Eric Cressey Seminar

Eric Cressey will be holding a two day seminar in Ireland on the 15th and 16th of March. The seminar is being hosted by Kieron Dolan and is based at Tullamore Rugby Club.

If you are interested in seeing Eric during one of his rare visits to Europe then get your booking form now from one2onetraining@eircom.net

I hosted Eric last year for a fantastic two day seminar - he will be covering some pretty special topics this time round and you will get to hear the findings of his research on unstable training - direct from the author.

Countdown To Summer

British Summertime officially starts on the 30th March - That's just 6 weeks away! If you've not started your fitness and nutrition programme then now is the time to start. Two great products that will help you get started are:

Alwyn Cosgrove's - Afterburn

and

Michael Roussell's - Naked Nutrition

We use many of the principles outlined in the above manuals with our clients and we are seeing some fantastic results. What are you waiting for - the summer is just 6 weeks away!

The Power of Full Engagement

Alwyn Cosgrove gave me a great Christmas present this year, a book called The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz. What's it about - well essentially it looks at the fact that the hours in the day are fixed, but the quantity and quality of energy available to us is not. I'm pretty sure Al bought if for me after he spent some time with me in December. It was a particularly busy time having just set up the new training facility and I think Al felt I needed to get some balance! This book is really good and has made me take stock.

What I found interesting was that the book highlighted the fact that recovery is every bit as important in the work environment as it is in fitness and training. As a strength coach I'm always telling my clients about the importance of recovery (I've even written an e-manual about it!)- but I'm working all the hours available in the day with very little recovery.

Death From Overwork
It is not the intensity of energy expenditure that produces burnout, impaired perforamnce and physical breakdown, but rather the duration of expenditure without recovery. The Japanese call it 'karoshi' or 'death from overwork'. They have identified 5 key factors that contribute to karoshi.
1. Long hours that interfere with normal recovery and rest patterns.
2. Night work interferes with normal recovery and rest patterns.
3. Working without holidays or breaks.
4. High pressure work without breaks.
5. Extremely demanding physical work and continously stressful work

Ring any bells? It did with me and I'm now making sure that I'm getting some more balance in my life. A great book - thanks Al!

Do Something Useful With a Stability Ball!!

Finally, something that’s really useful to do with a Stability Ball. To help improve shoulder strength and stability go and fill a stability ball with water (as much or as little as you feel is appropriate 10-15lbs is good). Have your client perform the following drills for between 30-60 seconds each repetition. Not only will they get a great workout for the glenohumeral complex, they will have to remain strong throughout the whole of the body (especially when working with the ball overhead!), More bang for your bucks!

1. Overhead Press (partner taps) – Press the ball overhead – whilst overhead have a training partner tap the ball in a random manner. The water will move and the working athlete will have to work hard to stabilise the ball as the water swishes around inside! Increase the intensity of the taps to push the workload higher.
2. Figure 8’s – Hold the ball out in front (arms slightly bent), move the ball through a figure 8 motion. Once the ball starts moving, so will the water and pretty soon you will feel your shoulder muscles working overtime to stabilise!
3. Circles – Same as Figure 8’s but switch between clockwise and anti clockwise circles every 2-3 reps – the quicker you switch the harder you will need to work to stabilise the joint.

Providing Good Feeback

I recently read an article in the Olympic Coach newsletter written by Cheryl Coker from New Mexico State University which I felt delivered some great tips for providing feedback to clients.

1. MORE IS NOT BETTER
If you are constantly providing feedback after every rep of every set your clients may develop an overdependence on you. It is important for them to be able to actively engage in the coaching process - take the time to understand how they feel during an exercises, what works, what doesn't. If you give too much feedback they may simply wait for your response after every single repetition without ever actually understanding what is happening to them.
2. OFFERING FEEDBACK TOO QUICKLY
Don't be in arush to jump in with the feeback. Give your client time to process what has just happened. A good strategy is to ask them to assess thier performance before telling them what you observed.
3.INFORMATION OVERLOAD
Don't overload your client with feedback. You may see ten things that need to be corrected but you should resist the temptation to bombard them every point. I like to keep my feedback to a maximum of three points. Pick the most important point and keep the feeback nice and simple.
4.INTERFERING WITH AUTOMATIC PROCESSING
If you are working with high level athletes much of what they do will happen automatically. It's easy to disrupt an athletes performance by providing feedback that makes them consciously focus on an element of a normally automatically performed movement.
5. MISDIRECTING ATTENTIONAL FOCUS
Choose your words carefully! By telling your client not to do something will actually plant that thought into their mind. By telling your client not to worry about being unable to complete the required number of repetitions actually makes them think they won't be able to do it - something that may not have even crossed thier minds!

Shifting Paradigms - Why Endurance Athletes Should Strength Train

Shifting Paradigms
For most endurance athletes, the benefits of strength training are outweighed by the fear of gaining too much bulk, loss of flexibility and diminished ‘feel’ of their sport. Unfortunately this thinking keeps many endurance athletes from participating in a properly designed strength and conditioning program.

Many have a traditional ‘endurance training’ based paradigm, centered on volume of training and time spent training for the actual event itself. It’s all about wearing a badge of honour for the number of hours spent running, cycling or swimming. Unfortunately this is a pretty flawed approach, not least because there is a mass of research showing that volume of training is one of the main culprits of overtraining and injury incidence.

By and large the endurance community has overemphasised the benefits of endurance-based training and underestimated the benefits of strength training. Endurance atheletes will spend hours completing endurance sessions in the hope that they can squeeze a little bit of extra performance from their cardiovascular system, but are reluctant to spend just a couple of hours a week in the gym.


One heart, two lungs, lots of muscles!
Part of the reason for the above is that many have forgotten about the huge potential that the musculoskeletal system has to offer to performance and pay scant regard to its training benefits. Let’s not forget that the only reason your cardiovascular system is involved in the first place is because of the demand from your muscular system; your muscles don’t move because of cardiovascular demand – the demand on the cardiovascular system is elevated because of muscular demand.

If the musculoskeletal system cannot handle the stress of thousands of repetitions (which is what happens when you are training for endurance) then you need to condition the musculoskeletal system first. In other words, you should program your body based on the movements it’s going to perform – not based on the cardiovascular system, which is an upside down method of programming!

Strength training in the gym can make a real performance difference via a direct ‘transfer of training’ effect into the event. Typically the endurance athletes that I’ve worked with have had so little structural integrity that a resistance training program to target their muscular weaknesses and imbalances had to be our first approach.

The fact is that for many endurance athletes, moving the body is the biggest problem – not their ability to transport oxygen! I’m currently working with a number of endurance athletes who have seen the light and are now benefiting from a structured strength training program. For years they’ve been focusing purely on improving their cardiovascular system but more often than not, they’ve broken down at some point during their season through illness or injury. Using a motoring analogy, they were trying to trying to put a new engine in a beaten up old car with worn out chassis and suspension. A better approach is to set to work on improving the chassis and bodywork first and tinker with the engine later.