For those who missed part 1, make sure to read it HERE first.  I highlighted how easy social network tools like Facebook and Twitter have made our pursuit of continuing education in the fitness and strength and conditioning industry.  You just have to “friend” or “like” the smart people in the industry that put quality information out here to easily access their material through your News Feed page.

In last week’s post I mentioned that this post would be to give an list of good people to follow and “friend” on Facebook and Twitter to get access to good material.  So without further ado, here it is:

“Friend” on Facebook:

Alan Aragon, nutrition
Anthony Renna, from StrengthCoach.com and StrengthandConditioningWebinars.com
Ben Bruno (also on Twitter @benbruno1), from Mike Boyle S&C
Bret Contreras (also on Twitter @ bretcontreras), writer for T-Nation
Brian Grasso, from S&C coach and IYCA founder
Brian St. Pierre (also on Twitter @BSPNutrition), nutrition
Brijesh Patel, S&C coach at Qunnipiac
Chad Waterbury, writer for T-Nation
Charlie Weingroff, S&C coach and PT
Craig Liebenson, chiropractor and ART specialist
Dana Cavalea (also on Twitter @danacavalea), New York Yankees S&C coach
Dan John, renowned coach
Dave Ruel, nutrition
David Tate, from EliteFTS.com
Endeavor Fit
Indy Fast, Bill Hartman & Mike Robertson’s facility
James Smith, from Diesel Crew
Jim Wendler, from EliteFTS.com
Joe Dowdell (also on Twitter @joedowdellnyc), Peak Performance owner and celebrity trainer
Joseph Heiler, PT and founder of SportRehabExpert.com
Juan Carlos Santana, renowned S&C coach
Kelly Baggett, speed and power training expert
Kevin Larrabee, from Mike Boyle S&C and the Fitcast
Kevin Neeld (also on Twitter @KevinNeeld)
Lee Taft, speed training expert
Leigh Peele (also on Twitter @LeighPeele), nutrition
Mark Young (also on Twitter @MarkYoungTrain), research expert
Matt Siniscalchi, S&C coach and speed training expert
Mike Reinolds (also on Twitter @mikereinoldblog), PT for the Boston Red Sox
Mike Robertson (@RobTrainSystems)
Nate Green (also on Twitter @nategreen03), from Precision Nutrition
Patrick Ward (also on Twitter @OSPpatrick), manual therapist and PT
Perry Nickelston (also on Twitter @laserdr), manual therapist and FMS, SFMA specialist
Sam Leahy, former intern from Cressey Performance and Mike Boyle S&C
Sean Hyson, Men’s Fitness editor
Sean Skahan (also on Twitter @SeanSkahan), Anaheim Ducks S&C coach
Sue Falsone (also on Twitter @suefalsone), PT at Athlete’s Performance
Tony Gentilcore (also on Twitter @tonygentilcore1), from Cressey Performance

Follow on Twitter:

Jaime Rodriguez (@Jrodstrength), S&C coach
Gray Coook (@graycookPT), PT and book author
John Romaniello, fat loss expert
Todd Durkin, pro athlete trainer and business owner
Diesel Crew (@dieselstrength)
Mike Roussell, nutrition
Jeff Cubos, chiropractic sports specialist and hockey expert
Anatomy Trains, Thomas Myers’ great work on fascia and the human body
Charles Poliquin, world famous S&C coach
Eric Cressey, world famous S&C coach
Mike Boyle (@mikeboyle1959), world famous S&C coach

Obviously there are probably 100s of professionals out there that haven’t listed or that I don’t know about, but this what I have on my Facebook and Twitter pages for now!  And with the decent list I just gave you, you have a good place to start!

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It comes to no surprise to anyone who’s been successful enough in this business to understand the value of continuing education.  Everything in fitness and strength and conditioning is evolving and we discover new things on a daily basis.  What might be an optimal prescription for your clients and athletes today might be totally outdated in 5 years from now.  Human anatomy and physiology is not an exact science; there are a lot of gray areas and researchers find new things about how the body works all the time.  Bottom line is we don’t know as much as we might think.

These are the very reasons why continuing education is so important.  For most people 5 years ago, doing continuing education meant buying books, going to seminars and networking with smarter people than you.  Attending seminars and networking still have their place at the top of continuing education priorities; let’s face it, nothing is ever gonna compare to meeting new people and learning from them on how they view training and how they implement their knowledge.

Eric Cressey once told me “everyone has something to teach.  They might not know as much as you do or have more experience, but there is at least one thing you can learn from somebody who’s been in the business for a while”.  Whether it is something about anatomy, physiology, practical application, business, marketing, human relations, or anything else, you can learn something from everyone.

But the other continuing education mean, buying books might have lost some value in the last couple of years.  Don’t get me wrong, I still buy books myself and the basic anatomy and physiology books are still essential to read.

Still a MUST read

But with the rise of the internet, books have taken a downfall.  By the time an author has his book published, there is gonna be at least one thing that will have changed in his perspective.  That’s mainly because by the time an author finishes writing a book, there might be some time passing by before the book finds its way on the shelves, sometimes up to 2 or 3 years!  This is why the internet has came in so handy; information easily and quickly accessible.  Of course with this great solution arises a major problem; the information you find on the internet can be, well, full of crap.  Anyone can put information on the web, nobody controls it and we end up with so many self-proclaimed internet experts who actually don’t train anyone and are just good at selling themselves.  But I digress.  If you know where to look for for quality information, that pretty much eliminates the problem.

So the internet has brought us some easily and quickly accessible information that is more updated than books in general.  But as I just mentioned, you need to know where to look for.  Granted that it’s not always easy to find good websites and good blogs out there (I’ll come back to this later).

What has made our job even easier are the social networks.  Good articles, blog posts, websites, videos, etc. just became so easy to find with Facebook and Twitter!

What first was a network to connect with old friends and stalk people, can actually be an amazing learning and networking tool.  When Facebook first became popular, I was pretty much against it and saw it as a waste of time. But then I gave in to the social media wave that struck our entire society (seriously, who isn’t on Facebook in 2011?).  But I still thought it was a little retarded and didn’t really see any use to it, other than posting thoughts that nobody cares about or stalking people.

And then, when I started my blog last year, I started posting links to all of my blog posts on Facebook (hey, that might just be how you heard about my blog in the first place!), and slowly realize that a lot of strength an conditioning and fitness professionals did the same thing.  So I created myself a Twitter account and did the same thing and link to all my blog posts on there too.  And at this point, Facebook and Twitter have pretty much became professional tools for me, and I know they are for so many other people too (I would say that 60-70% of the time I use Facebook is for professional use, and for Twitter it’s literally 100% of the time).  I’m friends on Facebook and follow on Twitter over 100 strength and conditioning professionals who want to network or who post links to good continuing education material, whether it’s their own blogs and articles they wrote or just some other peoples’ material.

Honestly, it is so easy to access quality information and network with reputable professionals with Facebook and Twitter.  You don’t even have to browse every individual website or google everything, once you’ve built your network on Facebook and Twitter.  Follow the people you like, friend them on Facebook, “Like” their company or their product; it is THAT easy (and by the way, they will all accept your friend’s request even if they don’t know you; they understand how it works).  Once you’ve established that, it doesn’t get any simpler than that.  Just log in to Facebook and/or Twitter and check your “News Feed”; you’ll have plenty of quality information to read from!

The other cool thing is that you can tag these same people in your posts and send them direct messages.  It’s an easy way to get in touch with them.  Even if most of them are super busy people, most of them are very accessible will almost always answer your messages (if you’re polite relevant, of course).

Stay tuned for my next blog post, I’ll tell you who to follow on Twitter and who to “friend” and “like” on Facebook for quality information!

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