Learn Something!
Highlights from the Perform Better Seminar in Long Beach
by Nate Green and Dr. Clay Hyght
My legs both felt like one big muscle with no knees. I walked
like Abraham Lincoln would have walked if he were traveling uphill
in a snowstorm with his legs straight. Looking down, I swore I had
cement shoes on my feet. But mostly I just swore.
"Holy
shit..." It was Sunday morning of the last day of the Perform Better
Seminar in Long Beach and I should have been sitting in a plastic
chair listening to someone talk about shoulder stability or body
transformation or, or…
hemoglobin. But nooo. I was hiking, sprinting, and vomiting up and down a big mound of
sand with John Berardi, my roommate Craig, a handful of
almost-Division 1 athletes, and our sadistic host, Scott.
Scott thinking, Nate gazing, John hydrating,
Craig slumping
After the second sprint, as I lay on my back with my eyes closed
amidst the cacophony of 250 lb guys gasping, gurgling, and gagging,
I thought back to the seminar and wondered what I was missing that
day.
Luckily, Dr. Clay Hyght was there to pick up my slack. From the
sand dunes of Manhattan Beach to the conference rooms of the Long
Beach Convention Center, here's what we learned.
Nate's Notes:
Dr. John Berardi –
Applied Performance Nutrition for
Coaches and Trainers John "Bahama Boy" Berardi
Apparently you can talk about nutrition while
wearing a flower button-up, shorts, and flip-flops. You just won't
be happy about it. John's luggage was late to arrive and he was
quick to let everyone know he "doesn't usually dress like
this." Yeah right, John.
Berardi's talk was more of the "how"
and less of the "what" of nutrition, and was
characterized by a lot of "I knew that!" moments that you
didn't actually know.
• Fundamentally, exercise doesn't work all that well
without nutrition. Just check out this study from the University of
Texas where they put people on a 12-week strength-training program
complete with three strength weight sessions and two interval
sessions per week. Oh, and they had 90% compliance on the
workouts.
Here are the results from the group that trained over 12
weeks:
.7lb weight gain
1.5% body-fat loss
2lbs total fat loss
2.7lbs lean muscle gain
Not too shabby, right? Well, check out the control group that
didn't do any type of exercise for 12 weeks. (Again, nutrition
wasn't tracked.)
.5lb weight gain
.5% body-fat loss
.5lb total fat loss
1lb lean muscle gain
Statistically, it's significant. But to a client that just
paid you a few grand for 62 personal training sessions, it's
not even close to satisfactory. In fact, you better duck because
you're going to get hit with a flying chair from a very pissed
off customer.
So, exercise + no diet intervention = mediocre and embarrassing
results
Exercise + Diet = fantastic results
In fact, with nutrition dialed in, people lose an average of
1-3lbs of fat per week. That's 12-36 times better than
training alone.
Exericse + diet = Fantastic results.
• Want to perform better and look good naked? Well, it
depends on how well you control the 4 Pillars:
Training
Nutrition
Stress Management
Sleep
• "I hate it when people say 'Diet is about 80%
and training is 20%.' It's all important, okay? Quit
trying to break it down. It's kind of like saying,
'What's more important, your heart or your
lungs?"
• Lack of sleep can actually influence what you eat.
"When people aren't sleeping enough they tend to go after
higher sugar and carb diets." That's just another reason
to get to bed earlier and stop watching Cinemax.
• Good nutrition encompasses three things:
What to eat
When to eat (nutritent timing)
How much to eat
Interestingly, "how much to eat" is usually ranked
number 1, but it's probably the least important.
• "The truth is, genetically, all of us are built to
be able to regulate bodyweight. None of us should necessarily have
a problem managing our weight."
• Nutrition still wont be as effective if you're not
moving around a lot. According to John's research, it takes
about five hours of physical activity a week to break the threshold
from sedentary to non-sedentary.
• If you're getting enough exercise, and getting the
right food, you don't need to count calories.
• Want to lose weight but feel like you have no outside
support? Just enlist the help of the American Nazi Party!
That's how John Bear, author of the Blackmail Diet, lost
75lbs.
Bear put $10,000 in escrow with his attorney to be donated to
the Nazi Party group if he didn't lose 75lbs in one year. He
absolutely loathed the idea of giving money to them and thus made a
commitment to get the weight off. Of course, he accomplished his
goal. And how did he keep the weight off? By doing the same thing
and writing a check to the Ku Klux Klan, of course.
Whatever works, I guess.
• According to Berardi, there are three nutritional
levels:
Level 1 – "3
rd Grade nutriton"
– Better food choices
Level 2 – "Scientific nutrition" – Choice,
timing, amount
Level 3 – "Advanced Nutrition" –
Individualized, high-level
• "Don't try to force yourself to the next level.
Just take a look at your goals. If you're already
accomplishing them, stick with what you're doing!"
Alwyn Cosgrove –
21st Century Fitness
Programming Cosgrove correcting an attendee on his single-leg
hip extension
Alwyn Cosgrove has a
master plan: beat cancer and then take over the world. He can scratch
the first one off the list, but the second may take some time. It was
his second
"re-birthday" over the weekend (it's been two years
since his stem-cell transplant) and he celebrated by making fun of
people in a Scottish accent.
• "Everything that I know now is probably completely
wrong. And time will prove that true."
• Even the correct answer could be incorrect most of the
time. For example: what shape is a football?
Left: correct in America. Right: correct in the
rest of the world.
• Current programming sucks ass. Gym exercise is used to
augment an already active lifestyle, not replace it.
• "The stupidest thing you can do with a new client
who's overweight is put them on a treadmill." It's
been documented that overweight people trying to increase their
aerobic health create an excessive joint and muscular overload when
they try endurance exercise. This resulted in a 50-90% injury rate
in the first 6 weeks of training.
• Even with all the research, books, and programs out
there, most people are still doing strength training for specific
body parts and "cardio" on their off days.
• The recent trend in the industry is to "just get
'em strong." "I don't even know what that
means! What the hell is
strong anyway? If you can put God in
a submission hold or put an arm bar on a grizzly bear, you're
strong. How's that?"
• "If you're smart about setting up your own
programs, you have to develop a fully integrated and balanced
training program that takes you to your goals and covers all
aspects of training that need to be addressed."
That means embracing the "7 Rules":
1) Mobility
2) Prehabilitation
3) Core training
4) Elasticity and reactive training
5) Strength training
6) Energy system development
7) Reactive training
• "You don't care about mobility till it goes
away. The term I heard the other day was 'functional
rigormotis.'"
• Your energy systems work doesn't have to be cardio
based. Try kettlebell swings, front squats to push presses, timed
sets, density circuits, and barbell complexes.
• The closest thing to a magic bullet? Good post workout
nutrition. Stock up on your Surge, boys!
• Alwyn ended his presentation with a story about two
important people in his life: his middle-school math teacher, who
made Alwyn feel stupid for asking questions, and his martial arts
instructor who gave Alwyn a position as an assistant in exchange
for lessons when he couldn't afford them any longer.
• "What kind of person are you? Right now, you're
affecting other people directly. So are you elevating them or are
you putting them down?"
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