2010 is coming to an end, and I must say it has been an incredible year for me! In the spirit of the holidays and as we’re wrapping up 2010 by the end of the week, I’ve decided to do the first ever DavidLasnier.com Best of 2010 Awards. So without further ado, here it is:
Best Website: HockeyStrengthAndConditioning.com . This website contains all the information you need from the top guys in the business. If you train hockey players, or if you’re a hockey player yourself, the information on this website will be of great help.
Best New Exercise: Standing Belly-to-Overhead Press. I got this one from my colleague Tony Gentilcore, and I simply love it. The Standing Belly Press was already one of my favorite exercise, especially because it’s so functional and also because there are so many variations you can use. Here’s the latest variation; it adds an overhead/anti-lateral flexion component to an already great core stabilization exercise.
Best Blog Post (from me):Keep Your Goal in Mind. This was definitely one of my favorite blogpost, because I feel so many athletes are studying for the wrong test when it comes to training for sports peformance.
Best Blog Post (from someone else): The Case Against Conventional Dairy by Brian St. Pierre. Technically, Brian wrote it in 2009 (December 21st, to be more specific), but it is by far the blog post that had the most impact on my life in 2010. Brian raises many interesting facts on conventional dairy; the way it is produced, the way the cows are raised and how it affects the quality of dairy, and how low fat dairy products are linked to different types of cancer. And don’t get me wrong, it’s not just Brian’s opinion; there are enough scientific proofs to support his point. Simply put, if you are still consuming dairy products, you NEED to at least make the switch to the organic kind.
Best Quote: “We judge others by their behaviors. We judge ourselves by our intentions.” by Stephen Covey. I read that quote for the first time on Kevin Neeld‘s website a couple of weeks ago. Think about it for a second. We all judge people around us by the way they act, even if their intentions might be different, but NEVER will we ever judge ourselves by our actions; only by our intentions. This is a very powerful quote that impacts all of the relationships we have with other human beings.
Honorable Mention: On a funnier note, this is the most hysterical quote EVER: “Arguing over the internet is like the special Olympics; nobody wins and you’re still a retard” by Tony Gentilcore. Hahaha…I have nothing else to say!
Best Sport Moment of the Year:
Enough Said.
Best Training Related Product: Show And Go by Eric Cressey. If you have been reading my blog consistently this will come to no surprise for most of you. The Show and Go program have been tested and approved by the whole Endeavor staff; and the results speak for themselves. If you’re looking for a great training program that’s been proven effective without taking any guess on the results, Show and Go is what you need.
Best Song: Sitting on top of DavidLasnier.com’s Billboard for the past 3 months, none other than No Love, featuring Eminem and Lil’ Wayne:
Best Supplement: Vitamin D. I have blogged many times in the past HERE and HERE about the positive effects of supplementing with vitamin D, so I won’t go over all the benefits in details again. I will simply say this; with all the scientific proofs piling up, vitamin D is now considered an ESSENTIAL supplement. It has been proven to increase levels of awesomeness and decrease the risks of everything that doesn’t make you awesome.
Best Picture:
Best Conditioning Modality: Split Squat Iso-Holds Into Slideboard. I will admit that this is very hockey-specific type of conditioning, but 80% of our athletes at Endeavor are hockey players, so did you expect anything else?! My colleague Kevin Neeld came up with this idea this past summer, and I’m still amazed at how great that idea was! Hockey is exactly that; iso-holds positions (when just gliding on the ice) alternated with short powerful bursts of acceleration (when skating).
Best TV Show: Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the New York Jets. That show featured on HBO was simply awesome!
Rex Ryan is the freakin’ man!
2010 was a great year, and honestly I’m sure 2011 will be just as exciting, if not more! I wish to all of you nothing but the best for 2011; may this upcoming year bring you health, love and joy! I will see all of you in 2011!
P.S. I have postponed my special announcement and my surprise to you, my readers, after New Year’s day, as I’m sure most of you will have something more interesting to do than read strength and conditioning blogs on December 30th and 31st.
This year marks the first time in probably over 10 years that I finished all my holiday shopping more than 2 days before Christmas! Hopefully you did too! But if you still have gifts to buy to people around you who are either athletes, a coaches or just fitness enthusiasts, here’s a couple of ideas that you might want to consider.
This might be the perfect gift for anyone who doesn’t have access to a good coach or trainer, or anyone who doesn’t want to spend hours writing his own programs and going through trial and error to find what works. Eric Cressey has done an outstanding job with this product, and he’s basically eliminating the guessing work one needs to go through when building his own training programs. Show and Go is a proven system that has been put to the test by many before Eric actually launched the product. It provides you with 16 weeks of programs that guarantee you the results you’re looking for. The whole Endeavor staff has been on the Show and Go system for the last 10 weeks, and we’ve ALL made tremendous gains in both size and strength! Click HERE to get your copy now!
This is a great gift idea for anyone involved in hockey training; whether it’s for a player or a coach, a membership to HockeyStrengthandConditioning.com is a gift that will help them get better. Some of the brightest minds in hockey training are behind that website; names like Mike Boyle (Boston University), Sean Skahan (Anaheim Ducks), Mike Potenza (San Jose Sharks), Darryl Nelson (USA Hockey) and Endeavor’s own Kevin Neeld are all contributing to the website to help develop better hockey players. For less than 10$/month (less than 100$/year if you pay all at once), a membership to this site will guide any hockey player in the right direction when it comes to his training. What’s even cooler is that you have the option of signing up and getting a 30 day trial for only $1! If you’re not satisfied with the content (which won’t happen trust me!) you can just cancel you subscription. Click HERE to get the 30 day trial.
With the new year coming up, for all these people making fat loss related resolutions, the Precision Nutrition System is definitely the ideal present to guide them through their lifestyle and nutritional changes that will lead them to their results. The Precision Nutrition System includes everything you need to help you make necessary changes in your eating habits in order to get results; everything from cookbooks to online support through the Precision Nutrition website, everything is included. The price is currently down from $147 to $97 for the whole system, so order now!
So if you need a last minute gift for the athlete or fitness enthusiast in your life, one of these should be a perfect fit.
On a side note, as I’ve mentioned last week I’m working on a couple different projects. One of them is related to my website and my readers; stay tuned next week for a special announcement as well as a thank you gift for my readers who have been following my work!
Today’s post, which I’m pretty pumped up about, is an interview I did recently with fellow strength coach Bret Contreras. For those of you who don’t already know Bret, he’s a very smart and well read coach who has been in the research field quite a while. He is now a well established strength coach, training clients in his own gym. He’s also been under the bar for quite a while himself. Bret is actually moving to New Zealand in the next couple of months to pursue his PhD, so that will make him even smarter! Bret was kind enough to let me pick his brain for a couple of questions on how he views strength and conditioning. So without further ado, here it is:
DL: Bret, your name has been around for quite a while now in the strength and conditioning world. You have been writing for T-Nation and on your own blog, but most importantly you have actually been training clients and been under the bar yourself for quite a while now, which I think are two very important things to do in order to become a successful coach. You have mentioned to me that you think coaches and trainers should possess a variety of skills to better serve clients and athletes alike. Would you mind naming a few and telling us how they impact the way we deal with clients and athletes?
BC: First off David, I’d like to thank you for this opportunity. I appreciate the fact that you’re interviewing me. Here are some of the skills that will help coaches and trainers be more successful:
-Critical thinking: Strength training is an art and a science – an arta scienza.
Training really IS an art
Coaches should put a ton of thought into their athletes’ and clients’ programs, and each program should differ based on a myriad of factors:
-Knowledge of autoregulation: Coaches should never completely stick to a pre-set plan with their athletes and clients. Coaches should adapt their programming on the fly based on their verbal feedback as well as their biofeedback.
-Psychology: Coaches should try to be good motivators, to “believe” in their athletes and clients, to have high expectations, to figure out what makes their athletes tick and adapt their approach accordingly, and to push them hard while still having fun.
-Knowledge of the history of strength & conditioning: Coaches should try to develop an appreciation for the evolution of the iron game and should be able to rattle off the training philosophies of many different experts.
-Ability to discern the truth: Coaches should possess a sound understanding of the workings of the human body so they will intuitively know what works and what doesn’t.
DL: That is definitely why it’s so important to have a good educational background in this field. I know you have been involved quite a bit in the research world and in particular with muscle EMG for a variety of muscles in different movements, especially with the glutes (and on a related note you’ve been named The Glute Guy, which is probably the coolest nickname ever for a strength coach!). That being said, for the glutes, do you find any difference between open chain and closed chain glute exercises as they correlate to performance in different sports and activities?
BC: I won’t pretend to know the answer to this, but I will tell you that the more I research the more I realize that I don’t know everything I once thought I knew. There’s so much we don’t know about strength training, and our understanding about what transfers best to sport performance is seriously lacking.
I will tell you this – open chain glute exercises render surprisingly high EMG levels. When the thigh can move freely with no ground-communication the glutes seem to contract very hard. Some individuals have trouble activating their glutes in a closed chain environment, but if you put them in an open chain environment they do much better in terms of glute activation. I think it’s wise to make the focus of lower body training on closed-chain movements – squats, deads, lunges, Oly lifts, hip thrusts, ghr’s, back extensions, and hip rotational work. But I also think it’s wise to supplement with open chain hip isolation work – band or cable adduction, abduction, and flexion, reverse hypers, and quadruped hip extensions.
DL: What I really like about your blog and your articles is that you always bring up new ideas and you think outside the box, which I think many coaches and trainers (including myself!) are not very good at. One of the new concepts you brought up that I really like are the ‘Load Vectors’. I find it very interesting and I don’t think many people understand this concept yet. Could you elaborate a little bit on what Load Vectors are and tell us what their practical applications are in strength and conditioning.
BC: The best coaches were already incorporating load vector training into their programming long before I came around. I just came up with a naming system. I’m absolutely amazed that no one came up with this model before I did. The model, which involves axial, anteroposterior, lateromedial, and torsional components, ensures:
-optimal multi-directional strength development
-optimal multi-directional power development, and
-optimal structural balance
This way, the client performs better and stays healthy. Coaches and trainers need to understand the various exercises that can be performed for each vector and which are best for various portions of the force-velocity curve.
DL: A topic that’s hot right now in the training world is core training. I think core training will probably always be a controversial topic as as we understand the core more and more from a functional standpoint, and (thank God) begin to move away from the “just do 100s of crunches mentality” that was so typical of the past. What is your take on core training? And what are you doing differently in that regard?
BC: My take is that we still don’t have it all figured out. Here are some questions that coaches should be thinking about in regards to core training:
-what are the different categories of core exercises?
-is there an optimal amount of volume for the core?
-should the core be trained specifically or does it get worked just fine from compound movements?
-should the core be trained for strength, power, endurance, or all three?
-what rep ranges work best for the core, and are those rep ranges uniform for all types of movements?
-should we train the core for movement, stability, or both?
-are there any advantages and disadvantages to training with dynamic spinal movements?
-are there any advantages and disadvantages to training with static-based stability movements?
-should specific core training be placed before or after the strength component of the workout?
I won’t pretend to know all the answers to these questions either, but I will tell you that the research gives us incredible clues as to how we should train the core. To understand the answer to these questions, you really have to have a sound understanding of spinal biomechanics.
DL: I know you train a lot of female clients; the way we train females has been another hot topic lately. What do you think we should do differently with females clients and athletes compared to males, and also, what should we NOT do differently?
BC: I love training women, and I believe that I’m one of the best in the biz at getting women to look good. Of course, getting clients to look good has more to do with coercing and motivating them to be strict on their diets than it does with sound training. However, in terms of training there are some important considerations. Women are weaker – especially in the upper body, less powerful, and have a tenth of the testosterone that a man has.
As to what we should do differently, women have a higher ratio of type I to type II hypertrophy than men. In fact, their type I fibers are often larger than their type II fibers. This means that higher rep training should be interwoven with lower rep and medium rep training. Furthermore, women recover in strength quicker than men. This means that increasing the frequency with your female clients is a wise strategy. Finally, women often have different goals than men. Listen to their goals and plan accordingly. Most really appreciate a routine that includes tons of targeted glute-work.
What doesn’t change, assuming that the woman has a goal to improve the shape over her entire body, is the emphasis on progressive overload for the big basic compound movements from the primary movement patterns – quad dominant, hip dominant, horizontal press, horizontal pull, vertical press, vertical pull.
DL: Good stuff! Bret, thanks a lot for your time!
This is it folks. Make sure you check Bret’s blog, as he has some great content each and every week! It is definitely one of my favorite websites to visit to get good information on strength and conditioning.
Hey folks, today is just a quick update on what’s going on with my website. I’m actually working on a couple different projects, one concerning my website which I think will be pretty cool. Without spilling the beans completely on what those new projects are, I’ll tell you this: the project concerning my website will involve giving away a free report on athletic development to my readers as a thank you for following my work! But I won’t tell you more, as I will make a special announcement within the next 2 weeks.
Being busy with these new projects, I won’t have time to put up new content for the next week or so. So I’ll just give you links to some cool new stuff I’ve read lately:
Complex training refers to a form of training that uses a combination of a strength exercise and a power/plyometric exercise to improve total power output. The concept is to do a loaded (preferably a maximum strength exercise) followed by a power exercise like a jump variation for example. The science behind this method is that by doing the strength exercise first you will increase the efficiency of your nervous system by engaging a maximum number of fast twitch muscle fibers, and immediately taking advantage of this improved neural drive by performing a power exercise; the result being more fast twitch muscle fibers engaged in the power exercise, and therefore a better force output (resulting in higher jumps if you’re using a jumping exercise for example). This method is very effective to develop strength, speed and power.
Here is a good example of complex training by combining a Trap Bar Deadlift with Broad Jumps (Please note that in the video I’m actually doing the 2 exercises within 15 seconds apart from one another. In reality, you would want to wait longer, somewhere between 30 seconds up to 3 minutes) :
You want to keep the number of reps low on the strength exercise and the weight below your RM (rep max); the goal is to take advantage of the increased CNS (central nervous system) activation without creating fatigue, which would defeat the whole purpose of the method. Also you will want to use 2 exercises with a similar movement pattern because the increased neural drive will be movement specific to a certain degree; by doing this you will benefit the complex method the most.
The possibilities are just endless with the complex training method; your imagination really is the only limit. A great tool to have for complex training is the Vertimax platform. However expensive, the Vertimax gives a lot of options when it comes down to complex training.
My colleague and friend Kevin Neeld put up an awesome video on how we use the Vertimax with our athletes at Endeavor. Kevin talks about how to use the Vertimax for complex training, but also talks about how to use it for hockey-specific movements. The video is just great and it’s only 6 minutes long, so make sure to check it out:
Everyone who’s been lifting for a while knows there should be some ground rules about the way we should behave in a gym, some sort of etiquette. You know, the kind of rules that will help you be considered a normal human being even under heavy lifting conditions and more than aything else that won’t make you look like a douchebag in the gym. So that being said, I decided to put a list of my own. Here it is in no particular order.
1. Sleeveless shirt are not acceptable. I don’t care what your excuse is and if it is because you feel more comfortable with it, if you’re wearing sleeveless shirts to lift, you’re really just showing off.
2. On a related note, it’s not called an UNDERshirt for nothing.
I don’t care how jacked you are, you shouldn’t wear this to lift.
3. If you’re talking during a set, it’s not heavy enough. Females included. Period.
4. This is nothing new, but worth reiterating: doing curls in the squat rack is totally unacceptable. Bodybuilding enthusiasts need to understand this. I’m this close to exercising my vengeance and doing like this kid in every single commercial gym in America:
You think it’s ridiculous? So next time, stay away from the squat rack when you do curls, Johnny Baloney!
5. Speaking of curls, it seems to be every beginner’s favorite exercise. But honestly, if you can’t do 5 bodyweight chin ups, I don’t even know why you’re wasting your time doing curls.
6. Your cellphone should be turned off and put in your locker as you walk in the gym. It amazes me how it’s becoming such a plague among exercise enthusiasts to send text messages in between sets when they lift. How are you supposed to be focused and ready to lift heavy weights with such a distraction! Time between sets should be better spent doing stretches, corrective exercises and other “filler exercises” that are going to make your time in the gym more effecient and really help you in the long run. Plus, recent studies have clearly demonstrated that sending text messages between sets decreases your testosterone levels and makes you less attractive to members of the opposite sex.
7. You should be able to squat and deadlift wayyyy more than you can bench press. If that’s not the case, you know what you need to start doing more than once a week, right?
8. No crunches. I mean EVER! There is a time and a place for doing crunches; that time is never and that place is nowhere. Seriously, it’s 2010, and we know by now that there are far better options to work your core muscles other than doing crunches, which let’s face it are as useless as Kim Kardashian.
And no, crunches won’t shed off the fat around your midsection. Add to the fact that a hgh volume of crunches will make your posture significantly worse because of the attachement point of the rectus abdominis on the lower ribs. Also, crunches are really just a flexion of your lumbar spine, which according to the most knowledgeable researcher in the world on lower back, Dr. Stuart McGill, is one of the most common injury mechanism on the lumbar spine.
9. Unless you’re hitting a PR, there is no reason why you would grunt and moan on every single rep of an 8 rep set of DB chest press. Yes I’m talking about you Matt!
Granted on the video he’s hitting a PR (405 x 5, which is more than I can do!). But now imagine him, doing every rep of a scap wall slide making the same noise! Nothing will get you demoted faster at Endeavor. (Kidding Mat…not really!)
10. Proven fact, you need to include one or more of the following on your workout playlist if you want to make substantial gains: Slipknot, Rise Against, Marilyn Manson, Busta Rhymes, Eminem, DMX, Lil Wayne, Linkin Park, Rage Against the Machine, System of a Down and Phil Collins (I might have forgotten a few acceptable options…)
It’s been a little while since I’ve done a random thougths post, and since I have a couple interesting things to share with you I figured now would be a good time!
1. All the Endeavor staff is on Eric Cressey’s Show and Go program right now and the progress we’ve all made since starting the program 6 weeks ago has been phenomenal! I hit PRs on the trap bar deadlift and the front squat and I also added 5 pounds of muscle since starting! And all the Endeavor staff has made similar progress. Eric actually gave us some love in his blog this past Tuesday in that regard; CHECK IT OUT HERE. Eric has done an incredible job with Show and Go and the results speak for themselves. If you haven’t already, I strongly suggest you get it. You are provided with 16 weeks of programs to get bigger, stronger all while reducing your risk of injuries and imporving your posture. How much better can it get? Eric also provides you with videos for every single exercise in the Show and Go programs. Get your copy of Show HERE.
2. I really like to learn new exercises and stretches as it adds variety to your training, and most of the time these new exercises and stretches will feel totally different than any other thing you’ve been doing. This is why I like the wall adductor stretch so much…probably my new favorite one!
I will admit that the position is a little suspicious, but the benefits you get from it are totally worth it! Give it a try, and make sure you keep your butt as close to the wall as possible and keep your knees straight.
3. Last week, I celebrated my first Thanksgiving by eating a lot of food and watching football all day! That holiday also marked the return of a couple of our hockey players who took the opportunity to get a couple of training sessions in at Endeavor while they were back home for Thanksgiving. While conditioning the guys on the slideboard with Phil Collins blaring on the stereo, it just reminded me how much of a good time this past summer was.
I can’t wait for next summer!
4. Last week I was talking with one of my friends in Montreal who was telling me about some knee problem he’s had for a while. He also told me that he saw a professional who recommended he gets some orthotics because his feet were the problem. After getting the orthotics, his pain magically disappeared. But within 2 months though, his knee pain came back to bother him. I was trying to explain to him that his feet probably weren’t the problem and that someone needed to look at him with a more global perspective than just looking at the feet. He agreed to go see anyone I would refer him to, but he also insisted on the fact that the professional he saw put him through different tests for his feet and that there was clearly a problem there. And he also said something like: “the guy’s gotta know his stuff he’s worked with professional sport teams in the past”. As I’ve said before, and as I’ll say again, I don’t care if you work with pro athletes, you still can suck at what you do. That doesn’t mean you’re good; it only means you have good contacts and you’re good at selling yourself. But I digress. After contacting an athletic trainer I used to work with in Montreal and explaining her the situation without letting her know what I thought about the situation, here was her reply:”Orthotics might help in the acute phase, but in the long run they are crutches most of the time and they probably won’t correct your real problem. You need to look at the global picture and not focus only on the knees and feet, and assess everything from the hips down.” I couldn’t have agreed more. It’s really great to see people in the field who really get it. And more than anything else, it also highlights the importance of having a good network of professionals around you.
Enough Said.
