Goodbye Kobe Bryant

Photo: NBA.com

Tonight marks the final game for Kobe Bryant in a Los Angeles Laker uniform. Anyone who knows me well knows that I grew up loving the game and was the biggest Michael Jordan fan. While I wanted to be like Mike, I wasn't at an age where I could appreciate the nuances of MJ's game. (Note: Now I watch video and am even more amazed at the things he did)

Photo: bleacher report

By the time the 1996 NBA draft came around I was 10 years old and started to really appreciate  all aspects of the game beyond the slam dunk. I still cheered for Jordan and the Bulls during the last 3 peat but during that time I had also become a big Laker fan.

5 championships, 1 regular season MVP (should easily have 2-3, fuck politics), 2 Finals MVP, 18 All Star selections, 3rd leading scorer in NBA history, 20 seasons later; The Black Mamba has been the closest player to emulate the great Michael Jordan. As I matured, so did Kobe's game and mentality.  I am particularly saddened to see him retire as I got to watch his entire career start to finish.

As a fitness professional I fully comprehend what's required to compete and remain at that high of a level for this long. It's not just the insane amount of work and hustle but how he's prioritized recovery as well. Sorry Marshawn, he's the OG "Beast Mode". 

My favorite story is told by a strength and conditioning coach for the US Olympic team in 2008. This story resonates with me to this day because this team featured some of the best players in the league today: Lebron, Wade, Carmelo, Durant and yet during a time when Kobe was still the best player in the league, he outworked all of them.

I was invited to Las Vegas this past Summer to help Team USA with their conditioning before they head off to London, and as we know they would eventually bring home the Gold (USA). I've had the opportunity to work with Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade in the past but this would be my first interaction with Kobe. We first met three days before the first scrimmage, on the day of the first practice, early July. It was a brief conversation where we talked about conditioning, where he would like to be by the end of the Summer, and we talked a little bit about the hustle of the Select Team. Then he got my number and I let him know that if he ever wanted some extra training he could hit me up any time.

The night before the first scrimmage I remember I was just watched "Casablanca" for the first time and it was about 3:30 AM. I lay in bed, slowly fading away when I hear my cell ring. It was Kobe. I nervously picked up.

"Hey, uhh Rob, I hope I'm not disturbing anything right?"

"Uhh no, what's up Kob?"

"Just wondering if you could just help me out with some conditioning work, that's all."

I checked my clock. 4:15 AM.

"Yeah sure, I'll see you in the facility in a bit."

It took me about twenty minutes to get my gear and out of the hotel. When I arrived and opened the room to the main practice floor I saw Kobe. Alone. He was drenched in sweat as if he had just taken a swim. It wasn't even 5AM.

We did some conditioning work for the next hour and fifteen minutes. Then we entered the weight room, where he would do a multitude of strength training exercises for the next 45 minutes. After that we parted ways and he went back to the practice floor to shoot. I went back to the hotel and crashed. Wow.

And then:

I was expected to be at the floor again at about 11 AM. I woke up feeling sleepy, drowsy, and almost pretty much every side effect of sleep deprivation. Thanks, Kobe. I had a bagel and headed to the practice facility.

This next part I remember very vividly. All the Team USA players were there, feeling good for the first scrimmage. LeBron was talking to Carmelo if I remember correctly and Coach Krzyzewski was trying to explain something to Kevin Durant. On the right side of the practice facility was Kobe by himself shooting jumpers. And this is how our next conversation went -- I went over to him, patted him on the back and said, "Good work this morning."

"Huh?"

"Like, the conditioning. Good work."

"Oh. Yeah, thanks Rob. I really appreciate it."

"So when did you finish?"

"Finish what?"

"Getting your shots up. What time did you leave the facility?"

"Oh just now. I wanted 800 makes so yeah, just now."

My jaw dropped. Mother of holy God...

Just when you think you've worked hard today, your competition is out there working harder. I will always remember that every day is an opportunity to outwork your competition.

I will forever be inspired by his toughness, his grit and his will to succeed no matter what.

"I demanded greatness, and greatness demands everything. Love me when you become greater."

Thank You Kobe. 

Why I Don't Take Shirtless Selfies

“Success and longevity in the fitness industry are created with integrity, substance, and hard work…not with scantily-clad selfies.”- Tony Gentilcore

In an industry filled with photoshop and hyperbole, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to sift through the hucksters to find legitimate sources to learn from. Thanks to platforms like Instagram and Facebook, trainers have been able to lean on technology to work with even more people than ever before. But for every Tony Gentilcore, there will be dozens of “internet trainers” who couldn’t name their glutes even if the were sitting down!

To continue reading: http://bit.ly/whyidonttakeshirtlessselfies

5 Lessons Thomas Keller Can Teach You to Improve Your Fitness

It’s been ten years since I graduated culinary school. In the years that followed my style of cooking has changed a lot. One thing that hasn't is my respect and admiration for Chef Thomas Keller. He is the proprietor for the acclaimed Michelin Star French Laundry and Per Se, along with a casual French bistro Bouchon, Bouchon Bakery and adHoc restaurants.

So you can imagine the excitement I had during a routine trip to northern California to Yountville to enjoy adHoc fried chicken for lunch and saw Chef Keller walking down the street.

adhoc fried chicken and bbq (ribs and pulled pork) Totally worth the drive to yountville

A photo posted by Gary Heshiki Fitness (@garyheshikifitness) on Jul 18, 2014 at 11:11am PDT

We left our home in Los Angeles early one morning and drove straight to Yountville arriving about 90 minutes ahead of our scheduled lunch. Sara and I figured were could get some coffee and a pastry at Bouchon Bakery and walk around. After parking our car, I spotted a man in chef whites walking down the street and I knew it was him.

I asked if I could get a photo while stumbling like a dope to get my iPhone out of my pocket. Sara quickly got her phone out and snapped this photo.  Obviously this was the highlight of the trip for me!

If you still haven’t caught on I hold Chef Thomas Keller in very high regard.

Even now as a fitness professional there are lessons I’ve learned from my time in the kitchen and from Chef Thomas Keller that are very applicable to a fitness professional and enthusiast alike.

1. Starting at the Bottom

Chef Keller started out as a dishwasher in his mother’s restaurant. There he was able to learn many skills that would serve him in the future such as:

• Organization: Knowing where and how to stack the dishes in the right way so the team could be efficient putting things where they needed to be.
  • If you're unorganized, you’ll walk into the gym and perform a random 45 minutes while accomplishing very little. Plan ahead and be more productive. 
• Feedback: In 45 seconds you know whether or not the dishes are clean or dirty. If they come out dirty, use that immediate feedback to correct the problem.
  • Pay attention to how things feel and look, you should know immediately whether a particular rep was good or not. Take steps to improve on the following set.
• Repetition: You begin to learn the discipline and habits required to be good at the task you’ve been assigned. 
  • Being good at anything requires you to put in time to practice and get better at it. In one year you’ll be good at deadlifts, imagine how great you’ll be in ten years!

2. Cooks cook to nurture people

"You must take pleasure in serving others. Build a deep desire towards learning your craft. Skills are learned not innate."

Any fitness professional worth their weight in protein powder will make an extra effort to teach the why and how behind the what. They're doing you a disservice if all they do is hand you a sheet with food on it and expect you to follow that blindly. A true pro lives to pass on their knowledge with the endgame being a client who's better than they are. 

3. Attention to detail

"Having an attention to detail is the cornerstone of success. It’s there where you understand what you’re trying to accomplish and how to exceed expectations."

While every armchair quarterback believes they're only a few notches below JJ Watt. I hate to be the barer of bad news: You aren't anywhere near the level of a J.J Watt.

Photo: Men's Health

So training like him is only going to lead to an injury. Blindly following the "workout" printed isn't going to work for two reasons:

1. It's not his actual workout. Do you really think he performs a few supersets and calls it a day?!
2. It hasn't been tailored for your body and goals in mind. 

I can recall past colleagues who would lazily take a workout from a magazine and make their clients perform it. They decided it was an inconvenience to make adjustments for the person, glossing over tiny details that would inevitably lead to that client getting hurt.  

Don't be a shotgun, be a sniper. 

4. Believe in yourself because no one else will until you do.

When Chef Keller started, he mentions that his biggest asset was his ignorance of not knowing what it actually would take to start a restaurant. He focused on the small successes and continued moving forward in the face of having no resources, no money, and no job after leaving a failed restaurant in New York. He could've made that restaurant more casual, but it wasn't his vision. 

You need to believe in your vision so strongly that you're willing to do whatever it takes to succeed. 

He would wake up to make calls to banks or fill out forms for loans. He recalls speaking to over 400 people asking them for money. He would tell person after person what he was looking to do, and as uncomfortable as it was, it only strengthened the belief in his vision. 

Do you have what it really takes to accomplish the goal you’ve set for yourself? Ask before starting any program whether or not the goal you’re setting will be in line with the choices you’re willing to make. The sacrifices that might be asked of you may be too much.

Related: Cost of Getting Lean

5. Funnel your work into one singular goal

Keller states that his initial goals were always about how to make the French laundry a better restaurant. He opened bouchon south of the restaurant so the staff had a place to eat after work because at the time most establishments were closed long after service. 

If you're familiar with the bay area you know that it's filled with great bread bakers. Yet he could not find the exact style and size for the French Laundry. Thus he opened Bouchon Bakery to supply the restaurants there with the bread he wanted. 

Make sure your goals are consistent with the bigger picture. You may want to have an elite powerlifting total, run a sub 30 minute 10k, and have 8% bodyfat; but unless you’re getting paid to only exercise and recover those goals might be a little hard to accomplish.

Decide what it is you want and go after it channeling all your energies towards that one goal. Keep in mind that even after only 2 years, you can change your mind. 2 years is a drop in the bucket compared to 20.

Allow yourself that flexibility but don’t program hop only after a few months. Give yourself adequate time to asses whether or not what you’re doing is working or not. When making any decision think critically as to whether or not it is helping you achieve the larger goal you've set yourself. Big goals are accomplished by completing a bunch of little ones. 

2 Steps for Training with a Back Injury

1.    What’s Going On?

As long as there isn’t any radiating pain down your leg, numbness, loss of function or structural damage to the spine, most back injuries a lifter sustains won’t require medical attention. The simple fact is that most back injuries will not be viewable on an MRI, X-ray, or other medical imaging report. Furthermore over 50% of people according to the New England Journal of Medicine reports the general population has a disc bulge, and at least 35% have two or more.

Many are asymptomatic, meaning there's pretty much nothing that can be done to help short of massive invasive surgery that would be completely unnecessary. Most doctors will happily prescribe you a muscle relaxant and tell you to take some time off along with a hefty bill. For the majority of us, taking time off is often not something we want to do.

First thing is to figure out what to do and what to avoid in the gym. The easiest way to go about this is movement mapping. Performing a series of simple movements can help determine which ones cause more pain or less pain, and then use the results to guide you in the gym. It can give you an idea of what may be wrong and what you need to do to fix it, or who you need to see to get it fixed.

2.    Get Moving

The majority of acute low back injuries often get better on their own with no intervention within 4-6 weeks. However if it's a chronic problem, the muscles will begin to atrophy and weaken, making future back injuries more likely to happen.

Any movement you perform with a bad back need to be done with the intention of having your core do the bracing for you. The best way to do this is through a concept Dr. Stuart McGill calls "super-stiffness." By contracting all the abdominal, low back, pelvic and intercostal muscles at once, you can increase overall stability of the spine and limit the chance of a buckling injury or any problems with your discs.

To get this idea of super-stiffness to work for you, it has to be 360 degrees of tension.  You need to flex your abs as if you’re about to take a punch. Now contract the oblique muscles and low back muscles, and lastly clenching your pelvic floor muscles (anus).

This must be done whenever you're performing any exercise listed below, as well as any type of lifting, pushing, pulling, carries, bending, or twisting.

In other words, everything!

Movement: Flexion

This is by far the most common dysfunction for lower back pain. The majority of disc issues within the lumbar spine involve posterior nuclear migration and cause a bulging of the disc into the central (less common) or lateral (more common) canals, which then pushes on nerves and often leads to intense pain.

The test:

Sit in a chair and touch your toes. If that seems impossible, stop before you hurt yourself. If it’s easy, try to stand upright and touch your toes. Pain or having to slowly climb your way down would indicate a problem and would necessitate that you avoid doing certain things.

Don't Do:

• Deadlifts, bent-over rows, and seated rows
• Spinal rotation movements (twists and chopping movements)
• Sit-ups or any ab isolation movement that forces flexion without co-contraction of the low back muscles.
• Standing calf raises, leg presses and back squats.
  • The direct compression on the discs can be extremely uncomfortable.

Do:

•  Glute bridges
  • Allows you to hit your hamstrings and glutes without placing your spine under any negative loads.
• Front squats or goblet squats.
  • Hits the legs without straining the back, and forces the spine to resist being pulled into flexion.
• Any type of chin-up, pull-up, or lat pulldown
  • The lats play a huge role in recovery of the spine, as they wrap all the way from the shoulder down to the pelvis, and can add to the stability of the spine.
• Push-up variations.
  • These will increase the need for spinal stability over bench presses or dumbbell presses, and can be progressed by elevating the feet and then adding weight via chains.        

Movement: Extension

While not as common as flexion-based pain, extension can be just as limiting, but is a bit easier to manage. Most extension-related issues revolve around facet joint issues or even soft tissue compression, so movement that involves extension should be controlled or eliminated.

The test:

Lie on your stomach and prop yourself up on your elbows. If this hurts, or if it simply results in a dull ache, stop doing it and follow the recommendations below.

Don't Do:

• Back extensions.
• Deadlifts.
• Barbell squats.
  • The spine has to extend, under compression and against shear forces, to squat. Bad news when you’re unable to tolerate extension
• Overhead pressing.
  • The spine needs to extend to move the arm overhead.
• Rotation
  • Whether standing, sitting or lying down.

Do:

• Dips.
  • The combined effect of core activation and distraction on your spine as you hang your body weight with no force pushing up will feel a lot better.
• Chest Supported Dumbbell Rows.
  • This is a great way to continue to train while reducing the shear force within the vertebrae. This helps protect your back while you're hitting your lats.
• Rollouts, also known as straight-arm extensions.
  • These force you to maintain some form of flexion throughout, or else you'll feel a small pinching sensation in your low back.

Gives these two tests a try and get back in there. The worst part of having an injury is allowing it to leave you completely debilitated, take back control!

What You Need to Know About Popular Home Workout Programs

“So I was doing (insert home training program or app) and now my knee/back/shoulder hurts”

Every so often I have a well meaning client consultation to help treat injuries accrued from poorly planned exercise programs targeted to women via “12 weeks or less bikini body” and guys through high intensity 3 month “muscle confusion” programs.

It's vital to appreciate that no exercise or training system is without its flaws. It's only because of these flaws or perceived flaws about lifting weights that these dangerous and inefficient programs are able to flourish in the first place.

Here are 4 reasons why bouncing around in front of your TV or smartphone isn’t the best place to start your new exercise regimen.

Beginners need to master body weight movements first.

When someone is inexperienced, they need to stick to bodyweight movements before increasing the intensity and/or adding weight. Where these programs fail individuals is in their exercise progressions. The belief that because you’re a beginner, you should perform high rep sets is problematic. This is the opposite approach I would take.

If you’re new to exercise, then it’s probably your first exposure to a lot of these movements. The likelihood that your form will be acceptable on rep 20 after only learning it a few minutes before starting is going to be low. This also applies to trainers who deem it necessary to throw 135lbs on the bar for a back squat on day 1!

Controlled Tempo first before ramping up intensity

From a principle-based point of view, these injuries are no surprise to me. After all, if you don't have weights, the only way to make your customers "feel the burn" is to perform high reps at a fast pace, with minimal rest between repeats. That particular combination of variables increases fatigue while simultaneously decreasing movement control, which decreases net safety.

Many programs are too quick to progress you with little said about proper jumping and landing mechanics. When an individual lacks proper motor control, they’re unable to absorb the forces placed on their joints through multiple squat jumps and jumping lunges. This is exponentially worse if the individual is overweight or obese.

One size doesn’t fit all

If only it were that easy to create a training program that helps people become stronger, leaner, faster, and less prone to injury – those type of results require the expertise of an exercise professional, not a multi-level marketing convert masquerading as a fitness trainer.

A proper assessment is the key to creating a well balanced program. Neuromuscular Therapist Johnny Tea of JT Athletics works closely with individuals to un-do much of the soft tissue damage from home based or mobile fitness app programs. He mentions “when a program lacks a thorough assessment, it will lead compensation patterns with the end result often being an injury.”

Related: How to Select the Best Strength/Personal Trainer to Meet Your Goals

Isn’t doing something better than doing nothing?

No, I don't think anything's better than nothing, and here's why.

As seen by the infomercial before and after testimonial it works for some individuals. But for every one person who succeeds, there are dozens who give up long before they can really make a positive change to their bodies. Many give up because there's no accountability when you don't need to leave the house. If you quit, no one will know!

Now imagine that you're really out of shape and you haven't seen your toes or other important appendages in years, and they're understandably anxious about starting a new exercise program. Many of these individuals already lack confidence to even step foot in a commercial gym. Some believing that they need to work up to joining in the first place or feeling the need to "get in shape" before hiring a personal trainer. Injuries aside, the damage done on ones psyche is huge and not worth the risk to me. 

So What To Do?

Can someone with no prior experience get in shape simply by downloading an e-book or following along with a DVD program? Yes of course, but I would be weary of most of the “popular” options out there.  If the choice came down to two options:

• Save money upfront by buying a program and doing it at home but with the likelihood of an injury and bills to see doctors and therapists down the road.
• Spend a little bit more money upfront to get a solid program or hire a qualified trainer to teach you how to properly execute movements and think for yourself in the gym.

I would go with the latter.

Here are a few I trust and would recommend to anyone I know looking for a progressive program to do on their own.

For the Ladies:

1.     Lean and Lovely by Neghar Fonooni 

2.     Strong Curves by Bret Contreras

3.     The Modern Woman’s Guide to Strength Training by Molly Galbraith 

For Men

1.     High Performance Handbook by Eric Cressey 

2.     High Tensile Strength by Dean Somerset 

3.     Bulletproof Athlete by Mike Robertson 

Of course I’d be remiss if I didn’t take an opportunity to plug myself! If you’re in the Los Angeles area, I would be glad to work with you barring availability. Fill out a form and I’ll contact you soon.