Boston - Part IV - I promise there will only be 5.

In my opinion, Rocky IV had the best workout regiment of any of the Rocky movies. So I am glad, that part IV of Boston is centered around me going to Cressey Performance (CP) to workout. So Cressey Performance is a gym in Hudson, MA (roughly 40 min outside of Boston). There is a link to them on the side of my page. These guys are trainers that "get-it". They are nationally known and very good at what they do. Curt Schilling has trained there as well as Youkilis. As their clientele is mainly baseball players (especially high schoolers), they train anyone and everyone. I have been following these guys ever since I get into lifting (thank you Knowles). My buddy Colin trains there (on my recommendation) and I set up to have an assessment there with Tony Gentilcore (a co-owner). I also got to do some lifting.

Well, to say I was excited is an understatement. When we got there, the gym was not the whole building. There were other things in the building. Think of a school almost. I just had to go to the right room. The gym was not very big. I would say 60-70 yards long and around 15 yards wide. The more I think about that, the more I get angry at the globogyms of the world. All that space and they fill it with crap machines. CP has one treadmill and one bike that I saw. They had one cable machine. That was it. A few power racks, a deadlifting area, a couple benches, chains, oh and a cement wall to throw things against.

I went through the assessment and found I have external left hip issues. No surprise by me. My left hip is tight. We went through some lifts (squat, deadlift, bench, lunges, pushups, rows) and they gave me pointers. So this is a not a gym you just go into and lift. The purposefully keep the # of people in there to a certain number and trainers walk around to help. Like a 4:1 ratio if you will. There were not many people in there when Colin and I were there so basically I got a lot of 1 on 1.

I threw a medicine ball against the wall. I front squatted to a 13 inch box. I did some pushups. I deadlifted. I was having fun and taking in as much information as I could. I won't lie. I was HUNGOVER from the bar crawl but my adrenaline was rocking.

Colin and I finished the day with an 8 min finisher. On one end of the track, there was a medicine ball. On the other end there was a giant tire and sledgehammer. Every min on the min, we would push a sled (loaded with weight) from one station to the other (40 yds apart). Colin and I would actually cross paths. Each of us were always on opposite ends. On the sledgehammer side we had to hit the tire 5 times on each side (left hand then right hand). at the medicine ball side, you had to do 10 medicine ball slams. Then you rested until the minute turned over and you went back to the other station. I loved it. I was dying at the end but man I wish my gym here was setup to do things like that.

We got there at like noon and we left at 2. I hope I get back to Boston sometime soon because I would love to train there again. My only regret is that Eric Cressey was not there. I wanted to meet the 180 lb man who deadlifts 660.

On a side note, the split between men and women lifting there was about half and half. It was good to see women in there training hard. Honestly, it was good to see everyone doing a lot of the right stuff. You see so much garbage happening at gyms. Not here.

Here is a pic of Colin doing Glute Ham Raises. This exercise kills your hamstrings....



Well, I will be super impressed if ANYONE read that whole posting. Wait? Does anyone read my blog?

The Boston finale post is happening tomorrow!