IMPORTANT MESSAGE!

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We are currently doing some website updates which required me to make Blog posts for each of my most recent articles. I’ve written over ten articles in the last few months. So, following this post, you will see multiple posts below, each cataloging a different Performance U training article.

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If you are looking for the latest Blog Post, simply scroll to the bottom of the page and click “Older Posts”. This will take you to the next page to find the latest Blog post titled – The BEST Lower Body Strength Exercises.

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Freestyle Friday vol.3

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Once again I’m bringing you some cool training music recommendations we like to rock out to while “getting after it” at the gym. Plus, I’ve got a must-read article about how Twitter and Facebook could be killing you brain!

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Music from the Performance U Playlist

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The Band/Artist – Eric B & Rakim

Genre – Old School Hip/Hop

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Eric B and Rakim produced some of the best Hip/Hop ever made! Although they’re from the late 80s- early 90s, Eric B and Rakim’s music never gets old! These guys were truly ahead of their time!

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Favorite Songs – Paid in Full, Don’t Sweat the Technique, Microphone Fiend, Juice, In the Ghetto, I Ain’t No Joke, Follow the Leader, Casualties of War.

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Is Facebook and Twitter Destroying Your Brain?

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Last year, Susan Greenfield, the recently retrenched director of Britain’s Royal Institution, warned us that social media, such as Facebook or Twitter, is infantilising our brains, causing us to have short attention spans, sensationalism and an inability to empathise.

She was heavily critisised by some for her comments and continues to come under fire about her science. - (Taken from the Cosmos Online Newsletter)

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Go here to listen to this interview FREE!

Got barely enough time to check your email? The TMUSCLE coaches cut to the chase to cure your training woes.

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Continue Reading…

The TMUSCLE coaches offer up some cool tricks to make your next workout a memorable one.

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Continue Reading…

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The TMUSCLE coaches continue their look at a very timely topic — fat loss — this time concentrating on exercise routines!

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Continue Reading…

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Today we’ve got an in-dpeth interview I did for the Website All Things Strength. This site is run by Strength Robbie Bourke. Robbie has been doing regular interviews with some of the best names in the business and bringing it all to you FREE at All Things Strength.

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So, after reading the interview with me, be sure to scroll down and read the other interviews.

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Go here to see Robbie’s entire interview with me, Nick Tumminello.

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In this interview, I discuss:

- My favorite Books

- The problems with Strength Coaching industry

- The problems with Personal Training industry

- My recommendations to new, upcoming Fitness Professionals

- My favorite program design strategies

and PLENTY MORE…

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Go here to see my entire interview FREE!!!

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One of the subjects that has been on mind for sometime now is Assessments. I’m referring to the Postural and Movement assessments currently being taught to FItness Professionals.

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First off, lets get one thing clear – I do not disagree with using some sort of assessment nor do I deny the importance of looking at movement. I personally use my own hybrid of Gray Cook’s FMS.

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That said, I do have concerns that this Assessment boom has brought with it confusion and misunderstanding. Heck, I get confused about the subject and I have lots of expirence and soeak with top PT’s on a daily basis!.

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I’m afraid our industry (the Fitness Industry) maybe getting overly caught up thinking we need to “fix” everyone’s problems because I regularly see fitness clients being treated like a re-hab patients and not nearly enough actual Strength & Conditioning is getting done.

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So, in the hopes to add some clarity to some of the confusion surrounding Movement Assessments, I put together this multi-part series called Assessing Our Assessments.

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To kick off part 1 – I wanted to provide you with some information on the scope of practice between a Fitness Professional and a Physical Therapist. And, discussing the definition of the two different professions. My good friend and colleague, Coach JC Santana has done a great job clarifying the two practices.

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Check out theses insightful words from JC Santana taken from his book “Essence of Program Design”. Which by the way is my favorite book on Program Design!

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“At the Institute of Human Performance, we rarely test or undergo formal assessment procedures. We believe that observing clients is what trainers do best. We also believe orthopedic assessments and tests are the specialty of physical therapists and orthopedic specialists, not personal trainers.”

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“Looking at some of the techniques and courses being offered to personal trainers, we wonder if the providers of the courses realize that the audience is made up of personal trainers. The content of the material we have seen at conferences and in educational materials targeting personal trainers is more appropriate for therapists and doctors. Here is our reasoning for not jumping onto the assessment bandwagon.”

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Before we even get into the efficacy of an assessment strategy, let’s first talk about the scope of practice of a personal trainer. As of this writing, I have only been able to find two organizations that have attempted to delineate the job description of a personal trainer: the ACSM and the NSCA. According to the ACSM, “The ACSM Health Fitness Instructor conducts exercise programs and provides health education for apparently healthy people.” Likewise, according to the NSCA, “The NSCA-Certified Personal Trainer trains active and sedentary, physically healthy individuals, as well as the elderly and obese.

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” Now, let’s compare this to the job description of a physical therapist. According to the Maine Physical Therapist Practice Act, ”physical therapy” means the evaluation, treatment and instruction of human beings to detect, assess, prevent, correct, alleviate and limit physical disability, bodily malfunction and pain from injury, disease and any other bodily condition; the administration, interpretation and evaluation of tests and measurements of bodily functions and structures for the purpose of treatment planning; the planning, administration, evaluation and modification of treatment and instruction; and the use of physical agents and procedures, activities and devices for preventive and therapeutic purposes; and the provision of consultative, educational and other advisory services for the purpose of reducing the incidence and severity of physical disability, bodily malfunction and pain. Now, where do you feel the assessments of muscular imbalances, compensations and other orthopedic problems belong? If you ask me, and based on the above job descriptions, they are the job of therapists and orthopedic specialists.”

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I am not suggesting you should not be educated in various areas of the allied health professions. I encourage education in any field of interest. However, practicing what you learn is another story. Heck, you can watch all the Discovery Channel you want; it still does not make you a surgeon.”

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I hope you enjoyed reading those quotes as much as I do because Coach JC Santana does make some compelling points and you cannot deny the industry definition of the two professions.

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I’ve got plenty more to the Assessing Our Assessements series. So, stay tuned!

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In the meantime, tell us what you think about today’s post?

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Also, me about any Movement Assessment related issues you’d like to hear about in a future post?

Yesterday, my article titled Six New Tabata Workouts for Fast Fat Loss was published at Tmuscle.com.

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The article tells you everything you need to know about the Tabata protocol and effective Tabata workouts. But, the article originally included 7 workouts, not 6! The editors, for whatever reason, decided not to included the 7th workout.

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That’s okay because in today’s post, I’m going to hit you with the missing 7th Tabata workout!

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So, here’s the missing workout exactly as I wrote it the unedited New Tabata Workouts for Fast Fat Loss article:

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Tabata Workout #7 – Bodyweight Tabata (8 Exercises)

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This bodyweight Tabata incorporates 8 exercises and alternates from the lower body, to the core, to the upper body and finishes with a total body exercise. This is repeated twice to equal four minutes total.

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Here’s how it goes down-

20 sec Speed Squats or Squat jumps (lower body)

10 sec rest

20 sec Tight Core Rotations (core)

10 sec rest

20 sec Push Ups (upper-body)

10 sec rest

20 sec Burpees (total body)

10 sec rest

20 sec Lunges or Lunge Jumps (lower body)

10 sec rest

20 sec Tight Core Rotations (core)

10 sec rest

20 sec Plank Fast Hands (upper body)

10 sec rest

20 sec Burpee w/Jump

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Remember to perform each exercise as fast and with as much intensity as possible!

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There are two exercises listed above you may not be familiar with? – The Tight Core Rotations and the Plank Fast Hands.

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Go here to learn how to do the Tight Core Rotations

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Watch the video below to learn how to perform the Plank Fast Hands exercise.

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As always, I love to hear your comments, thoughts and favorite workouts. So, hit me with everything you have to say that’s related to doing Tabata style workouts!

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As you may already know from reading Alli’s training Blog – This week is a Deloading phase for us.

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We have  a great workout group consisting of myself, Alli, Mark (Simonetti) Simon and MMA guru, John Rallo. We have all been hitting it very hard lately and our bodies are in need of a rest and recovery week. So, to help us recover, we have toned things down a great deal and we are currenlty doing a Deloading workout each day.

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I’ve found that many folks, even  Strength Coaches and Trainers have trouble figuring out what to do and not to do during a Deload phase.

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So, in today’s post, I’m going to provide you a sample of a Deloading workout.

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Below is a layout of the exact Deloading workout we did today. This deload workout is lower- body dominant because today (Tuesday) is a Lower-body training day for us.

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Sample Deload Workout for the Lower-Body

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This Delaod Workout is performed Circuit training style with 3 different work stations:

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Station #1 – 4 Minute Ride on Airdyne Bike at 60-70 RPM

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Station #2 – 4 Minute Sled Pull (mix up facing forward and Backward) w/200lbs load (done on turf)

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Station #3 – 4 Minute Mobility/Activation Sequence, 1min High Hurdle Step-Over , 1min Mini-Band walks (any direction), 1min Yoga-Plex, 1min Dynamic Pigeons (hip rotator stretch)

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Rest 1 Minute between stations. Perform  3-4 rounds of the entire circuit.

A full circuit takes 15minutes total. So, 3 rounds takes exactly 45min time. Four rounds take 1hr.

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Important Deload Week Notes

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After this or any other deloading workout – You should NOT feel tired or be out of breath!

Instead, you should have a nice sweat going but still be able to talk normally and feel minimal muscle fatigue.

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REMEMBER – A deload week is for active recovery, it’s NOT a workout and shouldn’t feel like one!

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Don’t forget to post your comments below and tell us what you thought of this Deload workout and about your own personal favorite deloading techniques!

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My good friend and Mentor, Coach Mike Boyle just put togther an incredible article on the Truth About the NFL Combine 40 Yard Dash Times for his membership site – StrengthCoach.com.

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MIke was nice enough to allow me to re-post his article here for your viewing pleasure.

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There are always great articles on StrenghCoach.com and for a measly $9.95 a month, I don’t know how anyone would not join up for this incredible site. Truthfully, I’m on StrenghCoach.com everyday! Many times just to read and participate in the great forum discussions along with such names as Alywn Cosgrove, Robert Dos Remedios, Charlie Weingroff, Dewey Nielsen to name a few!

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Now that I’ve told you how awesome Mike’s Website is, check his eye-opening article revealing the REAL TRUTH about the NFL Combine 40 yard dash times!

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The Truth About Speed, NFL Combines and the 40 Yard Dash!

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Speed is the stuff of urban legend. Deion Sanders supposedly showed up at the NFL Combine, ran a 4.2 and went home. We routinely hear of high school kids who purportedly run 4.3’s and 4.4’s. The stories of “reported” speed have gotten out of control. This would not be a problem in and of itself. Most of us could look at it and say “so what” people lie or people embellish. The real problem is that the lies seem to be setting the standard. One of the reasons that I no longer train athletes for the NFL Combine is the unrealistic expectations of athletes and agents based on these “urban legends” or the occasional freakish performance like Vernon Davis this year.

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1- Electronic start- electronic finish. This should be the standard but, unfortunately is not. The start is done with a touch pad and the finish with a photocell. This is the most accurate and as a result yields the slowest times. An electronic start/ electronic finish time has been shown to be .22 seconds slower than a hand held 40 yard dash. ( Brown, 2004)

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2- Hand Start- electronic finish. This is a system used uniquely at the NFL Combine. A hand start-electronic finish will be approximately .1 seconds slower than a hand held 40 yard dash. In the combine the use of hand start will be particularly evident in the faster ten yard dash times. Athletes will run 10 yard times much closer to a hand held but, times at each following split will be closer to the electronic time.

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3- Hand Start- hand finish- this is the fastest and least accurate. Handheld times tend to be faster but are clearly more prone to human error. Many of the legendary times I believe were hand-held timing combined with human error or human expectation.

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At the NFL Combine in 1996, 97, 98, 2001 and 2003 and 2006 no one ran a 4.2. No one. Not one person. In 2001 Ladainian Tomlinson ran one 4.36, five in the 4.4’s and vertical jumped 40.5. 2003 was a fast year, yet still produced no 4.2’s. Ten athletes ran 4.3’s in 2003. The heaviest was a 223 pound running back. The Combine track is always said to be slow but the truth is it is simply accurate. All of these supposed fast times seem to be run at times when no independent verification is available. Seems a bit curious doesn’t it.

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Here’s another angle on the whole “speed” thing. Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis ran split times of 4.67 for 40 meters ( Bryan, Rose-Hulman) The split times are below.

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1.84 10 yd
2.86 20 (1.02 split)
3.8 30 (.94 split)
4.67 40 (.87 split)

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40 meters is 43.74 yards. This would make the distance approximately ten percent further. This means we could reduce the time by approximately .36 seconds to account for the additional 3.7 yards. This would mean that in constant acceleration mode the best sprinters in the history of the world, using blocks, ran 4.31 for 40 yards. Does it seem plausible that high school football players can run faster times without blocks.

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The table below shows some of the athletes who ran below 4.4 at the NFL Combine. Obviously the athletes are getting faster but, we still don’t see the dreaded 4.2’s we hear so much about. In 2005 I believe one athlete actually ran a 4.2 although I did not have those stats available. One athlete in a decade.

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In 2006 of nineteen running backs listed in the internet report (unofficial) Maurice Drew of UCLA was the only 4.3 and he ran a 4.39. In other words one running back ran under 4.4 and, he did it by one one-hundreth. Four wide receivers out of thirty-one ran under 4.4. In fact five ran over 4.6. This means more wide receivers ran over 4.6 than under 4.4. 2006 was an exceptional year for defensive backs with nine sub 4.4’s. The key, again in 2006 was that there were no 4.2’s in the results I saw.

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As coaches, we need to stop perpetuating the myths. We need to tell our athletes what the average at the NFL Combine was and not what the best “freak” times were. We need to further explain to them that it is unrealistic to expect to even meet the NFL averages. As with everything in our society, we have raised the bar unrealistically high. Let’s be honest with ourselves and with our athletes.

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Bibliography

Modeling World Class Sprinters in 100 Meter Dash
Kurt Bryan, Department of Mathematics,
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute IN 47803 USA.
Brian J. Winkel, Department of Mathematics,
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute IN 47803 USA.

Assessment of Linear Sprinting Performance: A Theoretical Paradigm
Todd Brown, Jason Vescovi, Jaci VanHeest
Journal of Science and SportsMedicine (2004) 3, 203-210

NFL Combine Results- compiled from various sources.