Red Sox third baseman Kevin Youkilis is spending his second straight off-season at Cressey Performance, training to get ready for the upcoming season.
Kevin is a great guy, and he trains like an absolute beast. If possible, he sweats even more at CP than he does at Fenway!
On Monday, NESN (New England Sports Network) went in to CP and filmed Youk training and preparing for the season. Between EC’s training and a little nutrition support from yours truly, I think Youk is primed for his best season ever!
I am currently in the midst of the Precision Nutrition Certification programand I am greatly enjoying it. I figured since I am already in school this probably the best time to truly enhance my education overall. While me taking this certification program might surprise some people, it shouldn’t. No matter how much you may know, there is always more to learn.
Once you think you have all the answers is when you will have failed as an educator. John Berardi and his Precision Nutrition team have worked with thousands of people directly with their Lean Eating Coaching Program, which is far more people than I can work with myself. Think of all of the experience and information they have gleaned from those situations. Does anybody think we all can’t learn something from that?
If I pick up just a few tips and ideas to further improve my services and the results of my clients, why in the world wouldn’t I sign up for such a program? I am always looking for ways to improve my services and the results of my clients. Anyway, that was a slightly off-topic rant. Back to the point of what I have been enjoying in the program thus far.
One piece of advice that really jumped out at me was that Good Nutrition Achieves Health, Body Composition, and Performance Goals. While this is something that I try to hammer home to people myself, and something that I discuss quite a bit in my Show and Go Nutrition Guide, I like the way they worded their discussion on the topic.
People often eat and train with mainly their aesthetics and body composition in mind. They want to look good naked, and often need to lose quite a bit of fat, so they tend to do excessive amounts of cardio and high-rep/poorly executed weight training in conjunction with highly restrictive crash diets. These strategies can certainly work, and their can be a time and a place for rapid fat loss, in the long run these strategies will negatively impact your health and well-being (and often lead to binging and aggressive regaining of lost weight).
Instead, people should look to create a long-term nutrition and training lifestyle based on the intersection of these three goals:
Improving body composition
Improving health
Improving performance
picture courtesy of The Essentials of Sport and Exercise Nutrition, pg 15
The same rule applies for long-term training goals. A lot of trainees, guys and girls alike, exercise with only their body composition in mind. Maybe they aren’t crash dieting or anything, but they train in a manner that is not conducive to improving their performance or long-term health. Without any focus on soft-tissue quality (ie – foam rolling), proper warmups, correct exercise selections or balanced training programs, they will run into problems in the long term.
Unfortunately these problems take a long time to unveil themselves, so often people will justify their current methods because it does not hurt at this moment in time. Newsflash for you Walter Cronkite, most injuries are of a chronic and degenerative nature that could have been prevented, not an acute instant-in-time occurrence. While training in the appropriate manner may not be as sexy, and it is certainly will not be what you read in bodybuilding magazines, it will allow you to train forever, and actually make you more resistant to injuries, not prone to them. While I know that most of us are not training for the Olympics, myself included, training to improve your performance can range from high-level athletics to simply improving your energy levels and ability to play with your kids.
When the focus is on a blend of performance, health and body composition the aforementioned issues do not arise. While this method may not produce results as rapidly as a single focus on any of the one areas, they lead to a balanced and healthy long-term approach that will reduce inflammation, blood lipids, diabetes risk, cancer risk, and body fat percentage as well increase lean mass, movement and tissue quality, strength, athleticism, and other health markers (good cholesterol, insulin sensitivity, etc). Sounds like a plan to me!
To wrap this up, focus your training and your nutrition on improving your health, body composition and performance and you get the best of it all. You get to look good naked, improve your quality of life and perform at your peak!
Today I wanted to do something a little out of the ordinary. With the New Year upon us and many people making their resolutions to improve their health, body composition and performance, I want to let you know that I am here to help.
I just recently wrapped up some consulting with a few clients, and had some spots open up. I figured with the New Year, that people might be interested in my online coaching services. To top it off, I have even decided to offer a 20% discount on my services, for anyone who signs up before Jan 31!
This is includes a discount on any of my online nutrition consulting services, as well as my online training services. Below is a general idea of what my nutrition and training services include:
Nutrition
Comprehensive Nutrition Questionnaire – this provides me with your likes, dislikes, allergies, intolerances, and more to help me customize the consultation specifically to you!
Complete Dietary Analysis – this provides me a snapshot of your normal dietary intake, and I provide you thorough and detailed feedback to maximize your results.
BSP Nutrition Tips & Guidelines Packet - you will learn the nutrition principles to guide you through your lifetime, and dispel so many myths and misconceptions along the way! This packet along with my feedback on your actual eating habits will teach you the skills to make you nutritionally bullet proof.
Personalized Meal Plans built specifically for you, no cookie-cutters here!
Unlimited Email Access to my personal account 24/7.
Training programs written by me to work synergystically with your unique nutrition program, all specifically designed for your needs and goals.
Training
Comprehensive questionnaire covering your health and injury history, prior training experience, your goals and your schedule. We will look at postural photos, any videos you can send of you performing exercises and more to ensure you maximize the effectiveness of the training.
Video demonstrations and/or pictures with descriptions of how to properly perform every exercise I program for you.
Personalized One-Month Training Programs built specifically for you, based upon all the information gathered in your questionnaire. Each program will cover proper warmups, soft tissue work, dynamic mobility, recovery modalities, corrective exercise and whatever training modalities your goals warrant; fat loss, strength, power, mass, athletic, general fitness, etc.
Unlimited Email Access to my personal account 24/7.
I bring the knowledge and the ability to put the whole package together. You just need to bring the attitude and effort!
Nutrition Programs written by me to work synergystically with your personal training program, catered specifically to your needs and goals.
If you are interested in my specific consulting offerings at 20% off, please shoot me an email at brian@brianstpierretraining.com.
For those of you skeptical of working with me online, I have worked with dozens of clients online, from all over the world, and here is what a few of them had to say:
“I can’t say enough good things about working with Brian! I will admit, I was a bit skeptical about working online/from a distance with someone for nutrition purposes, but Brian quickly put that skepticism at bay. I was most impressed with the amount of time he took talking to me in our initial phone consult and then all the subsequent emails answering any question I had in a very timely fashion. There was no cut and paste programs here–he really focuses on you as the individual. His feedback on all my nutrition logs was incredibly detailed and extremely helpful for making the necessary positive changes to reach my goals. I also loved all the recipes he gave me. I had a real issue eating unhealthy snacks because I lacked the knowledge/creativity to create healthier more interesting snacks. Brian gave me so many options for easy to create, healthy snacks that filled a real void in my daily diet. I highly recommend working with him!”
Jeanne Higgins, Seattle, WA
“In late March 2010 I contacted Brian St. Pierre for a nutritional consultation hoping that he could assist me in cleaning up my diet. At the time I felt as if my eating habits were “good” but I was certainly aware that they could be better. Brian was thorough and exhaustive in his evaluation and critique of my eating habits and provided me with the perfect ideas on how I could alter my diet to achieve my goals. What I liked the most about Brian’s services is that he didn’t try to totally revamp my current ways but instead offered ideas and insights into how I could do things better. He worked with my food choices and how I schedule my meals and provided me with a path to success that I am confident will last forever.”
Joe O’Leary, Brighton, MA
“After working with Brian, I can say, without a doubt, that it was the best decision I’ve made for my training in a long time. Being a facility owner, I found myself neglecting my own training, and when I did train, I only did the exercises that I favored the most. I decided to get in touch with Brian because of two reasons 1) having visited CP before, I knew how creative Brian could be with his programming, and 2) he had the nutritional knowledge to back it up!
The results speak for themselves – in 3 months of being a training/nutrition client with Brian I not only added 7.7 pounds of lean weight, but I also increased my Front Squat by 27.5 pounds, my 3RM Chin Up by 14.3 pounds and my Deadlift by 17.6 pounds – all this after I broke my finger the first week of the program, was put into surgery in the second week, and couldn’t do any grip intensive work until after the first month!
The best result, though, was that Brian showed me how to make quality food choices, and helped me develop solid nutritional habits – something that will last with me throughout my whole life. If you’re on the edge of deciding whether to use Brian or not, my advice is just do it – you won’t regret it.”
James Garland, Strength Coach, Australia
Again, this is a limited time offer, so if you are interested in hearing more about my services, please contact me at brian@brianstpierretraining.com. What do you have to lose?
I was able to visit CP yesterday for the first time since September. I gotta say, it was nice to train in that environment again, compared to my normal gym these days it was a nice change of pace. I brought a few friends with me who had never seen the place, I think they enjoyed seeing what a non-commercial gym actually looks like. Meeting Kevin Youkilis probably didn’t hurt their opinion either.
The renovations are looking great, and the space is going to kick even more ass. I have to admit that it is a little bittersweet every time I visit, as I greatly enjoyed my time there. It would be really nice to coach in the new set up too, as it allows for improved vision of the entire floor.
Anyway, I thought I would leave you guys with some interesting articles for the weekend. Some of these were inspired by my trip to CP, some were just awesome. Enjoy!
DeFranco Prowler Training – Joe DeFranco. This is a brand new T-nation article from Joe DeFranco on proper utilization of the infamous Prowler. When he talks about the love/hate relationship with the Prowler, I can totally relate. I mainly hate it though. Enough that I wanted nothing to do with it yesterday, so we did some sledgehammer swings instead. Regardless, Joe provided a quality article on some excellent ways to utilize the prowler.
5 Loading Protocols that Suck – Eric Cressey. First I want to state that EC did not choose that title, and it does not accurately represent the content, so keep that in mind when reading. This is another T-nation article inspired by my trip to CP. Eric takes a look at 5 common loading protocols and discusses their strengths, weakness, applications and times to try something else.
Wheat: In Search of Scientific Objectivity and New Year’s Resolutions – Chris Masterjohn. While many of you may know that I am not a fan of large amounts of wheat consumption, I do think that preparation makes a huge difference. Hence why I like sprouted grains. In this article Chris digs into the study that is often cited to support the idea that “wheat is evil”. It is excellent, and he pokes some serious holes in the study. I highly recommend reading more of his stuff, as he provides some fascinating and top-quality information.
Now that 2010 is almost completely in our rearview, I figured this was a great time to recap what I thought were some of the best resources of 2010. People often get frustrated at their lack of results, yet are unwilling to change their approach and try something new.
They often don’t know where to look for change, or which products and resources can actually help them reach their goals. Well I make it a priority to only recommend products and resources that I think can help you reach your goals, whether they be to improve your coaching ability, athletic performance, body composition or overall health.
I also try to make it clear to whom these resources are intended for, so you only purchase ones that are a good fit for you and your needs. This whole process allows me to continue to learn and improve, pass some of that knowledge on to you, and also filter the marketing so you can make informed decisions on which products and resources you actually want to spend your hard-earned money on!
Here are my Top 5 Products/Resources of 2010 that I reviewed. I will note that their are many more great ones out there that I have not yet had the time to review, though I will hopefully get a chance in the near future.
1. Show and Go: High Performance Training to Look, Feel and Move Better. This is my favorite of the year for many reasons. It is an amazing training program that also provides info on proper soft-tissue work, warm-ups and gives you access to over 175 videos demonstrating every exercise in the entire program. Not only that, you also have the ability to purchase my Show and Go Nutrition Guide, which I must say is pretty awesome in and of itself! Eric provided a complete resource to help you maximize your potential. Here is my Review of Show and Go.
2. Body By Boyle Online. This is an unbelievable resource for just about anybody out there. This resource provides over a year of ready-made programs, with new programs being added every month, covering athletic performance, rehab, fat loss ad more! It also contains over 280 videos of every single exercise done at Mike Boyle Strength and Conditioning and more educational information than you could possibly imagine. Incredible stuff. Here is my Review for Body By Boyle Online.
3. Accelerated Muscular Development 2.0. Smitty outdid himself with this kick-ass program. He has totally revamped and improved his original Accelerated Muscular Development, adding in a ton more stuff on dynamic warm-ups, exercise progressions as well now providing over 199 exercise videos. Here is my Review of Accelerated Muscular Development 2.0.
4.The Single Leg Solution. Mike Robertson created an awesome product here. Let’s be honest, how many people actually train their legs, let alone one at a time? Well here Mike shows you proper single leg exercises, their execution, and their placement within a training program. It is well-researched and well-written, which is the norm for Mike. Here is my Review of The Single Leg Solution.
5. Optimal Shoulder Performance: From Rehabilitation to High Performance. Mike Reinold of the Boston Red Sox, and Eric Cressey of Cressey Performance joined forces to create one of the most educational resources of the year. This DVD set covers a seminar given at CP where Mike and Eric go over the anatomy of the shoulder, how and why things can go wrong, how to correct it and even more importantly, how to prevent it. There is also a bunch of exercise demonstrations at the end of the seminar to provide proper exercise technique, and yours truly was the demonstrator. If you have a shoulder issue, or work with a population prone to shoulder issues, check this one out. Here is my Review of Optimal Shoulder Performance.
Well there you have it, my Top 5 Resources of 2010. Maybe give yourself a nice little post-Christmas (or whichever holiday you celebrate) reward for being so awesome in 2010.
Cass has interviewed nine women and counting who stayed extremely active during their pregnancies. She wanted to shed some light on this topic because so many women are hesitant to exercise hard while pregnant, and so many people will criticize the ones who do.
Cass said she gets about an email every week asking her about this very topic, and she wanted to provide not only quality information on the topic, but real-life examples of women who have been active while pregnant and the impact it had on their pregnancy, labor and child.
I highly suggest youcheck these stories out, whether you are pregnant or not. These interviews are rather enlightening, though my opinion may be a little biased!
First off I just wanted to thank everyone for the well wishes and congratulations, they are much appreciated!
Today I wanted to direct your attention to some really quality content that I have come across lately that I think you might want check out for yourself.
Don’t Have Time to Train? – Tony Gentilcore. Tony pretty much lays down the law as to why there is always time to train. Not “having time” really means you are not making time. I even fell victim to this for a while, often only training 2x/week, but no more. I am back on 4x/week and kicking ass. Hell my best friend was able to train consistently (and very creatively) while being on the top of a mountain on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. If he can do it, why can’t you?
Low FODMAP diet has been great for my gut – Cassandra Forsythe. Cass discusses a very interesting concept on food and its effect on your GI tract. She is someone who has had GI problems for years, as she discusses, and this new strategy has done wonders for her. If you are someone who has struggled yourself, check it out.
Dr. Mellanby’s Tooth Decay Reversal Diet – Stephan Guyenet. I think when I post one of these blogs I always include a post from Stephan, his stuff is just that good. Considering that my wife is a dentist, this post was even more poignant to me. While the post does disparage grains a bit due to their phytic acid content, I will point out that sprouted grains have minimal phytic acid due to the sprouting process.
I wanted to give you all a friendly reminder that today is the last day you can get Accelerated Muscular Development 2.0 for 20% off the retail price! The sale ends at midnight tonight.
If you are interested in a fantastic program sure to help you build slabs of muscle and shed pounds of fat, just follow the link below for more info:
Today is going to be done a little differently. I actually have a multi-part series that I was thinking of starting today, but then I thought it would probably just be best to start that fresh come Monday.
Instead of that series, I am going to recap any fascinating information presented by some of my classmates just like I did last week with Coffee May Decrease Risk of Alzheimer’s.So I will actually return later this afternoon to fill you all in on whatever cool information I come across!
I also want to let you all know that I am going to be writing some articles for several publications this month, so be on the lookout for those in the near future!
Lastly for all of you Red Sox fans out there, could these past 7 days been any more awesome in an off-season? Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez?!? The Yankees are crying themselves to sleep right now. It might only be December, but It. Is. Awesome!
So I have returned to fill in this blog today, and let you know about some cool stuff I learned about from my classmates today.
The first presenter discussed how green tea and black tea consumption can decrease your risk for the metabolic syndrome. More research is needed on the topic, but green tea is able to modulate to a degree some of the factors of metabolic disease.
The second presenter discussed the role of restaurants implementing menu nutritionally labeling, and its impact on customer choices and restaurant financials. It seems that providing the nutrition facts for meals does improve people’s food choices to a degree, however the meal must still be appealing. It is also clear that the profitability of restaurants who have implemented these protocols already have not been negatively affected.
The third presenter discussed buckwheat. She discussed how it is really a seed like quinoa and amaranth, not a true cereal grass like wheat, rye and barley. She discussed its high antioxidant content, and how the sprouting of it (and other seeds and grasses) increased the antioxidant content. It was certainly interesting to find out another benefiting of sprouting grains.
The final presenter discussed some new methods in meat preservation. A huge amount of beef is lost every year to spoilage, costing the beef and supermarkets a lot of money. In her presentation she showed how customer-perceived spoilage (mainly from color change, even though the meat may be fine) or actual spoilage occured from the fats in the beef oxidizing. She presented data showing that feeding cows vitamin E a few months prior to slaughter, and packaging the beef with a small amount of rosemary extract almost completely prevented lipid oxidation (for at least 12 days). This could save a lot of cows!
On a side note, it has also been shown the seasoning your beef with rosemary can prevent many of the harmful heterocyclic amines caused by cooking meat at high temperatures, so this could help improve beef in more than one facet.
On another good note, today was the last day I had to commute to Orono for exactly a month. I sure won’t miss that 165 mile round trip commute! For a little while at least.
OK, here’s the deal – I’m gonna keep this real simple.
I’ve been involved in the fitness industry for quite a while and I know what works. In fact, that’s my business… helping people just like you discover what really works (and what doesn’t)…
So this is the bottom line – if you’re serious at all about losing weight or gaining lean muscle…or both, then you need to go check out Jim “Smitty” Smith’s Accelerated Muscular Development 2.0 system.
It’s the real deal. I have personally gone through Smitty’s entire system, and its because of this that I proudly endorse AMD 2.0 and enthusiastically recommend it to anyone who is serious about getting massive results.
If you go there now you’ll be able to get the entire AMD 2.0 system for 20% off as well as take advantage of the special fast action bonus that Smitty has lined up. Click here to get AMD 2.0.
I have been wrapping up my semester this past week and just cranking out school work, but yesterday I was able to catch my breath a bit and do some reading and work around the house.
It was relaxing and productive, and a nice reprieve from the stress of finalizing my school work.
Anyway, I came across some really awesome content that I think you guys should definitely check out. Enjoy!
1. Diet-Heart Controlled Trials: A New Literature Review – Stephan Guyenet. As most of you know I am not a fan of polyunsaturated vegetable oils. In this blog Stephan discusses a new review by some cardiovascular researchers who came to the same conclusion! It provides some new insights and does a great job in pointing out all the flaws in the argument for consuming more polyunsaturated fats.
2. Training to Failure: Part 1-4 – by Jason Ferrugia. Jason has been on a minimalist kick lately, and that 6 part series was equally as good as this one. His training to failure series really hit home for me because of all the guys I see at the gym trying to push themselves to their limit of every set. Training hard is good, training to constant failure is not. This series and the minimalist series are highly recommended reads.
3. Strategies for Correcting Bad Posture: Part 1-3 – by Eric Cressey. Much like Jason, Eric broke this up into several parts because there were so many angles to attack this from. Eric does an awesome job outlining the simple and effective measures to improve your posture, and therefore your movement patters and health. It is an easy-to-understand read with lots of applicable ideas.
Posted on January 13th, 2011 by Brian St. Pierre
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