#todd durkin

[tdavenport88]

NFL trainer predicts breakout season for Eagles TE Zach Ertz

Select members of the Philadelphia Eagles wrapped up their training and team bonding session in San Diego last week. While in San Diego, the group received training from Todd Durkin, a trainer that works with various NFL players during the offseason.

Zach Ertz has worked with Durkin in the past. He predicted big things for Ertz when Les Bowen of philly.com asked about the offseason workouts.

Relat…

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[motus-fitness]

My experience at the Perform Better seminar

My experience at the Perform Better seminar

This past Saturday I had the opportunity to attend a Perform Better one-day seminar here in Denver.

But my day at the convention center almost wasn’t so. In fact, this very seminar had fallen off my radar and I had no idea the program was even in town. What happened is I was roaming around Twitter and saw a post by Perform Better talking about the event and how Gray Cook was attending.

Fast…

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Drinking an espresso while reading up on IMPACT Body Plan.

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Great day at the Activate Expo in Ottawa. My wife and I got to meet and workout with Todd Durkin

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Impact Summit - My Shameless Plug of the Week

It's been long since my club promoter college years.  I've since had minimal urges to shamelessly plug any kind of event through my social network - however, today I'm making an exception.

My good friend and fitness mentor Todd Durkin turned me onto a project of his called The Online Impact Summit.

There's a few key reasons I feel it's worth checking out.  Here they are in a nutshell.

1.  Inside info and genuine insight from top athletes, entrepreneurs and doctors.

2.  Access to people and content who are never this accessible.

3.  100% of the profits go to support an amazing charity - The Brees Dream Foundation

You can sign up at todddurkinimpactsummit.com

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Times Picayune Article on High Intensity Exercise Warm-ups

Here is the unedited version of my high intensity preparation story in the January 13, Times Picayune. No links to Nola.com at this time.

They’re everywhere now.

Panting, oxygen starved individuals jumping on boxes, leaping over hurdles, flinging free weights, medicine balls and kettle bells, moving from side to side, front to back and sometimes standing on their hands. Non-stop pulsing push-ups and kipping pull-ups are combined with mad dashes down the road and back or to cardio machines in a wild-eyed frenzy.

High intensity workouts are spreading like wildfire throughout the fitness world with at-home DVD workouts like P90X and Insanity, specialized workout gyms like Cross Fit and ubiquitous boot camps leading the burgeoning market for this efficient and effective form of training.

The workouts are based on traditional athletic training utilizing components from free weights, body weight and speed and agility training. The metabolic intensity of combining these moves in circuits along with short cardiovascular efforts of 30 seconds to two minutes at all out efforts generates huge caloric outputs in short periods of time. There is also a significant post workout caloric afterburn.

The benefits of high intensity interval training go beyond the caloric with research supporting a comparable if not superior aerobic benefit over long endurance efforts. Significant research studies have shown that endurance athletes can increase their ability to deliver oxygen to muscles by doing short rest all out efforts.

There is a downside however. Mild-mannered accountants are now working out like Olympic athletes and NFL players, but most are not preparing for their workouts in a manner similar to their professional athlete counterparts.

Athletic training is a long-term and complex system based around training intensity peaks and valleys throughout the year with significant steps needed to prepare the body for training periods that include a lot of impact to the joints and muscles.

Once thigh school, college or professional athlete reach the stage to perform these workouts, the daily preparation contain fairly lengthy warm-up phases leading up to the ballistic moves that stress the body with anywhere from two to 10 times individual body weight. Without these warm-ups, the chances of significant immediate or future injury rises.

San Diego based trainer Todd Durkin pushes paralegals and pros like Drew Brees and Darren Sproles in the off-season and his high intensity workouts but is also careful to make sure the trainees are well warmed-up with self-massage on foam rolls, stretching and dynamic warm-ups.

“The people in our high intensity classes do at least 5 to 10 minutes of foam rolling then 10 to 20 minutes of light cardio before we start the dynamic warm-up,” Durkin said. ““We want the muscles and the fascia to warm-up to help get good tissue pliability before we start high intensity and high impact movements.”

Durkin’s dynamic warm-up consists of 20 to 25 minutes basic athletic movements at half to three-quarter speed.  Flexibility is enhanced with movements like multi-dimensional walking lunges and hamstring stretches, side shuffles, skips, carioca twists, and agility drills with cones and speed ladders to work up a good sweat.

Durkin will also individualize the warm-ups to address any misalignment issues a participant may have and has added a more diverse dynamic warm-up called “Core and Cuffs” to his programming this year.

The program is based on the muscle movement theory addressing muscle systems that are linked throughout the body.  Core and Cuffs emphasizes exercises that stimulate movement from the hip to the hand prior to an intensive upper-body workout.

The latissimus dorsi back muscle is an example of this trunk to fingertip muscle system. The lat starts near the back of the hip, sweeps up through the rear rib cage area and has connections ending in the back of the shoulders and in front of the upper arm bone.  Oftentimes shoulder issues are caused by tight or immobile lat muscles and working on flexibility can return the shoulder muscle to proper movement patterns.

Similar systems exist throughout the body at every joint and addressing the alignment issues can help prevent or reduce the chance of injury.

“Underperforming on the dynamic warm-up cheats on your ability to perform complex athletic movements correctly and increases your chances of injury,” Durkin said.

Former NFL lineman and current Mandeville Real Estate agent Louis Williams found out the importance of maintaining muscle pliability during a long event at a recent boot camp completion which featured a wide variety of events including big tire flipping and towing, pushups and pull-ups, kettle bell throws and 45 lb plate carries.

 “The older I get the more warm-up I need. It would take a minimum of 30 minutes of a diversified warm-up to prepare for high intensity workouts,” the 32-year-old former LSU and Carolina Panther’s offensive lineman said.

 In his college and professional days, Williams and his teammates pre-workout routine consisted of 20 to 40 minutes would warm-ups and stretching prior to their workouts. LSU even had a specific room dedicated to warming up.

Despite warming up prior to the overall contest,  Williams still pulled a hamstring muscle during the obstacle course portion of the event and learned why his veteran NFL teammates would often use stationary bicycles with peddles and handles during the games to maintain they’re readiness.

“My muscles got cold waiting for the obstacle course. I should have started my warm-up over again.” Williams said. “When I was with Carolina, the older players would get on stationary bikes in between series to keep the blood flowing because you never knew when you had to go back in.”

Other overlooked preparations for high intensity workouts include good pre-workout nutrition and hydration according to Durkin. “If you are not fueled or hydrated correctly before a workout, you will fatigue earlier and fatigue causes injury, “

Durkin added a final emphasis addressing the work phase high intensity training.

“Everything in the workout has to have a specific purpose. If the purpose is to go to exhaustion in every workout, that purpose is dangerous and not well balanced. Just because you see a workout (or exercise) on YouTube doesn’t mean you should start doing it. You need to start off with specific programming that prepares you for that workout. All of our athletes and clients train diverse movements that are functional and safe.” Durkin said.

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The IMPACT! Body Plan

Todd Durkin C.S.C.S recently released his IMPACT! Body Plan. It teaches the fundamentals of getting your mind and body right while attaining your fitness goals. The book contains meal planning advice, and proper warm-up and recovery techniques, along with ten weeks of workouts that build on each other to develop your training. You will use such tools as the TRX Suspension Trainer, Bosu Ball, Super Bands, resistance bands, dumbbells, kettle bells, and foam rollers to work towards peak physical performance. Todd Durkin helps you establish your fitness goals and teaches you how to get after them.  "10 in, 10 out."

The book is great, but some parts are a little vague, while others lack consistency. One of the biggest hang ups was the introduction to a term called "run the rack," which is described as dividing your training schedule into one whole body workout, one upper body day, and a lower body day. The term then appears several times in the with dumbbell biceps curls, starting heavy, and selecting lighter weights as the number of sets progresses. Another inconsistency is the way workouts are written. Some exercises involving extremities are written as Exercise Sets x Reps/Arm or Side (Single-Arm DB Row 3 x 6-8/Arm), but the format is not always observed the same way through the whole book. Yes, this is me nit-picking, but lack of consistency is one of the enemies of reaching your true potential.

A typical IMPACT Workout is broken down like this:

Foam Rolling to promote healthy fascia

Dynamic Warm-Up: 9-11 exercises and drills

Joint Integrity: 3-5 exercises focusing on your Hips, Shoulders, and Balance

Core: 3-5 exercises with trunk emphasis

Plyometrics: 3-5 exercises using explosive power, introduced around the 4th week

2-3 Super Sets with upper body emphasis*

2-3 Super Sets with lower body emphasis*

Grand Finale Conditioning - Your last chance to leave it all at the gym

Stretching

After completing the ten weeks of workouts, I have noticed improvements in my flexibility and power, while the foam rolling before each workout has significantly helped my post-workout recovery.  I highly recommend this book to anyone seeking a strong foundation in fitness, if you have the ability to motivate yourself.