Benjamin Kessel

Working with athletes, specifically an endurance athlete, requires blending strength and performance-based training programs. This involves looking at both the physiological and musculoskeletal systems to ensure the athlete can move in an efficient, powerful, and safe way. This knowledge is based on a background in strength conditioning and endurance coaching, as well as experience growing up in a chiropractic office observing posture and kinesiology. The result of this expertise is a strong athlete that can control their workouts.
 
Transcript: "Topics that have the most unique opinions, methods of expertise around is working with an Adaptive athlete, specifically, an endurance athlete and combining their strength conditioning program and their Performance Based training program and putting them together in a perfect world. I am working with them in person with reconditioning and I'm also writing their endurance training programs as well. And I'm blending the two to have them peak in the best ways possible. Also through this lens, one of the things that I focus on is not just writing, someone's endurance training, The program based on their physiology but also looking at their muscular scope musculoskeletal system and seeing what they can do physically and making sure that, you know what their physical movements will can do in person when I wash them, doing the training conditioning, and training that they can also perform that to their best functional quality. So their mechanical quality, not physiology physiological quality and their endurance training programs do so, making sure that I'm writing, you know, watching them move physically and making sure that the program that are writing for them if the endurance That not only can they get the their heart rate to where there needs to be their Pace where they need to be. But they're also moving in a very, very efficient economic powerful and safe way. And you have to see both both sides of that, you have to see the physical, and then also the physiological and then combine them. So a lot of that comes back from my background and strength conditioning, coach and endurance. Coach also, I grew up in my father's chiropractic office and I've been watching posture and learning about just the way, the He moves and Kinesiology since I was you know, 7 years old. So it's all that history that brings it all together. And what we get out of that is a very strong athlete that can not only complete the workouts on paper but you can also see that they're very much in control of their workouts. When you watch them move, which is huge."

The most important strength exercises for endurance athletes are Romanian deadlifts, squats/front squats, overhead presses, Bulgarian split squats, and reverse lunge rows. These exercises focus on hip-generated power and full kinetic chain movement, helping to build core strength and stability.
 
Transcript: "What are the most important strength exercises for endurance athletes? We're going to prioritize powerful hip generated exercises. And this is because generally speaking, most Endurance, Sports require full body movement. And with full body movement, we need to make sure that we have a strong activated core that we can generate power from. So we can apply that to our full kinetic chain. Here are some exercises that I like the Romanian deadlift is a horizontal hip generated exercise. So we're going to draw those hips backwards, you centrically engaging the hamstrings, and then drive the hips forward ending with a neutral spine, and feeling, nice and Tall. This is great for forward, generated exercises, such as running. The squat or front squat is a vertically, hit generated exercise. We're going to send the hips down and we're going to drive the hips up. We can progress us to an overhead press, which is a great full kinetic chain exercise, and we can even take that into a single arm over at press where you're going to see some rotation that allows us to focus on the leg that we're driving through. The Bulgarian split squat is a challenging exercise, it requires more stability and balance than a traditional squat or lunch for that matter. Since the front leg is doing most of the work, we have a great opportunity to compare one leg to the other searching for both muscular imbalances, balance in general, or any other type of asymmetries The reverse lunge row checks, a lot of boxes. We get to focus on single leg and single arm strength and we connect that through some contralateral core engagement. This can also turn into a power generated exercise with some balance. As we do that progression of that single leg knee drive as well."

Planks can help strengthen the shoulder joint by doing subscapular planks, shoulder taps, trunk rotation, and squeezing/opening up with a weight.
 
Transcript: "The planks increase shoulder strength, they definitely help strengthen the joint, the shoulder joint moves. So fluidly in the plank does put you in a static position. So, there are some things that you can do to stabilize The Joint more shoulder power and shoulder strength. You're going to want to do some that you can do a lot of heavy weights and work through the ranges. However, just to work on some plank stuff, just to give some give you some plank options of things. You can do is subscapular planks. Where you're pushing through the scapular, the scapula, work on your serratus. I I really like these. You can also do some shoulder Taps. It's also going to strengthen your core to, which is super important when you're strengthening your shoulders, just to connect it to the core. So I like those. Well now you can do to get a little bit. The posterior part of your shoulders is, do some trunk rotation and squeeze your shoulder blades or open up. You can do that with a weight as well, just like so opening up. But, yeah, there's things you can do, but those are some ways that you can strengthen your shoulder joint through plank. Ink."

The best advice I've ever received is to not follow the crowd and think for yourself. Making decisions based on your own convictions and taking responsibility for those decisions is an incredibly lucky privilege that should not be wasted.
 
Transcript: "Best advice I've ever received is, do not follow the crowd in life, don't follow the crowd, and what that means is, think for yourself, make decisions that are in your best interest. If you follow the crowd, your disempowering, your actions, you're not critically thinking about what's best for you. Now, if you don't follow the crowd, you can take a breath and say what decision. Do I need to make? That's in my best interest and now you're creating a sense of agency and you can make a And that's based on your own personal convictions. And once you do that, you can take responsibility for your decisions, which is one of most important things because regardless of the result of your decisions whether it's a positive or quote, unquote negative thing, You can learn and grow because you're taking responsibility or taking ownership of your actions, something that you can lose if you follow the crowd and you start blaming the crowd. Now, this advice was given for my father, quick little story about my father, born in Europe 1942 during World War Two, middle child older brother younger sister. We were Jews Escaping The Wrath of Nazi Germany. And after the war, we wouldn't my family's putting DP camps in Germany. And they came to America in 1949, my breath, my dad is 7 Soon, as he got to America became a shoeshine boy, going to bars, shining shoes 7 years old 10:00 at night and make it and making some money. And the biggest thing that he told me, besides not following the crowd, is that having the opportunity to make decisions having that freedom is a huge privilege and having the opportunity to fail and grow from that a huge privilege. And it's a shame to let that opportunity slot. So we're all For most of us who have this opportunity or incredibly lucky. You have to seize that"

To help athletes stay focused and motivated during a long-term training process and avoid burnout, it is important to ensure the training load or duration or frequency is compatible with the athlete's lifestyle. Motivation can be increased by creating context to each workout, such as understanding how it will help them achieve their goals. Additionally, communication between the coach and athlete is essential to understand what is going on and if any adjustments need to be made.
 
Transcript: "How do you help athletes stay focused and motivated during the long-term training process and avoid burnout. Let's talk about the burnout. First, you know, if this isn't working with your lifestyle as an athlete especially in age group athlete, then it's a recipe for Burnout. There's too much training or there's too much life going on. Something's going to give and it tends to be the training. So first thing is, if we want to avoid burnout we have to make sure that the training load or duration or frequency is working with this person. Ins life, the motivation part is all about. You know, we always go back to the why, you know, why are we doing this? And there's two reasons, there's two main reasons that we can look at for the why the, you know, the, the personal growth. The lessons we learn every day during the training and then the goals. And even with the goals, we have to ask, why, what kind of catharsis are we looking for what type of, you know, what are we looking for in terms of success and we can keep asking the why and go deeper and deeper. But the motivation is super important about that, we have to create context to each workout. Whether that be the strength bike workout is the Y to make you stronger to get you to your bigger goal. There always has to be contact, so applying context. Each workout is super important and helps with motivation. And also, given a little break here and there to, you know, if we're doing a long-term training process, and we're finding that their, we're getting close to burnout, that means that we may have to adjust the trading process. So it depends on Athlete. And one of the things that we really have to focus on that most good coaches do is communication and talking to the athlete and understand what's going on."

I like the knees over toes guy because he preaches a standard linear progression with increasing resistance to make your knees stronger. He's not trying to sell things as much as he is trying to spread his narrative which is not crazy, but he catches people's attention with extreme movements. It's okay to do it, but it's important to understand what your body is capable of doing first.
 
Transcript: "What's your opinion on the knees over toes guy? I like them. His social media can come off being extreme because the movements he does is impressive, but they're extremely there, they're catching your attention. However, the narrative that he's pushing is not extreme, you know, he talks about a lot of like, eccentric knee flexion work and things like that, he's really big on the sled and it's all about, you know, a very standard linear progression of, you know, Increasing resistance, the to make your knees stronger. And he's doing a lot through a lot of quad strength and a lot of hip flexor Mobility. So it's nothing crazy. You know, he preaches it, I believe them. The think he's, he lives his life, a lot of conviction. He's not trying to sell things, as much as he is trying to adjust. You know, spread his narrative which is is not crazy. He's just catching people's attention with with some extreme movements, so I'm all for it in general. The knees over toes. Don't, you know, don't push your knees over your toes. Narrative is, you know, it's being its outdated at this point you know? And it's okay to do it. It's just understanding what your body is capable of doing first and making sure that you're not putting it in any type of compliment compromise spot or vulnerability."