In This Issue
– Robertson Training Systems Updates
– Testimonials
– Training Tip
– Nutrition Tip
– Perform Better Seminar Recap
– Upcoming Interviews
– New Articles
– Schedule
Robertson Training Systems Updates
Indy Seminar early registration closed in 10 days!
You only have a little over a week to get the early bird discount on the Indy Performance Enhancement seminar. Don’t wait any longer; follow the link below to sign up TODAY.
Indy Seminar Registration and Info Page
All Interviews being pushed back a week
With the Perform Better seminar this past weekend, I’m a little behind with the interviews. As well, I’ve got a full recap of the Perform Better seminar below, so we’ll restart the interview process next week.
Testimonials: Magnificent Mobility and Inside-Out
Just dropping you a note to say thank you for Magnificent Mobility and Inside Out. Or, I should say my clients thank you because they have been reaping real physical benefits from the knowledge you, Bill, and Eric have coalesced into excellent products.
Thank You,
Chris Bathke,C.S.C.S
Los Angeles, CA
Training Tip
Take your fish oils
Okay, this isn’t a training tip, but it was reinforced to me at this weekend’s seminar so I thought I’d throw it out there.
Fish oils may be the single-best supplement you can take. In fact, they’re so good I don’t even consider them a supplement any more – they’re something I should be taking in every day just like water, protein, etc. If you want to find out just how powerful they are, just run a Pubmed search on any disease (heart disease, arthritis, etc.) and include fish oil as a key word. Chances are, fish oil can help.
A general rule of thumb is to get 3 grams of EPA/DHA per day. If you’re taking a general fish oil product like you’d get at CVS or Walgreen’s, you may need to take up to 10 pills per day. I prefer Biotest’s Flameout, where I get the same total EPA/DHA from four pills. Quite simply, fewer pills = higher quality.
Nutrition Tip
It’s Not a Diet – It’s Nutrition Re-Education
By Mike Roussell
All diets fail eventually. That is the truest statement there is.
How many people do you know that have lost a bunch of weight on _____ (fill in your favorite diet) diet but then gained most if not all the weight back within 6 months? I bet you know one person for almost every diet out there (I know I do).
How could all these diets be failures? People fail to maintain their muscle gains or fat losses because they see themselves as going on a diet for a specific amount of time and then reverting back to their “normal” way of eating. Unfortunately “normal” sucks for 90% of people.
This is why the key to success is a nutritional re-education. You need to re-educate yourself to what is a normal diet. When you spend the time and effort (by yourself or with a nutrition coach/mentor) to nutritionally re-educate yourself and change what you view as a normal diet, you will exit the rat race known at yo-yo dieting (housewives aren’t the only guilty ones here, weight lifters and bodybuilders can be the worst). You will truly achieve a NEW you. You won’t be on a diet, you will have changed the way you eat.
So forget DIETING. Focus on nutritionally re-educating yourself to achieve a new normal. This is the true key to success.
Perform Better Seminar Recap
I just returned from the Perform Better Seminar in Chicago, IL, and it was an amazing weekend! Chris Poirier and the rest of the Perform Better staff run an excellent seminar, and I think everyone would agree this is hands-down the #1 lecture series on tour right now.
Here’s a brief recap of the seminar, along with some tidbits from the various lectures.
Friday, April 18th
Jess and I cruised up a little late on Friday morning, so we missed the first two lectures of the morning. In the afternoon, we attended several seminars:
Dr. Jose Antonio – Practical Sports Nutrition and Supplementation
With my wife being a dietitian, we decided to attended Dr. Antonio’s seminar to start out day. Jose did an excellent job of reviewing all the big supplements (creatine, glutamine, beta-alanine, caffeine, various proteins, etc.) and discussed the research that was out their to either support or refute the companies claims. With very few federal regulations on the supplement industry, this presentation really helped to cut through the BS and marketing that was out there.
Brian Grasso – Youth Fitness: The New Horizon for Personal Trainers
Not only is BG a great coach, but he’s a great speaker as well. This lecture covered many topics, but the focus was on youth training and ways to improve upon it. One of my favorite points was when BG likened early sports specialization to focusing on only one topic in school (i.e. math), versus getting a well rounded education up front. We’ve effectively trained kids to be really good at one sport, while taking away their gross athletic abilities. If you work with or have young kids, do your best to expose them to a variety of sports and movements. The more movements and skills they acquire early on, the broader their movement “language” will be in the future.
Another point that I really liked about this presentation was how we need to speak to and coach different athletes in different ways. In other words, you don’t coach a kid with high motivation and high levels of skill the same way you would a kid that has high motivation but low skill. This is one thing I need to focus on myself to get more out of my athletes.
Martin Rooney – Speed Kills: Assessment of Sprint Technique
The fact that Martin Rooney consistently coaches the fastest athletes at the NFL combine grabs my respect. This presentation discussed some of the basic sprint and deceleration mechanics he teaches, along with which muscle groups are most involved at the various stages of sprinting (acceleration, top speed, etc.)
Thomas Plummer – Money: Why You Don’t Have It and How To Get It
Thomas Plummer gave an excellent presentation on why the “big box” gyms are on the way out, and why the little guy with a small facility is on his way in. Considering the fact that Bill and I are hoping to open a facility very soon, this was music to my ears!
Plummer went on to discuss that one-on-one, machine based training isn’t what people want. They don’t want to look like bodybuilders – they want to look and feel like athletes. Plummer is also a huge advocate of professionalism within the industry. No Under Armor shirts at work. No visible tattoos. Showing up early to all appointments. Basically, taking the industry up a notch.
If you’re a personal trainer, strength coach, or someone who wants to get started in the industry, you owe it to yourself to hear Plummer talk.
Saturday, April 19th
Lee Taft – Re-Thinking Multi-Directional Speed
I’m quite convinced that Lee Taft has forgotten more about speed training than I’ve ever known. The guy is just a wealth of knowledge with regards to movement training. This topic covered multi-directional training, and how to improve it. Like many at the seminar, Lee discussed the importance of learning decelerative skills first and foremost. While many facilities are throwing kids on over speed treadmills and trying to lower their 40 times, very few are teaching them pure movement skills. These are the things we need to be focusing on if our goal is to keep kids healthy AND improve their performance over the long haul.
Mark Verstegen – Regenerate
I must admit, Mark Verstegen is a huge reason that I got into this industry. His work has pioneered the way for many strength coaches such as myself. While I couldn’t stay for the entire session, Mark discussed how regeneration is a huge component of the programming at Athletes Performance.
Eric Cressey – Training Strategies for Overhead Athletes
If you’re a baseball player in the Boston area, I can’t imagine going to a better coach than Eric Cressey. Not only does he talk the talk, but he walks the walk as well. More importantly, Eric knows shoulders about as well as anyone. If you want to get and stay healthy over the course of your career, this is the guy to see.
Eric’s talk covered how he develops training programs for overhead athletes. However, instead of focusing solely on the shoulder, Eric started from the ground up and displayed how you MUST look at the body as a whole, kinetic chain, versus focusing solely on the shoulder. I’m sure quite a few people in the crowd thought he was going to spend an hour rambling on about shoulders, but as well all know, nothing happens in isolation, especially with regards to sport movement. This session was definitely a highlight for me personally.
Eric Cressey – Training Strategies for Overhead Athletes (Hands-On)
In this session, Eric took the crowd through various mobility and stability drills that he uses with his clients and athletes. Again, the focus here wasn’t solely on addressing the shoulder, but rather the entire kinetic chain. The session worked everything from the feet to the shoulders and everything in between.
Gray Cook – Secrets of the Hip and Knee
This was the final session for me on Saturday. My reason for attending was two-fold:
1 – I’m a knee geek
2 – Gray Cook is really smart
This session focused on Gray’s strategies for assessing knee/hip health and function. While we attack things from different angles, I think Gray and I both want to evaluate the body as a whole and get away from a “knee focused” approach. Gray used the FMS to evaluate clients, and then outlined some of his protocols to get clients back to cleaner movement patterns. One of the concepts I really took away from this seminar was the concept of “reflex stabilization” – or getting stability from the appropriate areas at the appropriate times. Some might also call this “active stiffness,” but that’s a discussion for another day.
Sunday, April 20th
While I would love to say I was studious this day, that would be a big fat lie. Instead, I did my Bulletproof Knees hands-on session at 8 am and my lecture session at 11:45. Here’s what I covered.
In my hands-on, my goal was to get the attendees up and moving. More importantly, I wanted them to FEEL what their clients feel every day that they train. Three of my primary components of knee health are mobility, motor control, and strength, so those were the topics we covered in this session.
We started off with basic foam rolling and soft-tissue work for the hips, thighs, and lower extremity. I covered a little bit of functional anatomy, as well as strategies to tweak any given foam rolling position to get more out of it.
Next, I got the attendees moving by going through eight of our Magnificent Mobility drills. However, rather than just mindlessly going through drills, we did a lot of cuing on technique to emphasize the need for HIP mobility, versus lumbar spine mobility. I really wanted to drill the concept of movement quality into them.
We finished up with some intrinsic hip work (glute max, psoas/iliacus, and posterior glute medius) and drills to clean up basic movements like squats and lunges. All in all, I thought the session went really well.
The lecture session went quite well, too. In this presentation, I like to give the attendees an idea of why I do the things that I do with regards to knee training and health. It’s hard to convey all your thoughts and ideas in a one-hour presentation, but the attendees were great, especially considering they’d been pounded with information over the past three days!
All in all, the seminar went extremely well and a great time was had by all. As a presenter, I really feel like the PB format of two sessions (one hands-on, one lecture) works quite well because it helps reinforce the concepts. Not only do you get to find out WHY someone does things they way they do, but you actually get to try it out on yourself first. I really feel like this enhances the learning process.
If you’re interested in learning more about the summits, be sure to check out the Perform Better website. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed!