Every year (at a time when it’s really cold) the Resistance Exercise Conference is held in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The Conference is hosted by our friends at Discover Strength, a top-notch personal training company in the Minneapolis area. The conference brings together the top researchers, coaches, and educators in the field. Even the attendees represent a “who’s-who” in the field of productive strength training exercise. Rock Solid Fitness makes it a point to attend this Conference every year to better ourselves and pass new information and techniques on to our clients – and this year we brought our largest group yet!
We flew into Minneapolis in waves, Thursday evening to Friday afternoon, for the first sessions beginning Friday evening.
We got organized at the hotel conference room to make sure we got seats right up front. It’s always great to see the Discover Strength staff, and they do a FANTASTIC job of organizing and hosting the conference.
Our first speaker on Friday evening was Ted Dreisinger Ph.D.
Ted’s topic was “Isolated Strengthening of the Low Back as a Strategy for the Prevention and Clinical Management of Chronic Low Back Pain”. The information Ted presented was right in line with our physical therapy perspective at Rock Solid. He specifically spoke about the unique benefits of lumbar extension exercise utilizing pelvic restraint, just like we do on our Nautilus Low Back machine.
The next presentation was “A fireside chat with Jim Flanagan”.
Former General Manager at both Nautilus and Med-X Industries, and right-hand man of Nautilus exercise machines inventor Arthur Jones. Jim lives in the Orlando area, and we have been very fortunate to be able to befriend and learn from him over the years. He knows more about strength training than all of us put together 🙂
Our next speaker was Discover Strength’s own Brandon Jonker.
He presented the “Results and Application of the Repetition Duration Study; Comparing 30-30-30, 10-10, and 2-4 protocols”. These are all protocols that we utilize at Rock Solid Fitness, so the conclusions of the study were especially relevant for us. Brandon’s presentation was followed by a live training demonstration of these techniques in action.
Early the next morning, we took the light rail train to Discover Strength’s downtown Minneapolis location. They were providing supervised workouts for all the conference attendees. It was a refreshing 19 degrees outside, but our staff quickly warmed up during their High Intensity workouts 🙂 . CLICK HERE to check out a video of the Resistance Exercise Conference workouts
After recovering from the workouts, we got back in to the Conference to hear Michelle Segar, Ph.D. She presented her lecture “Strike Gold: The Science Behind Cultivating Lasting Exercise Motivation in Clients and Members”. This was probably the most popular presentation of the weekend, and we all received a copy of Michelle’s book “No Sweat”. The book goes even more in depth on the subject of exercise motivation. (You will be hearing much more on this topic from us in the future).
The next speaker was Mike Gittleson. Mike was the Head Strength and Conditioning Coach at the University of Michigan for 30 years. He now works with Rogers Pendulum Athletics, the makers of our 5-way neck machine. Mike schooled us on some brand new, cutting-edge research on effective stretching, as well as the importance proper neck strengthening.
After lunch, we heard from Rob Morton, PhD from McMasters University in Canada, on Protein Metabolism and Resistance Training.  Rob explained how the latest research indicates our protein requirements when we workout are higher than previously believed, especially for older adults. Ask your Rock Solid Fitness Coach about this the next time you are in for a workout.
After a presentation on the business side of Personal Training by Discover Strength founder and CEO Luke Carlson, our favorite exercise researcher from England, Dr. James Fisher, presented on “Heterogeneity, Periodization and the Strength-Endurance Continuum”. This one was just for us strength training geeks and was full of 9-letter words, but we will make sure we break it down and include the important findings into your next workout routine 🙂
After the conference, we got away as a team for some dinner and reviewed every thing we had learned. Then it was time for some evening socializing with other trainers from literally all over the world. It was a one-of-a-kind opportunity to network with like-minded thinkers, sharing knowledge and forging lasting friendships.
Over the coming weeks, we will be sharing what we learned at the Resistance Exercise Conference with all of our clients, whether verbally, in writing, or through experience. It was a great time, and we definitely got better as a company and as fitness professionals, which of course translates into a better experience for our clients. Can’t wait until next year!
