80kg 30 times on a 201 tempo
Rest 1min drop the weight to 70kg and do it again
Rest 1 min and drop to 60 kg...do it again. Try not to lose tempo.

When you recover in a weeks time try it again.

Goes without saying that only people with healthy knees and good strength levels (Training age of 2yrs) should be doing this. Weights may need to be modified but the above are a good target.

Scott

Best Z-Health product so far!

Essentials of Elite Performance. Over 6hrs of gold with an overview of R-Phase, I-Phase and S-Phase set over as a three day workshop. Fundamentals of movement and self assessment. A real eye opener on how to move out of pain and into athletic levels of mobility and skill. I've watched it over 4 times now and i'm still absorbing the information presented. Well worth the 200 quid outlay and a must for any serious trainer. The section dedicated to the Arthrokinetic reflex makes the DVD set worth the price alone and you can qualify for CEU's with an online exam.

100m Row

16.2 seconds. Hard!

Chad Waterbury 30 Rep method.

30 Rep Method – this is a more effective twist on the 10 sets of 3 reps method that I've been advocating for a decade. Instead of doing 10 sets of 3 reps, you'll start with a load you can lift no more than six times for the first set.

Next you'll perform a second set of as many reps as possible (usually it'll be less than six reps). Then you'll perform a third set of as many reps as possible.

You'll continue performing as many sets as it takes until you reach 30 total reps.

You'll use the same load for all sets and the reps will decrease with the sets. This is an ideal way to train since you'll never miss a rep, and it's the way I approach muscle building in my book, Huge in a Hurry.

Here's a sample exercise pairing for the upper arms:

	Exercise	Weight	Sets	Reps	Rest
1A	Hammer curl	*	**	***	30 sec.
1B	Lying dumbbell triceps extension	*	**	***	30 sec.

* a weight you can lift no more than 6 times for the first set
** until you reach 30 total reps
*** as many reps as possible

This is an example for one workout. You'll use only one exercise per muscle group and you'll put all your energy into that lift until you reach 30 total reps. Perform the 30-Rep Method three times per week with a different exercise in each workout throughout the week. You can use those same three exercise pairings for all four weeks.

I've tried it already, it's very effective for strength development.

Scott

100m

Scott Storey 16.8 seconds
Sue (Pinky) Quinlan 19.3 seconds

10 min body blast

Try this for size.

50pullups
50 dips
75 pressups
100body weight squats
50 lunges per leg

Non stop, as many reps per set as possible, 10minutes. It's tough on your conditioning

100m Row

Jeremy O'Donovan 16.8 seconds
M Holland 17 seconds

100m

Quinlan! Aka Pinky! 100m in 18.8 seconds.....Legend!

100m Score.

Stephen Coffey 20.7
Aoife (Drainage) Hurley 20.5

100m Row

First scores in. Damper 8

Regina Mcfadden 21.5 seconds
Scott Storey 17 seconds

More on the VMO

The VMO
The VMO is short for vastus medialis oblique. It is the tear drop muscle on the inside portion of your leg. It has major implications in knee health. It is one of those muscles that seem to get amnesia whenever there is trauma around the joint. So if you have ever had a knee injury, chances are it's not as strong as you need it now to be. It has direct involvement in patellar femoral pain.
Research is finding new things about this interesting muscle. Recently they have discovered that the VMO has actually three motor innervation's while the other quadricep muscles, vastus intermedius, lateralis and rectus femoris only have one. There is good reason to believe that there is fascial connections to the actual patellar tendon an also into the adductor magnus. So you can see this muscle has influence in a lot of places!
So how to train it? I think the best way to train such an intricate muscle is to be varied. The VMO has been show to be around 52% type 1 muscle fibers. So it must also be trained for endurance, not just pure strength. For this I like a time under tension approach. One of my favorites is to pull a sled backwards in a low crouch position. Try pulling a heavy sled backwards for 60 seconds. You will feel your VMO's if you have never felt them before!
Terminal Knee Extensions or TKE's as they are known in the rehab world is another simple exercise. It involves something as simply as placing a theraband around something secure and then around your knee. Face in the direction of where the band is secured to. Bend the knee slightly under tension and contract your quad so that your leg straightens. I like this more for activation the strengthening. So if you have just had knee trauma this is one of the better ones to start with.
Step ups on a slight decline is another great exercise. On a medium to low box ( 8 to 12 inches) that is slightly declined. Place your foot facing going down the step. With an erect posture dip and straighten the leg.
Single leg activities that require balance checks such as a single leg dumbell deadlift will challenge the proprioception and stability of the VMO.

VMO

The VMO is located on the medial portion of the Leg above the knee. See picture left. This is the muscle that was mentioned in the earlier post as being the weakest in the lower body and the one that needs training. Full Squats (Hamstring to Calf muscle) work well.

The Weakest Muscle..

In the lower body is the VMO. VMO is activated fully in the first 15 and last 15 degrees of knee flexion, hence the reason you should squat fully without bouncing in the bottom position.

Drop your weights and squat deeper and your knees will thank you for it in the long run.

Try this, Actons crew.

100m on the rower at damper level 8. Females try to get sub 20 seconds. Males try to get 18 or less. Feel free to post your results.

Good luck

The Best!

Sue Quinlan (aka Pinky to her friends) Is the finest therapist i've ever come across. For Quality deep tissue work and ART of the highest order I recommend you become a client of hers. Susan can be found at Actons Health and Fitness club in Kinsale.

Scott

Common sense tip

If you want to increase strength and time under tension, slow down the lifting speed. Try 4 second negative/Eccentrics and 2 second positive/concentrics for every exercise you do in the weights room and you will see a marked increase in Poundage over time.

Another PB

30;30 Row x6 = 922 meters. Found it very hard!

To Develop...

Strength Endurance and Optimize Growth Hormone release, rest periods should be 30 seconds between sets.

Another PB

Handstand pushups 13 reps.

More PB's

Pistol 32kg kettlebell 2L 2R
Pullups 27 reps
Flat bench dumbell press 25kg dumbells 31 reps

Personal Best

Bench Press 110kg 1RM
Deadlift 180kg 1RM
Squat 145kg 1RM
24kg Snatch 10min SSST test 213 reps
Pullups with 40kg added 2 reps
34kg Kettlebell press 2L 2R
One Arm Pushup 3 right 2 left
Dips with 45kg added 5 reps
34kg Kettlebell Snatch L42 R38
TGU 42kg 1 rep L+R

Low or No...

Gluten diets are a good thing. It interferes with reaction time and can inflame your gut.

Quote

"Only fat people make too much Estrogen"

Dr John Rakowski

Simple is Best

Simple program to put on size in 3 months guaranteed.

Day One Mon

Squat 5x5 reps Bench Press 10x5 reps both at 85% 1RM

Day Two Wed

Deadlift 5x6 reps Squats 5x5 both at 80% 1RM

Day Three Fri

Bench Press 10x5 Deadlift 5x6 reps Both at 85% 1RM

Eat, Sleep, Grow

Good luck

Congratulations!!

Sue Quinlan on passing her lower extremity ART! I knew you'd do it Pinky!

Brain.

Loosen up the ankles!

If you want to increase your squat, deadlift or vertical jump. Perform ankle mobility drills (Z-Health R-phase,I-Phase are my choice along with Pavels super joints) before lifting. I gaurantee your poundage will go up.

Ozolin Structure of training session (1971)

1) Mastery of Sporting technique
2) Speed
3) Strength
4) Endurance

1000 rep challenge!

1000 reps with a 16kg dumbell in 49min 50 seconds. Hands were wrecked for three days afterwards. Aiming to break 48 min next time.

Todays Training so far....

Z-health R-Phase mobility drills in the AM followed by three sets of 6 pullups, Barbell Squats and Incline dumbell presses to wake up the old torso. all done at 80% 1RM. More later.

Today's training.

First day back from the holiday. Started with light swings and Z-Health drills for tuneup. Hips grinded a bit on pendulums at first but after a bunch of super slow R-Phase hip drills they loosened off. Followed up with presses with 28kg's and Snatches. Almost like an extended warmup. Moving to a cluster program in the next week to increase relative strength before getting back to the body comp stuff.

Food for thought from Eric Cressey on Crossfit training for Baseball.

Written on September 14, 2009 at 7:25 pm, by Eric Cressey

I’ve received a lot of emails just recently (as well as some in-person questions) asking me what I think of Crossfit for baseball players and, more specifically, pitchers.

Let me preface this email with a few qualifying statements. First, the only exercise “system” with which I agree wholeheartedly is my own. Cressey Performance programming may be similar in some respects to those of everyone from Mike Boyle, to Louis Simmons, to Ron Wolforth, to the Crossfit folks – but taken as a whole, it’s entirely unique to me. In other words, I will never agree completely with anyone (just ask my fiancee!).

Second, in spite of the criticism Crossfit has received from some people I really respect, I do feel that there are some things they’re doing correctly. For starters, I think that the camaraderie and enthusiasm that typifies their training groups is fantastic; anything that gets people (who might otherwise be sedentary) motivated to exercise is a plus. Moreover, they aren’t proponents of steady-state cardio for fat loss, and they tend to gravitate toward compound movements. So, good on them for those favorable traits.

However, there are several issues that concern me with applying a Crossfit mentality to the baseball world:

1) The randomness of the “workout of the day” is simply not appropriate for a sport that has quite possibly the most specific sport-imposed asymmetries in the world of athletics. I’ve written about these asymmetries in the past, and they can only be corrected with specific corrective training modalities.

I’m reminded of this constantly at this time of year, as we get new baseball players at all levels now that seasons are wrapping up. When a player presents with a 45-degree glenohumeral internal rotation deficit, a prominent scapular dyskinesis, and a complete lack of rotary stability, the last thing he needs to do is a 15-minute tri-set of cleans, kipping pull-ups, and push-ups – following by some 400m sprints. It not only undermines specificity of exercise selection, but also the entire concept of periodization.

2) The energy systems development found in Crossfit is inconsistent with the demands of baseball. I wrote extensively about my complete and utter distaste for distance running in the baseball world, and while Crossfit doesn’t go this far, in my eyes, anything over 60yds is “excessive distance” for baseball guys. Most of my guys sprint two times a week during the off-season, and occasionally we’ll go to three with certain athletes. Let’s just say that elite sprinters aren’t doing Crossfit, and the energy systems demands of baseball players aren’t much different than those of elite sprinters.

3) I have huge concerns about poor exercise technique in conditions of fatigue in anyone, but these situations concern me even more in a population like baseball players that has a remarkably high injury rate as-is. The fact that 57% of pitchers suffer some sort of shoulder injury during each season says something. Just think of what that rate is when you factor in problems in other areas, too! The primary goal should not be entertainment or variety (or “muscle confusion,” for all the morons in pro baseball who call P90X their “hardcore” off-season program). Rather, the goals should be a) keeping guys on the field and b) safe performance enhancement strategies (in that order).

Case in point, we got our first pro pitcher back this fall to start his off-season. He has a total of 20 pull-up and 64 push-up variation reps per week (in addition to some dumbbell bench pressing and loads of horizontal pulling/scapular stability/cuff work). This 84-rep figure might be on the low-end of a Crossfit program for a single day. Just like with throwing, it’s important to do things RIGHT before even considering doing them A LOT.

4) Several of the exercises in typical Crossfit programs (if there is such a thing) concern me in light of what we know about baseball players. I’ll cover this in a lot more detail in an article within the next few weeks, but suffice it to say that most have significant shoulder (if not full-body) laxity (acquired and congenital), abnormal labral features, partial thickness supraspinatus tears, poor scapular upward rotation, retroversion (gives rise to greater external rotation), and diminished rotator cuff strength in the throwing shoulder (particularly after a long season). Most pro pitchers will have more than 190 degrees of total motion at the shoulder, whereas many of the general population folks I encounter rarely exceed 160 degrees.

In short, the shoulders you are training when working with baseball players (and pitchers, in particular) are not the same as the ones you see when you walk into a regular ol’ gym. Want proof? Back in 2007, on my first day working with a guy who is now a middle reliever in the big leagues, I started to teach him to front squat. He told me that with only the bar across his shoulder girdle, he felt like his humerus was going to pop out of the socket. Not surprisingly, he could contort his spine and wrists like a 14-year-old female gymnast. This laxity helps make him a great pitcher, but it would destroy him in a program where even the most conservative exercises are done to the point that fatigue compromises ideal form. And, let’s be honest; if I was dumb enough to let someone with a multi-million dollar arm do this, I’d have agents and GMs and athletic trainers from a lot of major league systems coming after me with baseball bats!

5) Beyond just “acts of commission” with inappropriate exercise selection and volume, there are also “acts of omission.” For example, a rotational sport like baseball requires a lot of dedicated work to address thoracic spine and hip mobility and anti-extension and anti-rotatoin core stability. If you exhaust your training time and recovery capacity with other things, there may not be enough time or energy to pay attention to these important components.

All that said, I would encourage anyone who deals with baseball players to learn to borrow bits and pieces from a variety of methods available today. Along the way, take into account the unique characteristics of the overhead throwing athlete and manage accordingly. Simply saying “I’m a Crossfit guy” and adhering to an approach that was never intended for a baseball population does a huge disservice to the athletes that count on you to bring them the most up-to-date, cutting-edge training practices available.

If you’re interested in learning more about some of the asymmetries and training techniques I noted above, I’d strongly encourage you to check out the DVD set of the 2008 Ultimate Pitching Coaches Boot Camp. Both Phil Donley and I go into some detail on assessment and corrective exercise for pitchers in this seminar (and there’s also a lot more fantastic information for anyone looking to develop pitchers). You can buy it HERE, or learn more about it HERE.

Click here to purc

2 Great Exercises for Shoulder Stability

1) TGU or Turkish Getup. Teaches you control, co-ordination and the ability to keep the shoulder retracted while also strengthening the Hips and spine.
2) Seated External rotations. Trains muscles that rarely get used while laying foundations for a bigger bench press and more pullups.

Low reps in the getup, 2-5 per arm at any one time, High reps in the rotations, 25, then adding weight and reducing the rep range as co-ordination improves.

A Tip

Olympic lifts should not be done for High Reps. They are to develop power, not muscular endurance and the complex nature and skill set needed to master these exercises prohibits one from being able to move the large amount of weight correctly when using high reps. The chances of injury also rise significantly. Stick to rep ranges of 1-3, no more. These exercises are also never suitable for the beginner athlete with no training age.

Scott

Another Tip

Optimal changes in bodycomposition are acheived through the use of multi joint exercises rather than single joint movements. So, if you want to be leaner, stronger and have a better structural balance aswell as excel in the sporting arena, ditch the kickbacks and leg extensions and work on Squats,Deadlifts, overhead pressing, pullups and the like. Get a good coach, work hard and gains will be rapid.

Happy training

A Tip

It's been stated many times before from many many reputable sources but i'll say it here too...Take Omega 3 fish oil! It has too many benefits to list so I won't even start but suffice to say the stuff works so you should use it.

Scottie

PICP

I've recently added the PICP L1 Technical section to the Theory manual that I completed and I'm very impressed with the material. Poliquins educational programs are superior to most others i've done and any trainer who is serious about his/her career should investigate his principles. My training has improved and the gains i've made this year from the improved education are first rate. Less bodyfat and more muscle. Not as flexible as I once was but not too concerned with that at the minute as Flexibility can come day by day. I'm focusing on the Level two theory soon and then i'll take the technical section before the practicals hopefully next year. Hoping to do Gray Cooks FMS in October in Amsterdam too. Busy Busy!

Just back...unfortunately.

2 weeks in France. Cote D"Azur and Paris. Lots of eating, no lifting at all and a bucket of Wine. Watched the Monte Carlo Masters and saw Rafa Nadal cleanup! Awesome athlete, physically way ahead of the rest at present with an awesome hip snap. If he wasn't a tennis player im sure he'd be a top 10 middleweight boxer. Should win the French Open next month.

For Growth in a hurry (If you"ve the stomach for it) go to Charlespoliquin.com and try his .50 caliber training. Guaranteed gains for the serious trainer.

Trust me

Scott

For top drawer information on Health, Nutrition and Strength/Conditioning, look up Nick Mitchells Ultimate Performance. Highly recommended stuff!