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Hello, my friends, my lovelies. Hi Mom, or whoever reads this.

Today I’m gonna share my impressions and some learning points from the past three weeks, in which I took three separate seminars.

RMT Club Certification

Sat, April 17th, I took the RMT Club certification via Weck Method.

David Weck in the creator of the BOSU ball, and has created some other equipment/tools, such as the Pulsers, which he asserts increase running speed. I was very intrigued to meet him, see his laboratory (gym), and learn more about the RMT clubs, and his method in general. He did not disappoint. He is a total mad scientist, and has some pretty out-there ideas, but I totally respect that. I first discovered his existence from his appearance on the Ben Greenfield podcast…He was pretty out there. But obviously incredibly intelligent and an expert on movement and locomotion on another level. He even stated in the workshop that if he was offered a free cruise or trip around the world, he wouldn’t give a shit, because he is happy where he is now, doing what he is doing… which is optimizing athletic performance and functional strength.

His methods/ideas are stuff I was not extremely familiar with. Yes, as a trainer, I’ve been exposed to lots of ideas, but this was something I was like hmmm. kind of get it. A few things I didn’t get, but for the most part, I was getting the gist of his ideas. I certainly could pick up the movements of the RMT club (and David Weck told me I am very coordinated! :::fan girl glee!:::) and understand its applications, including training and reinforcing coiling patterns.

One of the biggest takeaways I gleened from the RMT cert was that optimized athletic movement is based upon coiling and asymmetrical yet balanced patterns. The fasted running, throwing, hitting, etc is done with, for example, one shoulder dropped and one shoulder elevated at a time. Therefore, Weck Method promotes these coiling movements, especially during transverse plane drills/exercises. A lot of the stuff David was saying really flew in the face of a lot of mainstream fitness doctrines. For example, he doesn’t like Pallof Presses, because he would rather see diagonal and free rotation, to allow for optimal athletic movement.

Animal Flow Certification

Animal Flow I took the following Saturday and Sunday, in Woodland Hills. I was impressed! I was kind of just expecting it to be trendy (sorry if I was a hater). But…I was impressed. The creator of Animal Flow, Mike Fitch, is an awesome guy who was not only passionate, extremely articulate in his rationale for the exercises, and a legit movement expert (see the video below), but was also chill as fuck and made everyone feel comfortable doing what they could in the certification (cough cough like me).

He tried to balance anterior- chain dominant poses like beast with posterior-chain dominant poses like crab. He wanted us to learn a certain vocabulary of basic poses to string together into “flows.” I was expecting my ankle and wrists to hurt a lot, but surprisingly it was my quads and lats that got sore. Cool!

The class was pretty large, and I didn’t talk to everyone (shy gal that I can be, I swear!) and I was sour when later I saw tagged peeps and found out there were people off Instagram that I was following who were there and I wished I had the opportunity to connect with them in person.

Muscle, Strength, and Fat Loss Seminar 

Last weekend, I attended the Muscle, Strength, and Fat Loss seminar with Bret Contreras, Brad Schoenfeld, and Alan Aragon (hereafter called Bret’s seminar since it took place in his gym). People came from far and wide, including Canada, Mexico, Texas, Philly, etc…In a packed room of 100 people, I actually only met one other person from San Diego (granted, remember I can be shy, mkay? so I didn’t meet everyoneee).

Unlike the Weck Method cert, the material covered in Bret’s seminar felt familiar like the back of my hand. This was my bread and butter. Stuff I’ve been studying, doing, and breathing for a long time. Glute training for women? Program design for hypertrophy? Protein consumption guidelines? I got this, girl.

There was a lot of review of the past, present, and even soon-to-be-published research regarding nutrition, hypertrophy, etc. I loved it all. Everything felt very familiar, and I enjoyed listening to it all. Bret was hilarious as shit, which I wasn’t expecting, so that was awesome to see how his personality is so crazy. I also enjoyed how laid-back he was with regards to exercise frequency and form. But he doesn’t come to it from a place of ignorance– he considers all the evidence and makes his own informed opinion. For example, even through Brad’s research demonstrated optimal hypertrophy when you hit a muscle approx twice a week, Bret still acknowledges that some women have amazing results training them almost daily. He chalks this up to genetic differences. Also, he allows his clients to use some pads that will elevate their heels during squats. He believes that if it helps in form, and doesn’t hurt them, let them enjoy using the assist. While staunch mobility advocates might shit on this “cheat,” his attitude really allows for an ease in training and can de-pathologize a client. He thinks that it can really help a client improve her fitness if she feels confident, feels good in their training, feels accomplished, and that there is nothing wrong with her. So many chiropractors, physical therapists, and other practitioners make a buck off of telling their clients how fucked up they are and how limited they should be. Bret’s attitude is kind of refreshing, to encourage his clients to explore all they can do.

In conclusion, I had a great time working on mah edumacation, learning all the thingz, surrounding myself with buff people in workout wear, and staying current. I stay hungry for new knowledge and look forward to continually learning more and more about fitness and nutrition.

XOXO,

Kristina

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