Last June I video recorded a workshop. It was the evolution of the Post Rehab Essentials brand I developed about 5 years ago, and very strongly believe that it could help make you a better trainer or fitness professional immediately.

 

This is a workshop that goes through the basics that every trainer should know about injury post-rehab before working with their clients. It covers the most common conditions of the shoulder, hip, knee and spine, and gives directions on what to do and more importantly, what not to do with the specific injuries. Each section goes through pertinent anatomical information, what adaptations occur with each injury, how to assess and determine who can and cannot begin training, and how to train it to get the best results safely and effectively.

The concepts contained in Post Rehab Essentials have helped me get the following results for clients:

• Helped a client with massive pelvic and abdominal reconstructive surgeries deadlift almost twice her bodyweight within 1 year of surgery, pain free
• Helped a client recover from hip replacement surgery to ski and gold in the same day
• Re-built my own low back issues to deadlift pain free and even do the splits
• Help my wife get back into competitive triathlon following a series of SI joint injuries
• Help an Olympic gold medalist recover from a hip injury to prepare for the Sochi Olympics
• Get hundreds of clients out of pain and training with purpose once again

The entire package is over 10 hours of information, including roughly 5 hours of hands-on instruction where I show you how to work with clients in a live setting.

Here are some of the highlights I go through:

• How most “rehab” programs aren’t tailored to specific needs of the individual and do nothing but eat up time.
• Joint mechanics that show why some exercises will hurt you while others will help you.
• Why repetitive strain injuries are so common, and how to fix them forever
• Why pain doesn’t tell you the problem, and how to uncover the real issue
• Why static stretching is completely useless and should be stopped at all costs, especially when working through an injury
• How to dramatically increase the value of your training sessions and keep your clients longer
• How to perform complex lifts, assessments, and corrective exercises in a safe and effective manner.
• How to get people strong. Period.

For this week only, I’m putting the entire video series on sale for only $97. At the end of the week, I’ll bump it up to it’s regular price of $127.

In addition to all the great information, if you’re a trainer you’ll get valuable continuing education credits through the NSCA and canfitpro in Canada (Hey, I gotta represent the motherland).

=====> Click Here to Order Post Rehab Essentials V.2.0 Now <=====

What’s different from this version compared to the previous one?

I’ve changed roughly 70% of the content to reflect a shift in thinking about how the body best responds to exercise and how to effectively train through various injuries. I’ve stream-lined the process, cutting out what isn’t necessary, expanding on what is, and leaving you with the basic information that can be applied to everyone, regardless of age, training experience, or goal set.

I’ve broken it into 3 main components: Upper Quadrant, Lower Quadrant, and Spine. While none of these exist in isolation to each other in exercise, it makes the learning process a lot smoother and simpler, and helps to give some reference points when you go back and look at it again for specific issues your clients may have.

The entire package is available for digital download, meaning you get instant access and don’t have to wait for me to ship DVDs to you or worry about getting the shipping address right. You can download the videos to your computer if you want, which means you can take them anywhere, even if you don’t have available internet access.

Why Would I want to Get this Product?

If you have a nagging issue with a shoulder, hip, knee or low back that just isn’t getting better, and can’t figure out what to do with it. If you have a client who has any kind of injury or has had surgery to repair a specific injury, or want to be able to work with clients who have recovered from different injuries. If you want to learn a more direct and effective method of training and program design in order to not feel like you’re on a rehab program while still being concious of any kind of injuries or medical conditions that could be made worse from poor exercises or execution, you need to get this video series.

Remember, it’s only on sale until Saturday, and then if you’re looking to pick it up it will be $30 more expensive. I want you to get it now while you can, and while it’s as cheap as it will ever be.

Your clients deserve the best. You deserve the best. I’ve put my heart and soul into the product, and I have no doubt you will enjoy it and get a lot out of it immediately.

====> Get POST REHAB ESSENTIALS V.2.0 NOW!!<=====

Well, I have a big big BIG project in the works, and am set to unleash it on the world next week, but I can’t talk about it too much just yet. I like to build up the suspense.

That being said, there is a lot of stuff I can talk about this week, and I’m going to share some of the awesomeness for you in today’s update on things to read, buy, and check out in passing.

1. Stop Doing Corrective Exercises – Article on T-Nation

While this may sound like a really bold title, the article (written by moi) talks about when it’s good and not so good to do corrective exercises. Think of corrective exercises sort of like medication. If you don’t have the problem, you don’t need the medication. Use them sparingly and they’re powerfully beneficial.

2. Show and Go Sale

By his own admission, Eric Cressey is getting older. This is both funny and depressing to me as he and I are the same age. I’d like to think I’m going to mature like a fine wine, getting more character and depth as the calendar pages turn. What will probably happen is I’ll turn into a cantankerous old koot who yells at the politicians on television and tries to start fights with clouds.

Regardless, Eric put his fantastic training system, Show and Go Training on sale for only the second time since he released it a few years back. The program regularly goes for $147, but for this week only in celebration of Eric turning 32, he has it on for a massive 48% off that price, for only $77. For that low cost, you get 4 months of programs designed to make you more mobile, strong, and athletic, and comes with adaptations for different equipment, 2-, 3-, and 4-day per week programs, and a massive variety of exercises to draw from.

I’ve used it, and I’ve recommended it to clients who weren’t able to continue training with me in person or through distance coaching. It’s a very effective program that I would recommend to anyone. It’s only on sale until Saturday, so you’d better hurry up and get yours while it’s good and cheap.

=====> Get Show and Go Training Now <======

3. I was contacted by a competitive pole dancer the other day to help her fix up a shoulder injury. At first I was like “what the what??!?!” But then she explained that she did more of this kind of thing, and not the type where they blast “Pour Some Sugar on Me” while a creepy guy in the first row makes it rain.

This should be a pretty cool challenge.

4. A few weeks ago, I was asked to do some testing with the Edmonton Oilers as part of their exit testing series, and jumped at the chance. Who wouldn’t want to spend the day taking an entire NHL team through the FMS and interpreting the results? What I can tell you is that I’ve never met an athlete, professional or otherwise, who competes in a very posture-specific sport (such as hockey), who exhibited perfect movement.

Hockey players have a lot of the same kinds of traits: tight ankles from wearing skates, limited overhead mobility due to being perpetually hunched over, poor shoulder mobility from said hunching and from checking and getting checked.

While I would love to show you specifics of how each player did, that had to be kept confidential. All told, it was a cool experience and hopefully I’ll get a chance to do it again.

5. Tony Gentilcore and I will be hosting a workshop at Cressey Performance on the weekend of July 27-28, with an optional shadowing day at CP and some potential time to work out with Tony and I in small group and 1-on-1 settings. We’re planning on making it entirely hands on and very practical based. No sitting around listening to us drone on with a PowerPoint in the background. It’s going to be a very coaching intensive workshop, and I’ll toot my own and Tony’s horn in saying it’s probably going to be the best workshop in the history of ever. We’re also going to be capping it at roughly 30 people, so it will be nice and intimate, and probably juuuuuust a little creepy. Not in a bad way, but creepy in a way you know you like.

We’re still finalizing some details: what kind of jerky to serve, beef or dinosaur. What the cut-off weight for your back squat should be to attend, shirts optional, that kind of thing, but there’s a couple thing you could help out with. First, we need a name to convey the sheer sense of how epic this weekend will be. What do you think it should be called? Also, if you were to attend something like this, what would be two or three of your big takeaway points that you would absolutely want to cover? Drop a comment below and let me know so we can make this thing grow some wings.

A couple of years ago I decided I was getting old. Not in a “hike my pants up to my ribs, get the seniors discount on movies, or drive 10 mph under the speed limit in the left lane while wearing a hat” kind of old (seriously, old men in hats are some of the worst drivers on the roads. Pay attention next time you’re out and about and you’ll see what I mean). I’m talking about an “I’m not at the bar scene any more and am proud of my lawn” kind of old. The ripe age where home ownership, retirement savings, and going to bed at 10pm are the kind of excitement that gets me going.

As such, I started golfing.

This fine sport from the same people who brought you curling is all the rage among old folks. I mean, the average age at any golf course is probably 40 or 50, and that by no means is old to itself, but there’s some serious outliers in there on the upper end that skew it for guys in their 30′s like me. These are the guys who have 4 hours on an afternoon to kill without worrying about family, house maintenance, or spending time with their wives, who are conveniently on their fourth vodka tonic of the day and eyeing up the cabana boy like a Rottweiler eyes up a fresh sirloin.

I figured I would give it a try as a way of enjoying some outdoor time in the summer, and seeing as how Edmonton has absolutely no hills to climb or anything that I would do in BC, golf seemed enticing. I bought a set of clubs, some reasonably cheap shoes, and occasionally go out to the driving range or for a quick 9 holes here and there. Once in a while I get in a full 18 holes and fall asleep before dinner.

In a given year, I’ve been lucky to get in 5 rounds. Complicating the fact is that most courses are only open for about 6 months each year around the snow, which means getting out once a month is only giving me 6 times a year. I’m not going to make the PGA tour anytime soon.

That being said, I’ve made some good progress in my swing. I’ve learned how to keep my wrists fairly solid so I’m not hooking or slicing on every single shot, and I can hold a finish pose like no one’s business. By not trying to kill the ball, amazingly I have way more control, and I would rather hit a straight 200 or 250 than try to find my ball 3 holes over after crushing it 400 with a nasty slice.

So yesterday, as it is now officially t-shirt and shorts weather, I decided to take an hour or so on my day off and hit the local public golf course and see what the driving range looked like. I grabbed an extra large bucket of balls ($10. Cheap entertainment for an hour), a bottle of water, and headed over.

My goal was to just try to make consistent contact, and try to aim it relatively well without trying to look like a meathead weight lifter who couldn’t turn his hips. I managed to do alright for myself, hitting a few driver shots to 250 with relative straightness, and also managed to shank a few into the dirt and almost whacked the guy next to me in the back of the head with another. I don’t think yelling fore works all that well in the driving range, but I gave it a go.

In the other stall beside me, a guy was taking his wife or girlfriend through her very first experience with golf. Using his clubs. To set the scene, he was about 4 or 5 inches shorter than she was, and she was looking every bit the nervous first timer on the golf course. Being the inquisitive type, I listened in on their co-ed teaching experiment.

Every time she went to hit the ball, he would follow up by saying what she did wrong when the ball didn’t magically fly off the tee. Then he would try to cue her on something different. Essentially, every time she swung, he told her to think about something completely different than the last time, but then brought back some good old chestnuts from previous cues to make sure she kept them in her mind. By the end of the bucket, she was starting to make contact, but she was almost paralyzed by analysis every time she tried to swing.

Golf is an incredibly complex activity. It’s simple enough in theory, but then again so is Communism. The application of each is where the waters get a little muddy. For one Communism allows for the ruling government to have the possibility of all power, whereas golf has THIS.

Considering the number of moving joints involved, the timing and sequenced firing of each section, and the relative force development from each segment in that fluid and concentrated manner can cause some big mental blocks to go up when you’re trying to knock that stupid little white ball around.

Interestingly, the body can only process a couple of cues at a time. Typically, I find most people can only process three things at once. Consider a deadlift. The movement is fairly simple, once you get the hang of it. But while learning, you have to think about foot position, foot spacing, shin angle, hip positioning, spinal position, shoulders compressed down, chest up, chin back, breathing, core stability, driving the hips, making sure your shin doesn’t track forward when your hips press, not blacking out or soiling yourself, and then once you lock out, giving the official rapid fire nod to everyone around to you let them all know you GOT THIS, MAN!!!!!

But when starting, most people will only process 3 things at once. I usually focus on the big rocks first. Get your spine straight, stick your butt out, and then brace your core before you pull. If you can get those three things, we can proceed. I’ll usually have someone do a few dozen reps in this manner before we add something else to it, regardless of whether the other stuff is perfect or not. I don’t want to overwhelm them, much like the guy at the driving range was doing with his wife or girlfriend.

Cueing her on everything under the sun was like having a first grader, then asking them questions a 5th grader would know, then a 10th grader, then a 1st grader, and finally a 12th grader. She’s not ready for all that just yet.

Golf is all about reps. If you hit a bucket of balls at the driving range today, you may have tried to change one or two small things, but most of it was pretty much repetition. If you tried to change something every time you swung the club, you would never get into a groove and would wind up falling apart at the end of the day. Much like skilled movement (complex lifts included), it’s all about reps and grooving the motor pattern. Once you’ve taken a few thousand swings, you can start tinkering with a few small variables.

For the girl at the golf course. I would have started by trying to get her to not chop down on the ball or lean away from it on her wind up, and also work on keeping her head centered over the ball instead of looking around. From there, I would just get her to slowly make contact with the ball to get used the swing and after a few dozen successes, we could add in some additional aspects.

Again, I’m far from a golf pro, but I can help people learn how to move. Most of the time by focusing on less and working on making that automatic, you can see bigger success than by trying to focus on more and struggling to keep it all together. When you’re having trouble with a movement, take it apart and work on one or two components of it, and try to perfect those. Once you do, move on to the next step in the process, and never forget that it’s a process. Learning is rarely automatic.

A very cool little book that talks about how different people learn and how to best interact with them on a teaching basis is I’m Really Listening Even If I’m Not Looking At You: Lean how our brains work with our senses by Dr. Karen Otazo. Motor learning was by far one of my most favorite courses in university, and this book brought back some great concepts and expanded a few I wasn’t even aware of when I was in school. The differences in whether someone responds best to auditory or tactile stimulation can make a big difference in how quickly they learn a new skill, and can help you become a better teacher and even learner. At less than $10 for a paperback, it’s a steal of a deal through Amazon.

About 3 years ago I got a call on my voice mail while I was training a client. It was from some guy in Toronto who was starting a website for trainers to teach business practices to other trainers or something like that (it was the PTDC.com. Check it out when you get a chance). I was busy, and I think I left it on my voice mail for a day or so before I gave him a call back.

This didn’t stop him from calling, emailing, calling reception at my club, or probably Google Mapping my coordinates with some sort of new-fangled technology I didn’t even know existed. I made up the last part, but only part of the other parts.

When we finally connected, he introduced himself as Jon Goodman (not the actor from Roseanne), and said he was looking to have me contribute some articles to a website he was just starting up, and that he wasn’t able to pay, but it could lead to bigger things down the road.

It was essentially like having Bagger Vance appear out of no where with nothing to offer and saying he could help you win the golf tournament and the hand of the damsel. I already had a damsel, but the offer was both minimal and disappointing, and somehow intriguing.

I gave him a shot and wrote a few articles for the site. At that point I was just beginning this little blog, and having someone who wanted me to write for them to increase my digital foot print was like a massive gift, even if it didn’t provide any kind of compensation.

In the coming months, Jon became a one-man networking machine, recruiting some of the top trainers in the industry to write small articles (and sometimes epic ones) for the PTDC. He quickly built it into a site that generated a ton of buzz across the industry, and became sort of like a trainers version of T-Nation for the business development side of things.

He quickly amassed a massive social networking following and email list of people looking to get more information, then started to give away compilation pieces for free to those who signed up for his email member list, and provided more free content than anyone ever should. Within a short period of about a year, he had enough of a network to launch his first book, Ignite the Fire: The Secrets to Building a Successful Personal Training Career (the link takes you to a Kindle book that can be instantly downloaded, and if you’re not using a Kindle there’s a simple program that will let you read Kindle ready books on any device, and it’s free to download HERE).

He even asked me to contribute a little story, so there’s some good content on at least one page.

This book took off, with trainers and hopeful trainers picking up a copy all over the world. My bosses boss even came in for meetings and was just shooting the breeze with me saying he was reading the great new book called Ignite the Fire, at which point I went and grabbed my signed copy off my bookshelf, and flipped to my story inside it, which pretty much put his jaw on the floor.

Jon then went on to write a tome about how to improve your ability to be a force to reckon with on social media with Race to The Top: How to Take Over the Social Media Feed.

With 2 big selling books in print, Jon was officially kind of a big deal. All 5’5″, 155 lbs of him. We became good friends and he’s one of the most influential people in my career outside of the in-person training world. His success has lead to me being able to write for sites like T-Nation, Schwarzenegger.com, and helped me land speaking gigs across North America. I owe the dude a lot.

He started hosting seminars with some big names coming into his gym to speak on different things relating to fitness, training, business, etc. Last October he even invited me to come and speak. I should say, I emailed him and said “I’m coming to this, so make some room for me where ever you can.” This turned into the PTDC Becoming the Expert Seminar featuring him, me, and recent New York Times best-selling author John Romaniello. Some other luminaries speaking at the event include Lou Schuler (of “New Rules of Lifting” fame), Neghar Fonooni, Rog Law, Elsbeth Vaino, and Mark Young.

In real life, I’m very large and menacing.

When I got into Toronto for the seminar, Jon texted me and said to meet him on a specific street corner at 4pm with less than 30 minutes notice from the time I checked into the hotel. Not knowing the city well, I ventured out to see if this was going to be something cool like the first meeting in Oceans 11, or something incredibly horrific like the pledge kidnapping in Old School.

Standing on the corner of Yonge Street and Eglinton in downtown Torontoon a Friday afternoon, not knowing where I was or better, where the hell he was (he was now 25 minutes late for the 30 minute timeline), and pretty much fearing for my life (I live in Edmonton. If you’ve been here, you know what it could mean to stand on a street corner too long), Jon finally comes sauntering down the street to meet up with me.

We then walked back to his parents (I assumed) place where he was staying for a couple weeks while between residences. We chatted business, life, his attempts to date members of the opposite sex (I assumed), injuries, hockey, and pretty much anything else that comes up in the stream of conversation when two trainers with ADD start a talk. From there we went back to his gym to get in a lift before dinner. I was in a fasted state as I was trying something out to see how I traveled with minimal food (not well), and we proceeded to deadlift.

It was glorious.

From there we went on with a few other exercises, switching back and forth between different things. He had an obsession with arm exercises. I had an obsession with getting stronger. I had him do kneeling lat pulldowns which caused him to feel parts of his lats he didn’t know attached to other parts of his body.

After the workout the entire group was to meet for dinner at a Brazilian steak house. I’ll paint a picture for you: 15 fitness professionals, all big carnivores and protein connoisseurs, crushing various dead animals roasted to perfection served on freakin swords with copious amounts of salsa music playing in the back ground.

It was glorious.

The downside was that it was a Friday night and Jon conveniently forgot to make a reservation for a large group of hungry fitness professionals. Fail, Jon. Fail.

We showed up at 7:00, they couldn’t seat us until 9:30. Coming from a time zone 2 hours west, I was cool with that. We did eventually all get food and filled out tummies with succulent meats and grilled pineapple, all while Rog Law eyed up who he was going to front squat, or try to front squat, the next night.

After the seminar was over, Jon did what any sane businessman would do following the release of two successful books, hosting successful seminars, being asked to speak around the country, and running a consulting business in place of his personal training career.

He moved to Hawaii for 6 months to avoid the Canadian winter.

While many would view this giant departure as a big risk, stepping away from success to simplify life, Jon took it as an opportunity to focus his energy on producing content, setting up business interests and layers to his websites, and write like a demon. He set up the PTDC Inner Circle, which I was the first presenter to put together a webinar for, organized another PTDC seminar, this one on fat loss, and wrote another book.

His latest offering, The Online Personal TrainerBlueprint: Have More Freedom, Make More Money, Help More People, has shot to the Amazon top 1000 in less than one day, and as a digital download for the Kindle.

If you’re a trainer wondering how to get a foothold in developing an online business, this is required reading. If this was around when I started my website and online business, it would have saved a lot of lost time, headaches, late nights, and failed attempts to get systems developed that I could manage with minimal input.

He could have easily charged a lot more for this as an e-book through his own site and made a killing on it, but by putting it on Amazon as a digital download he can offer it for a significantly low price (less than 5 bucks right now), which means if you’re looking to get started, there’s no better time.

Let’s say you’re not even a trainer, but work in an industry where your services could potentially be delivered in a virtual manner. Nutritionists, life coaches, business coaches, consultants, and any number of professions could benefit from simple stategies to help them automate many aspects of their job, free up more time, and generate more leads to make more profits, which means the cross over to a book like this through different industries is incredibly invaluable.

I said it before when I reviewed Race to the Top on Amazon, but Jon is the Tim Ferriss of the fitness world. The way the 4 Hour Workweek became a dreamers escape from the 9-5, this will be the way anyone who is tired of chasing leads, working from dawn to dusk and barely scraping by will gravitate towards The Online Personal Trainer Blueprint.

I took a chance on Jon back in the day, and I’m glad I did. He’s one of the most humble, genuine and open individuals I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet, and also one of the hardest working guys who can churn out content like no other. If you don’t buy any of the products I’ve listed here, at least do yourself a favour and get to know Jon through Twitter or Facebook, especially if you’re a trainer or interested in developing a brand for yourself and your company.

You owe me one, Jon