So team Okanagan Peak Performance Inc has just returned from Long Beach, CA where we attended the Perform Better conference. This is an incredible event with many of the top experts in our industry presenting over 3 days in sunny California. Here are our take-aways from who we got the chance to see. Dr. Stu McGill - Mechanisms and Training Techniques Used for Elite Performance and Painful Backs: Cause, Corrective Exercises and Progressions to Performance Dr. McGill is one of the leading spinal bio-mechanists in the world and it's really cool that he's from Canada. Often times if you have the chance to see a presenter that is a leader in the field of research they are great at giving lectures where they present their findings. But put them in a fitness setting however and ask them to lead a hands-on where they incorporate their theory into actual demonstrations and they become lost. This is not the case with Dr. McGill. His lectures are excellent and his hands-on presentations match this quality as well. A few of the key take-aways from his presentations include: * lots of split stance lunges or squats may not be appropriate for everyone* when the core fires there is a double action which he described as 'setting the stone' and 'bringing the hammer'* the best athletes in the world are great not because they can activate a muscle faster than the rest but because they can turn it down faster than everyone else* with this idea of activating muscles McGill used the analogy of a dimmer rather than a regular light switch to indicate muscles being more or less activated rather than on or off Dr. Greg Rose - Developing Power for Rotary Athletes If you watch the Golf Channel you may be familiar with Dr....

Summer time at Okanagan Peak Performance Inc means a number of things. It can mean the arrival of the hockey players we work with. It can mean the return of a summer intern. And it can mean school is in session. Not literally though as summer is the time students are off from school. But more in terms of the staff at Okanagan Peak Performance Inc going to school. This summer has been no different. Here's a quick recap of where we've been for learning. NSCA State Clinic - Spokane, WAHeading to Spokane for a conference is always fun as I 'm able to reconnect with some college buddies. If you're in the area go see Dan and his staff at the Laguna Cafe. Try the Irish Death beer. I hear it's good. In early June Jordy, Megan & I packed up and headed south to Spokane for the NSCA Washington State Clinic. We would have been four but one of the interns forgot his passport and had to stay home. Interns... A few years ago I had the opportunity to see Dr. Dale Canavan provide a review of the literature with respect to stretching. Knowing the quality of his own presentations I felt confident he would put on a great event this year. We weren't disappointed. Sessions included topics on dynamic warm-ups, sprint training and training the high school athlete. As this all took place at a training facility called U District it was nice to have access to some turf and room to move for the hands-on portion. U District is located in the Gonzaga University district and thus the name. Personally there were a couple of highlights of this clinic. First was Ryan Hite's presentation on speed training. He did a great job on defining the various energy systems...

Recently Alexandra and I drove down to Seattle with Jordy and Megan for a one day clinic put on by Perform Better. At this particular event we were lucky to catch the following four presenters: Rachel Cosgrove Charlie Weingroff Gray Cook Alwyn Cosgrove Mike Boyle was scheduled to present but I can imagine his new position with the Red Sox probably limits his time and availability to participate in these events. So Gray Cook filled in for him. Are you familiar with Gray Cook? If not it's like saying Crosby is not available for the shootout but Ovechkin can fill in for him. Kudos to Perform Better for providing a fill-in such as Gray. And lucky for all of us in attendance. But let's get to what they all talked about. 1. Rachel Cosgrove -  Designing Fat Loss Programs For Your Female Clients The big take aways from Rachel's presentation was the level of system development that exists at Results Fitness which she owns with her husband Alwyn. Better systems allows for better results. She went into detail showing the breakdown of what an hour session looks like at her gym and provided a number of examples of factors that are unique to training women. For example there should be consideration of prone exercises, jumping exercises, time of month (menstruation) and time of their life (menopause) when training women. 2. Charlie Weingroff  - Understanding Joint Centration If you've seen Charlie speak before you'll know what a treat it is to learn from him. And while he's great online and on podcasts etc he's such an energetic personality you really do need to see him in person. Click at the end of this sentence to see Charlie in Kelowna this summer www.strengthconference.comWhat is joint centration? Well I hope I'm doing Charlie justice by describing...