While many “coaches” these days do nothing more than write blogs and training programs from their laptop, Eric Cressey has put in the work to become a world-class coach.
He’s the co-owner of Cressey Performance, which is arguably the best baseball-specific training facilities on the planet.
He’s an accomplished powerlifter and strength athlete.
And most importantly, he’s a good friend and someone I greatly respect in our industry.
So when he sent me a copy of his newly released High Performance Handbook, I immediately dug right in
If you’re interested in picking up a copy of the HIGH PERFORMANCE HANDBOOK (HPH), here’s a start-to-finish review, so that you’ll know exactly what you’ll get with the program.
The HPH package has a ton of materials in it. Here are the big ticket items:
The High Performance Handbook Training Manual
The Quick-Reference Guide
Two Programs – Flexion/Extension
2, 3 and 4-Day per week training templates
Let’s look at each so you can realize just how much time and effort went into building this product.
The High Performance Handbook Training Manual
Eric starts by giving you an idea of why he wrote the manual, and I couldn’t agree with him more on this:
There’s no one universal program that works for everyone.
The Assessment
As such, the cornerstone of the HPH program is determining your movement limitations, and then employing a specific program that will address them over the course of your training program.
You’ll start off by going through a brief video assessment to determine what “pattern” your posture and movement fall in to, and then you’ll be put into one of two training groups: Either flexion bias or extension bias.
Choose YOUR Program
From there, it’s kind of like a create-your-own-adventure BOOK, because Eric has created unique training templates based on how frequently you want to train (2, 3, or 4x/week) as well as your primary focus or training goal (athletic performance, strength, or fat loss).
This alone is worth the price of admission.
Once you determine your basic postural issues and combine that with a program that’s geared towards your specific goals, you’re light-years ahead of most average gym goers.
The FAQ Section
Once you’re into the program, Eric does a fantastic job of covering all the bases with an incredibly thorough frequently asked questions section.
Across the four phases of programming, he answers over 88 questions!
This covers everything from exercise technique to programming. And I can tell you from experience this section is critical, as we call come from different backgrounds with regards to exercise knowledge.
Exercise Modifications
Another common issue when writing programs such as HPH is that you never know what people will have access to in their gym.
After all, some people are training out of their basement, some are at your typical big-box gym, and others are rocking at some place awesome like IFAST or Cressey Performance.
This section gives you alternative exercises so that you can figure out the best alternative, just in case your gym doesn’t have all the equipment you need.
MORE Program Modifications
When you consider the fact that the HPH has programs for two different types of body (flexion vs. extension bias), as well as three different training goals (strength, fat loss, and athletic performance), you realize there’s already a ton of customization.
But then it goes a bit further!