Happy Saturday to everyone, apologies for my absence from the blogosphere. Moving and preparing for the move has been occupying much of my time. Not an excuse really, but it's what I got for you. I'll have new original content next week, hopefully early next week even, I promise.

Let's have a look at the Insta post of the week, it was a great accomplishment:

Certified Program Design- Any coach will tell you that they didn't come up with their own program format and philosophy. I can certainly tell you that I've been influenced by several coaches through all kinds of experiences. Coach Dos is definitely one of those coaches so his CPD product I'm 100% is worth any fresh faced coach's time.

Why Everyone Hates Personal Trainers- Seeing as I've been a personal trainer in a couple commercial gyms this was a good read. TC Luoma hits on a couple good things to maybe avoid when you're a trainer, especially just starting out. 

The 6 Most Overrated Things in Fitness- I like to think that I'm pretty good at avoiding most of the things on this list with the sprinkle of a couple now and again to change things up (intelligently). Dr. John Rusin has some pretty good points on here so if you see something on this list of 6 that you do, especially something you do a ton of, maybe reconsider?

Happy weekend all, I'm sure some of you are a bit lost in your days having taken the week of the 4th off, or at least a couple days. Yes it is Saturday, not you have not time traveled, if you have we need to talk about that Delorean. I've got some good stuff for you to pick through while you sip (chug) your Saturday morning coffee.

This week's Insta post of the week goes back to my account, hopefully everyone appreciated that post from Mike Anderson's account. Here we go everyone;

3 Tips to Clean Up Your Band Walks- Anyone that's been trained with me for long enough has probably encountered these suckers. Inevitably they probably got a stink eye from me for doing one of these mistakes (yes I help them fix it too). Give these videos and this piece a look from Andrew Millet if you think you need to clean up your bands walks, or even if not, give it a look.

How to Deadlift (And Why Everyone Should)- We need more coaches like Nia Shanks. She has certainly been one of those leading the charge, advocating for women to pick up something heavier than their shitzu. Her videos and writing about deadlift here are freaking awesome, don't just trust me, go look, like now!

How to Make the Most of Your Lat Stretches- Lats are a pretty damn important muscle. I mean they cover quite a bit of the upper body so we probably need to keep them strong and give them the attention they need. When it comes to upper body and shoulder stuff, Eric Cressey is THE guy to always listen to when he's writing and speaking about them. That said, you need to have a look at this one.

Lift and Learn
Have you signed up for the Lift and Learn on July 23rd? Well what the heck are you waiting for? Register and grab one of the remaining spots!

A happy belated Independence Day to both the U.S. and our neighbors to the north. Hopefully everyone had a good holiday and didn't get the meat sweats too badly, well even if you did, bravo. Some of us need to be made up for anyway. Myself and Catherine enjoyed a nice trip back to the motherland (Maine) to spend time with family and friends we see way too little.

It just so happens in the last couple weeks there's some really smart people that have been pumping out content speaking concerning one of the 5 basic movements, the squat. My post today is not about the variations because it's a subject that a billion other people more experienced than myself have written and spoken about. I DO want to talk about it's need to exist in a strength training program, and how you can work the movement pattern in a way some may not quite consider.

For me, when I'm trying to make sure there's balance in a program, I equivocate any lunge variation to a squat motion. I've long believed this to be a fact and have applied it to my program design for awhile. Complete Program Design from Coach Dos is the most prominent place I can recall where I actually saw this in writing.

There is little debate from me about whether or not it is or isn't the same movement pattern as a squat and should be treated as such. Reason being, some people simply can not squat without getting themselves in trouble, like injury trouble. I'm talking the way your bones are put together. There's no changing that last time I checked, unless of course you want to opt for a strategic break (wouldn't recommend this). Even when you have an issue such as this, you still need to train those muscles, There's several options, lunges, step ups, single leg squat and others. My go to in these cases, Bulgarian Split Squats. I like this because the working legs is doing all the work and about 98% of the balancing (pulled that number from you know where), but it's not uber reliant on the working leg for balance, which makes it an appropriate choice for most people you bump into.

Some people have muscle and tendon issues that need to calm down and turn off (can you say hip flexors?) before they are able to squat bilaterally at all, let alone heavy. You may never ever be able to do much beyond a light goblet squat, good thing there's a million ways to load a split squat. 

1. Single leg balance- There's this thing called walking we do on 1 -leg)
2. Knee dominant- Meets one of those movements that are important to a program)
3. Quad and glute gains- Tell me someone that doesn't want these and I'll be sure to not be friends with them
4. All around awesomeness- The most important part!

As I said, some may never get to a squat variation they can load heavily, but everyone can find a single leg variation that will work for them (with few exceptions). It's OK to dread  the day you have your single leg training, whether it's the main exercise or a complimentary one, but just know, it's doing you a world of good.

That's what I got for today folks, hope this makes you hate single leg work a little less than you did before you read it. Go out there and get after it!