Some of my best tips for staying productive in the coaching environment.

For some people I know, they get excited and all revved up by watching videos of extremely fast & pricey cars.  I, unfortunately, am not one of these guys.  What really revs my engine and gets me all jazzed up is watching incredible athletes.  I’ve applauded Nike over and over for nailing the sporting culture, and once again, they got it right with the video below.  I dig it and think there is a greater message or importance to the video.  It got me thinking…

I know of people who would rather take two scoops of this, one scoop of “X” before the workout, and two scoops of “Y” after the workout and then an hour later follow all that up with three spoonfuls of “Z”, and your good to go!  I love that the message in this video is, “Everything You Need, Is Already Inside”.  The evolving science of sport is moving rapidly, but understand that there is beauty in simplicity.  You don’t need a preworkout supplement.  You don’t need need a postworkout supplement.  ”Everything You Need, Is Already Inside”.  Don’t focus on spending your money on potentially dangerous supplements to ‘potentially’ improve performance by .1% when rather focusing on improving your recovery strategies, total body nutrition, sleep, workout regiment, and other factors have a much larger chance at improving your performance 100%.

The real lesson to this post is… Don’t spend 80% of your time chasing for the 20% increase.  Find that 20% in your training system, that gives you the 80% increase.  Use your time wisely because I can tell you one thing.  There is no such thing as a quick fix.

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.

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.

I, however, don’t want to spend the entire time talking about advertising or branding. This blog is about strength training. Therefore, let’s digest some current strength training trends or brands that are absolutely tearing it up. P90x & Insanity.

While I have never done P90x or Insanity I do have friends who love both. Tony Horton (P90x) and Insanity (Shaun T) and two reputable name brand people now – thanks to their programs. However, ask any civilian or house mom, or even casual fitness enthusiast who the head strength and conditioning coach of University of Michigan, the head strength coach of Michigan State University, or any other different college; the answer will be that THEY DON’T KNOW.

The P90X Program

This is a shame because there are so many GREAT strength and conditioning coaches out there in the trenches that SHOULD have their name known. These coaches are the driving forces of the industry. They are the ones in the gyms, on the fields, courts, and arenas, training athletes nonstop. There is a serious disconnect from those in the field to those out there looking to consume information.

Now you may refute my statements by saying “Adam, these strength coaches don’t serve the average house mom or the fitness enthusiast, they serve THE ATHLETE”. I couldn’t agree more with you! I agree that strength coaches don’t need to reach this market, but guess who is listening to these pundits? – The Athletes! I’ve had several athletes in my time tell me they want to do Tony Horton’s “Muscle Confusion” or Ramp up the Intensity like Shaun T.

As an industry, we need to do a better job reaching out and setting a standard of training in a mass market, or even make the information accessible to those out there. Why? Because if we don’t, an advertising, marketing wizard will sell an item that will convince our athletes that our programs are lesser than the “well known” P90X or Insanity. It’s time we step up and begin the market and brand ourselves, our industry, and our style of strength and conditioning before somebody else does.

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.

What all to commonly happens as a result of exercise is painful trigger points that hurt to the touch. A way of treating or reducing both the occurrence and severity of these painful trigger points is through a form of myofascial release. Myofascial release is a form of soft tissue therapy used to treat somatic dysfunction and accompanying pain and restriction of motion. This is accomplished by relaxing contracted muscles, increasing circulation, increasing venous and lymphatic drainage, and stimulating the stretch reflex of muscles and overlying fascia.

The single best tool a person could get is a foam roller. I picked my foam roller up at Perform Better. Eric Cressey has a video hosted on YouTube that shows many of the common trigger points and foam rolling exercises. I end up doing my foam rolling both after my workout and again before I go to bed. Personally for me, I enjoy doing it before bed because afterwards, I’m completely relaxed and it seems for me to help me sleep better.

The second tool I have pictured is the baseball. I use this for a number of spots that the foam roller cannot target. Namely, I use it for the calves, soles of the feet, and scapula. For my back, I end up leaning my back against the wall and putting the ball between my shoulder blades and working it around the scapula. If you have any trigger points in your back this will certainly get them. To increase pressure simply walk your feet further from the wall and lean into the wall by driving against the ground with your feet.

For symptoms of plantar fasciitis from running long distances or increased amounts of cardio, I often use a tennis ball or baseball to massage the bottom soles of my feet. I would recommend starting with a tennis ball and then moving to the baseball. The tennis ball has a bit more give and is a bit less painful to begin with. Essentially I shift my weight over to the foot with the ball underneath it and give “20-30 passes” back and forth over the sole of the foot. In the picture provided work on massaging only the white area. Again, I do this either after my cardio session and before bed.

Next item in my picture you see is a small mini-band. I use this predominantly to increase mobility in my ankles. I’ll loop the band around my ankles and perform 15-20 repetitions of ankle inversion/eversion movements to increase the musculature surrounding my ankles. If you’ve every rolled in an ankle, you understand how it can take you away from running. I do these exercises nightly in order to prevent any future ankle rolls by increasing the surrounding strength around my ankles. An ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure.

Lastly you see a heavy duty jump stretch band. I purchased this band including the mini-band and foam roller from www.performbetter.com I highly recommend this company. I use this band for damn near everything. I use it for stretching the hamstrings, quads, groin, hipflexors, etc. Here is a decent video of Vmac65 from McConnell Athletics (it was the first YouTube video that looked decent). Sidenote: I should probably be shooting my own videos so that I could endorse and promote myself rather than other people and their respective companies. I’ll try to get on that and see what kind of video I can produce.

War: By Sebastian Junger

Lastly, as my Post Article title is named, I wanted to talk about some tunes. I’m logging about 7 hours of a cardio a week now in my Shred-Down Project for my wedding. Of those 7 hours, I don’t listen to one song. What I do listen to is audiobooks. I have found the uncertainly that an audiobook brings, allows for me to get lost in the book rather than concentrating on the running. My heart rate monitor allows for me to stay within a certain heart rate range, so honestly, I can allow myself to concentrate on the book and the road in front of me.

I just finished listening to Sebastian Junger’s book titled WAR available at Amazon.com and Holy Shit was it good. I don’t want to say it was “good” because in essence our American Soldiers are going through this hell every single day, but it was written with a elegance and deeply narrative flare that made every read (or listen) suspenseful and captivating. I highly recommend this to anybody who needs a good listen for a commute, long road trip, or frequent cardio tunes.

Until next time people, Keep working hard and keep on going!

The Root Hog Sled - A Beast

I had a great workout today. Went into the gym and did a few movements that I haven’t done in quite awhile. The first being a seated leg curl using the Keiser Functional Trainer and a Valslide. That really hit the hamstrings great. I rest-paused all the reps and aimed to get 30 total across 3 attempts a leg. I fell a bit short, somewhere between 20-25 reps for each leg. This will allow me to attempt the same weight next time in aims of increasing repetitions. Remember, progression is key! If your using the same weight or getting the same amount of repetitions – that is not progression, that’s stagnation.

I then ended up doing some single leg stepup’s onto a high plyometric box. Ended up using 160lbs and scratched out around 6 reps per each leg, and then I dropped to 120lbs and aimed to get 20 each leg, but I actually only got around 9 each. I fell quite short and will drop the weight significantly next time around. I was just eye balling the weight since I haven’t done these movements since I started the “Shred Down”.

My last movement was a calf raise utilizing a leg press machine. I only aim for 12 repetitions for this movement but it’s really the TUT (Time Under Tension) that gets this workout. I perform a 1 sec concentric, a 5 second eccentric, and a 15 second stretch at the bottom of the movement with my foot in dorsiflexion. After 4 minutes (12 repetitions), your calves will be on fire.

It's a love/hate relationship

Finally, to finish the session with the cardiovascular component, I wanted to do something a bit different than my LSD (Long Slow Distance) runs lasting an hour. I set a goal to do 30 minutes of what I coined “Prowler Cardio”.

I set my watch to 30 seconds of “work time” and 15 seconds of “rest time”. I actually only loaded the horns with 45lb plates on each (totaling 90lbs) and it still is one hell of a workout. Truth me honest, I didn’t just do prowler the whole time, as I am fortunate to have a bunch of other tools at my reach.

I also ended up using the new sled, The Root Hog for a variety of pushes, pulls, and drags. I would alternate between either the prowler, or the root hog, or a kettlebell swing. None of this work was intended to “build muscle”, rather it was simply used in order for me to increase my heart rate, and keep me moving. It was one hell of a workout, let me tell you.

Cereal - The Whole Reason I Train

In the end, I reached 30 minutes of hard interval cardio and got to walk out the gym beat up from all the pushing, pulling, lifting, and swinging. If your looking to mix up your workout, start thinking about how you can use the weights around you (in a cardiovascular fashion). Don’t be so constraint to just running, or biking for your cardio. There is plenty of things a person could do to gain anaerobic/aerobic fitness. Sprinting, Hill Running, Tossing heavy objects. Who knows – Be Creative!

Lastly, a perfect post workout nutritional meal. 40 grams of whey isolate and 93 grams (75 grams of carbohydrates) of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I end up mixing my protein with water. I know a lot of people who complain about that and say water + protein is disgusting, but I’ve never drank my protein shakes with milk so I’m not missing out on anything. Until next time people!!

I’ve been getting hit with some questions via e-mail asking me about my nutrition. If you’ve read my blog well enough and know me personally, then you are probably aware of my weekly refeed meals with higher GI sugary carbohydrates. While  others might sit there and be envious of a stack of 10 waffles dripping with syrup, it would be unfair if you never knew the the flip side. The flip side of my nutrition?

I routinely cook up vegetables so I can garnish the chicken or eggs I eat frequently throughout the day.

6 out of 7 days I am operating within 100% of compliance of my meals, target macronutrients intake, frequency and hydration. I end up eating 7 meals a day, measuring every single thing I eat, and doing endless amounts of food preparation. That might be too much for some but to tell you the truth, I love every minute of it all. I love preparing the food I’m to eat for the day, I look cooking and I love taking care of numero uno.

I end up weighing out every single thing I eat. Serving sizes are too hard to guess and having a scale is the only valid way of measuring serving sizes

I wanted to give you a glimpse of some of the things I’ve been eating and doing around the house. Some of the pictures might be of food preparation or of randomness. Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy some of the comments, pictures, or glimpses into what I do, and how I do.

Chicken & Vegetables

If you ever purchased a new powerlifting belt, you know that the thing is stiffer than a board. What you need to do for a few days is break the sucker in by bending it frequently in both directions. This is what I'm doing here.

This is one of my favorite meals. This is some Krusteez Waffle Mix I cooked up. Whats great about this is that it's low fat and high GI Carb (Perfect for a Skipload). While you may think that there is fat in the butter, rest assure that IT ISN'T BUTTER. That my friend, is Low-Fat Cake Batter Ice Cream. Nothing sounds better than Waffles Soaked in Syrup w/ Ice Cream on Top.

I’ve been getting hit with some questions via e-mail asking me about my nutrition. If you’ve read my blog well enough and know me personally, then you are probably aware of my weekly refeed meals with higher GI sugary carbohydrates. While  others might sit there and be envious of a stack of 10 waffles dripping with syrup, it would be unfair if you never knew the the flip side. The flip side of my nutrition?

I routinely cook up vegetables so I can garnish the chicken or eggs I eat frequently throughout the day.

6 out of 7 days I am operating within 100% of compliance of my meals, target macronutrients intake, frequency and hydration. I end up eating 7 meals a day, measuring every single thing I eat, and doing endless amounts of food preparation. That might be too much for some but to tell you the truth, I love every minute of it all. I love preparing the food I’m to eat for the day, I look cooking and I love taking care of numero uno.

I end up weighing out every single thing I eat. Serving sizes are too hard to guess and having a scale is the only valid way of measuring serving sizes

I wanted to give you a glimpse of some of the things I’ve been eating and doing around the house. Some of the pictures might be of food preparation or of randomness. Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy some of the comments, pictures, or glimpses into what I do, and how I do.

Chicken & Vegetables

If you ever purchased a new powerlifting belt, you know that the thing is stiffer than a board. What you need to do for a few days is break the sucker in by bending it frequently in both directions. This is what I'm doing here.

This is one of my favorite meals. This is some Krusteez Waffle Mix I cooked up. Whats great about this is that it's low fat and high GI Carb (Perfect for a Skipload). While you may think that there is fat in the butter, rest assure that IT ISN'T BUTTER. That my friend, is Low-Fat Cake Batter Ice Cream. Nothing sounds better than Waffles Soaked in Syrup w/ Ice Cream on Top.

TrueProtein.com and Discount Code AMR488. Save Up to 10% Off Your Order.

I wanted to take a moment and share a great review of a supplement company that I whole heartedly support. TrueProtein.com I’ve mentioned it several times nonchalantly on this site about how I exclusively order ALL of my supplements through Trueprotein.com.

What really is unique about trueprotein.com is that they operate out of a volume bulk base. What that means is that the more of a product you order, the more of a discount you receive as the consumer. Generally, if you were to only buy 1lb of a product, you’d receive the full price of that 1lb. However, if you take advantage of TrueProtein.com volume discount, you can receive 5% off of the order. This is pretty awesome because I personally know that when I purchase more, the price of shipping increases. However having this 5% off discount generally cushions the impact of fluctuation shipping prices. The volume discount begins at 16lbs, but trust me when I say, you should already by shopping in bulk – it’s way easier and you can take advantage of this tremendous deal. This volume discount doesn’t just go for protein, but you can also get discounts on supplements and other powders. Their website varies but if you look under the price, it clearly displays how many units you need to add to your cart in order to qualify for the 5% off discount.

Another thing that is awesome about TrueProtein.com is that you don’t need to be afraid of order 16lbs of one flavor. That would totally suck. I couldn’t image “trying” a new flavor and having to order 16lbs. What’s badass is that you can order 16 different flavors if you want… All that matters is that AT THE END you have 16lbs of protein, despite the different flavor combinations. This is worth the price of protein alone! All you have to do is write in the comment box below your order what combinations of protein you want and they will hook you up. Seriously, I’ve done this like over 12x and they always do it.

Now I’m going to show you how to save 10% off your order. When utilizing TrueProtein.com’s volume discount with their official discount code, you’ll save an additional 5% off, totally 10% off your order. TrueProtein.com has an official discount code “AMR488” which when entered during checkout, will save 5% off your TOTAL ORDER. However, if you have already taken advantage of the volume discount, you’ll be stacking 5% off on top of 5% off. Badass.

The best protein I've ever used from TrueProtein.com is their TEAMSKIP Blend. It tastes amazing!

I don’t need to say how cool trueprotein.com is. They make the most trusted supplements, proteins, carbohydrates in the business. Another unique thing about trueprotein.com is that they have a customization feature that allows you to enter in different percentiles of chemicals, herbs and supplements. If your like me and don’t want to weight out four different powders, you can use their supplement customizer to create your own powder that ships to your door, PREMIXED. That’s pretty awesome. No matter what your goals are, whether it is to build muscle or strip fat off your bones, TrueProtein.com has the supplements it takes to help excel you towards your goals.

Don’t forget. The official TrueProtein.com discount code is AMR488.

Step-by-Step Directions to Getting the Deal

1)     First head to www.TrueProtein.com and check out their products. I guarantee that you will find the absolute lowest price on the best quality of supplements.

2)     Add the product to your cart. Remember this is where you can take advantage of the volume discount. For example, if this is protein, add 16lbs of protein to your cart. In the comments at checkout, you can specify your different flavors.

1. A note on asking for different flavors. It’s easier for the gang at TrueProtein.com to ship your order if you specify how much or what type you want. Remember IT HAS TO BE the same type of protein. For example.

Whey Protein Isolate Cold-Filtration 2lb Premium Chocolate Coconut

Whey Protein Isolate Cold-Filtration 2lb Premium Coconut

Whey Protein Isolate Cold-Filtration 2lb Premium Chocolate Banana

And so on and so on…

3)     Proceed to checkout. This is where you can obtain the 2^nd opportunity to getting a discount. There is a special discount box made specifically for this discount “AMR488”. If you enter that discount in the box and re-calculate your order, you’ll save an additional 5% off your order.

What I’ve been telling everybody is this. If you go to a GNC or any other supplement shop they will generally mark their products up 30-35% higher than wholesale prices. They do this because they have overhead costs to cover like salaries, advertising, utility bills, etc. This sucks for you because you want your product no matter what, but all they do is order it wholesale and then mark it more expensively. Hell, Trueprotein.com actually makes a variety of supplements that companies then wholesale to GNC and these supplement stores.

So you can either pay 35% more for your product and shop at GNC or you can order it direct from TrueProtein.com. The quality is likely better and you’re not getting killed with price markups. Now most people will then say or whine about “shipping” costs. HELLO?! Are you listening? You’re saving 10% your order (which 9 times out of 10) saves you the cost of shipping. So if you subtract that 10% from the 35% markup, you are still saving 25% off your order, getting better quality supplements, and getting a sweet ass deal.

Here are a bunch of Pro-Tips from myself if your curious about shopping.

Take advantage of the bulk discount and order your supplements in 3 month blocks. Calculate what you need in the next three months and order that quantity of supplements. I go through about 7lbs of protein a month. I generally order 21lbs of protein every 3 months. That’s just me.

Try grouping orders with friends, family and coworkers. This is an easy way of spreading “shipping” costs amongst others. Plus you all save 10% off your order and shipping. This is helpful because not only are you saving off your order, but you can distribute a portion of shipping to the others. Great way to save cash in your pocket.

UPS Map from California

Know that the company is based out of California. From California to Michigan it usually takes a week. If your starting to run low on protein or your vital supplement, I’d put that order in immediately because it WILL take some time to get the order. If you live in the California area your lucky as they have the fastest shipping time. It’ll probably be there the next business day. You lucky bastard.

Use the discount code AMR488. AT MINIMUM it saves you at least 5% off your order. What it also does is gives me a portion of your sale. Why is this important? Because web-hosting, website advertising, and domain names are not cheap. I do my best to keep my blog updated with the latest trends, news and ideas in the bodybuilding, strength and conditioning, and fitness business. The savings I get from all the people that use discount code AMR488 helps me pay for this website and helps me support all the readers who come to the website on a daily basis. I do this blog for you. Now, I’m supporting this company not only because of this, but because I whole heartedly believe this is the best supplement company in the business. I stand behind TrueProtein.com for ALL of my supplement needs.