Dan John Reviews Advances in Functional Training

I’m not good at asking people to buy my products. I don’t do a lot of promotion ( although many think I do). That’s why it’s so good when someone else writes a review I can post. If you are interested you can order at www.performbetter.com or at www.davedraper.com .

Below is Dan John’s review of Advances in Functional Training:

There is a line in Mike Boyle’s new book, Advances in Functional Training, that just made me laugh out loud: “On the other hand, some of our hardest working athletes look like they hardly train. As long as their performances reflects the time and effort they’ve put in, I’m happy.” The whole book is filled with these kinds of simple lines that anyone who has been in sport for the past few decades wants to applaud. The best athletes in the world don’t look like guys on the covers of magazines. The best athletes train to win, not to look the part.

Boyle’s book is a page by page illumination. Do I agree with everything written? That’s the million dollar question. I have found that I don’t “read” AFT, rather, I reread it. He doesn’t do Kettlebell snatches because of the learning curve to teach the right catch. That leads to bruising, so Boyle doesn’t do them. Madness! Then, I reread his reasoning, sadly shrugged my shoulders and admitted that he is right for his needs and clients. And on we go through the book as his REAL world experience drips off the pages. Agree or disagree with his conclusions, but at least take the time to think and reason along side of him!

Here is the problem that this new book is addressing: most of the people writing books about aiding performance are full of crap. For whatever reason, we have a generation of internet experts (like me, by the way) who use secret formulas, mysterious programs, Voodoo hexes and a variety of untried ideas to push training. Boyle’s book comes from the other side:Michael has a gym, he trains people, he fixes issues and then he lets us know what works. For whatever reason, this kind of honesty bothers people!

Boyle’s advice is honed from the gym and from discussions with the top names in the field. He demands “Olympic style” Front Squats for the same reasons I do and he also has no issues with insisting that leg presses are garbage. He has interesting insights on the importance of the O lifts, but he also recommends some variations (like the Clean Grip Snatch) that work better for athletes than the standard work. I applaud the thinking throughout the book. He discusses HIT with an open mind as well as the ups and downs of hypertrophy work.

After your first reading, you will find, like I did, that you will have picked up a lot of ideas, but the structure of the book isn’t like one of Pavel’s where you come away with “Do THIS!” Instead, you will have something more like an encyclopedia of fitness and training. It’s odd for me to read this book and make myself realize that I may have been wrong on many of my long held beliefs. I hate Trap Bars because of, well, I just don’t like anything that isn’t Old School. Boyle’s book convinced me to buy some for our facility. Since we are not a powerlifting gym, why not be smarter? Sadly, my brother, Gary, has been telling me this for years: get Trap Bars!

The insights on single leg training alone might be worth the cost, which is not very much. It is a 35 buck book that has 315 pages of information. I just spent $50 for a 19 page e-book for reference and got little out of it. Should you do all the hip movements described in the book and the dozens of bridges, planks and single leg moves? Well, yes. Will you? I also marveled at the simple templates at the back of the book where you can xerox theses and design your own programs. It might take weeks to lock down all the movements for a typical workout, but why not start today?

I can’t recommend the book highly enough. It made me think. I would pick it up at random times during the day and double check something that just kept bugging me. Any book that makes you think this much deserves further discussion. Seriously, along side Kono’s book, Pavel’s PTTP and ETK (and Return of thee Kettlebell now that I think about it), and a few others, this book had me shuffling pages back and forth, standing up and trying things, and plopping the book on the table and going into my gym to try things.

Note: I got an odd negative email after I noted that I was reading and enjoying the book. The writer also noted that I must believe that Boyle’s farts smell like roses, too. I have no idea what caused that response, but, for the record, I have never met Michael Boyle, nor smelled his farts. Thank you.

To order go to www.performbetter.com or to www.davedraper.com . By the way, you can also get Dan’s products at www.davedraper.com. The new DVD series is excellent.

Does It Hurt?

This is another of my previously published pieces reprinted for your reading pleasure:

I get asked rehab questions all the time. I have rehabilitated athletes in almost every major sport who were told they were “all done” by a doctor or a team trainer. Because people know my background, they often ask for advice.

Most of the time they ignore the advice because the advice does not contain the answer they want. They say “it only hurts when I run”, I say things like “don’t run”.

A famous coach I know once told me “people don’t call for advice, they call for agreement or consensus. If you don’t tell them what they want to hear, they simply call someone else”. His advice to me, don’t bother wasting your time with advice.

Here I go again wasting time.

If you have an injury and are wondering whether or not a certain exercise is appropriate, ask yourself a simple question. “Does it hurt”? The key here is that the question ‘does it hurt?” can only be answered yes or no. If you answer yes, then you are not ready for that exercise, no matter how much you like it. Simple, right? Not really. I tell everyone I speak with about rehab that any equivocation is a yes. Things like “after I warm-up it goes away” etc. are all yes answers. It is amazing to me how many times I have asked people this simple question only to have them dance around it. The reason they dance around the question is that they don’t like my answer. They want to know things like “what about the magic cure that no one has told me about?”. What about a secret exercise? I have another saying I like, “the secret is there is no secret”. Another wise man, Ben Franklin I think, said “Common sense is not so common”.

If you are injured and want to get better, use your common sense. Exercise should not cause pain. This seems simple but exercisers ignore pain all the time and rationalize it. Discomfort is common at the end of a set in a strength exercise or at the end of an intense cardiovascular workout. Additional discomfort, delayed onset muscle soreness, often occurs the two days following an intense session.  This is normal. This discomfort should only last two days and should be limited to the muscles not the joints or tendons. Pain at the onset of an exercise is neither normal nor healthy and is indicative of a problem. Progression in any strength exercise should be based on a full, pain-free range of motion that produces muscle soreness without joint soreness. If you need to change or reduce range of motion, this is a problem. Progression in cardiovascular exercise should also be pain free and should follow the ten percent rule. Do not increase time or distance more than ten percent from one session to the next. I have used these simple rules in all of my strength and conditioning programs and, have been able to keep literally thousands of athletes healthy. I’m sure the same concepts will help you.

This Week on StrengthCoach.com

First up this week is an article from Joe Kenn called It is Not a Race for Last. This is a great article about the mental side of training. I saw it in the SB Coaches College newsletter and Joe was kind enough to let me reprint it. For those of you not familiar with Joe, he has spent the last 19 years as a strength coach on the collegiate level working at Boise State, Utah, Arizona State, and Louisville.  Joe also owns and operates Big House Power Competitive Athletic Training LLC [http://www.bighousepower.com], an educational member website for parents, coaches, and athletes

Next up is The Get Strong Program Part 2 from Todd Hamer of Robert Morris. This one comes with an apology. I actually lost this article and recently found it again. This is a great follow up to Todd’s excellent Part 1.

Last up is What it Takes – A Fitness Business Journey by Justin Levine. This is another an excellent series of real world facility articles that I asked some guys to write about their experiences opening facilities.

Video of the Week

Video for the week is another in a series of what really are Athletes’ Performance lateral movement drills. This is a crossover drill referred to as Cross to Base in AP terms. At MBSC we simply call it Crossover and Stick. The key to viewing this is focus on the action of the leg pushing under, not the leg crossing over.

Don’t forget to check out the StrengthCoach Podcast  at  www.strengthcoachpodcast.com. Last but not least, make sure you keep up with www.strengthandconditioningwebinars.com

Site Notes

The articles and videos go up over the course of the week. Generally one each day.  Only one article mentioned on this email will go up on the day you receive this email.

Also, your credit card statement will show a change from RylanLee.com, not StrengthCoach.com. Hope you enjoy the week.

Christmas Spirit

There are two weeks left until Christmas. Do yourself a favor and go out and shop for those who really need. The Boston Herald has a list of 10 agencies actively seeking toys. My wife is wonderful enough to have us participate in an Adopt a Family program in our hometown of Reading, Ma. We actually adopt one family and have our daughters hockey team adopt another so we get to shop for two families. What literally brings me to tears are the lists. We live in an upper middle class community but,  what the kids ask for makes me realize  how lucky we are and how little appreciation we have.

Here are some list items. Warm blankets, gloves, socks, t-shirts, underwear. I think you get it. These kids don’t ask for presents, they ask for life’s necessities. They ask for things my kids take for granted. Whether or not you have kids, take the time to buy at least one present. I tell people that I do this for me. It is my best feeling of the holiday knowing that a family somewhere will open presents due to our generousity. So please, do something totally selfish. Make yourself feel good. Adopt a Family , buy a Toy for a Tot. Just do something for someone else.

Only One Body

( the following is reprinted. I’m not sure where I printed it or, if I ever did)

Imagine you are sixteen years old and your parents give you your first car. They also give you simple instructions. There is one small hitch, you only get one car, you can never get another. Never. No trade-ins, no trade-ups. Nothing

Ask your self how would you maintain that car? My guess is you would be meticulous. Frequent oil changes, proper fuel, etc. Now imagine if your parents also told you that none of the replacement parts for this car would ever work as well as the original parts. Not only that, the replacement parts would be expensive to install and cause you to have decreased use of your car for the rest of the cars useful life? In other words, the car would continue to run but, not at the same speed and with the efficiency you were used to.

Wow, now would we ever put a lot of time and effort into maintenance if that were the case.

After reading the above example ask yourself another question. Why is the human body different? Why do we act as if we don’t care about the one body we were given. Same deal. You only get one body. No returns or trade-ins. Sure, we can replace parts but boy it’s a lot of work and it hurts. Besides, the stuff they put in never works as well as the original “factory” parts. The replacement knee or hip doesn’t give you the same feel and performance as the original part.

Think about it. One body. You determine the mileage? You set the maintenance plan?

No refunds, no warranties, no do-overs?

How about this perspective? One of my clients is a very successful businessman. He often is asked to speak to various groups. One thing he tells every group is that you are going to spend time and money on your health. The truth is the process can be a proactive one or a reactive one. Money spent on your health can take the form of a personal trainer, massage therapist and a gym membership or, it can be money spent on cardiologists, anesthesiologists, and plastic surgeons. Either way, you will spend money.

Same goes for time. You can go to the gym or, to the doctors office. It’s up to you. Either way, you will spend time. Some people say things like “I hate to work out”. Try sitting in the emergency room for a few hours and then get back to me. Working out may not seem so bad. Much like a car, a little preventative maintenance can go a long way. However, in so many ways the body is better than a car. With some good hard work you can turn back the odometer on the body. I wrote an article a while back ( Strength Training- The Fountain of Youth) that discussed a study done by McMaster University which showed that muscle tissue of older subjects actually changed at the cellular level and looked more like the younger control subjects after strength training.

Do me a favor, spend some time on preventative maintenance, it beats the heck out of the alternative. Just remember, you will spend both time and money.

Mike Boyle Strength and Conditioning Video Tour

My friends at Stack Magazine take you on a video tour of Mike Boyle Strength and Conditioning. Take a few minutes and check it out to see how we organize our facility and our workouts.

MBSC Video Tour

First up this week is a The Perform Better One Day Experience from Bruce Kelly. I have to tell you that I really enjoyed all three talk this year. As always, a great lineup. If we come to your area, don’t miss out. The next one is in San Francisco on Jan 9th, followed by Los Angeles on Jan 23rd. I won’t be in San Fran but, the lineup is great. You can register by clicking this link

http://www.performbetter.com/catalog/matriarch/OnePiecePage.asp_Q_PageID_E_324_A_PageName_E_SeminarsOneDayLearnByDo

Next up are the notes from Functional Strength Coach Volume 2. The great job that Pat Beith did on the marketing for www.functionalstrengthcoach3.com has created some renewed interest in Functional Strength Coach Volume 2. There have been forum requests for the notes and programs so I went back and located them.

Last up is an article I read in on SB Coaches College, 5-3-1 for Athletes by Georgia Tech Asst Strength Coach Tim Caron. Tim and Brijesh were kind enough to let me reprint it for you.

Video of the Week

This week’s clip is a simple Hand to Knee Drill use to teach crossover. As we said last week some of our readers and purchasers of www.functionalstrengthcoach3.com have asked about some of the drills in the sample programs. This drill is another great one of the for teaching lateral movement concepts. In this case the drill teaches the athlete theknee drive necessary to utilize hip ower in the crossover. The key is that we don’t step over, we punch with the knee. My good friend Anthony Slater does another great job demoing this drill.

Don’t forget to check out the StrengthCoach Podcast  at www.strengthcoachpodcast.com.  Anthony just put up an episode with Jeremy Boone. Last but not least, make sure you keep up with www.strengthandconditioningwebinars.com

Site Notes

The articles and videos go up over the course of the week. Generally one each day.  Only one article mentioned on this email will go up on the day you receive this email.

Also, your credit card statement will show a change from RylanLee.com, not StrengthCoach.com. Hope you enjoy the week.

Lots of stuff to talk about:

Perform Better NY/NJ is this weekend, hope to see a lot of you there. The Cosgrove Business Seminar is the next weekend and, myself and a bunch of my staff will be there also.

The MBSC Winter Seminar is Sat Jan 30 th. The seminar is sponsored by Perform Better and StrengthCoach.com .  This has become a hugely popular, must attend seminar, not only for personal trainers and strength coaches in New England but across the country. As an added bonus you can spend the morning watching and potentially participating in our training programs. Participation is based on space availabilitySpeakers include:

Michael Boyle- ACL Injury Prevention is Just Good Training

Eric Cressey- Medicine Ball Training

Brijesh Patel- It’s Not Just Sets and Reps

John Pallof- Training the Shoulder – Mobility to Stability

Observation/ Learn by Doing session from 8-12

Also, our first Winter Mentorship of 2010 is scheduled for Feb 1-4. These fill up fast so be sure to register soon.

This Week on StrengthCoach.com

First up this week is a short article I just wrote called Learning to Speak Coach. Due to some administrative issues this one did not go up last week. This is actually based on an idea my friend Valerie Waters gave me. I think many strength coaches fail because they can’t sell their program to a coach. Hopefully, this will help.

A great follow up to Learning to Speak Coach is Hockey and Volleyball – Are They Really the Same Game? by Devan McConnell. I actually put the finishing touches on Learning to Speak Coach after reading Devan’s article and realizing that they should be in order. I think you will enjoy the thought process even if you don’t agree.

Last up is Training SuperWoman from Jon Messner. As you know I like Jon’s writing style and his message. This a great lesson for us about clients and about why we do what we do.

Video of the Week

This week’s clip is the SuperBand Shuffle. Some of our readers and purchasers of www.functionalstrengthcoach3.com have asked about some of the drills in the sample programs. I think this drill is one of the best for teaching lateral movement concepts. The key is that the drill forces the athlete to understand how to move laterally by pushing, not stepping. The key is a heavy enough band and lots of resistance. Athlete who step will fall back.

Don’t forget to check out the StrengthCoach Podcast  at www.strengthcoachpodcast.com. Also, make sure you check www.strengthcoachblog.com. Last but not least, make sure you keep up with www.strengthandconditioningwebinars.com

Site Notes

The articles and videos go up over the course of the week. Generally one each day.  Only one article mentioned on this email will go up on the day you receive this email.

Also, you credit card statement will show a change from RylanLee.com, not StrengthCoach.com. Hope you enjoy the week.

A Personal Growth Plan

First of all. Happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy the day. Plan today to sponsor a needy family in your area for Christmas. It will be the best gift you give to yourself and your family. My wife Cindy and I did this last year and the feeling you get can’t be described. You will enjoy the holidays far more if you give anonymously to those who really need.

On an unrelated note, the following came to me from my friend Jeff Higuera and I knew I had to share it with our readers. There are many of us who want to be better but, wanting to be better and having a plan for self improvement are two different things. Jeff has a plan and was kind enough to let me share it with you.

Six years ago, I made a commitment to becoming one of the best at what I do. I knew in order to do that I would have to learn the skills and become fundamentally grounded in my Spiritual Life, Personal Life, and Professional Life. There has been nothing that has been more impactful to my career, my family, my relationships, and my finances. Below I share with you my spiritual, personal and professional growth plan:

-Spiritual Development:
-15-30 minutes reading the Bible each day
-Read 1 Spiritual Growth book per month.
-Attend Church each week (I’m not gonna lie, I haven’t been really consistent at this one over the past year)

-Build and/or continue a relationship with a Spiritual Mentor each year
-Record and write down, in a systematic fashion, the most important lessons I’ve learned.

-Personal Development (Leadership/Teamwork/Business):
-30 minutes every other day reading/reflecting/listening or watching personal development material).
-Read 1 Personal Development book per month.
-One audio lesson per month.
-Build a relationship with at least one highly influential leader each year.
-Record and write down, in a systematic fashion, the most important lessons I’ve learned from the material.

-Professional Development (Exercise Physiology, Biomechanics, Sports Nutrition, Sports Psychology, Etc.):
-30 Minutes every other day reading/reflecting/listening or watching professional development material
-Read 1 article per week
-Build a relationship with at least one highly influential leader in the field of fitness each year.
-Watch 1 video per month
-Go to one conference per year
-Record and write down, in a systematic fashion, the most important lessons and concepts I’ve learned from the material.

Ask yourself, what would happen if I lost my job today? What would happen if I were no longer needed on my team? Would my past commitment to preparation and to getting better at what I do leave me fearful about my job security? Or B) Would my preparation and commitment to personal growth leave me fearless and ready to move on to bigger and better things?

Jeff’s success is not an accident. No ones is. One of my favorite coaches, Mike Jarvis, used to say ‘plan your work and work your plan”. I’m sure he stole it somewhere as we all do but, it couldn’t be more true.