Stuff To Check Out: Late April Edition

It’s late April in Edmonton which means we’re expecting 5-10 cm of snow today. Of course that would have to happen 2 days after we changed out the winter tires on our car for summers, and during the weekend everyone is looking to buy flowers and do yardwork, but whatever. I’m sure by the time the person who won a trip to Edmonton on The Price is Right realizes they’re not getting to see Lake Louise as advertised on the board, the snow should be gone.

Upcoming Workshops

First up is a new workshop I’ll be teaching in Toronto. We just announced this and set up registration, and the early bird discount ends on April 28th. The dates are October 3-4, with day 1 covering Ruthless Mobility and day 2 covering Advanced Core Training. If you’re interested in attending and learning more about how to become incredibly mobile and get a powerful core, click the link to download the registration form and send payment to the fax number given.

Dean-Somerset-Ruthless-Mobility-and-Advance-Core-Oct-3-4-2015-Registration-form

Next is a one-day workshop in Edmonton on June 6th called Total Hip Training & Conditioning. We’ll go through the entire spectrum from assessments to corrective strategies to conditioning & higher threshold strength training coaching to help your people get the best bang for their buck and slowly turn in to absolute monsters in the gym.

Click HERE for more info and to register

BroScience: How to Fix Muscle Imbalances

Because fitness should never be considered too serious, here comes Dom Mazetti to show you why foam rolling may not be important if you’re a complete bro who just wants to do biceps curls.

Client Transformation

Pretty awesome transformation from one of my clients, Ross Wilson. To be fair, he started training with me after he lost the weight, but it’s remarkable so I wanted to share. He’s gone from 284 lbs down to 168 at his leanest, from a size 50 pant down to a size 32, and since then has packed on about 20 lbs of muscle to accommodate his track cycling. which he recently medaled in at the World Championships. This year he’s looking to hit the podium again at the Pan Am Games and earn a spot on the Paralympic team for next year in Rio.

Less than 4 years and a completely different person. I can’t say enough how proud I am of the effort and hard work this guy has put in to get where he has, and I’m glad to be along for the ride in any capacity.

Complete Guide to Bar Speed Devices

Admittedly, I’ve only recently started looking at bar speed as a metric for in-session data to determine training intensity and volume, but it’s been around for a while, and there are a bunch of different devices you could use to measure this outcome. Strengtheory does a great job at breaking this down, so if this is something you’re interested in (powerlifters and olympic lifters would loooooove these!), check it out!

Defending Spinal Flexion – Tony Gentilcore

This was a great overview of a concept we seem to have a pendulum swing regarding every once in a while. Spinal flexion isn’t the devil, but too much and under load could be a bad thing. Just the same, too much extension can also be bad, so there has to be a balance. Tony does a great job at outlining this thought, plus shows an owl model doing a walk.

The 1 Rep Max is Dead – Christian Thibodeau on T-Nation

I’ve always thought it was strange when trainers with who would be considered “general fitness” clients would do 1 rep max testing with their clients. Many of them aren’t interested in competing in powerlifting, haven’t adapted to the training loads through their connective tissue, and likely won’t give you a true max very well due to neural efficiency being fairly low. It’s fun to do as a challenge, but the benefit to the individual is pretty low. This was a great outline on the pros and cons, as well as gives a good option to use for testing and challenging yourself and clients effectively.

Have a great weekend!!