Cressey Sports Performance Fall Seminar Recap

This past Sunday I attended the 3rd annual Fall Seminar at Cressey Sports Performance. It was a long day full of learning and I loved it! I soaked up SO much information, I thought my brain was going to explode! It was also my first time at CSP, so getting to (finally) see the facility was awesome. I went with some of my friends who came down from Cortland to attend it. They drive out here on Saturday, and stopped at CSP on their way to deadlift. I'm so sad I couldn't join them, but I don't have a car and seeing as CSP is about 45 min away in Hudson, it just wasn't going to happen. Someday I'll lift there!






The seminar lasted about 8 hours, with 6 speakers and an hour break for lunch. All of the speakers were current or former coaches at CSP. The lectures ranged from nutrition, to various injuries, to coaching. It was a lot of information in a short amount of time, but I definitely learned a lot. Eric Cressey spoke on Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, and how to diagnose it. I didn't know much about TOS before this, so it was great to learn more about it. I probably won't ever encounter it in my career, but if I ever do I'll know what to look for!






My two favorite speakers were Brian St. Pierre, whose talk was titled "Paleo: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" and Chris Howard with "Trigger Points 101". There is a lot of current discussion regarding the paleo diet, and hearing all the facts about it was really cool. The basis of his discussion was that the paleo diet does have a lot of good qualities; such as encouraging the intake of whole foods, lean proteins, veggies, fruits, and healthy fats; however it also has some flaws. The "evolutionary" argument hasn't been proven and the evidence for excluding dairy, legumes, and grains isn't very strong. Definitely a very cool and "current" topic to speak about, and I learned a lot about the paleo diet! I'll still never try it....this Italian girl canNOT give up grains!




Trigger Points is a topic I have a very particular interest in. I'm a self-proclaimed "soft tissue nerd"...I take it upon myself to learn as much as I can about soft-tissue therapy and using it as injury rehab. So, naturally, this talk was really interesting to me! The discussion was much more in-depth than anything I've read about, and he incorporated case studies which was very cool. He also talked about how trigger points can mimic other conditions and may be diagnosed as something else. I see this all the time in my clients-people think they have this horrible injury when it's really just tender muscles! I definitely learned a lot from this lecture and I will be implementing a lot of stuff in my work!


So overall it was a great day. Long and exhausting, but still really fun! I think I've mentioned this in other posts, but if you work in fitness, investing in seminars and conferences and summits etc is a MUST. Yes, they are expensive but the information you can get from them is invaluable. Plus, you'll definitely use it and it will pay for itself in time. It's also a great way to network and meet new people! So suck it up, give up a few weekends, and go to continuing ed events. You won't regret it.




Stay STRONG and Stay FIERCE!