I’ve done this every year since I started my blog, so I figured: why stop?  Christmas is by far my favorite time of year, mostly because I get to go home and spend time with my family and friends that I rarely ever see since I moved to the US.

Blogging about Christmas just puts me in the mood and gets me even more excited about it.  So, here we go; my list of Christmas present ideas for the fitness enthusiast.

- Heart rate monitor.  This is something I have worked out without for many years until I got one last year.  The benefits of using a heart rate monitor to improve your conditioning are so much greater with this simple accessory.  Doing conditioning without a heart rate monitor is basically like lifting weights to get stronger without ever knowing the amount of weight you’re lifting.  I have seen immediate benefits since I started using mine, and I seriously wonder how I even improved my conditioning without it in the past.  I really like the polar RS-100 as it includes all you need and it is very reasonably priced.

- Healthy cookbooks.  With the New Year around the corner and all the weight management resolutions that come with it, a cookbook with healthy meal recipes and snack ideas seems like an ideal gift.  When trying to gain muscle mass or lose body fat, your best asset is planning.  Planning your meals ahead and never not knowing what your next meal is going to be is the key to success.  My 2 favorite healthy cookbooks are Gourmet Nutrition and Metabolic Cooking, which are both very reasonably priced and contains hundreds of meal and snack recipes.

- Supplements.  This is always a good gift to give to the fitness enthusiast in your life.  I personally really enjoy receiving supplements as a present; it’s always appreciated not to have to spend some money on it myself, and let’s face it it’s not gonna be wasted!  At the top of my list are: a good protein powder, fish oil, and a greens supplement.  For the protein powder, I really like Biotest Grow and Jay Robb’s Whey Protein.  For the fish oil, I tend to recommend Carlson Lab’s fish oil capsules and for the green supplement I really like Greens+.

- Self soft-tissue tools.  I’m huge a proponent of self soft-tissue work, and it’s been an important part of my program and the ones of my athletes for a long time.  There are a lot of different tools out there to accomplish that work.  My top 3 favorite ones remain the good ol’ foam roller, the lacrosse ball, and the thera-cane.  With the use of these 3 implements you’re usually pretty good to cover all the main problematic areas in the body.

- CM Punk’s DVD.  Ok, ok, I admit this might be more of a present for the wrestling enthusiast in your life, but seriously fitness and wrestling go hand in hand, don’t they?  I got it a couple of months ago when it came out, and it’s brilliant.  It’s a documentary on his path to the top of the wrestling business with 2 extra DVDs of his best matches.  Everything you need to know about the best in the world!

There you got it; my top Christmas present ideas for the fitness enthusiast.  If that doesn’t help you, at least maybe that’ll encourage you to start shopping for presents since Christmas is in 2 weeks….well, maybe it’ll encourage me too to get started!

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I’m currently working on a project at work where I need make a detailed plan of our training system at Endeavor, which I could explain to someone who has no idea what we’re doing.  Getting started on that project, I struggled just putting something down on paper, simply because I didn’t know where to start.  I was trying to think: “What do you cover first? How do you make someone understand all the subtleties of how you build a training program? Why we do the things we do? etc.”  After brainstorming for a little while and exchanging some ideas with Kevin Neeld, I was up to something.

But what are the steps to detailing a complete training systems?

To me the first step is to highlight the philosophies behind the system.  This is what’s going to guide you in building  programs and knowing what components to include in your training programs.  Your philosophy doesn’t have to be extremely detailed and it doesn’t have be 5 pages long.  It’s really just knowing what your goals are and what the underlying concepts of your systems are.  To me, these are 3 ideas behind a good philosophy:

• The priorities of a good training program are, and always should be:

• The Joint-by-Joint approach to training

• The Anatomy Trains concept; everything works together in the body and isolation doesn’t exist

Those 3 concepts help shape a mindset of what you’re trying to accomplish and what the general directions of your training programs is.  Once  a background philosophy is established, you can put the building blocks of a training program in place and develop the tools to use for each component:

• Self-myofascial release (foam rollers, lacrosse balls, the stick, etc)
• Dynamic warm up (mobility exercises, activation drills, corrective work, etc)
• Speed training
• Power training (plyometrics, Olympic lifts, med ball throws)
• Strength training
• Core work
• Conditioning
• Injury prevention strategies
• Flexibility

Once this is established, the next thing to do is to incorporate all of these things in a structured training program, or what you may call the art of program design.  Managing volumes, loads, recovery periods and the like is a task that’s not easy.  This is something that is totally dependent on your athletes, their sports, training background, phase of the season, recovery capacities, genetics, and much more.  Although the basics of program design can be taught, only will you become better at that with experience and by listening to your athletes.

And last but not least, is the coaching itself.  This is an area that might seem pretty simple, but you really need to understand the fundamentals of functional movements in order to coach even the most basic exercises the right way.  Athletes need to learn to move the right way before anything else; it doesn’t matter how good your program looks on paper if your athletes move like crap.  Because in the end it comes back to the first 2 goals of the whole program: do no harm, and decrease the risks of preventable injuries.  Such concepts as the neutral spine, the packed shoulder blades and the packed neck are just some the concepts of coaching that need to be understood in order to make your athletes move better.

There are many things to go over when detailing a whole training system.  Sure there are probably things I haven’t mentioned that might be important, but in the end I feel like those are the basics to understand to build a good, efficient training system.  This is how we do things at Endeavor.

Interestingly this is all stuff that Kevin Neeld goes over into his book Ultimate Hockey Training.  He goes into great detail about every aspect of a complete training system that has been proven effective for years.  And please don’t be fooled by the title; this book could’ve simply been called Ulitmate Training System because it goes far beyond the concept of training for hockey.  No matter what sports you’re coaching, it is an invaluable resource to have.

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I will be the first one to admit that this is something I’ve been fighting against for years.  We all know that it was common practice among lifters and athletes through the 70s and the 80s to static stretch before a training session or playing a sport.

This was almost a whole warm up right there!

And that was accepted as a typical injury prevention strategy before an activity.  That concept has been challenged a lot in the last decade and a half or so.  Many researches came out suggesting that static stretching may negatively impact force production output (read: strength and power).  The idea that static stretching by itself as a warm up procedure was a good injury prevention strategy has also been challenged a lot.  The result of this being that strength coaches and fitness professionals alike who stay current with the literature have abandoned the static stretching concept as a warm up procedure almost completely.  I, myself, have been supporting this theory that static stretching as a warm up is not appropriate.

But in the last couple of years, different strength coaches, like Mike Boyle have been trying to re-introduce the concept of static stretching as being part of a warm up (as opposed to being a whole warm up in itself).  Knowing what we know now about static stretching it seemed kind of counter-intuitive to me to do that.

After resisting to the concept, I finally gave it a shot.  Now I embrace it.

There’s a couple of things to take into account though, when using static stretching before training or sport:

• Even if there might be some benefits to doing static stretching before training, it cannot be used by itself as a complete warm up.  Soft-tissue work, mobility, dynamic stretching and movement preparations are all important parts of a warm up, as well.
• You don’t want to stretch for too long.  It’s called a warm up, not a cool down, so try to avoid spending over 10-15 minutes static stretching where your body might fall in sleep mode.
• Try to avoid static stretching the areas/muscles you’re going to involve in your training activity, because of the possible force production loss linked to static stretching.  Mobility and dynamic stretching drills might be better suited for these areas.

The whole reason to re-incorporate static stretching in the warm up, in my opinion, is because we spend so much time sitting in a day that there are many muscles and joint that suffer from that.  Therefore it’s important to give them length back before a training session; the last thing we want is to feel stiff and restricted from sitting all day before an activity.

Personally, I have been feeling so much better since re-incorporating some static stretches in my warm-up, and I definitely don’t feel as stiff when I train.  Here’s how you might want to incorporate static stretching in your pre-workout routine:

1. Soft-tissue work (foam rolling, stick, lacrosse ball, etc)
2. Static stretching circuit (4-5 stretches that don’t target muscles involved in your training for that day)
3. Dynamic stretching/mobility (6-8 movements that will target joints involved in your training for that day)
4. Movement preparation (If you do any kind of sprint/plyo/power exercises you’ll want to do movement prep)

After fighting against the concept of static stretching as part of a warm up for so long, I now embrace it.  You should definitely give it a shot if you’ve been in the same boat as I was for the last couple of years.

I want to start things off by wishing all of you a great year 2011, and may this upcoming year bring you health, joy and success!

And now off to my special announcement I’ve been talking about for the last 2 weeks.

If you haven’t already noticed, there is a place on the right side bar of my website that says “Sports Training Secrets Revealed” and a place to sign up.  I am officially launching my DavidLasnier.com newsletter!  What it means for you, is that you will get updates directly by e-mail on sports training and athletic development tips and secrets!  That makes it a lot easier for my readers to follow my work.  I’m also going to have some exclusive tips in my newsletter that you won’t see anywhere else.

But the best part of all this is that by signing up for my TOTALLY FREE newsletter, you get 3 FREE gifts!  That is a way for me to say thank you to my readers for following my work since I put up my website last year.  I really appreciate all the support you have given me and all the great feedback I got from you.

So, what you get by signing up for DavidLasnier.com’s newsletter is 3 FREE reports on athletic development:

- 5 Secrets to Improve Maximum Acceleration: A report on how to drastically improve speed and agility through no-nonsense training.  Too many athletes make BIG mistakes when training for speed; don’t be one of them!

- Shoulder Injury Prevention Strategies: The shoulder is one of the most complex joints in the body.  There are many factors to consider when trying minimize the instance of injuries around that joint.  Make sure you are aware of all the strategies I mention in this report to keep your athletes’ shoulders and yours healthy!

- Self-Myofascial Release Routine: The use of the foam roller has become more and more popular with the athletic population, and for good reasons; it’s so important to take care of your muscle tissue quality.  This report is the exact same pre-workout soft-tissue routine we use with our athletes at Endeavor.  Check it out to see what other tools than the foam roller we’re also using with our athletes!

Make sure you sign up for my FREE newsletter to get instant access to all 3 of these FREE reports!

I will be back on Thursday with some fresh content on sports training.  Have a great year 2011!

Whether you’re a high level athlete, a professional bodybuilder, a recreational lifter or just someone trying to lose a couple lbs, you need to include soft-tissue work in your workouts/training sessions.  Everybody and I mean EVERYBODY in the entire world has soft-tissue limitations in the form of trigger points, adhesions or knots as it is most commonly referenced to.  By moving everyday (daily tasks or sporting events), by holding positions for prolonged periods of time and even by slouching on your couch for hours, your body will develop trigger points that will cause some sort of restriction in your muscles.  Whether that translates into a restricted range of motion in your joints or by referred pain to other areas of your body (the most common one being headaches associated with trigger points in the upper back and neck region), trigger points affect your daily activities and your workouts, so it is very important that they are taken care of; otherwise that could lead to bigger problems like tendonitis/tendinosis, busitis, joint pain, pulled and strained muscles and so on. 

The number one option and obviously the most effective one would be to get manual therapy work done.  But the problem is that I don’t know too much people that can afford manual therapy 1-2 times a week!  Therefore, self-usable tools are a valuable thing to have at your disposal; this way you can take care of your soft-tissue quality by yourself and not spending thousands and thousands of dollars on manual therapy.  I still encourage everyone to get some manual therapy done every once in a while (once every 1-2 month if possible).  As valuable as these tools are, they don’t do the same job a qualified professional will do.

That being said, there are tons of soft-tissue work tools available on the market, with the foam roller being the most common one. 

I really like the foam roller, but let’s face it: when someone has been foam rolling on a daily basis for over 6 months, these things don’t do much.  With that in mind, here’s my top 3 soft-tissue work tools:

1. PVC Pipe

Probably one of the cheapest options available, but also one of the most painful (read: effective) tool you can use.  The PVC pipe is basically a logical progression from the foam roller.  This is definitely not an option for beginners who have never used a foam roller as you will cry for your mom the first time you try it!  The PVC pipe is best used for quads, IT band, calves, glute maximus, adductors and lats.

2. LaCrosse Ball

Another very cheap, yet effective tool.  The lacrosse ball will do a very good (read: painful) job, just like the PVC pipe.  The lacrosse ball is better suited for smaller muscles hard to target with a PVC pipe or a foam roller.  As a fair warning, you should try a tennis ball first and progress to a lacrosse ball when it gets too easy.  The ball is best for plantar fascia (bottom of foot), calves, glute medius, TFLs (hip flexor), infraspinatus and teres minor (rotator cuff) and pecs.

3. Thera-Cane

 The thera-cane is definitely a more expensive option, but still under 40$, and totally worth it.  With its very unique shape the thera-cane is built to work on muscles usually hard to access, like the ones in your upper back and neck region.  It’s probably the most addictive soft-tissue work tool ever; I have one in my living room, and every single time I watch TV, I end up using it for 10-15 minutes.  The thera-cane is best for rhomboids, levator scapulaes, supraspinatus, teres majors, pec minors and upper, middle and lower trapezius.

Give all of these a shot if you haven’t already, you will feel the benefits immediately!