Went to this.
A brief synopsis. Worthwhile going to, if you want to see a specific speaker.
Friday: Pat Rigsby and his business partner on the elements of a successful fitness business and on the importance of having a good culture in your business.
-this was one of the big reasons I got up at 2:30AM and drove down to Indy on Friday. Rigsby is super sharp on this stuff, and I got a lot of helpful information. Whether or not I care enough to actually start working at it is really another story, but I feel I'm much more prepared to succeed if I decide to do so.
Saturday Presentations
Facts and Fallacies of Corrective Exercise-Mike Robertson
This was pretty good. Mike kept things moving and gave several examples on how damn near anything can be corrective exercise. The theme was really that you have to have some sort of assessment system in place so you can provide optimal training for your clients.Mike will detail what every coach and trainer needs to know regarding mobility, stability, and how to get more out of every exercise they use in the weight room!
Multi-Directional Speed for Sport Unleashed-Lee Taft
Training an athlete to be quicker and faster in sport is more than just doing a few ladder drills and sprints. It is about understanding how the athlete needs to move his or her body to be most effective and efficient in any situation.
This was good as well. Lee Taft has some great ideas on this. He pointed out that most track and football coaches attempt to coach things that go against the body's way of doing things (google plyo step) and that this will significantly slow an athlete. Some cool med ball based drills for speed and quickness.
What’s Working: Secrets of America’s Best Gyms-Pat Rigsby
-this was the short version of Friday's stuff.In this presentation Pat Rigsby is going to share the marketing, sales and business building systems and strategies that are proving effective in the top gyms all around the country.
Waiting to Exhale: The Basics of Core Training-Bill Hartman
Bill needs to optimize this presentation. The info is cutting edge, but he front loads the talk with a lot of anatomy talk that kind of detracted from the nitty gritty. The bottom line is learn how to breath, because fixing that can significantly improve a lot of stability issues and dysfunctional movement. There's a blog post by Jim Laird on Rob Wolf's website that goes through the usefulness of this.This presentation will provide you with an understanding of how to identify aberrant breathing patterns, and the potential kinetic chain dysfunctions associated with them. Corrective exercises to correct breathing patterns and methods to integrate effective breathing into regular exercise will be include
Kettlebells: Low Tech, High Concept-Rick Huse
My least favorite talk. Huse is a master trainer for the AKC, and a former RKC. This entire talk was just about the history of kettlebells, then some workouts tossed up on the screen. His entire talk was shaded by hero worship of the VALBAMA. It was clear he hasn't talked to Rudnev et al. He also couldn't speak loudly enough to be heard by me. I could barely hardly stop myself telling Dan John secondhand stories of the Valbama in Vegas.
Dietary Supplements: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly-Chris Mohr
Chris's talk wasn't bad, but pretty basic. Creatine, BCAA, protein supplements, fish oil and vitamin D is what he covered. Those things? All good.
Block Programming for Strength and Power Sports-Joel Jamieson
This topic sounded awesome. Block training seems to be a mystery to many US S&C folks, and he did a good job of explaining what it was. Overall, though, I feel Issurin provided a much more concise and complete version of Block Training than Verkhoshansky did in his "Special Strength Training for Coaches" manual, but hey, that's me. Who the fuck am I to question this shit, right? I've read both of Issurin's books on Block Training and Verkhoshanky's manual as well, and that's the way I feel.Discover the keys to Block Training and how to organize and distribute strength and power methods within the Block Training System, first developed by Dr. Yuri Verkhoshansky.
As a side note, Joel choked out an iFast intern named Eric Oetter at dinner at the Japanese steakhouse. Eric gave a synopsis of Joel's energy systems book "Ultimate MMA Conditioning" that really clarified things, and another iFast intern, Dan Brown, gave a talk on how to use the tendo unit to control training variables that was pretty interesting in the "Futures" presentations after Friday's business stuff.
A Proactive Approach to Programming-Dan John
More on this later. Dan is, as always, a very engaging speaker.
Sunday: Dan gave a 6 hour seminar on his new stuff. For those who don't know, Dan works extensively with professional athletes, on the individual and team level, and with the military. This was his presentation of some of his newer stuff.
It's too much to go into here, but he'll have a new book coming out, it's about the entire training process and assessing the needs of anyone and getting them what they need. He's got his quadrant stuff going, patterns, corrections, grinds, symmetries, basic human foundational movement, etc...all good stuff, the book will be coming out later this year.
Dan's make a quantum leap with his material since I last saw him. Can't recommend it enough. In the meantime, grab Easy Strength.
