Robertson Training Systems Newsletter
In This Issue:
- Robertson Training Systems Updates
- Training Tip
- Nutrition Tip
- Exclusive Interview: Jonathan Fass
- New Articles
- Schedule
Robertson Training Systems Updates:
Nothing too exciting to report this week. Plus, the interview is excellent so I want to get right to it!
Training Tip:
Get healthy
People often ask about my training philosophy and why it's different from others. One of the cornerstones of my philosophy is to get whomever I'm working with as orthopedically healthy as possible from the onset.
Let's say I start with a trainee, and instead of getting them healthy we just jump full steam ahead towards achieving their goals; whether that goal is increased strength, fat loss, etc., is typically irrelevant. If I haven't got them healthy, chances are sooner or later they will break down. Could I throw a band-aid on it and keep going? Sure - until they break down again.
Instead, I make it my first goal to get all clients, athletes, etc. as healthy as possible. This way no matter what their goal is, I can typically get them there faster. Not only will they be more efficient in their lifts (helping them get stronger, move more weight, etc.), but they'll be much less likely to get injured along the way as well. A true win-win.
If you're not healthy, quit kidding yourself. Get healthy first and foremost so you can really attack your goals with a vengeance. Onward and upward!
Nutrition Tip:
Cook Whole Chickens
By Mike Roussell
I LOVE cooking whole chickens. As John Berardi says in Gourmet Nutrition when you sit down to eat a whole chicken, that let’s people know you are serious about protein.
Whole chickens are great for several reasons:
1. They are extremely versatile, and
2. They are usually good for one meal + leftovers.
You can cut off and eat the chicken breasts with some vegetables and quinoa, brown rice, or a sweet potato for a post workout meal. Then remove and dice the meat from the thighs, drumsticks, and wings. Combine this with some low fat mayonnaise, curry, green onions, and a diced up apple to make a curry chicken salad that would make a great anytime meal over a bed of baby spinach. Ready to go Rotisserie chickens are becoming very popular and can be found at almost any supermarket. These make for great last minute on the go sources of lean protein (just skip the skin).
If you like this tip and want to learn more about Mike and his products, check out his Naked Nutrition website.
Exclusive Interview: Jonathan Fass
Jonathan Fass is a pretty smart cat. He's working on a doctorate in physical therapy, AND he's a strength and conditioning coach, too. I don't know about you, but I'd imagine he knows a thing or two about training, right?
Let's get into it!
MR: Alright Jonny boy, let’s start from the beginning with the usual routine. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
JF: Thanks, Mike! Well, I do a lot, so how much time have you got?
I’m currently in the middle of my second year of grad school, pursuing my clinical doctorate in Physical Therapy in the City University of New York’s PT program. I’m also a Strength & Conditioning coach for Rutgers University Sports Clubs, and I’ve worked with a wide variety of teams from Men’s & Women’s Rugby, Women’s Soccer, Water Polo and even Squash! I also train students, faculty & staff at Rutgers, I’m the owner of AcceleratedStrength.com where I work with weight loss clients and athletes from all over the world, as well as working at ProCare Rehabilitation in Clark, NJ…when I’m able to! Finally, I’m also a contributing writer for Men’s Fitness magazine.
I have my CSCS (NSCA), HFI (ACSM) and I’m a certified coach through USA Weightlifting. I’ve also achieved certification in nerve conduction velocity studies, and I’ll be sitting for my first certification course in Active Release Techniques (ART) next month.
So, in a nutshell, I have no life!
MR: What got you into the field of physical therapy? Are you some sort of masochist or something?
JF: Either that or a sadist, depending on which way you look at it!
Actually, it’s a bit of an interesting story: I had always been active, from the track team in high school to martial arts and kickboxing in college, but it never occurred to me that I could actually make a living in health and fitness. Believing that I wanted to go to graduate school for my MBA, I worked at a small consulting firm after college. After a few short months I realized that it definitely wasn’t for me. The truth is that I had never really known what I wanted to do professionally, and I was once again in a position where I had to do some “soul searching” and try to discover what it was that truly interested me.
I picked up a job at the gym that I worked out in, basically just to pass the time and to do something productive while I tried to figure out what to do next with my career. I immediately loved what I was doing, even if it was nothing more than helping people with the machines and exercises. When I mentioned this to my best friend and said how it was too bad that I couldn’t become a “professional gym jock,” she looked at me dumbfounded and told me that I was an idiot and started telling me all about the rehabilitation field. Her brother-in-law is an occupational therapist, and she immediately realized that the things that I had liked most about my job in the gym; namely helping others, interacting with a wide range of people, as well as the physical training itself, sounded exactly like what a physical therapist experiences every day! I made my decision that night after my first day in the gym to pursue therapy! It’s been a long process of getting certified as a trainer, going back to school for my post-baccalaureate work and now finishing my doctoral training, but I am more excited to begin my “new” career than I have ever been before.
MR: One thing I really respect about you is the fact that you have the understanding of a PT, but you can also translate that into real-world results with strength trainers. How have you managed to achieve that?
JF: I might ask you the same question, Mike!
I guess that I’ve never really separated the two entities in my head, to be honest: to me, they’re just two parts of the bigger picture as a performance coach. I’m certainly not a physical therapist yet, but I have had the fortune to learn from some outstanding therapists and professors in my education so far, as well the opportunity to interact and learn from some incredible trainers and coaches as well, and that definitely includes guys like you, Eric, and Bill. It doesn’t matter where I’ve learned a given technique or particular approach to a problem: if it works, it works! My job is to get my clients and my athletes results, and I use every tool in my tool box and experience that will help to make that happen!
I personally feel that no matter what a client or athlete presents with, it must be addressed, no matter what the “field” might be, whether it’s more traditional rehab, athletic performance enhancement, or general strength training. Nothing is an individual component or separate concept when it comes to proper form, movement and adding weight to the bar.
Whether that’s physical therapy or strength training, it’s all “the same” from that perspective. Rather than a group of unrelated factors, I tend to see everything as a series of links in a chain: a problem at any link is a specific weakness that can cause problems at any number of other links in that chain. By simply correcting a muscle/posture imbalance, I'm decreasing the likelihood of a musculoskeletal injury down the road, increasing my client's overall time in the gym and decreasing time lost to injury and recovery (the basic concept behind performance enhancement). If that means treating some clients more like rehab patients and treating some rehab patients more like strength athletes, as long as the technique is sound and the approach works, that’s what’s important to me.
In the end, it means better results faster, and that’s what my clients are paying me for!
MR: Let’s talk shop for a minute – what’s something you consistently see people doing wrong in the gym?
JF: At first, I was going to talk about the “standard” mistakes, such as women afraid to lift heavy (or lift at all, for that matter), guys that lift too heavy and sacrifice form, too much isolation and body-part splits, etc, etc. But I realized that those are just examples and not really the problem. What I consistently see people doing wrong in the gym is that they don’t take the time to analyze what they’re actually doing, as well as their results! The problem really is that anything will work for a little while, especially as a beginner. Anyone can see a certain amount of results from a body-part split, light weight and high reps, steady-state cardio, or anything else that they try. However, most people won’t continue to see results for long. But rather than stopping and realizing that their programs aren’t really working for them anymore, they continue along with the same plan, assuming that something is wrong with them and not their routine!
The truth is, weight lifting can be very technical and detailed when you get down to it, but it doesn’t have to be difficult to grasp the most important concepts to see continued and lasting results, either: Lift heavy things, eat, sleep, repeat! If something is working, use it. If it stops working, stop using it and do something else! Our body is designed to adapt. We need to continue to adapt our approach in order to see results in our training, especially as we become more experienced. That can mean any number of things, from periodizing your routine, taking more lifts over 90% of your 1 rep max, adding days for “dynamic effort” speed work, etc, etc.
The easiest way to stop seeing results is to stop searching for them…
And that’s the mistake that I consistently see people making in the
gym: Even though they think that they’re doing more and more, they’re
actually doing nothing at all!
MR: Ok same question, but what are they doing outside of the gym
that’s hindering their results?
JF: They forget their goals once they leave the gym. They don’t get enough sleep, they have poor nutrition, they have poor posture, they drink or smoke, etc, etc, all of which will quickly undo the majority of the hard work and effort that they put into the gym in the first place. To be honest, some of my athletes are the worst perpetrators! After a win, they’ll go out and celebrate with partying and drinking. Don’t get me wrong, I was an undergraduate too once, but there’s a fine line between celebrating a win and not being able to remember it the next morning!
I tell my clients and teams that they’re in the gym for maybe an hour a day, probably a total of 4-6 hours per week at most. That means that there’s another 160-something hours each week that they won’t be training or practicing. Those are the most crucial hours in a person’s routine, the hours that you spend away from the routine! Not eating properly or not getting enough sleep when you’re trying to reach a training goal is like washing, waxing and detailing your car - and then driving it through a sandstorm! If you want that car to shine, you had better avoid the rough weather!
MR: Last question – if you could only give people one piece of advice to help them achieve their goals, what might that be?
JF: Have a plan, not just a goal. Losing 10 pounds by your birthday or increasing your deadlift by 50 pounds by the end of the summer are great goals, but they’re not a plan. In order to achieve any goal that you may have, you not only need to have a clear understanding of how that can be accomplished, you need to specifically know what you’ll have to do to be successful!
For instance, while going to the gym and working out itself might satisfy the “how” in a weight trainer’s quest to add that 50 pounds to their deadlift, it doesn’t answer the what. Constructing your gym schedule so that you have a systematic and adaptable periodization, addressing when, how often and how many over 90% lifts you’ll be attempting in any given workout, when you’ll be increasing and decreasing volume, knowing what marks you need to hit at what points in your training, what accessory lifts you need to use to bring up weak points, as well as making sure to get enough sleep, proper nutrition and overall recovery is a plan.
Without one, you’re just going to the gym and working out.
MR: Awesome, thanks so much for the interview! Where can my newsletter readers learn more about you?
They can have a look over at my website http://acceleratedstrength.com/ as well as my blog where I wax philosophic about all things fitness related, http://jonathanfass.blogspot.com/
Thanks so much, Mike, and thank you to all of your readers for taking the
time to listen to me ramble a bit!
New Articles:
Here are Mike's most recent articles:
Plateau Busters! 5 GUARANTEED Ways to Analyze and Break Through Plateaus
Hips Don't Lie: Fixing your Force Couples
Schedule:
July 20 & 21 - Functional Movement Screen Workshop (Indianapolis, IN)
Stay strong,
Mike
www.RobertsonTrainingSystems.com