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March 3, 2016

4 Things A Hyper-Neurotic Personal Trainer (Like Me) Can Do for a Better Life (Instead of Making Excuses or Complaining)

Going off of my relatively popular blog post, Things the Hyper-Neurotic (Like Me) Can Do for 30 min for a Better Life (Instead of Making Excuses or Complaining), I decided to make a list of things that a personal trainer or coach can do to make his or her life a little easier.

The life of a personal trainer is relatively straight-forward. It is not a normal 9 to 5 job, where you can drop your paperwork off and any thought of work as soon as you step out of your workplace.

If you’re strictly a commercial gym trainer, you are constantly emailing potential clients to set up their next training session, on top of maintaining a relatively healthy outlook while you juggle commuting, traveling, and the occasional exercise session.

You bring paperwork with you. You have workouts written on your phone. You have a Facebook feed with all sorts of mixed messages. Your after work conversations involve any and all conversations that involve, “I’m trying to lose fat right here (as your significant other’s brother’s girlfriend points to her obliques that don’t need any extra fat to be shed there).”

In fact, the life of a personal trainer, and subsequently any strength coach that works in either the public or private sector, is anything but straight forward.

You work early mornings, sometimes with 5am clients, which means you wake up at 4am, which means you slept at 9 or 10pm the night before, and then continue to work until 11 or 12 noon, then pick it back up with clients by 3 or 4pm until 7 or 8pm at night, and you get home by 9pm.

… which means you haven’t seen any semblance of a normal night out in God knows how long.

No big deal, right? It’s living the dream, because you get to workout and look good doing it. #Sarcasm as all the cool kids would say nowadays.

Well, to put all of that in your proverbial pipe and smoke it, here are 4 ways I’ve discovered to help make life a little less hectic, and improve your work-life balance.

Enjoy!

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1. Prepare food for the week.

Cook all of your food for the week in one day. And I mean all of your food – breakfast, lunch, dinner, and even snacks.

Here are all of your steps in a nutshell:

Buy chicken (or insert meat), veggies, spices, at the supermarket & travel home (10 to 15min)
Spices, chicken, and throw veggies into microwave or bake/fry/cook/eat raw. (30 sec)
Bake chicken / cook food. (25 to 30 minutes)
Throw food into multiple pieces of tupperware. (30 seconds).
Clean/wash/eat because you’re hungry looking at the chicken. (20 min)

Total Time: Approximately 60 min

And I don’t mean just one pack of boneless, skinless chicken thighs. Go for 6 to 8 pounds at a time.

The old adage of “failing to plan is planning to fail” holds true here. This is because instead of preparing the foods you love for the whole week in one hour or less, you are cooking every night for approximately the same amount of time but everyday instead (so 7 hours used instead of one).

And that is no bueno, mi amigo.

2. Sleep better, if not more.

If you work a lot of gigs to pay the bills, then you’ll need to micro-manage the quality of sleep you’ll get in order to min-max what you can handle.

Get these items in order to min-max your sleep:

1. White Noise App

A couple of things – this is a free app, I don’t use it, but the idea makes sense. If you live in a busy, noisy area – noise happens. Block it out by getting a white noise, sort of like leaving your TV on back in the day when that black and white channel would come on after a certain amount of time.

I personally use a fan to block out everything. Definitely helps me sleep! I used to have a similar app on my iPad to help me sleep – I liked the crackling fire since, you know, I love sleeping to the sound of a potential fire near me.

Get this App for your iPhone or iPad here.

2. ZMA

ZMA contains three things: Zinc, Magnesium, and Vitamin B6. The magnesium part of this trifecta helps with sleep, but if it is already a part of a trio, might as well get some added benefits.

Also it is non-addicting. So, crush this for better sleep.

3. Get Your Education in the Form of Books/Podcasts/and Calls with Your Peers

If you’re unable to attend the newest and fanciest seminars across the nation, who is to say you can’t call your friend that went to that seminar and ask them to discuss with them what happened and what went down?

Further, if you’re traveling for 15 to 30 minutes at at time, who is to say you can’t crush some podcasts or audio books?

I recently bought an Audible account – and I am an idiot for waiting this long to do so. I’ve listened to three more books that I wouldn’t have digested otherwise. Sure, I can’t take notes when I’m driving, but I can make “Notes” with the help of a voice-to-text option.

If you’re looking to be the top in your field, you need to find some way to be on the cutting edge, and this is just another method towards doing so.

4. Skip a Warm-Up

If you’re truly working to get ahead in some capacity, it may be difficult for you to get a full on foam rolling session (10 minutes), dynamic warm-up (5 to 10 minutes), warm-up sets (if training for strength) then the actual work sets, which can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 1.5 hours (seriously, I’ve done it before). Now add in some accessory exercises (30 minutes), and the fact that you now need to hobble on out of the gym you just used every weight and barbell in, and you have a grand total of 150 minutes, or 2 hours and change of working out.

Well, if you skip the overall general warm-up (lunges, skipping, jumps, sprinting) and all you are really trying to do is look good, maintain appearances, and slightly improve upon your strength levels, who says you need to do a full on warm-up?

Do this super simple warm-up such as this.

Foam Roll Your Back, Legs (~30 sec) – for everything, that’s it.
Spiderman Lunge with Hip Lift & Rotation – 4/side (~20 sec)
High Knee Skip or Jump Rope – 4x or 20 reps

Fin.

Barbell is in your hands for your first warm-up set in less then 2 to 4 minutes. Now continue to use an empty barbell, then load up 25lbs on each side, or 45lbs if lower body, and go from there. You should be in your working sets in less than 10 minutes, which effectively cuts about 25% of your time working out on the optimal portion of working out on some of the more ancillary items.

This is to not de-value or not place a priority on movement quality, tissue extensibility, or even improvements in motoric learning as you go from Point A to Point B, but rather it is to place an emphasis on your time – something that we all theoretically don’t have much of!

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I’d recommend giving one of these items a shot because they help restore some balance in a world that demands more time, energy, and attention than ever before. The indecision making process is what kills some people, so hopefully by providing these solutions, you can conserve some energy in your everyday endeavors.

At the end of the day, save some time for yourself and condense your work when possible. Cook at the same time your laundry is going. Take a cat nap in between clients.

If you’re at a time in your life when you need to quite literally hustle, well then own it and don’t worry what everyone and their mother thinks about you and your “hustle” – this shit is real and you want to get better, so let’s do it together, and be smart about it.

As always,

Keep it funky.

February 23, 2016February 23, 2016

Redefining “Dysfunctional”, and Finding Pieces to the Puzzle

A funny thing keeps on happening as I continue through the off-season for many of my clients: many individuals still have some sort of dysfunction present on a neuromuscular level.

What I mean by this is that despite the advanced assessment process, despite auditing how someone moves, and despite controlling for as many variables as I can from an exercise selection point of view, some people will still present with dysfunction.

Why is this? Isn’t the point of pursuing options like working with myself, and many other professionals on the continuum, to help improve functioning for whatever the individual desires/needs?

When it comes to the neuromuscular dysfunctions, I see many present with dysfunction with respect to cervical range of motion limitation, thoracic flexion/extension/rotation limitations, and pelvic stability issues.

These items can lead to a dysfunctional scapulohumeral rhythm (a dysfunctional rhythm is still, well… a rhythm), along with a lack of inability to negotiate gravity in an authentic manner in whatever capacity you choose to perform, among many other items that many professionals can point out as “dysfunctional.”

But what is the origin of said abnormal pattern?

Systems — Movement is not the only system that can be defined as “dysfunctional.”

If I were to say the reason you are dysfunctional is because you play a specific sport, that would be an incomplete statement.

Playing a sport is not the real reason – many people play sports without dysfunction.

What is the Real Reason?

Some dysfunction can be due to necessary adaptations as a function of playing your sport, some are due to psychological/behavioral triggers, and others due to other things altogether.

I can play hockey for an hour, but I won’t develop a “dysfunction” comparatively to another person that has played hockey their whole life. In fact, my dysfunction might be that I play the sport of hockey poorly!

Back to my original point, many of the individuals I see are professional athletes. They do almost every rep under our eye, and they are being corrected to the next degree.

What gives? Why would these individuals still display a lack of full range of motion from Point A (end of an in-season) to Point Z (end of the off-season)?

You’d expect there to be a radical change from a neuromuscular point of view, when in fact I am attempting to do an accumulation of these items:

Improve neuromuscular movement quality from a full in-season
Improve fitness qualities of strength, speed, power, and endurance to support a future pre-season and in-season
Induce recovery methods via nutritional protocols and resting strategies, at appropriate times!

Playing “Who Done It?” with Dysfunction

The above dysfunctions could be due to many things:

Fatigue and thus overuse of incorrect neuromuscular patterning (running too much without considering the tonic/phasic relationship of gait)
Lifting too much without appropriate technique, which could lead to inappropriate mechanics, or altered kinematics with respect to everyday functioning
Lack of appropriate equipment necessary to support a given task – running shoes to give an appropriate reference for your feet, ankles, and hips, appropriate cleats to push off with enough friction if playing baseball, or even the right headwear to support certain dance moves (headspins, for example).
Cleats, Shin guards, Motion Control shoes, or even Headspin beanies could be pieces to the puzzle
Essentially if you play a sport, you will eventually need to practice that sport at some point when transitioning from your off-season to pre-season/in-season phases… and accumulated stress from practices, sessions, will happen. This sudden onset of stress from the reintroduction of neuromuscular patterning is necessary in order to get better at your sport specific skills.

Viewing the Forest for the Trees

Fatigue

If someone has enough requisite fitness qualities, you may need to develop their sport specific skillset.

For example, I would consider my strength qualities to be relatively high in comparison to another individual with respect to powerlifting standards.

However, in order for me to develop the requisite fitness qualities necessary for me to play hockey for example, that extra strength won’t help transfer towards the endeavor. Thus, I’d fatigue a lot faster than someone else who has an exceptional aerobic capacity, and I would tire out trying to learn sport specific items that much faster.

Gym Logic

If someone is not strong, but technically sound from a sport specific point of view, well then get them stronger to support their technical output.

Essentially, if you move under load (a weighted barbell, for example) incorrectly, you are going to kick on a specific type of patterning. The following things can theoretically happen when performing movements in a gym:

Using or Not Using the Appropriate Equipment

If someone needs equipment in order to perform better, allocating the best equipment will help deliver a better quality of performance. I don’t mean this as in the sense of “Go and get the new Jordan’s,” or even in the context of “MOM! I NEED THOSE SHOES!“

I’m including legitimate and appropriate equipment use in the context of these questions:

Will the equipment in question allow you to deliver a better force production towards whatever endeavor you choose?
Will the equipment in question allow you to deliver a better force absorption towards your chosen endeavor?
Are you more efficient with the equipment?
Are you less efficient with the equipment?

At the same time, to continue with the Devil’s Advocate, perhaps you don’t need to use certain equipment to further instruct or teach a specific lesson or skillset that you may have overlooked from a fundamental level. In other words, perhaps the equipment you have been using in the past have been a crutch for a lack of sports specific technique.

For example, not using a belt in powerlifting has been anecdotally beneficial for myself and others, and when putting the belt back on after a certain amount of time, there is increased strength that is observed.

Sudden Stress

If someone has a sudden onset of stress from, well quite literally anything, how can you manage it?

Do you have a recovery plan for if someone goes on a 8 hour flight across the country, and they need to play about 2 hours right after they get off the plane?
What happens if the person has next to no sleep because of family responsibility?

The following solutions for a sudden onset of stress come to mind:

Solutions:

Mindfulness, or meditative practice
Create a robust aerobic engine (doing so for weeks or even months) in anticipation of systemic stress to allow for better parasympathetic functioning in the face of a sudden sympathetic stressor
If systemic stress causes a lack of mobility to occur, choose series of exercises that will circumvent this lack of mobility that may be necessary

I bring up all of these seemingly minute details because I am attempting to explain that as a strength coach, personal trainer, or whatever other title you can give me, sometimes I do not have access to the whole picture that is often viewed as a large jigsaw puzzle.

I can see parts of a cloud, and I can see some trees, but when I’m attempting to fill in the corner of the puzzle, I can’t fill it in when I don’t know even know what it looks like.

Now, imagine a jigsaw puzzle that has a certain window of opportunity to be completed in – and you are all of a sudden on a time crunch, with limited resources!

We Are All Pieces to the Puzzle (Whether Or Not You Realize It)

For what it is worth, we (collectively) as a profession are all parts to a much larger puzzle.

Those of us that crush our athletes through “extraneous” work and drills are attempting to fill in their pieces of the puzzle with what they believe works by violently thrashing the table around, hoping the pieces of the puzzle will eventually fit.
Those of us that don’t create resiliency for our athletes by excessively giving fluffy exercise intensities and selections are likewise attempting to fill in their portion of the puzzle. They do so delicately, and with great precision, because to them every green piece looks like a part of a tree.
Unfortunately, they forget that they have the rest of the picture to complete, and they feel satisfied that they placed one piece of the puzzle in the correct spot, yet there are 9,999 more pieces to place down to complete the puzzle.
Those of us who attempt to improve recovery through nutritional and/or therapeutic modalities are necessary, and yet again are still just one piece of the puzzle. I hope this analogy makes sense, as I can keep on going on!

And to push this issue even further, if you have the capacity to carry a piece of the puzzle to fill in the larger picture, do you even have the ability to communicate to others who are on the other side of the puzzle to make sure you’re in the right spot, at the right time?

What happens if you recognize that a piece of the puzzle is missing from the whole picture? Do you know who to call to help fill that piece in, even if they aren’t part of your specific group of friends trying to help fill it in?

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I find that the more I seek understanding of a certain topic(s), I uncover more questions that I didn’t even realize were relevant questions at the time.

As always,

Keep it funky.

January 21, 2016January 21, 2016

Top 4 Things I Learned in 2015

It’s roughly 21 days into 2016. Three weeks is enough time to sit, reflect on what occurred the previous year, and to see what needs to be adjusted.

If I can sum up what I’ve learned in 2015, it is to prioritizing and respecting time, think critically about what I have control over (and what I don’t have control over), owning my decisions, and not letting the crowd dictate what is right and wrong for me.

1. Re-Organize Your Thoughts

It is not always about acquiring new pieces of information. Sometimes it is best to re-arrange your current knowledge set, and then finding out what is missing. I have not had the blessing to attend to as many continuing education courses as I had wished to attend. However, I had begun to ask myself, “Why do you always need to go to a new course? For new information? What about the information you currently have? How can you best utilize that to the best of your ability?”

From here, I begun to implement a new course of thought, which is to identify how to improve how I see exercise selection, how I view exercise programming, improving the assessment process, along with continually sharpening my skill set as a strength coach and personal trainer from a motivational and interpersonal point of view.

Re-organizing my thoughts has also allowed me to prioritize how I view many things: whether it is education, time spent with others, or time spent on things outside of work. Sure, this is a lot of introspection on my end, but without understanding what is important to me, I won’t be able to act appropriately or represent myself in the best way possible.

What You Can Take Away From This

If you have any interest in mastery of any passion, learn to think critically. If you don’t have all the pieces to a puzzle in place, what can you do instead? If you do have all the pieces to a puzzle in place, what would you do if one of those pieces went missing? Stay ready so you don’t need to get ready.

Re-organizing my thoughts has allowed me to respect not only the time it takes to create something great, but also helps me to understand what is important to others, and how to respect their time as well.

2. Everyone Works Hard. Some Just Don’t Talk About It.

There is no such thing as an overnight success. Not many individuals are willing to both work hard and work smart – simply because working smart involves pattern recognition and seeing things in a more efficient manner, and working hard involves placing things into position one brick at a time.

With those combined, along with the implementation of the internet/social media, it is easy to see how people will talk about how hard they are working. Well, I can tell you that late nights and sleepless nights, traveling for hours for courses, traveling to see family (because that is a priority of mine as well) – it is not easy. No one will particularly find memorizing and synthesizing patterns of gait, or muscular patterns, or seamlessly integrating advanced exercise programming within a program to be particularly “sexy” – it is just part of the process.

I had a friend early on in my career tell me that his grandmother told him to, “Do the jobs that no one else wants to do – and you will always have work.” This resonates with me even to this day, because no job is above me, and I believe this to my core.

Working hard is literally taking out the trash every night, and sweeping the floors. Working smart is getting someone to do it for you instead. Doing both means you help them so you can both leave faster. It all comes down to intent. No one tweets about how much trash they just took out, or Snapchats them taking out the trash – it is just part of the job.

What You Can Take Away From This

Everyone assumes greatness is on the way for those who “hustle” and “grind,” or for those who are always busy. I’ll tell you what – for every Mike Tyson, or Muhammad Ali, or Michael Jordan, or Stephen Curry, there are hundreds if not thousands of failed athletes that never made it for many circumstances.

Never assume greatness, and don’t count your chickens before they hatch. Plus, if you do happen to have that secret sauce for being super special, you need to fend off those who are coming for your championship belt or ring. The work never stops, it just changes its shape or form.

3. People Will Talk

People will talk about you. People will say negative things about what they think of you. Some will have nice things to say. I hear what people are saying, and I take it all with a grain of salt. Not everyone will like you. Not everyone will agree with you. This doesn’t mean you have to stop respecting people. If you watched Michael Jordan during his prime, you know he has had his fair share of rivals. This does not mean he wasn’t respected – it just meant that he wasn’t liked sometimes.

But what matters most is what you think about yourself, and how you will react to what these people are saying. The peanut gallery is not always correct. You can choose your own path, and once you make your decision, that is that.

A professor of mine once said to me, “You make your own bed.” This was in response to seeing me breakdance in the hallways everyday after my exercise physiology classes. I was getting B’s and C’s in the class, when I could have gotten A’s. I have no regrets about those grades, because I have my own priorities.

This statement of “making my own bed” has stuck with me. I think about it every other day, because the decisions I make are ultimately my own, not anyone else’s.

Sure nuff, standing out from the crowd through my dancing has also allowed my foot to get in the door in many cases where I would not have had the same chance.

What You Can Take Away From This

Almost every day I work with high school athletes, and I hope to instill the confidence that if they were to walk into a collegiate or professional gym at any point in their careers, I instilled the most correct form, technique, and sound advice that I could have in the moment. With this said, it is tough to go against the grain if a team of people are saying you should do one thing, when you know the other action is the most correct form.

Have the confidence to stand up for yourself, and stand up for what you believe is right.

Now this tip, along with the first lesson, are biased because it is assuming that everyone wants to be great. This is something I’ve come to accept as well. Others simply would love to settle for whatever it is they currently have. That is fine.

4. All that glitters is not gold.

What this means to me is that just because something is shiny, or a low hanging fruit, does not mean it is the most correct or best decision to make. You need to prioritize what is important to you, and then figure out whether or not this specific shiny item is meant for you or not.

Your shiny object could be ice cream. It is a low hanging fruit, and it is easy to buy on the way home from work, and it is an awesome tasting treat. I’ve driven out to get specifically just this item many times late at night. For some people it is a beer, others it is candy.

Your decision to invest time, attention, and energy on that shiny object may come at a cost of a specific emotional, physical, or financial investment that you did not have the foresight to see during the heat of the moment of that decision of “Yes” or “No.” The cost of doing business has far greater implications than originally planned.

Should you go out to party? Maybe – you might meet your future wife at this party.

Should you stay at home? Maybe not! You might miss out on a great time that will solidify years of friendship down the line.

We all make decisions daily – not many think about what the cost of these small, minute decisions has on our day to day life, or our year to year life.

What You Can Take Away From This

Let me tell you a quick story:

I had met Tony Bonvechio at a seminar in early 2012, and he caught wind that I was applying for an internship at the then Cressey Performance. Fast forward a few months, and I was in the middle of my internship at Cressey Sports Performance. I previously just made a “jump” from New Jersey to Massachusetts, and in fact, I didn’t know a single soul in the area – it was fairly uncomfortable for me to live in an area where I didn’t know anyone!

Later on in 2012, I remember Tony buying me lunch (we had pizza) and we talked shop for a little bit after a seminar. He was on the fence about applying for this internship in 2012. I had no other advice but to “jump” and do it.

Two years later, and I end up getting hired at CSP at the same time he begins his internship in the fall of 2014. We didn’t know that we would be working together because we had different paths, and eventually his brilliance shines through, so we end up working together – and the rest is history as they say.

“The first step, before anybody else in the world believes it is you have to believe it. There’s no reason to have a plan B because it distracts from plan A.” -Will Smith

Tony prioritized, made a jump, worked hard (and didn’t tweet about his hustle), and ended up benefiting greatly as a cause of committing 110% to what he believed in – he ended up getting hired in 2014.

Prioritize what is important to you, and just decide.

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My 2015 can be summarized in these few lessons. Crazy to think that almost 365 days out of the year can be summarized in just four short lessons, but these are some things that I’ve reflected on. I hope to improve upon my decision making process, along with prioritizing the things that are important to me as the rest of 2016 unfolds.

As always,

Keep it funky.