Get Smarter Today. Monday Links

Happy Monday! I was pummeled this weekend with an microscopic invasion resulting in sinus inflammation, leakage, and overall butt-kicking. I was sick.

My head still feels pretty foggy and I doubt I could provide intelligible content (let alone quality information) so I'll let other smart people enlighten you in the ways of iron today.

How to Use Isometrics - Sons of Strength over on Roman Fitness Systems

This is a great article that lays out the benefits of using ISOs as well as optimal exercises with which to employ them. We LOVE isometrics at SAPT. They are a fantastic way to increase the difficulty of an exercise without piling on tons of weight. We also utilize them for teaching, such as a split squat ISO hold instead of a dynamic split squat. We're dabbling in them, too, with out powerlifting crew and we're seeing some encouraging results.

How to Teach Your Clients to "Woman Up"- Erika Hurst

I loved this article! It's always a huge encouragement to me to see other women, not only picking up heavy things with enthusiasm, but stepping into a teaching role is even more fantastic. Our young girls (and older girls :)) need strong role models to guide them and, hopefully, lay a life-long love for staying active.

The Long View of Training- Greg Nuckols

Dean Somerset featured an article by Greg Nuckols and he espoused on a concept that is increasingly foreign in our society: patience. Patience, with particular regard to training, is not something that sells well. (I've raged about this before.) SAPT's approach is definitely for the long-term, and we whole-heartedly agree with Greg.

This is how I spent the majority of my weekend...

A Discussion Between Trainers

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Brandon LaVack of LaVack Fitness based out of Boston. I've mentioned Brandon before and how he's one of my go-to guys for all these training. Brandon is especially talented with dealing with runners and has an incredible program at http://www.runfaster5k.com/ to help you to demolish your competition.

Anyway, Brandon and I got to talk shop on all things being a trainer while my facility was being partially torn down(literally, it was the same day we took down the wall). In it I ramble on about different things such as:

-The importance of continuing education

-Creating a movement curriculum for your clients

-Creating a a referral network

-How I always seem to overstretch my crummy adductors during lateral lunges

-Building your toolbox

-Dealing with clients who are in pain

-Trainers fitting square pegs into round holes

-Me demolishing Brandon in an epic, digital staring contest

Okay, the last one may not have happened, but you'll never know unless you watch the whole thing! If you're new to the field or have CSCS/CPT after your name, I'd highly recommend checking it out and sharing your input on our discussion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRw8rXsRtCk

Knowledge is POWER! Part 3

Hello, SAPT family!  Today's post is another round-up of all the great material that can be found out there on the internet. It's been an exciting week here at SAPT, and unfortunately the dust from the construction has sucked the creativity out of my brain.  As frustrating as it is for me, it benefits YOU!  Instead of 1 post, you get 5!

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Let's start this whole sha-bang off with a video by Eric Helms out of Team3DMJ discussing frequency, volume, and intensity....

 Ever wonder if you should be performing ladder drills?  While there may very well be a time and place for these drills, there are much more effective ways to go about training for speed and explosiveness.  Check out this post by Charles Poliquin, known as one of the greatest, if not THE greatest, strength coach of all time:  The Uselessness of Speed Ladders and Agility Drills

Spring sports have begun.  With this, baseball and softball players have ramped up their throwing and have been demanding more from their shoulders with every passing week.  Time to start strengthening those external rotators, right?  Not so fast...  Eric Cressey is one of the top strength and conditioning minds specializing in baseball players, and he approaches training the rotator cuff from a slightly different angle.  Check out his methods in this article: Clearing Up The Rotator Cuff Controversy.

Do you want to be as strong as an ox, while also having the base endurance to run/bike/play sports for as long as you want at any given moment in time?  Welcome to concurrent training; training for both strength and endurance, at the same time.  Once thought impossible, more and more people are exploring this type of conditioning, and research has come about that actually demonstrates the two types of work may benefit each other.  Marc Lewis wrote a guest blog for Bret Contreras discussing was to Maximize Concurrent Training.

Finally, here's two posts out of BreakingMuscle.  One discussing a few fantastic squat variations that you may not have tried, and another aimed at all you desk jockeys experiencing low back pain.

5 Squat Variations for Strength, Mobility, and Better Movement

10 Short Daily Drills to Combat Low Back Pain

Training The Lateral Athlete: Round 2

Last week here on the blogosphere, we looked at a variety of strength exercises the coaches at SAPT have found to be helpful for training the lateral athlete in your life. Today we will discuss getting set up in the correct athlete position and how to perform and progress common drills to help athletes run, decelerate, and explode in a different direction.

The Athletic Position

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No matter the sport that you play the solid athletic base position is a fundamental tool that can enhance reaction time, strength, power, and your ability to be productive in competition. All athletes will not look the exact same in their position because of their anthropometric makeup but with the help of a qualified coach anyone will be able to find their “sweet spot.” Listed below are a few of the basics for this position:

• Feet are slightly wider than shoulder width
• Weight is distributed on the balls of your feet
• Back is long and straight with your chest out
• Shoulders back
• Comfortable bends in the elbows, knees, and ankles

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After an athlete finds his or her sweet spot in the athletic base position, now it’s time to  build upon this and learn to move from this position.

The Push to Base exercise shown here is the signature drill for the execution of this. It can be progressed and regressed in any number of ways but more importantly, it reinforces good weight distribution, balance, and stabilization. The exercise also works wonders in helping athletes create a stronger push off in their first step. One thing to take notice of in the video linked above is that the athlete’s feet return to the athletic base position with each step and do not come together like the athlete in this video.

https://youtu.be/iBmvPEWt5og

Once the athlete has demonstrated proficiency in the above movements and earned the honor of progressing to the next variation, it is time to add some load. The most efficient way to do so is employing a resistance band. This band can either be controlled by a partner or attached to a stationary object like a power rack. This videos show great technique in the partner-resisted variation with an emphasis on the push off.

https://youtu.be/NFe5_p0agO0

The next exercise progression would be to increase the speed of the movement by having the athlete perform a shuffle down to a predetermined distance, typically 5 yards, and back as quickly as possible while stay maintaining the high quality technique that has been emphasized thus far. The next step in the development of this person’s lateral prowess will be to add an opponent to spice things up. This is where mirror drills also known as chaos training comes into effect. The video show below is a great example this mirror drill in practice where one person (white shirt) is performing a movement and the other partner must rapidly react and perform those same movements for a prescribed amount of time.

https://youtu.be/xFtyBEfYC10

Hopefully the information on training lateral moving athletes has opened your eyes and added some weapons to your athletic training arsenal. Check back soon for more great info.

Behind the Scenes at SAPT

Hi there, everyone. Man, it has been a LONG time since I last wrote a post for our blog. In fact, I think it's been several years since I last posted regularly. Some of you reading this will have no idea who I am or what I'm doing intruding on the great content of SAPTstrength.com. Others of you will be wondering where-in-the-hell I've been hiding. Either of those are great concerns and I'm here to (re)introduce myself and, most importantly, let you all know what's been going on behind the scenes at SAPT for the last couple of years and some of the new initiatives we're embarking upon to ensure our vision is reached.

Buckle-up, this may get bumpy (or long-winded).

First things first: My name is Sarah Walls and I founded SAPT in 2007 and continue to act in the role of president of the company.

Now, for the meat. I'd like to tell you what's been going on behind the scenes at SAPT, starting off with myself: Over the past 5 years I've become a mother (two times over), I officially concluded my career as a college strength coach (2 years ago) to focus solely on my businesses, we added a second SAPT "satellite" location in Tysons (1.5 years ago), and I (this is a soft I) have both developed and started a software company that focuses on improving the work-life balance of those in the fitness industry by providing some killer business-grade solutions.

I had a feeling that it would be tough - maybe impossible - to build software. Something we knew NOTHING about. Really, nothing. Plus, SAPT isn't some mega-corp with cash flowing in hand-over-fist. From the get-go, I knew that our staff would be stretched beyond what is reasonable to expect. I also knew our financial resources would be completely tapped by this project. But, I had confidence in both myself and my staff to have the ability to defy all reason with our capacity for conquering any challenge. We'd been defying logic for years already!

For the sake of cutting-to-the-chase, we did it! Concentric Brain is a reality. A reality that is awesome and that is solving problems for fitness professionals all over the country (soon to be world). Along the way, there were many more barriers than I expected or had ever experienced. We're still going through them, in fact!

But, I was anxious to begin pouring effort back into SAPT to repair the cracks that developed from pushing so hard for over a year. As the development wrapped, I began that process. It began with hiring more full-time coaches (Charlie & Jarrett). And that accelerated focus is continuing with what I will lay out for you below.

My own professional development has become the biggest - and most important - challenge I can tackle. I have a goal of making SAPT (and Concentric Brain) synonymous with the idea of the best experiences in the world. This starts with my staff. Over the past few months I have challenged myself to rise to the occasion of running two companies with 8 full-time employees, plus our amazing part-time staff, and many contractors. On a small scale, SAPT coaches have always been quite the satisfied bunch, professionally speaking. My challenge is to learn how to scale that!

On this "adventure" of self-education I have made some amazing discoveries, had incredible experiences, and - most importantly - I think I'm actually starting to do a decent job in developing both companies. How can I tell? Well, just take a look at what we've got planned and what we have already executed.

• FACILITY: Now we're preparing to take several big steps forward! We're more than doubling our training floor space at our current Fairfax location. We've also secured marked, dedicated parking for SAPT clientele. The new space will be cavernous, to say the least, with plenty of room for amazing training sessions, community events, athlete lounge, practice rentals, classroom sessions, and anything else we can think of to enhance our clients' experiences with us!
• SCHEDULE: We recently expanded to open on Sundays! Wow, we've been getting requests for Sundays for years. And, the first couple weeks has not disappointed! Sundays are a pilot for us right now, so please, gobble them up so we can make the easy decision to keep offering them as we move into the summer months.

• CONTESTS: To kick off our celebration of defining what we're best in the world at - client experience - we'd like to announce our first two competitions! 
• COACH UPDATES: Our coaches are simply amazing. Check out the bio page to get more info.

• COMMUNITY: We've got an entire year of events planned to enhance the experience the local community has with SAPT and to enhance the experience our clients have. Please check out our new Events page for more information. Our next event will be Kettlebells, One Piece of Equipment: Unlimited Conditioning Potential.
• INNOVATION: As we continue to find new innovative and fun ways to serve others and show the community why "SAPT Cares the Most" you can expect to see an increasing number of opportunities to engage with us. If you have ideas on how to make this happen or how we can serve you better, please let me know directly!

Finally, we have been working very hard on taking our internal culture to the next level. Here are a couple tidbits as it relates to our clients and how we conduct business:

Our Promise to You is that every decision we make will directly be measured against client experience. We believe we can provide a world-class client experience and are doing everything to make sure that alignment occurs.

SAPT's Core Values (the nexus of which makes us so darn special):

1. We care the most: no rock is left unturned to ensure every last detail is addressed.
2. Innovation: one of our main drivers is the focus on continuous innovation.
3. Have fun: Seriously. We ALL do this because it is awesome. Fun is a serious focus.

Alright, well I'm going to leave it a that. Hopefully, this post has helped shed some light on what we've been up to the past couple years, in particular.

If you have any questions or comments for me, let me hear 'em!

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Developing An Athletic Base For Every Sport

At SAPT, we see all kinds of athletes: baseball, softball, football, soccer, volleyball, track and field... the list goes on. We've worked with some of the less-common ones too such as water polo, equestrian, and fencing. (We also have thespians...) Each sport has unique needs and demands and we differentiate those needs as we program for each individual. However, about 80% of an athlete's first couple programs are similar across the board, regardless of sport.

Why? Because most of our new athletes need global strength (they're fairly weak), new movement patterns (they move poorly), and rebalancing (they've developed wacky imbalances from playing their sports).

More often than not, we need to spend the first 1-2 months (or more...) focusing exclusively on these areas before we can start throwing in more sport-specific training methods.

I've said it more times that I can count, but every person MUST be able to:

Squat

Hinge

Hold a plank and do a correct pushup

Row

Walk/Run without looking like a new-born giraffe

These are basic human movements that, when done properly and under load, will increase athleticism of every athlete. They are the foundation of all athletics; these movements make people stronger and more functional than all the bosu ball and agility ladder drills combined.

Individualized programming can take a while. So, to save time, we write program templates that cover the basic movements for every new athlete that walks in our facility.

Templates, templates everywhere!

We have at least 3 waves of program templates for every sport that we come across. Like I mentioned about 80% of it consists of those basic movements and the other 20% are a bit more sport-specific. For example, we'll have shoulder care drills programmed for our baseball players and jump technique work for our volleyball players.

External rotation and stabilizations drills embedded to facilitate awesomeness

Screen Shot 2015-03-23 at 9.57.57 AM

The great thing about templates is I can program all the basic movements under a broad category umbrella for example "goblet squat," and then I can pick and choose the variation that is most appropriate for a particular athlete.

Let's say I have a 15 year old soccer player who has a hard time keeping her knees out, I can choose a goblet squat variation that will tailor to that, for example, goblet squat with bands at knees. I can use that same template for another soccer player who needs more of a challenge so I can choose an ISO hold or slow eccentric variation. I can use templates to save time puzzling out what exercise I want where and I'm able to customize their programs with just a few clicks of the mouse.

To sum it up, all athletes need the ability to perform the foundational movements (squat, hinge, push, row). If they can't do these, and do them well under load, then they have no business getting "fancy."

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