At MBSC we are trying to do a better job of getting advanced notice out about mentorship weeks so its great that we can announce our next dates of September 15-18th in the month of June.
We will cap this at fifteen so start making plans now. Fall fills fast. To register go to
A friend saw this slide from Functional Strength Coach 5 
on a Twitter feed and asked me to explain. Putting the cart before the horse is literally an analogy for putting things in the wrong order. If we can view methods ( Olympic lifting, plyometrics, etc.) as the cart and safety as the horse we must see that safety trumps methods. We must consider safety as we consider methods. Many coaches use a one-size-fits-all type of approach and this is in my mind putting the cart in front of the horse. As we develop a program we must first consider the audience. What I might consider safe for an eighteen year old collegiate athlete might be risky for a soccer mom. What I consider safe the eighteen year old hockey player might be risky for the 30 year old veteran. Methods can vary based on the audience. If we place methods first ( i.e everyone does Olympic lifts regardless of age or experience) than we place the cart in front of the horse. The key to good training is keep the horse in front of the cart. The audience determines the method. Does that help?
Every once in a while it pays to ask. Have you seen Functional Strength Coach 5? Take a look at what one of our former MBSC Mentorship attendees had to say about Functional Strength Coach 5.
In an information age that can easily confuse and overload (as well as break the bank of) the less experienced coach/trainer, Functional Strength Coach 5 is 7 hours of information that will simplify the process. It will put the less experienced on a path of Mike Boyle’s philosophies that have proven to be successful on every level. You will find yourself saying “this stuff finally makes sense” and gain more confidence in your abilities to train others. Even though I have studied and implemented Mike’s system for 13 years, I found many more tweaks that will make my coaching better. I also found myself motivated to “stay the course” and realize good fundamental philosophies should always be the backbone of any good program. Thanks Mike for sharing so much priceless information in Functional Strength Coach 5. Sean Ross, Ross Strength and Speed
If you are interested you can go to Functional Strength Coach 5 to order.
Here we go again. Round 2 for 2014 coming up. The Providence Summit is over and now we are on to Chicago. This weekend (June 27th- 29th) between 800 and 900 coaches, trainers and therapists will experience the best in education for strength and conditioning, rehab and fitness professionals. Providence was amazing and you can expect Chicago to be the same.
As I say every year, if you don’t get to one of these seminars you are making a huge mistake. The biggest complaint continues to be about the inability to see all of the speakers. I spoke to at least one person in Providence who had already registered for Chicago.
Here are my recommendations on a session-by-session basis.
*Every year I say the same thing. I will almost always choose lectures over hands-on. I’m coming to learn, not to get a workout. I may go to a hands-on but, not to get a workout. I’ll go to a hands-on to get “hands on” experience with techniques but, not to get a workout. Save your workout for another day and get some knowledge to help your clients and athletes.
PS-Please accept my apologies if I don’t recommend you as a presenter. It’s not personal but, I have to help people choose.
Friday June 13th
9:15- Tough decision. Mark Verstegen is out at the World Cup. Denis Logan subs for Mark and I’m sure you’ll get a great talk. My choice, the legendary Al Vermeil. Wisdom and experience are in short supply and this guys has a ton.
10:45- Not an easy decision. If you missed the MBSC Winter Seminar go see Bill Knowles. At the same time is Lee Taft. Two really good choices.
1:15- After lunch,John Blievernicht gets the toughest draw of the seminar. Bill Knowles hands on is excellent. I always want to see more of Al Vermeil and to top it off, Gray Cook lectures. Good luck. Three headed coin anyone?
2:45- If you work with athletes, go to Lee Taft’s hands-on, trust me. If you are in the rehab world catch Craig Liebenson’s lecture
4:15- Is a toss up. I love to listen to Thomas Plummer, Lee Burton is always good. I’d be interested in seeing Craig Liebensen’s hands-on?
5:30- Al Vermeil gives the keynote. Al is loaded with stories and with wisdom. Don’t miss this one. PS- FREE BEER at 6:30.
Saturday June 8th
8:00- Saturday at 8 is a no-brainer. Come to my lecture. If you already heard me at a one of the One Days, go listen to Eric Cressey.
9:30- 10:45- This is a really tough slot. Alwyn Cosgrove is always good, but, I’m going to have to recommend Sue Falsone’s lecture. It is always one of my favorites every year.
11-12:15- I’d suggest you attend my hands –on. We’ll cover all of the changes we’ve made to our MBSC warm-ups as well as talk a little breathing. Robert Dos remedios’s lecture was great at the 1 day seminar so if you already heard me, go there.
1:30-2:45- Another toss up. I think any of the four will be good. I’ll let you make your own choice here.
3-4:15 – At 3, pick by your needs? Nutrition? John Berardi. Personal development? Todd Durkin. Programming? Alwyn Cosgrove. Rehab? Sue Falsone. Sue’s hands-on might have a slight advantage in my mind? I’m a huge Sue Falsone fan and only get to see her once a year.
4:35- Q+A. Get your questions answered at the end of the day, great opportunity. I’ll be headed for the airport but there is lots more “socializing” to do.
Sunday June 9th
8- Two good lectures to start the day. Evan Osar is always interesting regardless of topic. If it was me, I’d hit newcomer Brett Klika’s talk. I love Brett’s enthusiasm.
9:30-10:45- At 9:30 Michol Dalcort and Emily Spichal lecture. I have heard great things about Emily so seeing her would be my first recommendation. However, I also love to listen to Michol. Although I don’t always agree with Michol he always makes me think? Bit of a toss up.
11- 12:45- The weekend ends the way it began with tough choices. You would need to come three times to see everything you want. Two good hands –on sessions with Michol and Emily and two good lectures? Once again, you can pick based on your interests? Ed Thomas is always great to listen to? Knowing our history is still important.
Hope my recommendations help again this year.
Please read this regardless of what sport your child plays.
Two big takeaways:
1- Kids of rich parents get hurt MORE! ( socio-ecomonic status was a predictor of injury risk but, probably not like you think)
2- Elite athletes specialized later than their sub-elite counterparts! So many great pros were multi-sport athletes. We had two Red Sox pitchers last year who did not pitch until they signed major league contracts. One was a Junior College Quarterback and first baseman ( now an elite pitcher), one played college basketball in addition to baseball.
Got this question from a reader?
“I coach Cross Country and Wrestling athletes. They want to get stronger but do not want to
build lots of mass. I have read a variety of opinions from only body weight to
low rep/high weight to high rep/low weight”
I submitted a version of this to PTontheNet in 2005 and also published similar thoughts on my StrengthCoach.com site.
In order to effectively and honestly develop training programs it is important to revisit what we know or more importantly, what we think we know, about the development of hypertrophy. I must confess that I’m not a hypertrophy expert. I discovered this information mostly by accident. I train primarily athletes and generally don’t worry about hypertrophy to any great degree. I began to question what I had always taken for granted about hypertrophy. Recently I’ve begun to look at some of the accepted ideas about training in general, and about hypertrophy in particular, that many of us in the fields of strength and conditioning and personal training seem to accept as factual. Lets take a look at some of these myths about hypertrophy:
1) Do bodyweight exercises to avoid hypertrophy?
Lets ask ourselves a simple question. Do muscles have the capability to recognize type of resistance? Can a muscle tell the difference between a weight, a band or a spring? How about a dumbbell or the weight of the human body? I don’t believe so. One of my favorite lines of bull is the old “ this exercise or training method will give you long, lean muscles like a dancer”. This is akin to telling people you can turn an apple into an orange right before their eyes. You can no more make a short stocky female client have long lean muscles like a dancer than you make someone taller. Exercise will remove subcutaneous bodyfat and reduce intramuscular fat stores but, changing the source of resistance in a resistance-based exercise will not produce a muscle that appears different and or larger. Muscles can’t tell the difference between resistance generated by a piece of iron, your own bodyweight or by a piece of rubber. Weights can be hard, bodyweight can be hard, bands can be hard.
If weight training had to be done with a free weight to produce hypertrophy then lat pulldowns would be a better exercise than chinups for upper back development. Thousands of bodybuilding articles tell us the opposite but, the resistance in a chin-up is “only” bodyweight. If we don’t want hypertrophy than don’t do light weights and more reps. I think the common prescription to avoid hypertrophy ( light weights, lots of reps) leans more towards a bodybuilding, mass producing prescription than away from it. If I wanted less hypertrophy, I would stay in the 5-6 rep range with higher loads and less sets. Bottom line, you can produce hypertrophy with weights or without.
3) Lift light weights and do more reps?
Light weight is an oxymoron. Why would anyone lift light weights? I often talk to trainees, particularly females who say something like “ I have 8 pound dumbbells and I do the same routine three times a week”. When I ask them how long they have been doing this they often say, “The last two years”. My response is, “Wow, by my estimation you’ve wasted about 100 weeks of training”. Usually their response is, “I don’t want to get too big”. This is one of my favorites. Ask a natural bodybuilder how much time and effort goes into gaining ten pounds of muscle. Most male natural bodybuilders will tell you that it takes about a year to gain ten pounds of quality muscle. For a female this could be two years. Isn’t it great that our 8 lb dumbbell waving female client is concerned about too much hypertrophy. I recently trained a golfer with the same concerns. He didn’t want to gain too much size. He thought it would hurt his swing. I had the same response to him that I do to most female clients, “Don’t worry about it”. Gaining size takes a lot of time and effort. It’s like someone saying “I don’t read, I don’t want to get too smart”.
The Truth About Hypertrophy
The fact of the matter is that hypertrophy may be the goal for some clients and considered an unwanted byproduct of training by others. In either case it should not be a great concern. The reality is that hypertrophy for most, non-anabolic using clients, is in fact hard to come by. An unfortunate problem with hypertrophy training is that our concept of how to train for hypertrophy has been heavily influenced by steroid users. If a client wants to weight train but has no desire for hypertrophy I would perform 5-6 reps per set. I would avoid the conventional three to four exercises per body-part favored by the bodybuilding crowd. I would perform one or two exercises for each movement pattern but, stay in the 5-6 rep range.
The public is uninformed and often as trainers we’re just playing along. We talk to clients about tone, and about changing muscle structure ( long dancers muscles). I just hope that people in the industry can see that this is salesmanship and not science. I have an idea. Why not tell our athletes and clients the truth? When your female client says “ I don’t want to get too big”, tell her the truth. Say, Don’t worry I’m not sure you’ll train hard enough to produce much muscle anyway. Your athletes are worried about getting too big? Tell them not worry about getting big because it takes a huge amount of work and great genetics.
I keep getting great feedback on Functional Strength Coach 5. We filmed it at the first annual Irish Sport Coaches Institute Seminar in Dublin about 6 weeks ago.
Here’s a clip in case you haven’t seen it.
To order you go to FunctionalStrengthCoach5.com
Here we go again. I think this is the sixth year I have written my Handicapping the PB Summits posts. The bad part about ever having done this is that people expect it every year. On June 13th- 15th over 1200 coaches, trainers and therapists will once again experience the best in education for strength and conditioning, rehab and fitness professionals. As I say every year, if you don’t get to one of these seminars you are making a huge mistake. The biggest complaint from attendees at a Perform Better Summit continues to be about the inability to see all of the speakers. It’s always tough for me too but, just like you I have to choose.
Here are my recommendations on a session-by-session basis. These are the same ones I will send to my staff tonight:
*Every year I say the same thing. I will almost always choose lectures over hands-on. I’m coming to learn, not to get a workout. I may go to a hands-on but, not to get a workout. I’ll go to a hands-on to get “hands on” experience with techniques but, not to get a workout. Save your workout for another day and get some knowledge to help your clients and athletes.
PS-Please accept my apologies if I don’t recommend you as a presenter. It’s not personal but, I have to help people choose.
Friday June 13th
9:15- Easy decision. Mark Verstegen. Still one of the best speakers in the field. Don’t miss this.
10:45- Not an easy decision. If you missed the MBSC Winter Seminar go see Bill Knowles. His hands-on is the exception we talked about in the beginning. If not, take in Thomas Myers lecture. The Anatomy Trains author is always worth listening too.
1:15- After lunch, you get to make the first of what will be many tough decisions. Gray Cook or Dan John? Probably depends on your profession. Strength coach? Maybe listen to Dan. Rehab, AT, PT, listen to Gray. You won’t be disappointed either way.
2:30- Bill Knowles will quickly become a name you hear a lot. This year he gets a tougher draw opposite Stuart McGill. Both are from the sports med world so I might call this a toss up. If you saw Bill at MBSC or a PB One Day Seminar definitely go hear Stuart.
4:15- Another exception to my “no hands-on” rule. Go listen to Stuart McGill talk backs. I think everyone should hear Stu every chance they get. I actually like all four choices in this slot and you can’t go wrong but, you asked for a recommendation.
5:30- No idea who the Special Guest is but the last few have been awesome. PS- FREE BEER at 6:30.
Saturday June 8th
8:00- Saturday at 8 is a no-brainer. Come to my lecture. If you already heard me at a one of the One Days, go listen to Eric Cressey.
9:30- 10:45- This is a really tough slot. Alwyn Cosgrove is always good, as is Charlie Weingroff. My staff will be getting a great hands-on with Nick Winkelman. (another hands on exception)
11-12:15- Stuart McGill actually lectures twice so you have two chances to hear him. I’d also suggest you attend my hands –on. We’ll cover all of the changes we’ve made to our MBSC warm-ups as well as talk a little breathing.
1:30-2:45- Another toss up. I think any of the four will be good. I’ll let you make your own choice here.
3-4:15 – At 3, pick by your needs? Nutrition? Chris Mohr. Personal development? Todd Durkin. Programming? Alwyn Cosgrove. Rehab? Charlie Weingroff.
4:35- Q+A. Get your questions answered at the end of the day, great opportunity. I’ll be there for this so keep your questions brief. There is lots more “socializing” to do.
Sunday June 9th
8- Small change on Sunday. I’ll be speaking in Don Chu’s place on Functional Exercise Progressions from FSC5. Sherri Walters will be talking pelvic floor and Brandon Marcello and Ingrid Marcum will be doing hands-on. Four pretty good choices to get you up early on Sunday.
9:30-10:45- At 9:30 Todd Wright and Greg Rose ( two of my favorites) go head to head in the lecture halls while Sheri and I do hands-on. Pretty good Sunday. I think we’ll see lots of people go the distance this year.
11- 12:45- The weekend ends the way it began with tough choices. You would need to come three times to see everything you want. Two good hands –on sessions with Todd and Greg and two good lectures? Once again, you can pick based on your interests?
Hope my recommendations help again this year.
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