So after spending the past 5 days meandering through the twisted concrete jungle known as Manhattan, Lindsay and I returned home last night feeling like we needed a vacation from our vacation. As is always the case, we tried to cram as much excitement into a single trip as possible, and wound up hitting up landmarks such as the Museum of Modern Art, Broadway, running through Central Park, seeing the 9/11 Memorial, and of course walking our faces off.

One of my main selling points for the trip was a chance to work out at Peak Performance, and get a training session with Joe Dowdell himself.

Joe was the consummate host and epitome of a professional in the fitness industry. He had just returned from a vacation of his own to Tampa and was playing catch-up, meaning he was running around at mach 4 trying to get everything done that needs doing when you run your own facility and brand, but still managed to fit in time to train my wife and I, making us each feel we were the only things that mattered at that point in time.

Aside from the fact that Joe pretty much dragged my ass all over the floor of Peak for the better part of an hour, I had to make a single bathroom break as penance for not doing my patented “pre-game” before the workout, it was a great overall workout.

 Lindsay’s still having some difficulty scratching her head from some of the stuff Joe had her doing. I just told her to walk it off.

Prior to heading down, Joe also asked if I would be able to teach an in-service to his trainers, which I pretty much wound up peeing a little from excitement when he mentioned it. Me teach at one of the top facilities in North America? Do NFL replacement refs know how to blow games??

The topic was Common Compensation Patterns, What They Mean, and What to Do About Them. It was essentially a way for trainers to analyze movements, determine if they’re a biomechanical issue or psychological/kinesthetic issue, and what to do about it without getting all rehab-y about it. I’d much rather a trainer think about making every single client who comes through the door consider themselves an athlete looking to get yoked up and nasty with their workouts than to consider themselves fragile little daisies in need of glute medius isolation all day long. Sure, that’s important, but then get up and do something with that new glute, such as heavy farmers carries, deadlifts, squats, jumps, and maybe even tearing through chain-link fences.

Or you know, whatever floats your boat.

We went through things like core and glute activation, and by the end of it, I even managed to get someone to stand on Dan Trink’s back while he was holding a plank.

 

From some of the immediate feedback, I think it went over really well. I’m pretty sure they’re going to use at least one of my cues to activate the glutes, such as strangle the underwear, crush diamonds, crack walnuts, and a couple of others that aren’t suitable for mass consumption. In fact, Dan put up a status to confirm this fact immediately after:

Coming from a guy like Dan that’s a pretty huge compliment.

It’s always cool to teach something new to a group of people who are really receptive to it, and even more kick-ass when they’re considered some of the best in the business.

For anyone who hasn’t been to Peak before, once the elevator doors open up it’s essentially a big trainer toybox. The main training area is a wide open room, and it’s jam-packed with some of the coolest toys, different handles, ropes, prowlers and some of the most mind-blowing Keiser squat cages I’ve ever seen in my life. Me likey, and me wanty.

Another big highlight of the trip was the food. Now, we both tend to eat fairly conscientiously when we travel, which meant we were always on the look-out for restaurants that could serve good quality foods. One place I have never been to but is apparently a god-send for fitness pros is Chipotle. We managed to have us a little burrito goodness, and I have to say their entire menu and business model seems to be very similar to a restaurant chain we have in my town called Mucho Burrito. Which one came first, I don’t know, but yeah, pretty much completely the same. Overall, it was actually kinda underwhelming. Sorry Chipotle lovers, just my honest opinion.

We did manage to have a street pretzel to make Lindsay’s mom happy, a cupcake (or three) from Magnolia bakery to make her sister happy (and us), and managed to walk everything off by covering the better half of the island on foot over the course of four days.

Now I know walking by itself isn’t the most intense workout, but when you do it for 6-10 hours each day, walking on hard concrete and the occasional cobblestone or brick walkway tends to add up. My feet were feeling like some Stromboli cooked sausages from the corner of 5^th and 42^nd street by the end of the trip, and had more blisters than a pitch-man in Times Square has ways of getting your attention.

On the plus side, we saw Snoop Dogg, and Lindsay even managed to get a pic with him.

 He held her kinda close. A lot closer than any of the teens and 20-something guys who were getting pictures with him. Maybe a little too close. I was a little worried for a second. Was I going to have to go all 187 on Time Square Lion? Would I get Pump-Pumped for droppin him like he’s hot? Questions that didn’t need answering thankfully, as he release his Doggy Dogg Grippy Gripp and let us go on our merry way, but not before collecting a donation to cancer research for the honour of including his Dogginess in a likeness.

I can’t hate on someone raising money for cancer.

I also can’t hate on the fact that we saw him, then went to a full Broadway play, and afterwards he was still hustling to try to raise money.

Either that or it was a fund to get some method for the evening without going to the ATM.

But now it’s back to reality and making sure I can continue to make people rip-snortin beasts each and every day of the week. I also have some additional travel coming up, which will be pretty intense. I’ll give you a run-down here:

Toronto, October 6-7th: The PTDC second Annual Seminar

I get to present along side some pretty smart folks such as Jon Goodman, John Romaniello (Roman), Neghar Fonooni, Lou Schuler, and a bunch of other really cool and smart people. A definite must for anyone on the east coast.

Tulsa, Oklahoma, October 13-14: Post Rehab Essentials (in-house, Sky Fitness)

This is going to be awesome as I’ve never been to Tulsa before.

I’m going to have to miss an amazing seminar in my own home club though. Andrea Thatcher, who is a very good friend, PRO Trainer of the year, and extremely successful presenter will be hosting a Natural Nutrition workshop in m home club in Edmonton on the 13th, so if you’re in Edmonton or have a chance to travel, you should really check her out.

Andrea Thatcher: Natural Nutrition Counseling. October 13, Edmonton, Alberta.

Calgary, October 20th: Canfitpro conference

Here I’ll be presenting on how to build a successful boot camp, what to do to make sure you have a full class, variety in your workouts, and pretty much dominate the world of large-group training. Check it out and get your Boot Camp on.

As a result of all this travel, I’m probably going to be somewhat sporadic in my postings coming up, but will get through a regular bout of 2-3 posts each week. You’ll probably be able to tell if I’m writing a post while flying 40,000 feet above the ground while insanely sleep-deprived if I start rambling on about something that makes absolutely no sense, and then somehow, it does make sense. Sort of like when Neo shocked the sentinels in the real life and not in the Matrix. Or was it the real life? Mind = blown.