Me and the gang at dinner.
As you may know, I’m located in Toronto.
Ahhh, Toronto…
Besides milk coming in bags (instead of jugs), we don’t really have much unique things…including fitness seminars. Ya, we never have those.
Until now…
Enter the PTDC Seminar
The first of many (hopefully), Jon Goodman put together an all-star line-up only 20 minutes from my apartment. How cool is that?
This seminar was a beast. I’m talking 13 total hours of knowledge bombs left, right, and centre. Now, I could give you a bunch of notes on every single presenter, but I don’t roll that way. Here’s the thing: just like your nutrition, I could give you a thousand things to do and set you up to fail, or I could give you one thing to do and set you up to succeed. It’s your choice.
With that being said, I am going to give you one take-away from each presenter’s presentation. Think of it this way, if you start doing just one thing new that you learned at every seminar you attended, you will have gotten your money’s worth.
“How do you like them apples?”
Without further ado, let’s dive into Day 1.
The PTDC Seminar Day 1
For 3 hours, Tony spoke about the exact assessment method they use at Cressey Performance. The Take-away: I should probably start testing a few basic lifts (chinup, squat, deadlift etc) during my assessment process. If the client looks good and is pain free then I’ll load them up and see how strong they are.
The next 3 hours consisted of Nick speaking about core training. The Take-away: Thanks to tons of research Nick presented, as long as the client is pain free, spinal flexion is OK. In order to increase hypertrophy of the rectus abdominus (your six pack), you need to be doing some weighted spinal flexion. I’m definitely going to play around with this.
The PTDC Seminar Day 2
Six presenters. One day. Can it be done? Hellz yes.
This guy knows social media. Period. For an hour straight, Mr Goodman spoke about his theory behind Facebook. It was awesome. The Take-away: “Facebook is a tool for people to show off to their trusted audience (friends, family, ex-girlfriends) what they want others to know about them.” Jon then posted this picture:
Next up was another Canadian boy. Mark spoke about willpower, change, and getting compliance with your clients. In other words, he talked about getting your clients to do what you tell them to in order for them to get awesome results. The Take-away:
As seen with the figure above, every person is at a different stage in life with a certain goal. We could be talking nutrition, workouts, learning to cook, learning to play guitar, anything. Depending on which phase we are in, the sooner we will take action, the sooner we will reach our goals. The only problem is, there is always the chance to relapse.
To cap off the first half of the seminar, Tony G. spoke about training around injuries. The Take-away: Tony gave an awesome progression for training clients with shoulder injuries. Starting at the easiest and progressing to the hardest, it is: “(feet-elevated push-up ISO holds>(feet-elevated) body weight push-up>stability ball push-up>weighted pushup> neutral grip DB floor press>neutral grip decline DB press>pronated grip decline DB press>barbell board press>barbell floor press>neutral grip DB press>low incline DB press>close grip bench press>bench press>barbell incline press>chicks will want to hang out with you. WIN!!!!!”
Now it was time to hear my mentor speak. As you may know, I interned at Geoff’s gym – Bang Fitness – last summer. Obviously, I had an idea of what he was going to talk about, but it was still super cool to hear him speak for the first time. As an added bonus, he gave a shout out to me in the end of his presentation, so naturally, he was my favourite speaker. His topic was Group Training. The Take-away: Not everybody is ready for group training. During a group class, you want everyone to be moving well and pain free. If this isn’t possible with a certain exercise, regress on the fly. If this still doesn’t work, take them out of the class, clean up their movement (via personal training or referring out), then bring them back in.
Nick spoke about Hybrid Fat Loss Training. In his presentation, he showed us an exact training template that he uses with his fat loss clients, athletes, soccer moms, and senior citizens. The Take-away: Using a 3 day template, have a pull day, a push day, and legs day. These aren’t true training splits, just the focus. Perform 3 full body tri sets and exert yourself on the first exercise. Use the following two exercises as active recovery and to increase movement quality.
Dan Trink
If you’ve never seen Dan in real life, then let me give you a warning. He’s built like a brick shit house. Dan spoke about Hybrid Training Programming Tips. The Take-away: If you want to design a program that will increase strength, size, and conditioning/fat loss, then put the hard stuff first. Here is an example program:
A1) Clean Grip Deadlift 4×6
A2) DB Bench Press 4×6
B1) Split Squat 3×10/s
B2) Single Arm DB Row 3×10/s
C) Fan Bike 5x :10/:50
In Conclusion
Obviously, just by reading this blog post you have already learned a lot. I just gave you a tiny preview; I learned a freakin’ ton. This seminar was totally awesome and I can’t wait for the next one. Seriously, my hat goes off to you, Mr Goodman, for taking action and putting this beast together.
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