“The Dude Abides” – The Dude.  For everyday use – meaning – when you do your own thing.  As contrast with following the madness of crowds.  Image: The Big Lebowski

Once STPro’s financial advisor asked a conversation starter question… So, What’s Your Favorite Investment?  After a brief pause, STPro’s answer was: Myself.  Luck may come and go, markets may come and go and business conditions may come and go.  But there is one thing one thing that must stay the course, maximize total return and last through retirement: physical health, strength, mental clarity and stamina.

Investments are graded on their balance sheet health and forward looking growth potential.  To realize returns over time, quality advice and disciplined self-management of resources are essential.  Following the madness of the markets and trendy too-good-to-be-true asset bubbles quickly leads to below average returns – or outright massive losses.  To pick any good investment, it is typical to apply a screen.  This weeds out the plethora of competing assets all vying for your investment.  And the same approach works well for exercise conditioning: weed out the low-grade advisors, pick a plan based on quality and grow your personal “net-worth” with disciplined practice and focus on building your assets over time.

Like the investment markets, Youtube has a plethora of “investment opportunities” for our time and effort.  In the early days, mostly established athletic institutions provided quality content based on their established training practices.  But these may lack the glitter and appeal of the false promises of the new generation of Youtube-Exer-tainment Industry.  With so many potential viewers and revenue generating opportunities, Youtube is now awash in a sea of “experts” with access to cool looking urban gyms with hip graffiti, hi-res digital cameras and the sound of banging weights in the background… And just like Wall Street, they may look the part and talk a pretty fancy line,  but keep in mind the saying on Wall Street: these guys are experts at playing with other people’s money.  And in the Youtube Exer-tainment world, these guys are experts at playing with other people’s health.  Your most vital and important asset.

Just like the investing field, popular may not always be profitable.  Research is essential to identify investment opportunities.  But research for quality channels is time-consuming and made more difficult by Youtube search rankings driving results by “popular opinion”.  In other words, increasingly, Youtube searches often reveal a bewildering array of splashy, attention getting ad-revenue generating Exer-tainment (exercise entertainment).

To weed through the madness, as with investments, STPro applies a screening criteria.

Quality Self-Investment Screening Criteria:

• Verifiable and Appropriate Credentials
• Builds Total Body Athleticism (not a vanity channel)
• Athletic Focus on Health – Including Cross-Training for Body Balance
• Demonstration Quality & Technical Precision
• Integrity & Commitment to a Quality Brand Channel

After viewing thousands of hours of some pretty awesome – and some pretty lame channels, STPro recommends the following Top 3 Channels for athletes who are disciplined investors who would appreciate and benefit from quality exercise consultations.

In alphabetical order by brand name…

ATHLEAN-X(TM)

STPro recommends this channel for:  1. all athletes who weight lift for cross-training;  2. all rotational sports athletes, especially baseball and tennis as essential resource for rotational sports skill conditioning;  3. athletic individuals who do not play a sport but seek well-rounded, challenging training for health and physique.

Athlean-X(TM) Back Story:  Content created by Jeff Cavaliere MSPT, CSCS.  Jeff served as both the Head Physical Therapist and Assistant Strength Coach for the New York Mets during the National League East Championship 2006, 2007 and 2008 seasons. He is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist by the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA).

Advantages

Anatomy & Physiology Essentials:  Provides accurate, jargon free and expert discussion of common joint issues.  Essential knowledge for athletes in training.  Addresses common athletic questions and debunks Gym Myths along the way.

Breadth of Weight Training: It will be difficult to find a weight training move not covered with solid technical advice.  The challenge will be searching the channel to find the move.  This is covered below in Dis-Advantages.

Coverage of Popular Bodyweight Trends with Benefits, Training Progressions & Risks: The channel is inclusive of popular moves such as muscle-ups and levers.  Risk-reward for these moves are covered where appropriate.  Progressions are well-presented and creative in use of gym or home equipment.

Myth Busting:  This channel will directly challenge myths and bad training advice proponed in heavily commercialized channels.  Includes diet and supplement mythology.

Iron Graveyard:  Provides specific detail on updating and outdating some weight training moves that may cause harm.  Avoids too much detail – provides just enough so that athletes are able to manage their own training.

Bodyweight Programming:  The website offers calendar based, well-documented training programming.  STPro recommends this online programming to friends and family.  It provides well-balanced programming, requires no gym membership and is focused on total athletic health.  Further, the programming emphasizes getting out of the gym for healthy movement and in addition to two strength days, includes field days for essential high-intensity Vo2 Max training including  running drills or boxing or skipping rope etc.

(BTW, there is a “women’s channel” which STPro has not tested.  STPro recommends the ladies get a pull-up band assister thingy and do the man’s workout on Athlean-X(TM).  Why?  Because your bones and muscles run the same way.  So no excuses honey.  Put that pink dumbbell down and let’s see your deadlift.  STPro’s professional opinion of  Youtube’s plethora of “Chic Fitness” channels:  a sexist insult.  STPro varies the sets, reps and weight levels for women: but not the movements.  STPro in practice applies more variation in training program by bone structure, history of athletic training and goals than by gender.)

Disadvantages

Heavy Handed Almost Unbearable Marketing Schpeel is Aimed at Young Males Who Want to Get Huge:  In addition to the marketing style, all of the programming sets and reps cater to hypertrophy only.  For athletic goals, often training needs to focus on strength, endurance and skill over mass – so viewers/program users need to adjust their sets & reps on their own.   It seems that the more recent videos are  becoming more and more mainstream “gym fitness” and “get huge” and the already thick hype is getting thicker.  But STPro urges everyone to bear with it.   The quality is still there – so it is worth being patient with Athlean-X’s obnoxious marketing to realize they gotta make a buck too.

A companion resource for understanding periodization for athletic training and managing your own cycles of weight levels, sets and reps by goal: Periodization Training for Sports  Cover excerpt: “In this new edition of Periodization Training for Sports, Bompa teams with strength and conditioning expert Carlo Buzzichelli to demonstrate how to use periodized workouts to peak at optimal times by manipulating strength training variables through six training phases (anatomical adaptation, hypertrophy, maximum strength, conversion to specific strength, maintenance, and tapering) and integrating them with energy system training and nutrition strategies.”  A solid read for every person – not just competitive athletes and coaches.  A worthy investment in your best asset: Your Health.

Marketing Titles Make it Hard to Find the Right Training Tip: To drive view traffic for a youtube mainstream audience,  most of  the channel’s super great training tips are re-positioned from athletic goals into gym fitness goals of “doing more reps” and “getting huger”.  While these claims are certainly true, the origin of the training tips Jeff teaches is the field of athletic performance.  Those goals would be things such as running faster, hitting a ball further, resisting injury  and being really good at skill-based things.

But, it is what it is.  Everyone has to play the game to survive.  And, sadly, the biggest part of the American fitness market is vanity.  In the investment markets, this is a short-run return Las Vegas style of gambling: it may pay off big in the short run, but in the long run, only the house wins.  Or as the beloved character Dom Mazetti  puts it, “Win-timidation” over Skill.  You may look good – but when times get tough, you couldn’t fight your way out of a wet paper bag.  Or even run away very fast.

Fictional Gym Humor character Dom Mazetti with (real life athlete) Terence Crawford. Terence Crawford (born September 28, 1987) is the current  WBO junior welterweight  champion.  As of June 2016 he is ranked by The Ring as the world’s sixth best boxer. Crawford is a fast, hard-hitting, and highly technical fighter who is recognized for his ability to comfortably switch hit from orthodox to southpaw.  The following is satire.  It is politically incorrect, crude and includes profanity.  And it is hilarious.  It is a perfect metaphor for the mainstream fitness “goals” of youtube gym training.  STPRo trains extensively from martial arts and boxing disciplines and was stoked to discover this gem.  STPro is a Terence Crawford fan – fighting Southpaw requires mad skills!

But all marketing tactics aside, Jeff Cavalier is a true pro trainer at heart – he constantly repeats best practices and encourages thoughtful training – and in spite of the heavy-handed marketing, overuse of hyperactive bright red & yellow, too many confusing product packages named X-this and X-that, at the core, Jeff continues to maintain credibility in training techniques.  And listening to many of his videos over the years, there is much integrity at the heart of this channel.  It is worth digging in and making time to listen, watch and learn.  There are actually killer results make-or-break tips being conveyed underneath the marketing.  Unusual in this day of social media generated fluff.

The Channel

Athlean-X(TM) on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/JDCav24

Website:  http://www.athleanx.com

and STPro’s personal playlist of Athlean-X(TM) killer super-tweaks for weight room results for “Back Day”:  killer back day tweaks

RYAN FORD – PARKOUR EDU

Parkour is derived from an urban style of military tactical training.  It requires mental focus, skill, strength and total body fitness.  STPro recommends the Parkour training for all athletes – especially mountaineering, rock-climbing and board sports cross-training.   In addition, Parkour emphasizes hip mobility for skillful landings of soft jumps which is an excellent cross-training for total body health and physical capability. 

The training and skills emphasized in Parkour are essential foundational movement skills: running, jumping, pulling and problem solving.   If you train at STPro in Denver, you will be challenged with the outdoor obstacle course in the park across the street – this is really fundamental movement skill.  One lap through the course will quickly reveal the extent to which routinized, commercialized “fitness” training does not promote total body health.

Ryan Ford’s Parkour channel provides a go-to resource for testing your skills, mobility and true athleticism and capability – and it is structured to adapt to all levels.  Parkour trains for capability and problem solving.  In most of life’s situations, we can’t “bench press” our way out of things.

Ryan Ford Backstory:  Parkour Master Trainer and Athlete, Founder of Parkour EDU.  Ryan is from Golden, CO and graduated in 2009 from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Now known internationally as a top Parkour athlete and coach, Ryan started training parkour in 2004. Since then, he has performed around the world for organizations such as the U.S. Embassy, Cisco, Nokia, HP, BET, and K-Swiss. Additionally, Ryan has been featured by media giants such as the New Yorker, TIME, and ESPN. In 2006, he established the western hemisphere’s first formal parkour classes. Recently, Ryan has turned his gym, APEX Movement, into one of the world’s top parkour gyms, with 4 locations, an elite pro team, and a leading coaching certification. Ryan also has a renowned parkour training video series on YouTube called Demon Drills, which has over 3 million views and 20,000 subscribers. Thanks to his work on YouTube, he was invited into YouTube’s prestigious Next Trainer program and soon thereafter, joined the prominent FitFluential group as a fitness ambassador. Ryan is currently sponsored by Vivo Barefoot, Larkburger, and Illegal Pete’s.

Advantages

Problem Solving: Sticking with the investing analogy, like investing in the markets: Parkour involves risk.  Here’s the thing about risk: it is essential for kicking off neural processes that generate growth.  While risk tolerances and perceptions vary, the human body is wired to manage risk.  Perceived risk actually kicks off neural processes that create hormonal states that enhance performance, generate “flow-state” hormones and fire up the entire kinetic chain to perform.  Not convinced?  We can measure it – how to create all the really good drugs without a trip to the pharmacy:  Neurochemistry of Flow States

Parkour drives right into the heart of our deep survival processes to invite manageable risk.  Risk requires problem solving, and the human body loves problem solving.  The human body is an amazing mathematical genius.  We are wired to solve complex mathematical problems that not even the most sophisticated engineers cannot solve.  But there is a catch.  These processes require new challenges – and that is why solid programming requires constantly changing a workout routine.  The brain has to stay in the game.  The body is wired as an integrated unit with thinking, moving and executing.

Like an experienced and solid investment advisor, the Parkour community sees every challenge as an opportunity for growth.  And the moves they use are intuitively obvious: running, jumping, climbing and pulling yourself up and over objects.

Finally, mindless investing generally leads to loss of capital, deterioration of returns and deploying capital on high-risk/low-return opportunities.  In short – you go broke and hurt yourself.  You’re in the hole, maybe for good.  You can see this in group exercise classes, especially in the HIIT craze.  Seeking sheer vanity, folks are mindlessly wailing away at punching bags – in bad form, with no thoughtfulness.  It is not if, but when, they will become injured.

In contrast, STPro preaches the same mindful training and borrows extensively from the Parkour repertoire for training.  And for folks who don’t care for the the obstacle course (you can really scrape up knees and elbows ), STPro uses simple martial arts and boxing moves that involve coordination and targets.  Just a cross-punch and a roundhouse kick.  Think about it.  Control your body.  Then go take a lesson at a boxing academy – a real boxing academy.  Why? Because they will have you spar for real with somebody a lot better than you.  And nothing wakes up the mind, body and kinetic chain like a real punch in the face.  Or as Bruce Lee says, pretend that bag is going to kick you back.

When you’re choosing sides for kickball, are you gonna go with the biggest guy… or the skilled player?  Even the biggest defensive lineman is no good if he can’t read the offense and make plays.  Invest wisely in keeping a sharp mindfulness or your assets will decay.

Equipment Free: The Parkour movement is creative and ingenious at presenting healthy training that is equipment and gym-membership free.  No gym?  Too bad. No excuses!

Breadth of Training:  With an emphasis on athletic skill, the Parkour training covers all essential aspects of conditioning.  Because Parkour competitions are obstacle course based, they require full body integration, coordination and strength.  Their programming is fun and challenging – and working through the movement sequences will guarantee a totally fit body that is capable and ready for anything.

Adrenaline, Momentum, Mountain Sports & Military Fitness: The challenging demands of the Parkour movement training make this an excellent fit for extreme sports.  For the advanced lever training, depending on prior gymnastics and body weight experience, some digging around for breakdown progressions may be necessary — unless you can already crush a Dragon Flag.

Parkour training includes Ukemi, the art of falling, landing and crashing safely.  This is essential for extreme sport and service personnel.  From the talented Amos Rendao, a Must Watch for all STPro mountain bikers & service personnel – you have to work the core hard and use it in every training movement – no sloppy or robotic training.  Falling, crashing and surviving are all essential skills coordinated by the deep core – these are not optional “oh let’s do one core day” kind of a thing – unless you would like a short career and STPro’s sports rehab services.  Enough preaching, just watch Amos… (warning, this is witty, clever and involves a sense of humor about the sport of Parkour – and that comes in handy  after a public face plant under the lift, as you might as well laugh at yourself… because everyone else is.  Laugh and Live to fight another day.)

http://www.amosrendao.com
The roll is a foundational piece of the study of falling. Whenever you can possibly spread out the impact of a fall with some variation of a roll, it is usually the safest and lowest impact method.

(nitpicky note, STPro teaches a variation of this for momentum athletes that takes the arm plant out of the move – handy for 30mph or over crashes)

Disadvantages

Lack of Core Specific Training with Progressions: While it is true that if we are properly executing athletic forms, we shouldn’t need core specific training.  But in practice, a well-rounded training repertoire of core specific moves functional movement is often needed to balance out our movement patterns.  In some cases, spot-training weak core engagement areas can remedy and avoid use injuries.  While the Parkour training covers advanced core moves (Dragon Flag, Bar Front/Back Levers – WOW!), regressions and progressions to these are not detailed extensively.

Lack of Online Programming:  The online site is still underdevelopment and the channel does not offer sequencing and training routine planning.  Meanwhile, an excellent resource is Ryan Ford’s Book:  Parkour Strength Training: Overcome Obstacles for Fun and Fitness

Cover notes:

In Parkour Strength Training, you will learn how to:

The Channel

The channel is Millenial oriented with heavy use of social media.  This is both good and bad in the sense that browsing for information can be as much about weeding through heavy promotional tactics as learning.  As above with Athlean-X(TM), we all have to play the game.  In this case, it is worth the time and effort.  And that said, Ryan Ford is approachable and responsive to social media inquiries and using these tools to build a genuine community – refreshing!

Youtube: Ryan Ford Demon Drills Channel

Links to every social media channel extant are available from the youtube page.

Ryan Ford’s Mission: to launch an online platform for Parkour training here:

website: http://signup.parkouredu.org/

TEE MAJOR FITNESS

STPro highly recommends this channel for active and retired service personnel, mountain sports and all adrenaline athletes – ESPECIALLY THE FUNCTIONAL SERIES.   This channel chooses the best overall fitness training from bodyweight to weight lifting.  Core training is integrated into every workout routine and emphasized frequently: this makes it an excellent program to train in injury prevention and also for injury rehabilitation.  This injury prevention aspect makes it a favorite for STPro’s work with service personnel and adrenaline sports athletes who are subject to high speed falls and management of heavy loads and momentum.  In addition, with its heavy demands on extension based movement and the shoulder girdle supported by an integrated core to avoid injury, STPro also likes this channel as cross-training for modern dance.

Tee Major Back Story:  Most recent career highlights, from his long and comprehensive resume of training…

Advantages

Best Practices: One sign of a great trainer: they give you the warm-up speech.  Tee Major emphasizes and provides detail on effective dynamic warm-ups before every workout.

Trains Multiple Goals: Tee Major training will build strength, power, skill, endurance, V02Max, functional: running, climbing, scrambling, rock climbing, pushing/pulling and build a robust kinetic chain.  Integration and focus on “front side” core training is emphasized and especially applicable for service personnel with extreme loads on the back in extension (heavy packs, heavy lifting etc).

Progressions & Self-Tests: Training progressions with performance testing, especially self-testing and awareness are essential tools for an athlete and maintaining a robust, healthy kinetic chain.  His website programming provides this planning as a resource including printable PDFs of beginner, intermediate and advanced movement progression mapping.  Truly best practices in training methods.

Depth: Broad range of advanced movements all requiring integrated, total body optimal functioning.  While our American culture has become sedentary and physical fitness levels are declining, the Tee Major programming is “old school” and sets an appropriate standard for health and fitness levels.

Creative Combinations of Power Moves: “Behind the scenes” the Tee Major programming is training all aspects of coordination, shoulder girdle integration, lumbar stability, core activation, lateral system strength and activation, kinetic chain integration, oblique strength, plyometric skill, hip mobility, muscle endurance, shoulder stability, front side core support, back side core support, raw strength, conditioning… enough already!  It is thorough programming!  But to achieve this long list of goals, rather than following commercialized “gym fitness” (ineffective robotic, simplified “one-off” vanity muscle “micro training”), the Tee Major program uses highly challenging and effective power moves such as his Dragon Walk and the Combat Crab Walk.  In other words, just do his moves in good form (don’t skip moves you don’t like, ha ha!) and you have a well-balanced training program.  You won’t see Dragon Walk and Combat Crab Walk in generic fitness training because, well (read in a whiny voice) “it’s too hard”.  Sadly, these two moves require kinetic chain integration and are literally essential foundational movement skills.

Weight Room: The programming includes the most effective classic weight room training exercises – generally focused on back strength.  STPro encourages weight room cross-training – but not the commercial emphasis on overtraining weight room only (people start moving like robots and the core is either not engaged or barely supporting movement — but you sure look “hot” with that herniated disc).  The Tee Major mix of raw athletic coordination with bodyweight and supporting weight training are a solid mix of programming for athleticism.

Style & Manner: Tee Major is a class act.  It is obvious he has extensive experience training athletes for intensive missions and service.  His website and presentation materials reflect his professionalism.

Disadvantages

That his comprehensive training style is not adopted by mainstream commercialized vanity gym fitness.  Especially for women.  The women in Tee Major’s military programs are really kicking ass, passing their exams and getting their act together to advance in the ranks.  Sadly, for expert trainers like Tee Major, the average American market for training is limited.  Most of these trainers have to cater to the national average sub-standard and sedentary American fitness level (a disaster) to make a living – and this dramatically reduces the type of content they can monetize.  That said, the Tee Major channel is high quality, well-rounded, has not compromised integrity for sales and contains plenty of advanced moves and training routine ideas.

The Channel

STPro’s Personal Favorite is the Tee Major Functional, especially#11.  This one goes up to 11… and includes the infamous Turkish Get Up, a lateral system move similar to side plank, and what he is getting at here is integrated shoulder, oblique and lateral system integration, stability and power.  Done in proper form, the benefits of this move are phenomenal.   Tee Major’s demo is excellent – and don’t be fooled at how he makes this look easy.

From the Functional Playlist on the Tee Major channel:  “What is Functional Training: Functional training helps provide you with the strength, stability, power, mobility, endurance and flexibility that you need to thrive as you move through your life and sports. You use basic functional movement patterns like pushing, pulling, hinging, squatting, rotating, carrying and gait patterns (walking and running) every day. Functional training utilizes exercises that improve your movement proficiency in these primary patterns to give you an edge and enhance your performance so you can achieve your goals safely and with good health.”

In short, Functional Training means it trains you to be really good at doing stuff, like winning races and hitting personal bests.  Functional Training is closely related to martial arts – and is especially powerful for resisting injury.  Thus, it is a powerful component of any athletic cross-training and overall kinetic chain integration and health.

Tee Major youtube:  The Most Excellent Tee Major Fitness Channel

Website: http://www.teemajor.com

Bodyweight Top 44 Website: Test Yourself against the Tee

STPro has purchased and tested all of Tee Major’s products except the fat-loss programming.  STPro doesn’t train in that area or have need for weight loss programming (weight gain yes – still searching for that secret magical protein supplement, just like everybody else, ha ha).  Note, that in Tee Major’s case, with a background training young military recruits from the current American generation, fat-loss is an issue.  Thus, his offerings include current measurement techniques and standards necessary for service personnel.  Also, he provides healthy athletic eating programming methods and meal plans.  The Facebook page has a community working on life transformation and clean-eating challenges – and is a positive, hard working group.

and finally…

Pissing Off the Paleo-Bacon-Doughnut Cult

 STPro Avoids – Beware Any Channel Teaching Crossfit

For the handful of crossfit hard-cores who are in great shape and know what they are doing – STPro recommends the Tee Major advanced training for Navy Seals.  If you have gotten this far and survived the programming at Crossfit, you are certainly excellent at managing your own training and have exceptional survival skills.  The Tee Major advanced circuits would be right up your alley and add core strength and shoulder girdle stability power prehab to your routine.  

So You Wannabe a Navy Seal… Or You Are a Navy Seal, from Tee Major, then you should be able to do 5 rounds of this no problem (don’t skip the 30yards Dragon Walk in good form).

But this is not for the average crossfit “athlete”.   Actually, most crossfit can’t teach a proper pull-up, much less a solid athletic and functional pull-up as demonstrated above.    Watching just an hour  of crossfit, STPro has literally seen at least 10 shoulder dislocations, hip and likely labral tears, hernias, rib crushing (from *resting* the bar on the rib cage because they don’t know/don’t teach how to dump the bar on a fail) and spinal injuries that deserve an immediate MRI for diagnosis.  Until crossfit, it was unusual for a rehab trainer to have the opportunity to watch injuries being recorded live.  What is astounding: these “live injuries” were designed to show off on social media.

After STPro had seen enough – it was time to set off to research the backgrounds of various franchise owners of these boxes.  This revealed the source of this misery and woe: crossfit trainers only need a weekend course for the franschise license.  A weekend course for Olympic Weight lifting?  It is no wonder the Powerlifting community is offended: and they should be.

The investment analogy works here as well.  There are apparently a handful of these boxes that are run by solid, accredited trainers.  Even if we assume their “WOD” or workout of the day meets the screening criteria of total body health, the research costs of finding these out makes it very time consuming, aka, an expensive investment where research fees eat up the returns.

And finally, STPro lost all interest after meeting a crossfit “coach” who, when it came up in discussion, did not know what the Serratus Anterior muscle is.  For an athletic trainer: that is unthinkable and unforgivable.

And this negligence is why Physical Therapists are seeing people come in droves with destroyed shoulders and permanent lumbar dysfunction.

Maybe you can fool the folks in the league office, but you cannot fool the STPro.

You Got a Date Wednesday Baby scene (edited) from The Big Lebowski

While this will (hopefully) upset the Paleo-Bacon-Doughnut cult groupies who are convinced crossfit invented sports, STPro’s watching the back mirror… just come and get me… bring your physics book and a whiteboard and let’s go.  STPro has degrees in math, engineering, a long list of certifications and will offer “special rates” for training crossfitters (bring cash: you will have to pay STPro to listen to any more incessant bragging about crossfit ).  You gotta date baby!

In health and friendship, may you Abide a long, healthy and fulfilling life.

Copyright Studio T, LLC 2016