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 like to do this type of posts once in a while to highlight some of the good stuff you can read on the internet through the blogs of smart fitness and strength and conditioning professionals. I don’t do it more often because quite frankly Ben Bruno does a much better job than me at this, and he does it on a consistent basis every week, so make sure you check out his website!
That being said here is what caught my attention in the past week or so:
There you go! You got 8 solid blog posts that you should definitely read because….well…they’ll make you smarter, plain and simple. And that’ll give you something to enjoy until I bring you some fresh new content next Tuesday!
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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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It is time for another….you guessed it….Random thoughts post! Hopefully you enjoy these as much as I do! Let’s get started:
1. My friend and colleague Kevin Neeld posted on his YouTube channel 3 presentations of about 10 minutes each about hockey training; one on program design, one on speed training and one on conditioning. These were the 3 videos that he used to promote his book, which you needed to sign up for to get access to the videos. Now, you don’t even need to sign up for anything to watch these 3 awesome videos, as they are just one click away for you to see. Here’s the program design video, which I think is pretty cool:
2. Speaking of Kevin and his book, if you haven’t checked it out yet, you absolutely have to! For some reason, he hasn’t bumped the introduction price up yet. Let me remind you that this book highlights Kevin’s complete training system to building powerful and bulletproof hockey players. In fact, the principles in this book could very well apply to any athlete in any sports as well! Any book of that quality would usually price at over 80$, but Kevin is giving you Ultimate Hockey Training for less than 30$! Click HERE if you want to pick up a copy!
3. My own training for the last 6 weeks have been geared towards muscular endurance and aerobic training (probably not the type that you think) based on Joel Jamieson’s general endurance block from his book Ultimate MMA Conditioning. To say it is a nice change of pace would be an understatement. For the past 6 years, my whole training has basically been max strength and very low volumes of conditioning (always in the form of anaerobic intervals) and nothing else. My joints were kinda hating me recently and I was getting a little bored with my training, so I decided to give that general endurance thing a shot, you know, to mix things up and give my body a break. The lifting volume have been pretty low (but not necessarily easy)- hey, could have thought that doing DB chest press with 45′s could be so hard? Not me! And the conditioning volume has been pretty high for what I’m used to, but since I’m working my aerobic system I don’t feel like the intensity is killing me. The main difference I’ve noticed so far is my recovery improved drastically! I used to dread every training day because I always felt crushed from the previous one, but with this phase, even if I get pretty sore from some of that stuff, I pretty much always feel ready to go when I’m training. I also play hockey twice a week, and I noted a major recovery difference between my shifts; I pretty much feel like I can go just as hard every single shift, and it’s like that the whole game! I used to gas out after 3o minutes. I know I’m gonna need to go back to lifting heavy stuff soon, so I don’t loose too much strength, but I’m definitely going to use 8 weeks endurance blocks more often in the future.
4. As a big music fan, and having written entire blog posts about music to train to (if you missed it you can check ‘em out HERE and HERE), I feel like haven’t posted anything music related in a while. Here’s a little something to enjoy… As you may already know I’m growing more and more into a die-hard Foo Fighters fan, which is funny because I used to dislike this band a couple years ago. But the fact that they stuck with their original roots for almost 20 years, never became a foo-foo fake pop-rock band through the years like many rock bands do (huh humm…Nickelback), and because they totally kick ass in concert for almost 3 hours, I’ve become a huge fan. Here ‘s Bridges Burning, from their new album, which gets you want to smash someone in the head with a steel chair, a la Stone Cold Steve Austin:
And this next one, even though is not as high-energy, for some reason really gets me going! The band is called Chickenfoot, which is a band formed by Sammy Hagar, another guy from Van Halen and the drummer from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It has kind of an 80′s sound to it, which Coach Jorts can appreciate, but it definitely pumps me up:
5. Last but not least, I just got 2 spots that opened up on my online training clients schedule. So if you’re interested, read my ‘Services’ page to make sure you qualify and that it’s what you’re looking for, and drop me an email at the link at the bottom of the page! You’ll be surprised at how much of a difference a structured program can make, and how much faster you can reach your goals. I’ve worked with clients from all walks of life from pro athlete to completely out-of-shape 60 year-old women, so don’t be afraid and think it’s not for you! We’ll have to talk first, but chances are I can do something for you no matter what your training goal is.
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Pretty cool blog title, huh? After hours of deliberation, DavidLasnier.com’s board of directors came up with this ingenious title that, I’ve been told, was guaranteed to catch your attention. I’ve even been told that no one would pass on this title without wanting to read the whole post!
My actual board of directors…
All kidding aside, this title is in relation to corrective exercises. If you’ve been reading my stuff for a little bit, you should know by now that I’m a big believer in incorporating injury prevention and corrective strategies in training programs to help my athletes and clients move better and lower their risk of injuries. And I’m not the only one; there is a pretty big trend in fitness world that seems to be going on right now. I think it’s a really good thing that more coaches and trainers are now aware of the importance of the glute function in hip extension, scapular stability in shoulder health, etc. With all the smart minds in this business, new corrective exercises come out every day giving us a really big toolbox to work with when it comes down to corrective exercises.
NOT what I’m talking about!
One thing I feel we don’t stress enough with corrective exercises though is that the way we perform them is crucial. It’s a good thing to include glute bridges in a client’s program that seems to be prone to low back pain. But it’s not going to do much good for him if he’s not performing it the right way, or if he just goes through the motion. Sticking with the glute bridge example, if your client doesn’t know that the whole purpose if the exercise is to squeeze his butt cheeks as he lifts his hips up, he might be compensating with his hamstrings, or even worse, his lower back. If the ribs flare out at the top, or if the client feels the movement in his hamstrings or low back, there is something that needs to be fixed. Anyway, you get the point.
For that reason, switching around your corrective exercises all the time might not be a good idea. You want to make sure that your client masters a certain movement perfectly before moving on to something else; the goal is not always to have him do something “challenging”. It’s still a corrective exercise and it should never be a max effort anyway because that is exactly when your body will look to compensate. Corrective exercises should be kept simple; you should try to reinforce the same ones with a client until there is some sort of improvement. You’re really not doing him a favor if you throw a bunch of new corrective exercises at him every couple of weeks, just for variety purposes. Keep in mind that the client doesn’t know any of that stuff, and for every new exercise, he has 4-5 different things to think about at the same time while he’s perform it correctly. If you need to stick with the good old 2-legged glute bridge for 3 months before your client really gets it and feels it in his butt, that’s what you need to do. Variety or results? Which one are you really after? Pretty simple answer.
Start with the basics, make sure the execution is flawless, that your client feels the exercise in the right spot (if needed), and never progress a corrective exercise until you see progress. In a way, it’s just like a lifting program; it doesn’t need to get fancy schmancy with tons of new exercises in every new monthly program, because you’ll never know if you’re making progress or not.
As you can see, getting fancy is not always your best bet…
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Believe it or not, Christmas is already less than 2 week away! Crazy isn’t it?! But that doesn’t mean I’m not happy about it; au contraire! Christmas is by far my favorite time of year because I usually get some time off from work and that allows me to spend some time with my family and friends. The only problem with Christmas is that I always end up being late on Christmas shopping and finding presents for my loved ones. That being said, if you have a fitness or strength and conditioning enthusiast in your life, here’s a couple of gift ideas that are well worth it if you ask me!
Hearte Rate Monitor
With what the research tells us about heart rate variability (HRV) and the feedback our heart rate can give us about our training, intensity, recovery, etc. it only makes sense to keep track of your heart rate. Most monitors are very convenient to use and not very expensive (you can get a really good one for less than 100$!). I recommend the Polar RS-100. If you’re looking for the best quality/price ratio, you can’t get much better than that one. Also, with Joel Jamieson’s new HRV product coming out soon, it will be 100% compatible with the RS-100, so you’re killing 2 birds with one stone! Ultimate Hockey Training
Kevin Neeld’s new book is a great gift idea for any hockey player, parent or coach. It highlights every component of a hockey player development from the youth level to the professional level as well as going into details on the training program itself and all that should be included (foam rolling, warm up, strength and power work, conditioning, etc). It really is the most complete hockey development resource out there, and very up-to-date as well (compared to other hockey training resources I’ve read before). I’ve been spreading the word about Kevin’s book for the last 2 months for a reason. And for less than 30$, it makes for a very cheap gift idea! You can get Ultimate Hockey Training HERE.
Metabolic Cooking Cookbook
It’s no big news that nutrition is a HUGE part of the results you get from your training. Who says nutrition also says planning. If you don’t plan your meals ahead you’re setting yourself up for failure. Period. Metabolic Cooking is a great, healthy cookbook with over 250 delicious recipes that will help you achieve your health and performance goals. You’ll be taking a huge step toward planning your meals better with this resource, as there is also different sections for breakfast, lunch, dinner and even snacks! For less than 50$, it was way worth it to me, and I’m sure it’ll be for you as well!
Show and Go
If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you know that I’m a big fan of Show and Go, as I tried it myself and gained almost 15 pounds of muscle while boosting my Deadlift and my Bench Press by 20-30 pounds; all of this in less than 4 months! It’s the best system out there of any non-athlete gym enthusiast who wants to pack on muscle, gain strength and lose bodyfat. You get a 16-week program based on your goals and the number of times per week you hit the gym. And on top of that you have full video support for all the exercises that are included in the program and Eric throws a bunch of cool bonuses with it. It takes the guess work out of writing your own program and quite frankly, the results speak for themselves. It’s the perfect gift for the fitness enthusiast in your life!
TheraCane Massager
Doing soft-tissue work is now widely accepted as part of a complete training program. I’ve raved about the benefits of foam rolling and other similar tools to promote tissue quality. A foam roller doesn’t work quite as well on the upper body as it does on the lower body, though. The theracane massager is probably the best “upper body” tool I’ve come across for soft-tissue work. I own one and I have to say that it works wonders on areas like the pecs, upper traps, rhomboids as well as the posterior neck muscles. It’s the next best thing to getting a massage! Training = Rehab, Rehab = Training
This last gift idea might be more for people who are serious about strength and conditioning and are looking for a great continuing education resource. Charlie Weingroff has a way of explaining things and giving people a different perspective on things that will make every penny you spend on this DVD set worth it. I’m not going to lie though, it’s not for everyone. The material on the DVDs is pretty advanced stuff, and I’ll even admit that I was scratching my head a couple of times while watching Charlie speaks. But it makes for a great Christmas present for any up-and-comer strength and conditioning coach; and trust me, they will appreciate it (it was my Christmas present last year, and I certainly did!). You ca get Training = Rehab, Rehab = Training on Charlie’s website HERE.
Buuuuuut, the best Christmas present of them all remains a subscription to DavidLasnier.com’s newsletter! And the best part is that it’s totally FREE!!! All you have to do is enter the contact info below, and you’ll even get 3 FREE reports on sports performance training!
As I’ve said many times before, random thoughts posts are probably my favorite type of posts to write and also my favorite types of posts to read on other people’s websites. So here we go again! …I obviously just made up the number 137.
Whatever Pam.
1. As much as I’ve written about breathing patterns in the past and the importance it has on your whole body, I never really posted anything about breathing drills or exercises specifically. My colleague Patrick Ward, from Optimum Sports Performance did a great job of explaining a simple, yet extremely effective breathing drill you can use with your clients and athletes. Check it out:
2. I have bashed aerobic training in previous blog posts and articles, and guess what? I’m starting to think that I was wrong. As I’m learning more about how to manage training stress and training loads, I’m realizing that doing high intensity strength and power work on top of high intensity conditioning sessions that are strictly interval-based might be too taxing on the nervous system. Also, aerobic training improves your recovery rate between bouts of effort as well as between sessions, so I’m starting to think that aerobic work might actually have its place in a training program. I’m still not a fan of repetitive low amplitude movements for people who are already pretty restricted mobility-wise, and I still don’t think it’s sports-specific AT ALL (unless you’re a marathon runner), but I’m gonna have to play around with it a little bit in my own training and the ones of my athlete because I’m starting to believe there are some benefits to it. Keep an eye open for an entire blog post or article on the subject in the next couple of months.
3. My friend and colleague Kevin Neeld wrote a very interesting blog post on Femoroacetabular Impingement (FAI) yesterday. If you’re not already familiar with FAI and you’re training high level athletes (especially hockey players) you NEED to get that piece of the puzzle figured out, as FAI should be taken into consideration when writing programs for your athletes. And according to Kevin, there is about 1 in 3-4 male in the general population that has some sort of hip abnormality and probably even more among high level hockey players! Kevin is so freakin’ smart, you need to check out his stuff; this particular blog post on FAI highlights the most recent research on the subject and Kevin makes it sooo easy for anyone to understand. His blog is a valuable resource for me on a weekly basis.
Different types of FAI
4. Speaking of Kevin; if you’re training hockey players or are a hockey player yourself you NEED to pick up a copy of his book Ultimate Hockey Training. It’s the best hockey training resource I’ve ever read and it’s under 35$! If you don’t read it you’re missing out big time. Enough said.
5. I talked about HRV in Tuesday’s blog post, and I mentioned that I think the future of periodization and managing training loads resides there. Monday morning, a fellow strength coach from the area came in to Endeavor to run our training staff through the Omega Wave, a HRV measuring tool. I was really impressed with that tool and all the information it gives you on CNS fatigue, sympathetic and parasympathetic state, and your overall readiness to train. We are really fortunate at Endeavor that the guy took time from his schedule to come over, explain to us the way the OmegaWave works and put all of us through it. A big thanks to him!
The OmegaWave. That’s pretty much how it goes.
6. Today is December 1st, which means one thing: Christmas is right around the corner! To say that I’m really excited would be an understatement. Christmas is probably my favorite time of year for a couple of reasons, especially to spend some time with my family. This year I’m especially excited for a couple of reasons:
I get a full week off!
I get to go back home to Montreal to spend the Holidays with my family and see my friends (I couldn’t make it last year)
I’m flying there, which means that I won’t have to spend a whole day in my car to get there, and another full day to come back
My girlfriend will meet my family for the first time!
Guys, this is just a quick blog post to let you know that my good friend Kevin Neeld is still offering his Ultimate Hockey Training book at the introductory price (which, unbelievably is less than 35$!). If you haven’t already, I strongly suggest you pick up a copy before Kevin decides to bump up the price of the book.
If you ever buy strength and conditioning resources, you know that the books and DVDs that are sold usually don’t sell for less than 50-100$. Kevin set up that intro price to make sure that it could be available to anyone who wants to read it. Think about it. He refused to put more money in his pocket because he wanted as many people as possible to afford it.
Take advantage of his generosity before it’s too late!
Single-leg exercises like reverse lunges, rear foot elevated split squats and 1-leg squats can have great value in a training program as it improves your strength, your stability and your balance on 1 leg, which is the way most sports are played. Whether it is when you run, when you change direction, when you skate (if your sport is played on the ice) or when you decelerate, all of these actions take place on one leg at a time.
For these reasons, single leg exercises might be more “functional” than 2-legs exercises like squats. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love squats, but they might not transfer as much as single leg exercises when it comes to developing strength, speed and power in a sport context. You just need to know which one to use and when.
Athletes still need to be able to squat as it is one of the most primitive patterns that the nervous system should control and master at a very young age. You could be surprised to see how many athletes have a hard time squatting properly. It can be because of mobility restrictions, stability or motor control problems, or other reasons, but it’s still a movement that an athlete (and any person as a matter of fact) should own.
If this isn’t textbook form….unfortunately I might lose this skill as he ages
That being said there is a strong neural relationship between single-leg strength and its carryover to sport’s performance. And these can be used as a main lower body lifts just like a squat or a deadlift. On top of being very beneficial in the transfer to sport’s performance, single-leg lifts can be great to reduce spinal loading (because you’re usually using less weight than double leg exercises) and to establish symmetry between both sides. Also everything changes from double leg to single stance; more stabilizer muscles are engaged, core muscle activation is increased and the foot’s proprioception is challenged to a much greater extent.
Even if spinal loading is not as great as with regular squats, you can still get a tremendous effect out of single-leg training and gain a lot of strength. If you’re not convinced, just check out this video of one of our hockey player at Endeavor doing Reverse Lunges with 255 pounds for 6 reps!
Even Coach Jorts from CoachJortsTraining.com can’t squat as much double leg! (barely 225! Pfff, those jorts don’t even make you stronger)
In all seriousness, my friend Kevin Neeld just released his Ultimate Hockey Training book last week and he goes into great details on the benefits of single-leg lifts. Make sure you get a copy; he’s still selling it at the introductory price (less than 35$!!)
After a long awaited launch, here it is! Kevin Neeld just released his new book Ultimate Hockey Training! This book is one like you’ve never seen before. This will raise the bar for any hockey training product forever!
He’s offering a ridiculous discount and throwing in some great free gifts from some of the world’s top experts in hockey development and performance training. When he told me he was gonna sell the book for under 30$, I thought he had brain damage! But he wants to make it affordable so anyone can buy it. You’ll have to hurry, though. This offer won’t be around for long…
Kevin isn’t just an “internet expert” that bases his recommendations on random theory or what he used to do as a player. He ACTUALLY trains hockey players for a living, and has been incredibly successful at it. Ultimate Hockey Training reveals Kevin’s entire hockey training system. I highly recommend you go pick up a copy now! At the price he’s offering the book, you would be crazy not to!
The very reason why Matt is my boy
