Adam Ringler, MS, CSCS – Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist – East Lansing, MI

Pete Carroll: Win Forever. I've been looking forward to this book for over a year. I had to pick it up on it's first day of being sold.

Midway through my long duration morning run, I had to stop at a Barnes and Noble to pick up one of the books I have been anticipating for over a year now. I’m 50 pages deep and I’m loving every word. The book I’m talking about is “Win Forever – Live, Work, and Play Like a Champion” written by Pete Carroll with Yogi Roth.

I’m going to give a full video review of the book when I finish it tomorrow or the next day. I’ve easily been reading through it and if your a fan of Carroll’s coaching philosophy, I really think your going to LOVE this book.

Being a young coach I think this book truly speaks to those who are just starting off on their coaching career. The ideal of developing your coaching philosophy is a huge pillar or principle. I know that when I wrote my 25 page manifesto that I need to continue to refine and shape my philosophy to it’s more concise. I love the idea that Pete Carroll’s philosophy can be refined down to a single sentence. I’m hoping after reading this book I can come somewhere close.

I’ll let you all know how I feel about the book after reading it!

We’re all working towards the same goal; to make healthier and stronger athletes that move better. I was having a conversation the other day regarding scope of practice with a physical therapist friend of mine and we starting talking about limits of our respective practice. This got me thinking about how these limits constrain our education within this field.

Within each discipline you will find a core unit of practitioners who are highly protective of their industry. For example, ATCs may tell strength coaches to stay away from doing “XYZ” because that is out of their scope. You also might find strength coaches telling PT’s that they need to stop implementing “ABC” regarding program design because ‘it’s their territory’. Continue Reading…

Ten years ago if you were sitting behind a desk being interviewed for a strength and conditioning job, you’d redoubtably would be asked whether your a HIT guy or an Olympic guy. This question would later lead to sworn groups of enemies that had more hatred for each other than the West Coast vs. East Coast gangster rap hatred in the 90s.

Even today, I still receive this question. Granted, most strength coaches know the answer that is probably coming, I have to admit, it’s still an issue for some. Continue Reading…

I absolutely love Nike’s new advertising campaign featuring what it means to be a female athlete. Obviously, I’m not a female, but it’s just great to see advertising that is going against the grain and providing popular role models and breaking social stigmas surrounding female athletes. As a strength coach, if somewhere down the road I ever have a little daughter, you better believe that these bad boys are going to be posters in her room. I guarantee that!

I cannot begin to express how important it is to measure food out. Maybe it’s the scientist in me, maybe it’s the geek, I don’t know. However, if your serious about getting nutrition in check, then I whole heartily believe that you must approach your nutrition with a rock solid plan.

Now if your looking to just drop a few pounds or try to muscle up, then I don’t always believe you have to follow any strict nutritional plan. However, if your looking to push your body to the extreme. If you strive to optimize your body’s ability to achieve muscle mass or lose rapid amounts of fat, then I feel a food scale is absolutely necessary. Continue Reading…

The big hit at the Chicago Perform Better seminar was no other than Thomas Myers. He is the author of Anatomy Trains, arguably one of the best anatomy, myofascial, human performance books on the market, and have been practicing for about 35 years.

One of the take home messages I took away from everything was looking at how the body moves as a core unit. I think it is very easy to look at the body and think merely of the prime movers but rather we his point was looking at the fascia and understanding that fascia covers different muscles and draw upon other muscles during movement. Continue Reading…

I cannot even begin to express how excited I am for this next project of mine. I know I am being secretive, but I just want to make sure everything materializes before I announce anything. I have been planning this project, announcement, endeavor for a long time and finally I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I want to thank all the readers who have “hung in there” through the many site updates, down-times, stagnant periods of lame articles. I guarantee you that this next announcement will blow you away and keep you coming back more and more.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to make this announcement by the end of the week but who knows, it may come earlier. Stick around, keep your browsers pointed at this blog, and I promise you that you will not be disappointed. There is a lot of good things coming soon.

The Summer of 2008, I made a decision that I wouldn’t buy a single text book for Graduate School. While I was obligated to buy one during my last semester of school (only one), I graduated with high honors without purchasing a single text book. How did I do it? How did I manage to read the information needed in order to pass all my classes and courses? Continue Reading…

Awesome Advertising

Several months have past by and who would have thought that my most successful article would be about the Jabbawockeez and Branding. I still think Jabbawockeez are doing a fantastic job branding their company. From gigs around the world to the Gatorade advertising campaign their featured in. They’re doing a fantastic job. Another company doing a great job advertising as of lately is none other than Gatorade.  Between the Primer, During and Recovery beverages, their advertising spots, and their tremendous web work; they are leading the charge in current trend advertising. Continue Reading…

Recovery Tools

Greetings Blog Readers! I wanted to take a moment out of my day to talk about the very important issue of recovery. Recovery is often over-looked when it comes to fitness, and is one of the many reasons why people grow tired of working out and lead to burn out.

All the actions that take place on the road, treadmill or gym take a physical toll on the human body. Our muscles break down, DOMS kick in, and our body’s are riddled with trigger points that hurt to the physical touch. Alwyn Cosgrove once said that is exercise produced a painful muscle, a muscle that is sore to the touch, then there is some level of dysfunction present. Continue Reading…