Congratulations Crowie!

Craig Alexander, Trigger Point Performance Athlete, defends Ironman 70.3 crown!

Craig Alexander launched his campaign for a third consecutive Ironman World Championship in perfect style, successfully defending his title at today’s Ironman 70.3 Geelong. The Australian beat a stellar field which included his countryman and 2008 race champion Leon Griffin, and Australia’s youngest ever Ironman champion Tim Berkel (NSW), who finished second and third respectively.

In the women’s race, Switzerland’s Caroline Steffen took her inaugural Ironman 70.3 victory. Last year’s winner Sam Warriner (New Zealand) narrowly missed the podium, finishing fourth behind Australia’s Carrie Lester and Lisa Marangon.

1,500 athletes took part in today’s event, held at picturesque Eastern Beach in Geelong, Victoria. They were treated to ideal race conditions, with a light breeze and the sun breaking through just as the starter’s gun fired.

The professional field had the benefit of a five minute head start over the rest of the age group and team competitors. As expected, Clayton Fettell established an early lead, emerging from the 1.9km swim in an astonishing 21:54, over two minutes clear of the chase group which included Alexander, Paul Ambrose, Michael Murphy and Jan Rehula. Griffin, Berkel, Peter Schokman and Matty White were a further 10-15 seconds behind.

An accomplished swimmer and water polo player, 23-year-old Fettell has been working hard to develop his bike/run combination since winning last year’s Gold Coast Half Ironman. Last month he finished 14th overall in the national time trial cycling championships, and it was clear that his tactic going in to the 90.1km bike leg would be to throw out the challenge to “catch me if you can.”

By the end of the first lap, he had already extended his lead by a further minute. Meanwhile, the original chase group had been joined by a secondary group which included notoriously strong cyclists Jason Shortis and Ollie Whistler.

Fettell later said that he was “riding scared,” however he is clearly well motivated by fear, as he had developed a buffer of almost five minutes by the time he entered the bike/run transition. He ran out strongly, however it was clear that the race was by no means over, with a group including Alexander, Griffin, Berkel, White and Schokman in hot pursuit.
By the end of the first lap, Fettell’s lead had been whittled down to just two minutes, and at the 11km mark, he was finally passed by Alexander, and then Griffin. Berkel kept a steady but solid pace to gradually run through the field to claim third position.

In his post-race interview, a typically humble Alexander said, “I’m really happy with that. That was a solid hit-out, especially considering all the travel. I’ve done a strong block of training these last five or six weeks.”

He noted that there is a huge amount of talent coming up through the ranks, offering particular praise to Leon Griffin. “Griff’s on the same sort of upswing as me. He had a great race. I think he’s very under-rated. He finished ninth in Clearwater last year, which is the world championship for this distance. He received a four minute penalty and lot of guys felt he was hardly done by. He’s a great athlete.”

Griffin returned the compliment, saying “Today was always going to come down to a running race. Craig showed why he’s the world champion, he ran away with ease.”

Next stop for Alexander is likely to be Ironman 70.3 Singapore at the end of March, before he and his family head to the US where he will continue his preparation for the Ford Ironman World Championship with a number of the major Ironman 70.3 and Olympic Distance races.

Steffen dominates the women’s race
The women’s race unfolded very differently. In the early stages, it appeared that the match-race between defending champion Warriner and her Swiss rival Caroline Steffen would develop as predicted, with Warriner leading her competitors out of the swim.

However, Steffen quickly stamped her authority on the bike course, saying later that the slightly undulating terrain suits her perfectly. By the end of the first lap she had taken the lead from Warriner, with Lisa Marangon in third position.

From there, Steffen took control of the race, eventually winning by exactly five minutes over Marangon and a fast-finishing Carrie Lester. Warriner finished a disappointing fourth.

An ecstatic Steffen said “It feels awesome to win! It’s my first win in a 70.3 race. I had an awesome day, I felt so strong. I did my own race, and never looked back.”

Steffen’s win today qualifies her for the Foster Grant Ironman World Championship 70.3, where she finished fourth last year.

TOP FIVE RESULTS – PROFESSIONAL MEN & WOMEN

Position Overall
1. Craig Alexander (NSW) 3:53:15
2. Leon Griffin (VIC) 3:54:35
3. Tim Berkel (NSW) 3:56:10
4. Peter Schokman (NSW) 3:56:25
5. Clayton Fettell (NSW) 3:56:39

1. Caroline Steffen (SWI) 4:14:32
2. Carrie Lester (QLD) 4:19:32
3. Lisa Marangon (NSW) 4:19:49
4. Samantha Warriner (NZ) 4:23:01
5. Nicole Ward (NSW) 4:30:29

Article compliments of http://ironman.com

Trigger Point Performance at Mellow Johnny’s

Education is power. Look at the transformation his body goes through with a little self massage via Trigger Point Performance Products.

Jeremy Thiel talks about Cassidy Phillips

Crazy Man

Do you know Cassidy Phillips? If you dont, you should meet him. He is extremely passionate about his company trigger point performance. A couple days ago in the gym a client mentioned his wife thought we was a little off his rocker working out at 6am in 15 degree weather. He also stepped up his workouts at home to a total of 6 days a week of training. So the topic of Crazy or Committed came up. In many peoples eyes he is CRAZY. I see a man committed to achieving his goals.

This brings me back to Cassidy. Cassidy is CRAZY ….. CRAZY COMMITTED is more like it. I think he is world class and I plan to work with him to bring trigger point performance to the Crossfit CRAZIES around the world!

written by:

Jeremy Thiel – Saturday, January 16th 2010

Trigger Point Athlete Makes Olympics

After lots of training and determination, Haley made it final today by placing 21st in the Individual in Pokljuka, SLO which qualified her for the 2010 Winter Olympics Games!

Trigger Point Athlete Makes Olympics

Check out the article and video from USBA below:

http://biathlon.teamusa.org/news/2009/12/17/haley-johnson-scores-personal-best-in-pokljuka/29955?ngb_id=22

To see Haley in Action: Click on Women’s Individual Replay; Scroll to 74:08 (it will take a minute to load… you will see her skiing and coming into the shooting range and shooting her last stage)

http://eurovision2.feedroom.com/

Speaking for Haley:
Thank you for everyone’s continued support over the years. It is greatly appreciated!

Stay tuned: Haley races in the Sprint on Saturday and the Pursuit on Sunday.

Kara, Haley, Lars

www.haleykaralars.com

http://comeskiwithme.blogspot.com/

Free your shoulder!!

Austin, Texas Dec 13th

We had a great U6 RE-GEN training class here in Austin, there were fitness enthusiasts from all over the city here to take this one day class. There was a tremendous amount of information covered over the entire day, one of the great images we are able to share with you is what we can do for shoulder functionality when massaging the muscles in the chest.

As we massage Pec major and minor the shoulder is able to rotate back naturally allowing the should to function more optimally. At the same time we are going to take away the stress of the upper back by massaging the areas. Once this area gets tight it is going to pull the shoulder forward, forcing the muscles in the upper back to lengthen past their capacity, once they’ve been in that position for a prolong period of time, muscle spasms, trigger Points and scar tissue can develop.  No one wants a dysfunctional shoulder, imagine a baseball player with greater range of motion, a swimmer or triathlete, what about all you crossfitters out there with all of your Olympic lifting.

Above you will see several of the movements and massage patterns we took the the arm and product through to get the relief discussed. These are movements that are typically done with the aid of a practitioner or someone else. You can get the same awesome benefits with our self massage techniques.

When it’s all said and done we open up the lung capacity, allow the shoulder to have more freedom while at the same freed up the upper back. Take a look at the last image and you can see how dramatic of a change there is between the two shoulders.

SMRT-CORE workout in the office

Trigger Point Performance lunch time office workout.

Trigger Point’s for the Holidays!!

As we move into the Holidays we all need to be aware of what travel does to the body. You’ve got to think about your hydration during the holidays being that we are typically running around like a chicken with our head cut off trying to get all of the last minute shopping done.

Most of you are either going to travel by plane or car to get to your holiday destination, once in motion it’s typical to forget about your bodies biomechanics. Reality, if you can’t breath, you can’t perform, nor can you recover from your daily challenges. So you must remember to keep that diaphragm open, no slouching, so that your muscles are getting all the O2’s they deserve. The more blood and oxygen that’s pumped through the tissue the more likely the muscles are going to respond in a desirable way. If you limit the amount of blood and oxygen going to the muscles in specific areas, and you apply the realities of dehydration, muscular challenge can occur. Trigger Points, muscles spasms and general discomfort can be the result of not taking care of yourself. Easy, self massage techniques can aid in eliminating trigger points and muscle spasms.

Time to address your Trigger Points with Self Massage

After reviewing the Trigger Points in the diagram above, think about the necessity of our TP Massage Ball for the Holidays. Apply pressure to the back with the TP Massage Ball by gaining leverage over your airplane seat, car seat, chair wall or a floor. As you can see there are colored pin points for the actual trigger point, and the colors radiate out from their colored pin points to show the discomfort that can be associated. Reality is once you have one trigger point in the muscle tissue you can have several others without ever knowing where the latent trigger points are, so holding the TP Ball in place for 5-7 seconds as the trigger point releases is a great way to address the tissue, but don’t stop there go ahead and do the same techniques throughout the area so that you know you are addressing the muscles group versus just a specific area defined by the chart above.

Bottom line you brush your teeth everyday for a purpose, that’s to keep the plaque off your teeth.  You have to do the same thing for your muscle tissue, it just makes since.

Here is a video giving you great tips regarding the information above:

Cassidy Phillips Founder and CEO in The New York Times

Cassidy Phillips Founder and CEO has been quoted in the New York Times, follow the link to read the article. What’s awesome about this article is it’s about self massage, not only was Cassidy quoted there is also an Athlete at the end of the article singing the praises of the TP Massage Ball!! THE NEW YORK TIMES

Atheletes Performance and Trigger Point Performance

What many people don’t know is that I have been fortunate enough to teach at many of the Mentorship programs that Athletes Performance has to offer. We’ve seen so much success with this that they have now build all of our products and methodologies into their training programs for all the athletes that have come through their doors.

Here is a clip form a recent Mentorship program. This is a great way to work through pec major and minor. This will allow the shoulder to rotate back naturally on it’s own so that more force can come out of the fulcrums and leavers of the arm.

If you are a runner, swimmer, cyclist, baseball player, football player, or you are involved in a different throwing sport I think you will find this effective and efficient in massaging the area.

Ironman Arizona

When it comes to Triathlon, our products and winning this weekend was a great example. Jordan Rapp and Samantha McGlone both set course records while winning Ford Ironman Arizona. The two champions both used the day’s fastest bike splits to overcome a competitive field in Tempe, Arizona.

The great thing for us is it wasn’t only Samantha that used our products in the womens field Linsey Corbin, Kate Major and Gina Kehr all use our products as well.

Here is the coolest part for me. We have no formal agreement with any of these athlete, they use our products because they work. So for all of you out there that wonder what our products do just take a look at the talent that are using them, we provide the massage they provide the performance.

We provide confidence and security within the muscle by allowing you to massage  your muscles whenever, wherever, at whatever pressure you want. It’s difficult to find the right massage therapist, so when you find one keep them, but when you can’t get to them use our products.

It’s like this we brush our teeth everyday to keep the plaque off our teeth, yet you still go to the dentist to get the real work done, When it comes to your muscles do the same thing, brush them everyday, and go to your therapist when you need the real work done.