My legs both felt like one big muscle with no knees. I walked like Abraham Lincoln would have walked if he were traveling uphill in a snowstorm with his legs straight. Looking down, I swore I had cement shoes on my feet. But mostly I just swore.
"Holy shit..."
It was Sunday morning of the last day of the Perform Better Seminar in Long Beach and I should have been sitting in a plastic chair listening to someone talk about shoulder stability or body transformation or, or…hemoglobin.
But nooo.
I was hiking, sprinting, and vomiting up and down a big mound of sand with John Berardi, my roommate Craig, a handful of almost-Division 1 athletes, and our sadistic host, Scott.
Scott thinking, Nate gazing, John hydrating, Craig slumping
After the second sprint, as I lay on my back with my eyes closed amidst the cacophony of 250 lb guys gasping, gurgling, and gagging, I thought back to the seminar and wondered what I was missing that day.
Luckily, Dr. Clay Hyght was there to pick up my slack. From the sand dunes of Manhattan Beach to the conference rooms of the Long Beach Convention Center, here's what we learned.
John "Bahama Boy" Berardi
Apparently you can talk about nutrition while wearing a flower button-up, shorts, and flip-flops. You just won't be happy about it. John's luggage was late to arrive and he was quick to let everyone know he "doesn't usually dress like this." Yeah right, John.
Berardi's talk was more of the "how" and less of the "what" of nutrition, and was characterized by a lot of "I knew that!" moments that you didn't actually know.
• Fundamentally, exercise doesn't work all that well without nutrition. Just check out this study from the University of Texas where they put people on a 12-week strength-training program complete with three strength weight sessions and two interval sessions per week. Oh, and they had 90% compliance on the workouts.
Here are the results from the group that trained over 12 weeks:
.7lb weight gain
1.5% body-fat loss
2lbs total fat loss
2.7lbs lean muscle gain
Not too shabby, right? Well, check out the control group that didn't do any type of exercise for 12 weeks. (Again, nutrition wasn't tracked.)
.5lb weight gain
.5% body-fat loss
.5lb total fat loss
1lb lean muscle gain
Statistically, it's significant. But to a client that just paid you a few grand for 62 personal training sessions, it's not even close to satisfactory. In fact, you better duck because you're going to get hit with a flying chair from a very pissed off customer.
So, exercise + no diet intervention = mediocre and embarrassing results
Exercise + Diet = fantastic results
In fact, with nutrition dialed in, people lose an average of 1-3lbs of fat per week. That's 12-36 times better than training alone.
Exericse + diet = Fantastic results.
• Want to perform better and look good naked? Well, it depends on how well you control the 4 Pillars:
Training
Nutrition
Stress Management
Sleep
• "I hate it when people say 'Diet is about 80% and training is 20%.' It's all important, okay? Quit trying to break it down. It's kind of like saying, 'What's more important, your heart or your lungs?"
• Lack of sleep can actually influence what you eat. "When people aren't sleeping enough they tend to go after higher sugar and carb diets." That's just another reason to get to bed earlier and stop watching Cinemax.
• Good nutrition encompasses three things:
What to eat
When to eat (nutritent timing)
How much to eat
Interestingly, "how much to eat" is usually ranked number 1, but it's probably the least important.
• "The truth is, genetically, all of us are built to be able to regulate bodyweight. None of us should necessarily have a problem managing our weight."
• Nutrition still wont be as effective if you're not moving around a lot. According to John's research, it takes about five hours of physical activity a week to break the threshold from sedentary to non-sedentary.
• If you're getting enough exercise, and getting the right food, you don't need to count calories.
• Want to lose weight but feel like you have no outside support? Just enlist the help of the American Nazi Party! That's how John Bear, author of the Blackmail Diet, lost 75lbs.
Bear put $10,000 in escrow with his attorney to be donated to the Nazi Party group if he didn't lose 75lbs in one year. He absolutely loathed the idea of giving money to them and thus made a commitment to get the weight off. Of course, he accomplished his goal. And how did he keep the weight off? By doing the same thing and writing a check to the Ku Klux Klan, of course.
Whatever works, I guess.
• According to Berardi, there are three nutritional levels:
Level 1 – "3rd Grade nutriton" – Better food choices
Level 2 – "Scientific nutrition" – Choice, timing, amount
Level 3 – "Advanced Nutrition" – Individualized, high-level
• "Don't try to force yourself to the next level. Just take a look at your goals. If you're already accomplishing them, stick with what you're doing!"
Cosgrove correcting an attendee on his single-leg hip extension
Alwyn Cosgrove has a master plan: beat cancer and then take over the world. He can scratch the first one off the list, but the second may take some time. It was his second "re-birthday" over the weekend (it's been two years since his stem-cell transplant) and he celebrated by making fun of people in a Scottish accent.
• "Everything that I know now is probably completely wrong. And time will prove that true."
• Even the correct answer could be incorrect most of the time. For example: what shape is a football?
Left: correct in America. Right: correct in the rest of the world.
• Current programming sucks ass. Gym exercise is used to augment an already active lifestyle, not replace it.
• "The stupidest thing you can do with a new client who's overweight is put them on a treadmill." It's been documented that overweight people trying to increase their aerobic health create an excessive joint and muscular overload when they try endurance exercise. This resulted in a 50-90% injury rate in the first 6 weeks of training.
• Even with all the research, books, and programs out there, most people are still doing strength training for specific body parts and "cardio" on their off days.
• The recent trend in the industry is to "just get 'em strong." "I don't even know what that means! What the hell is strong anyway? If you can put God in a submission hold or put an arm bar on a grizzly bear, you're strong. How's that?"
• "If you're smart about setting up your own programs, you have to develop a fully integrated and balanced training program that takes you to your goals and covers all aspects of training that need to be addressed."
That means embracing the "7 Rules":
1) Mobility
2) Prehabilitation
3) Core training
4) Elasticity and reactive training
5) Strength training
6) Energy system development
7) Reactive training
• "You don't care about mobility till it goes away. The term I heard the other day was 'functional rigormotis.'"
• Your energy systems work doesn't have to be cardio based. Try kettlebell swings, front squats to push presses, timed sets, density circuits, and barbell complexes.
• The closest thing to a magic bullet? Good post workout nutrition. Stock up on your Surge, boys!
• Alwyn ended his presentation with a story about two important people in his life: his middle-school math teacher, who made Alwyn feel stupid for asking questions, and his martial arts instructor who gave Alwyn a position as an assistant in exchange for lessons when he couldn't afford them any longer.
• "What kind of person are you? Right now, you're affecting other people directly. So are you elevating them or are you putting them down?"
If there's anyone in the fitness industry that garners more respect than Mike Boyle, I've certainly never met him. Mike has forgotten more information than most strength trainers have learned and still keeps a very open and humble attitude. His talk about what he's learned in 25 years as a strength coach was eye-opening.
• "Success is easy if you pay attention. It leaves clues. This is a fact of life."
• "People generally like to work on their strengths. But if you want to get anywhere, you have to focus on your weaknesses. Just ask yourself: What am I bad at? Now go do that."
• According to Mike and a Danish Nobel Prize winner, "An expert is someone who has made all the mistakes in a very narrow field."
• "Let's face it, people judge on looks. I mean, if you're working out in a gym next to me, you think you're going to ask me for advice? Are you freaking kidding me? Yeah, the bald, skinny guy knows his stuff, though!"
• "No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care." This is doubly important with people you train.
• To Mike, the biggest problem in the whole strength community is trying to force your philosophy on everyone. "You can't fit a square peg into a round hole, so put your ego on hold and choose the best exercises for yourself or your client."
• Some people just can't squat. Deal with it. If they're tall, it's probably a biomechanics problem. "A lot of these guys have back and knee problems and we're trying to make them squat any way!"
• The second biggest problem in the industry is not keeping things simple. Here's Mike's groundbreaking list:
Foam roll, stretch, mobilize, activate, lift.
Pretty damn simple.
• When you're talking about "industry gurus" you can't confuse disagree with dislike.
• Everyone needs to do more planks. However, most people shouldn't go over 30-45 seconds. Add a dynamic element to the stability exercise and make it more difficult.
• Ab wheels are back. Go get one. They work incredibly well.
• Stop doing so many damn crunches. It's like bending a credit card in half – eventually it's just going to get weak and snap.
• "Most people spend their entire day in flexion, from the car to the desk. Then they come in and bench press, curl, and hop on a bike. What the hell is going on?"
• The lumbar spine is designed to only have 15 degrees of mobility. So no more scorpions! You have to learn to move at the thoracic spine.
• Anti-rotation core exercises are essential. Try the land mine, tornado ball, and cable push pulls.
• Most of us are way too upper trap dominant and should not do chin-ups. Keep rowing, though.
Ed Thomas — a Fulbright scholar, consultant to the Iowa Department of Education, and top Army physical-readiness training expert – only had about ten people in the room during his lecture, which was a damn shame. (Although he said he liked it better that way.) His talk was intriguing and insightful.
• In the United States over a century ago, many prominent leaders including theologians, philanthropists, social reformers, politicians, educators, psychologists, and biologists believed that physical education, the "new profession," might become an important area of study in the 20th Century.
• For a moment in our national history, significant numbers of thinkers and dreamers began to seriously consider physical education a critical one-third of the education formula. Now, that paradigm has shifted. (But people are now recognizing how valuable it was.)
• "History isn't just for old people. If you want to see where we'll be ten years from now, look to the past."
• The 3 rules of physical training (designed around 1880) are progression, variety, and precision.
• The physical education curriculum in the United States often included pedagogical, medical, and military content. But by the 1930s, the focus had shifted primarily to the pedagogical with an emphasis on sports and games. "So out came the gyms and in came the basketball courts."
West Point cadets training with Indian clubs
• "This shift toward an emphasis on academic theory has left the physical education profession in chaos while societal interest in physical activity is at an all-time high."
• People never went to the gym to "work out," but to train and to learn. "You worked your ass off, but you learned a great deal."
• The things we see in the circus now are things that kids were expected to be able to do one hundred years ago.
This is what you get when you volunteer to have McGill fix your back.
If there was one presenter at the Perform Better Summit who could be considered the "brainiac" of the event, it was certainly Dr. McGill. You could readily see the respect that was given to him by both attendees and his fellow presenters. Given the depth of knowledge he possesses regarding the spine, this respect is certainly warranted.
The only complaint to be found regarding having one of (if not the) leading spine researcher in the world speak at an event geared toward personal trainers is that the information seemed to be over many people's heads.
Regardless, I found the information fascinating. It was an honor to get to hear McGill speak at one of his rare US engagements.
Here are some of the take-home points from Dr. McGill's presentation:
• The "Big 3" core exercises that build endurance, stability, and motor control but conserve the spine are:
Curl-up (one leg straight out on ground, other hip and knee flexed; both hands under the apex of lumbar curve)
Side Bridge
Birddog
• When doing the above exercises, or essentially any movement, keep the midsection braced such that the ribs and pelvis are locked and move as one unit.
• "Hollowing" the midsection weakens the core and is, essentially, stupid.
• The internal obliques are the thickest of the anterior core muscles. Their job is to resist rotation.
• The primary role of the external obliques is to generate movement.
• When doing a standing chest press (with cables or bands), the obliques become the weak link, not the pectorals or anterior delts.
• The Suitcase Carry exercise is great for the Quadratus Lumborum.
• When doing squatting movements:
1) Grip the floor with your feet
2) Externally rotate and abduct the hip – "spread the floor"
3) Activate the lats to stiffen the core and prevent energy leaks
Color-coordinated Dr. Clay watches as Dos explains the drills.
Coach Dos is known for drinking beer, not eating meat, and making athletes stronger and faster. It was the latter that was the topic of his presentation and his hands on class.
You gotta love his common sense approach to training. Coach Dos doesn't use a ton of fluffy science alone to support his training methodology. Instead he appeals to common sense and the fact that his athletes (of which he has hundreds per year) always get stronger and faster.
Here are some of the profound, yet elegantly simple take-home points from Dos' class:
• Closed drills (i.e. running from cone to cone) do not mimic real life sports situations.
• Open drills (changing directions or movements when cued) require the athlete to react and adapt to unforeseen situations, and thus more closely mimic real life sports situations.
• Open drills can be made to very closely mimic the actual demands of the sport.
• Deceleration is often overlooked as a component of training, and it's during deceleration that most injuries occur.
• Athletes should train both the strength and technique of their deceleration ability.
The PB seminar was one of the more "star-studded' events we've attended with some amazing presenters. As is usual with these types of events, there was no way to see all the presentations. Hopefully our re-cap was sufficient and supplied you with some new ideas and things to try. If not, get off your ass and go to the next one! And while you're at it, go climb up a huge pile of sand and run back down.
Nate Green is the author of Built for Show: Four Body Changing Workout Programs to Lose Fat, Build Muscle, and Look Good Enough to Hook Up which will be released by Avery publishing November 20th. He regularly updates his blog at http://www.thenategreenexperience.com.
Clay Hyght, DC, CSCS, CISSN has been a competitive bodybuilder for 17 years, and an NPC Judge for many of those. Residing in Danville, CA, Dr. Clay works with some of the top competitors in bodybuilding and figure. Visit www.DrClay.com to learn more about Dr. Clay or to subscribe to his Lean and Healthy Newsletter.
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