ERIC CRESSEY: THE GOLDEN BOY OF STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING – Eric Reveals The Foundations Behind His Meteoric Rise To The Top (listen to the dyanmite audio clips)

Posted on 20. May, 2008 by Kaiser in Interviews, Workout

It looks to me like everyone getting started in the fitness industry today, especially young guys, wants to get in the field of Strength and Conditioning.

It must be the high-powered world of competitive athletics that makes it so appealing.

Well if that’s the case the leader and role-model in this area is definitely Eric Cressey.

Eric’s the version 2.0 of the sports and conditioning expert and entrepreneur. He has tremendous credentials, has published a book, trains high-level athletes, and has now opened his own major training facility. He’s really living the dream and setting the standard of what seems to be everyone’s ideal career path in fitness these days.

Eric’s the owner of Cressey Performance in Boston Massachusetts, a no-nonsense, high performance training facility catering to athletes and people interested in training like athletes. With the recent expansion of his facility and his growing exposure in this field, it looks like it’s working.

He’s also the author of Maximum Strength, a back to basics, gimmicks free book on how to improve your physique and performance. He’s as good a person as there is to talk about something like this, because he’s always trained on a competitive level towards speed and power himself.

Doing what you know best is in fact how I chose my specialty as well, and how I recommend every other trainer should do it too.

What’s more amazing about Eric’s story is the young age at which he’s been able to accomplish all of this. Eric just just turned 27 this month. To have accomplished so much at his age is amazing, but goes to show what you can do when you apply yourself to something you’re passionate about.

In Eric’s case he’s obviously found the segment of the fitness field he loves, and he’s hitting it as hard as one of his athletes would hit a bad pitch. Although strength and conditioning for sports performance is far different from Personal Training, I still wanted to make sure I got Eric on Super-Trainer for some of the inside scoop on what it’s about.

As Eric told me in the interview, Personal Training is the farthest thing from what he does; he actually works with all of his athletes in a small group setting. With a few assistant trainers, he pumps out group sessions in an intense environment. Since small group training is also the major trend in the fitness industry, that’s another major thing Eric sheds light on in our conversation.

One thing I wanted to point out that Eric mentions is the work of spine expert Dr. Stuart McGill. You can find out more about him here: www.backfitpro.com. Eric blasts anyone that isn’t familiar with his work as he says that it’ll affect about 80% of your clients at some point. I’ve got to admit that I wasn’t familiar Dr. McGill’s work, but I’ve now ordered his DVD and am taking care of that. I always love to get my hands on good info that’s new to me so good looking out on that Eric!

Here’s part 1 of our interview – in it Eric talks about his start in the industry, about his business, his schedule, and how his facility is set-up:

And here’s part 2 – here he talks about how his sessions are run, how he feels about having his name on the door, how his own athletic background translates into his work, and his start and feelings about the information marketing industry:

For more info on Eric and the things he’s involved in visit his site, ericcressey.com -

All in all, this resulted in a really informative interview. If you’re a trainer that’s really passionate about sports and conditioning, Eric’s example should show you that it can lead to the “fame and fortune” you’re looking for in a short period of time. It’ll take some work and knowledge, but if you love this field already that’ll probably be the easy part.