Adding perturbations to an exercise basically means to manually disturb the stability of a given exercise.  The goal is to make the environment more unpredictable and increase the stability challenge of the exercise, movement pattern or muscle groups used.  I’ve been introduced to this concept a couple years ago at the Optimal Shoulder Performance seminar.  This is a concept that Mike Reinold was (and still is to this day) using for rotator cuff exercises with his baseball pitchers.

A typical exercise would put the athlete in a given position and the coach or trainer would give manual perturbations to the arm to challenge the stability of the humeral head in the shoulder joint, and improve the stabilization ability of the rotator cuff muscles for injury prevention purposes.

I immediately embraced the concept as I thought it was a genius idea, and I’ve been using rhythmic stabilization exercises for the rotator cuff ever since.

The concept can also be applied with other types of exercises…

Any exercise with the purpose of improving stability could be a candidate for a progression using perturbations.

When you’re trying to improve stability, your body and your brain need to be challenged.  This is why so many people use the stability ball; it increases the challenge of stability and makes you work harder.  The thing with stability balls is that they’re not always used smartly, and not always by smart people.  But I digress.

Hint: NOT the smart kind.

A lot of core exercises designed to improve stability can be progressed to manual perturbation.  As I’ve mentioned above, the perturbation will help improve control and stability.  When training stability, the important thing to remember is that motor control (which is the brain-to-muscle connection that works to improve stability) can not be improved unless it fails to succeed doing certain tasks.  Your brain needs to be challenged beyond its own stability limitations.  If you always work within your strengths, or your current level of stability, you’re not going to improve.  This is a great point that Mike Reinold highlighted in Functional Stability for the Core.

How do you actually apply this?

It could be something as simple as adding manual perturbations to a front plank.  A mastery of the front plank is in order before attempting any type of manual perturbation to your clients or athletes.  The same concept can also be applied to other core exercises like dead bugs, belly press, glute bridges, bird dogs, etc.

Again the important thing is to follow the progression; make sure your client or athlete is efficient at the basic exercises and doesn’t compensate in any way.  The logical progression for any exercise would be:

1. Stable
2. Stable with perturbation
3. Unstable
4. Unstable with perturbation

Using this progression with a front plank, the progression might look something like this:

1. Front plank
2. Front plank with perturbation
3. Stability ball front plank
4. Stability ball front plank with perturbation

The idea with the manual perturbations is to make it challenging and push it just beyond the point where the athlete or client maintains perfect form, but it shouldn’t be unbearable- if that makes any sense.

If you want more ideas on how to incorporate perturbations/rhythmic stabilization you should definitely check out Eric Cressey and Mike Reinold’s Functional Stability for the Core.

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The neutral spine concept has been widely accepted as one of the norms for good movement by now.  It is understood that it is one of the basics of functional movements, and it is extremely important when moving external loads.

With athletes lifting weights this would translate into making sure they always squat, deadlift, do core exercises, and any hip extension based movement with a neutral spine.  Most high level athletes don’t have a hard time at all grasping that concept, especially when they’ve learned to lift the right way.  But with younger athletes who are just learning to lift, or with deconditioned clients, what’s the first step in being able to perform lifting exercises with a neutral spine?  Well, you need to teach them neutral spine first!

This looks like a pretty solid neutral spine to me

Including exercises such as planks, birddogs, and bridges that help reinforce neutral spine seem like a good place to start, but if your athlete or client doesn’t understand what neutral spine is, odds are he won’t be able to get it.  And they won’t have the ability to keep a neutral spine under challenging situations like lifting heavy weights, or moving at high velocities.

Teaching neutral spine in different positions is the first step.  Make your athletes or clients feel what neutral spine feels like in different positions, coach them as much as possible, make sure they really get it.  Mike Reinolds delves into that stuff quite a bit in Eric Cressey’s and his Functional Stability Training DVD set.  This is a seminar they held at Cressey Performance a couple of months ago that they put on DVD and just released to the public.  Mike emphasizes the 3 step process before allowing anything to move:

1. Find neutral

2. Brace

3. Breathe

Whether you’re teaching neutral spine using a plank, birddog, bridge or dead bug you should follow the same pattern.  Make the client flex and extend his spine a couple of times, and make him find neutral somewhere in between.  Coach the client as much as possible, and make sure that in the end they can find it by themselves.  From there, brace just hard enough that you’ll maintain neutral (brace shouldn’t be a max effort unless you’re lifting max effort weights), and breathe.  As a rule of thumb, if you can’t breathe through your brace, you’re bracing too hard.

You don’t need to brace THAT hard

One tool that we like to use to teach neutral spine that I like a lot with our athletes at Endeavor is the hip hinge with a dowel.  It is very basic, it gives physical cues (with the points of contact of the dowel on your back) and it’s easy to know when you’re not doing it right.  Again the same concept applies: find neutral, brace, breathe.

If you want to learn more about that and how to train according to the neutral spine concept when training your core, your lower body and with any lifting exercise really, I suggest you pick up a copy of Eric Cressey and Mike Reinolds’ Functional Stability Training.  They just released it and you can get at the introductory price until Sunday at midnight; after that the price will go up.  You can check it out HERE.

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Just a quick post today to share with you some of my favorite exercises to develop power for athletes.  Obviously there are plenty more exercises that I like to use throughout a training year, but these are just a couple of my favorite ones if you need some variation and something different from the traditional plyo exercises and the common Olympic lifts.

Unloaded squat jumps are a great exercise that I learned from Cal Dietz, strength coach at the University of Minnesota.  It allows you to jump higher by pulling down on the bands as you jump (although it doesn’t necessarily translate into more power development), but because of the height of the jump, you have more force to absorb (or decelerate) when you come back on the floor.  That really is what’s beneficial about the exercise; an increased ability to absorb forces and react to high velocities.

The second one is more of a method than an exercise itself.  It’s called the complex method, and the concept is simply to perform a heavy lifting exercise (with about 90% of your 1RM) for 2-3 reps, rest for anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes and then perform a bodyweight plyometrics exercise.  The idea is that the heavy lifting exercise will activate more fast-twitch muscle fibers that you’ll in turn be able to use when doing the plyo exercise.  In the video I perform them within 15 seconds, but ideally you’d want a longer rest.

The third one is a medicine ball throw variation that I got from Eric Cressey. It incorporates more velocity in the movement by running a couple steps and jumping before smashing the med ball into the wall. I’ll use this variation a lot with baseball players.

The last one is a variation of an Olympic lift. The reason I like it so much is because it usually is so much easier to teach and to learn than the traditional Olympic lifts. The 1-arm DB snatch is very effective to develop power and will take minimal time to master. If you haven’t already, try it!

As I mentioned in the beginning, this really is just the tip of the iceberg, as there are so many exercises to help develop power. I just wanted to share some of my favorite ones with you if you always end up using the same ones and need variety!

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I am making an attempt at starting a series of interviews with different strength and conditioning coaches and other professionals in the business.  I am asking them 10 questions that require short answers and the questions are going to be the same for every interview.  If everything goes well I should keep this series up for a couple of weeks.  Let me know if you like it!

I thought it would be a natural thing to start with one of my colleagues from Endeavor, because as a group we have a lot of knowledge (…or at least, we like to think we do!).  So without further ado, here is Rapid Fire – Round 1 with Matt Siniscalchi:

What does your current training looks like?

Mass Made Simple variation.

3x/week  Monday: Heavy Pull  Wednesday: Heavy Row  Friday: Heavy Squat

1-2 Off-days is a “Do Something” day : I’ll cycle through sled drags, kb swings, or a Barbell/KB complex.. these will take no longer than 10 minutes.

What’s your favorite song to lift heavy things to?

Wow, do I pick country or 80′s…country or 80′s? …Currently Metallica’s Ain’t My B*tch”

What would be your best advice to an up-and-coming strength and conditioning coach that wants to make it in this business?

Ask advice or questions, learn as much as possible, if you aren’t passionate about it find something else.

What’s your passion, or second passion in life, other than health and fitness?

World Wrestling Entertainment.  Avid Lord of the Rings junkie (I am like 11 year old girl at a Jonas Brothers concert).  Learning about various beers (history, type, where they are brewed, what they taste like, etc)

The very reason why Matt is my boy

Who are your 3 most influential mentors?

Kevin Neeld and yourself, who would have thought? Third, Dan John ( I have a man crush on everything he writes or talks about).

What’s the biggest mistake you see athletes who want to make it to the next level make?

It needs to be said: I have seen so many talented athletes quit because they were pushed so hard at a young age without the time to have fun and enjoy the sport. The next closest would be taking time off from the specialized sport, athletes need an off-season with good strength and conditioning..year-round playing is not the answer to progress.

What’s your favorite supplement?

Anything from GNC! Kidding. A good protein: mine has been Metabolic Drive. It mixes well with greek yogurt, in smoothies, oatmeal, and it tastes awesome all by itself.

What’s the most overrated exercise?

Bicep curls: I am from South Jersey and I have learned my lesson, they play a VERY small part in training, if any.

What’s the most underrated exercise?

Push-ups or farmers walks: Rarely ever see good push-ups.  Farmers walks speak for themselves.

What book are you currently reading?

Children and Sports Training by Drabik (crawling my way through it).  But I am pretty sure the next book I will be reading is either Power to the People or Naked Warrior by Pavel.

Thanks for your time Matt!

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I was reading Tony Gentilcore’s blog post last week and I noticed a comment he made: “(…)there are numerous people (and nutritionist for that matter) who, despite knowing better, like to push off things like 100 calorie snack packs as viable “healthy” options.”  That reminded me of a blog post I wrote about a year ago: Let’s Stop Over-Complicating Nutrition. (As a matter of fact, I was just re-reading it as I put the link to the original post, and it’s so good I have a hard time believing I wrote that!)

A lot of nutritionists, people involved in health and fitness, and people in general have been focusing way too much on calories when trying to improve their health.  I have a groundbreaking news for you: IT’S NOT THE ANSWER! As I mentioned in my blog post linked above: “Good nutrition, no matter what your goal is, should be to eat as much natural, unprocessed foods as possible.  Our ancestors never had any weight or cholesterol problem because they were eating too much red meat or too many eggs!  And I’m pretty damn sure they never EVER counted calories either.” (Wait….did I just quote myself here?!? Next thing you’ll know is I’ll be referring to myself at the 3rd person!)

This guy is probably the only one who can refer to himself at the 3rd person, and it will still be acceptable

With that being said, counting calories is not the way to healthy eating habits.  But why?

Focusing on the number of calories you’re eating, believe it or not, can lead you to making poor decisions about your diet.  Here are a couple examples:

- Choosing low fat dairy products.  While it seems like the smart thing to do, as you may already know dietary fat doesn’t necessarily translate into body fat, which is usually a huge misconception among most people.  Also, there are estrogen hormones found in conventional (non-organic) milk that are linked to the growth of many tumors and different types of cancer; and “(…)one of the most biologically active and dangerous estrogen metabolites is found in the highest concentrations in skim milk(…) Whole milk also had the lowest total amount of estrogens”, according to Brian St. Pierre, a reputable nutritionist.

This might be your safest bet in terms of milk…

- Choosing low-fat variations of vinaigrettes and marinades.  While a lot of the condiments available on the shelf of your local supermarket are not great to start with, when choosing the low-fat variety you’re basically substituting a source of fat (usually oil) that contains 9 kcal/gram for sugar, which contains 4 kcal/gram to make up for taste.  Even if you get less calories here, processed white sugar is still one of the worst things you can put in your body.   The best alternative is always to make your own vinaigrettes with olive oil, vinegar and spices.

- Choosing 100 calories snack packs over a natural food snack.  If you’re going to eat a piece of fruit with a handful of nuts you’re already way over a hundred calories, but even if you smash me as hard as you can with a steel chair over the head, I still pick the piece of fruit and nuts over a 100 calories snack.

…and this chair shot also finally proves that wrestling is not fake!

Those 100 calories snack packs are packed with processed ingredients and preservatives which realistically don’t bring you any nutrients nor do they fill you up.  (Don’t tell me you couldn’t eat 5 of these 100 calories snack and still be hungry!)

…100% unhealthy

These are really just a couple examples to show you that counting calories is not the answer.  Focus on eating whole, natural foods; when doing that you get a bunch of fibers, vitamins , minerals and all the good stuff that helps make you feel fuller, longer.  By doing that, it’s very difficult to over eat.  Try and exercise a little bit every day in combination with that, and I guarantee you that you’ll never EVER need to count calories or go on a diet to loose weight.

Too many 100 calories snack packs for Yokozuna…

This might just be one too many wrestling references for a single blog post….so I’m done!

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It’s this time of year at Endeavor where our hockey players are slowly coming back for the off-season training.  During the next 2 months or so, we’ll progressively welcome back our players, and by the time June rolls around we should be at full capacity and be extremely busy throughout the summer.

In the meantime, the current phase of the off-season is what we call “the early off-season” for the guys that are already back with us.  These guys have the advantage of having a long off-season and plenty of time to not only improve their performance, but undo the damage they’ve put on their body throughout the season.  And God knows how much damage a long hockey season can put on your body, especially on your hips.  That’s why our early off-season phase focuses a lot more on re-establishing balance than it is about improving performance.

Hockey is a rotational sport, just like baseball, football (for quarterbacks), lacrosse, tennis and golf.  One thing to understand is that the rotational movements occur almost exclusively in one direction.  Over the course of a season, this accounts for many rotations when making passes and taking shots during all the practices and games the athlete takes part in.  Rotations in the opposite direction are almost non-existent, and if you want to ensure better symmetry and balance throughout the body, there is definitely a need for rotational work on the non-dominant side.

The core exercises in a training program can be a good tool to help re-establish better balance.  Even though our exercises are not purely rotational in nature (actually they are just the opposite; anti-rotation), the movement pattern and the muscles recruited are the same; they just happen to work in an isometric fashion.

That being said, instead of working both sides equally, we’ll double or triple the volume on the non-dominant side for all the anti-rotation core exercises we’re using.  Just about any anti-rotation exercise can be used, but 2 of my favorites are the Belly Press and the Chop, both in the 1/2 kneeling position.

I really like the 1/2 kneeling position, especially in the early off-season because you get some lengthening of the hip flexors and some hip stability in the end range of motion.  We’ll usually do 3 sets on the non-shooting side, and only one on the shooting side.

The concept can also be expanded with the rotational power work, with medicine ball throws and the like.  Adding more sets on the non-dominant side will help re-establish some sort of balance around the hips, the shoulders and the core.

The early off-season is a good time to work on major imbalances and the damage done during the season before getting into heavy strength and power work throughout the summer, so it’s important to take advantage of it.

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We live in a funny world, don’t we?  Most athletes, parents, clients and a lot of people around are judging your work as a strength coach by how tired you can make them during training sessions.  Following a Crossfit, P90X or other non-sense training system, people always seem satisfied with the results because they work hard.  After all, isn’t it what it’s all about?

These quotes make plenty of sense, don’t they…..

As a strength coach or a personal trainer it’s very easy to exploit these training systems or use other training methods to make yourself look good to the uneducated crowd out there, who always believed that working hard is the only thing it’s about.

Since that stuff sells and attract a lot of athletes and weekend warriors, it’s not easy to drift away from those training methods and still make your athletes and clients feel like they’re accomplishing something, even though they don’t crawl out the door with not an ounce of energy left. 

Let’s face it, what’s easier?:

- Beating your athletes to the ground every training session, and leaving them with the feeling they’ve worked hard? Or;

- Letting your athletes leave the weight room with some energy left, and sometimes even feeling refreshed, and having to sell to them why it is better than beating them to the ground when they’ve been led to believe otherwise all their life?

It’s an art to periodize your athletes’ training, and even more of an art to stick to it.  When you’ve planned to back off the weights at the beginning of the off-season to give your athletes some time to recover and take care of the imbalances they’ve created during their season, do you really stick with the plan?  Or do you get overwhelmed by the feeling that you should work them to the ground?

Managing training loads and volumes is critical, especially with high level athletes.  If you think that training hard and crushing your athletes is the way to go, you’re going to have a serious problem working (and being successful) with College and pro athletes.  I think I remember Sean Skahan, strength coach of the Anaheim Ducks in the NHL, saying that he feels more like a “recovery coach” than a strength coach at times.  I couldn’t agree more with him.

There are times during a training year where it’s all about maximizing recovery and handling training loads so the athletes can still perform at the highest level and avoid getting hurt.  Overtraining will drastically affect your performance level and make your risk of injury skyrocket.  The in-season and early off-season phases are perfect examples; athletes have a lot of stress put on their body with a lot of games, practices every day, travel, school (in the case of college athletes), etc.  That’s why they need a lot of recovery, injury prevention and corrective strategies during those times.  A certain level of strength can be maintained, but the volume must remain pretty low.

Make sure you don’t take the easy way out.  Do what’s right for your athletes, plan accordingly and resist the urge of just crushing them for the sake of it.  They’ll become better, stronger and more injury resistant athletes in the long run.

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