Well, SWIS 2002 has come and gone. I’d have to say all in all it was an incredible weekend with a lot of great minds there. Today was a short day, which was somewhat of a relief since the last two days were loooong. First up this morning was Mr. Ian King himself. This was the first time I’d ever seen King present and he is an excellent presenter. Very dynamic and he gets the whole crowd involved. The topic was unilateral and bilateral leg training and its involvment in injury prevention, injury rehabilitation and performance. He basically showed us all that many of the movements we consider unilateral can be bilateral movements. He picked a few guys out of the audience over the course of the hour and a half and did some assessments (one guy squatting for example and another one on a sprinter). It’s amazing to watch him watch these guys and just go to it. If you ever have a chance to Ian King present, I strongly encourage you to do so. He is a fountain of knowledge and experience. The second presentation was supposed to be by Brian Batcheldor, but he had sustained an injury in England that forced him into surgery. Instead, there was a nutritional roundtable that included John Berardi (who used the word ultimately 31 times. It became so funny we had to keep track), Lonnie Lowery, Mohammed Makaway, Dr. Rakowski, Scott Abel, Eric Serrano , Milos Sarcev, Udo Erasmus, and Ed Coan. I think they included too many people because there wasnt enough time for too many questions. I would have excluded Mohammed Makaway, Udo Erasmus, and Ed Coan. It started to get a little interesting but the whole thing had much more potential than was realized. I like Berardi because he seems to have a good combo of the books smarts and real world experience. Lowery is almost too research oriented. Rakowski is a complete machine. I was blown away by how information flows out of this guy. Abel was good as well, but referred to himself as a high performance strength coach too many times. Serrano rocks as well. Milos was good but didnt get enough opportunity to talk. Overall, i was a little disappointed in the roundtable. IT could have been so good. Serrano in his first answer said something along the lines of the previous answers being boring and he wanted to start fighting, but alas it didnt pan out.
Great report THUNDER.I missed the nutrition lecture as i wasnt in the mood for any fabricated info,but i didnt know Rakowski was going to be in the round table as i was in his lecture in the morning and didnt hear about it, had i known i might have gone to that instead of Chad Ikeis lecture on weightlifting which was great but im not sure alot of people in the audience had a weight lifting background.Your right about Rakowski,the guys the best.His first lecture on Friday was about overtraining by monitoring cell hydration with BEI machine,very interesting and if it works ill have a machine by the end of the year.But this mornings lecture on overtraining/stress/thyroid/estrogen was really great.I have e-mailed Dr.Kinakin about bringing him back next year and suggested he talk about environmental estrogens.Didnt learn anything new this weekend but this was the best SWIS ever.I beleive Swis is doing well because it not being produced to make alot of money,its produced to give back to the professionals involved.Unlike some organizations that are money generating machines and started out as non-profit organizations,but dont get me started on that.DONT MISS SWIS NEXT YEAR.
Yeah Abel kept on saying that didn’t he. “When your a high preformance coach like me”. GAG. I really didn’t notice John saying Ultimately that much. But now that I think back I guess he did say it quite a bit. I had a boss that said “basically” all the time. I never noticed until someone pointed it out to me. Then that’s all I noticed, one time he said it 3 times in one sentence!!! Ahhhhhhhh. Sorry off topic. Rob is a machine. I talked to him briefly after Bill Pearl spoke. He’s a very nice guy. I really liked his approach. I liked the round table personally. I’m tired. Zzzzzzzzz.
Thanks for the reports, guys! This is one of the things that make this such a great Forum; the willingness to take the time out to share information. I’ve been invited to attend a SWIS with a friend next year, so if I can work it out, I most certainly will!
Question: Do they ask for feedback from attendees AND heed the recommendations? It seems like you guys have some ideas on how to make what appears to be a great conference even better.
Again…thanks! Mufasa
Thanks all for taking the time to report on SWIS. I would have loved to have been there for the “roundtable”. And I do want to hear more about nutrition aspects of the seminars. Especially about precontest prep. I am wondering though, when someone did speak of precontest prep, was it more for someone who is NOT drug-free or did they also speak of diets for drug-free bb’ers?
They usually have a feedback questionnaire but i never saw one, but whenever i have an inquiry and i e mail Ken Kinakin directly, he never takes more than 24 hours to repond, a perfect gentleman.
Thanks Thunder and Wstrainer! Your reports were much appreciated since I could not be there.
I second Mufasa in saying “thank you, guys.” It is quite appreciated that you would share with us given your various states of sleep deprevation, fatigue from overload of informational aquisition, and relative hungoverness (Shugsy, I’m looking in your direction. Take your sunglasses off. We’re indoors.) This will surely lead to some interesting, intelligent, and brutal discussions on the forum. Already have if you check the “Whey is going to make us all hugely fat” thread. Lata.
MBE: “In case of emergency, feed protein, give weights. Since 0015. JADABB founder, 2002.”
-Eric
I’d have to say I didnt learn anything new this weekend either, save for the Ian King seminar. However, SWIS still rocked this year. It really depends on your frame of reference and what you already know going in. There is definitely a lot of information to be learned. I had a great time. Mufasa, yes, they do have a feedback form for attendees to fill out, where you rate the speakers on a 5-point scale. I know Ken personally, and guarantee you that he takes this feedback seriously. One thing I liked this year, was the practical and experienced side that guys like Scott Abel and Milos Sarcev, and even Berardi brought. Its all fine and dandy to hear research all day long, but to hear what guys have to say that have lots of real world experience is entirely different. Hope to see everyone next year.
Patricia, I wouldnt say a distinction was made between the two drug-free and drug-using prep. Much of Abel’s guys, if not most, are not drug-free bodybuilders. However, most of his dieting principles still apply, particularly the high sodium and fat-loading, which I have had incredible success with, with my competing clients. The only time the distinction was made in Milos’ seminar was with the use of diuretics and cutting water.
For the record Eric, I averaged only two drinks a night with many hours between each one. But I also averaged about the same amount of sleep, which always gives me the same feeling of being drunk. Cheaper too!
My report on SWIS will be published this Friday at T-mag. Berardi will publish his report next Friday. We split the presentations pretty evenly, although it would take five writers to cover the whole symposium (55 presenters). I think we covered most of the good stuff though.
Thanks, Thunder. Maybe I’ll practice with the sodium loading and if all goes well use it for my next contest. I’ve always been curious about this procedure.
And Chris: again I ask: why not have some of the forum members who attended SWIS also provide a report for T-Mag?
Patricia: Because we’re already doing two articles on SWIS. More would just cause a lot of overlap. And besides, they are reporting on it - right here on the forum.
Excuse my enthusiasm from receiving all this info from SWIS, then. Something else I realized was that I betcha I can rec’v info on the seminars from the SWIS site as well. Which I’ll be traveling to right after I post this. Thanks, Chris. Patricia
The most shocking (not really)thing I noticed this weekend was seeing 2 Poliquin “interns” buying Harvey Newtons Weightlifting book.Maybe it would take ol Chuch 22 weeks just to cover the topic of one lift and everyone has a different point of entry.What a laugh.
To anyone who attended the nutrition roundtable yesterday, can you tell me what i missed, thanx.
Patricia, I wouldnt necessarily recommend ‘sodium loading’ per se. I would just suggest keeping it high all the time. Trust me it does make a difference. Your pumps while dieting will be much better as well. The only time sodium causes water retention is when one goes from low sodium, relatively speaking to a higher sodium intake. High sodium in, means high sodium out and since water hydrogen bonds to sodium so it follows it out. When you are low sodium, you usually find very low sodium being excreted in the urine, so what you take in is retained, which causes aldosterone release, which can cause water retention. Not good obviously. Just dont cut sodium. Simply keep it elevated.
I’ll give an overview of the roundtable when I get back from the gym.
Patricia, its not sodium loading, just an optimal amount of sodium.Without sodium we cant optimaly use the sodium/pottasium pump, which is metabolically the most costly activity in the body.Also, sodium increases dopamine, increases beta adrenocepters density, increases nutrient partitioning, lowers prolactin and angiotensin 2,etc,etc.Dont use regular table salt though, use “No salt” half half sodium half pottasium and use it on everything.Why do you think Met-Rx worked so well, it had boatloads of pottasium and sodium.I have my clients take in 250-500 mg of sodium during their workouts, and beleive me, carbs or no carbs, your gonna get PUMPED.Hope this helps.
Gosh, thanks Thunder and WSTRAINER for the info. The info provided does help tremendously. I am seriously going to heed both of you on the sodium loading. I don’t worry about my sodium intake now, and am pretty generous with the salt. BUT during precontest (3-months to a show), I start to watch it. Now, I won’t so much. And will use WSTRAINERS suggestion for the “No Salt”. Thanks again, guys - very helpful. And looking forward to Thunder’s report on the roundtable!