Stuff to Check Out: Tony’s Getting Married in Florida edition

I’m about to go crush some weights at CSP Jupiter, and by crush I mean gracefully meander around the gym and try to get the feeling back in my feelings after spending the better part of yesterday travelling from Edmonton to the exact farthest point on the continent from Edmonton. Seriously, 2 planes, 2 hours on a plane, a 1 hour delay on the tarmac because they couldn’t figure out how to tow a plane out of the gate or open another gate when we landed, then a 2.5 hour drive up the Florida coast in the dark, and I made it for what had better be a damned magical wedding.

I’m expecting T-shirt cannons to shoot doves out through the crowd and everyone gets a pet unicorn like in Brides Maids how everyone got a puppy at the bridal shower.

In all seriousness, it’s a location that’s as tropical as it could get without going to Mexico or Cuba, so I’m pretty happy to be here, plus Tony and I seem to get along well, and Lisa’s a swell gal as well, so I’m happy to see them get hitched.

Tony & Dean Workshop: Complete Shoulder & Hip Training

Speaking of Tony, he and I are beginning our world tour of domination once again. This time, instead of a format consisting of “Dean & Tony Talk About Stuff and Deadlift,” we wanted it to have a more specific theme in place and drilled down to focus on two-day workshops that cover everything – and I mean EVERYTHING – relating to the shoulder and hip.

Since Tony’s essentially the shoulder Gandalf and I’m the hip Obi Wan, we’ll make it an experience trainers and therapists won’t forget. We’ll cover all the bases from anatomy to assessments, corrective options, and up through strength and conditioning aspects with the big sexy lifts.

We have dates confirmed in Edmonton, Chicago, St. Louis, and are working on a few others, but this will definitely be a must see don’t miss course for anyone who works with people who have shoulders and hips.

Click HERE for more info and to register. The specific cities are all listed at the bottom, along with their respective registration links.

Gym Injuries: Experts Explain The Best Ways to Avoid Injuries While Working Out – James Fell for AskMen.com

This was a collaborative piece James pulled together from people who were attending and speaking at the Kansas City Fitness Summit. As a side story, James had been having some back pain and trouble deadlifting, so he asked me to help him figure out where he was going wrong. After a few minutes we had it dialled in and no pain, plus he felt immensely better about the current back pain from travel and sleeping in a foreign bed. Then he got wicked drunk and felt terrible again. Oh well, at least he can pull weight from the floor again.

A Doctor’s View of Crossfit – Dr. John Rusin & Dr Stuart McGill

I know what you’re thinking: “another article pooping on Crossfit.” And in some ways it does pull back on some of the more risky practices. However, one of the best parts of the article, in my opinion, is when they go into what they would do if they were running a Crossfit box and training the individuals who are looking to compete. It’s one thing to criticize all things, but without bringing some constructive ways to improve, it’s not really beneficial to anyone. Plus, hopefully this will help to keep people healthy. All sports and activities done with a higher intensity have inherent risks, and minimizing those risks keeps athletes in the game for longer.

12 Ways to Know if you Should Include an Exercise In Your Programming – Eric Cressey

All exercises have benefits and draw backs. All of them. Understanding when it’s appropriate to add one in, take it out, alter some of the variables, and create a different training response is part of the finer art of coaching, and can make a huge difference in how someone responds. Case in point: I saw a Facebook status where someone was looking for a trainer to help with some sciatica symptoms. One of the commenters said “Ask trainers if they do workouts centered around Starting Strength and it’ll tell if they’re good or not.”

While Starting Strength is a good overall program for sure, it’s definitely not appropriate for someone who has sciatica. They would pretty much hate their life and everything in it after each workout, depending on what the issue was and what was causing the symptoms, so jumping the gun and just jamming a program at a problem is rarely ever beneficial. Knowing how to adjust and pick and choose your weapons produces the best results each and every time.

Well, time to go lift some weights in a gently aggressive manner. Toodles.