Just Fly Performance Podcast

Today's podcast features Andrew Sheaff. Andrew is a swim coach, most recently working at the University of Virginia where the Cavaliers won multiple NCAA team championships. He is also the author of ‘A Constraints-Led Approach to Swim Coaching’, a book that examines how to build skills organically during the training process. He is currently consulting with clubs and coaches to help them improve their skill development strategies. On the last show Andrew spoke on empowering the technical development of the athlete, free from overcoaching, as well as how to create lasting change in technique and performance. On today’s episode, Andrew talks about timing and central motion factors in athletic movement, optimizing constraints for individual athletes, the art of scaling constraints up and down, aspects of over-speed and under-speed methods and much more. Today’s episode is brought to you by TeamBuildr and Plyomat. TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. Use the code “JUSTFLY” for a free 30 day trial of the TeamBuildr software at teambuildr.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at plyomat.net View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Main Points 9:31- Optimizing Swimming Performance under Fatigue 14:06- Optimizing Performance Through Central Motion Perception 22:21- Enhancing Performance with Swimming Paddles 24:26- Cross-Sport Insights for Swim Skill Development 30:01- Purposeful Constraints for Athlete Development in Coaching 37:05- Tailored Coaching for Athlete Performance Optimization 40:09- Enhancing Swimming Performance with Training Gear 43:38- Enhancing Performance Through Varied Training Stimuli 46:15- Enhancing Swimmer Training with Strategic Tools 55:49- Progressive Resistance Training for Efficient Swimming Strokes 58:49- Enhanced Athletic Performance through Varied Challenges 1:02:18- Tailored Training for Enhanced Swimming Performance Quotes (00:06:39) "When something's working 15-20, 25% of the time, that's not good." - Andrew Sheaff (00:14:57) "Where that speed comes from is actually good timing around the center of the body." - Joel Smith (00:16:30) “In terms of helping them figure it out, what I do is I try to really challenge that rhythm in lots of different ways. So, like, you can have them go at really high rates, really low rates. You can alternate back and forth.” – Andrew Sheaff (00:22:00) Helping them perceive that rhythm is really important, and then they just need a general sense of it. And then it's like, then you can start challenging it and pushing it, and then they start to figure out how to do it in various contexts under pressure. And that's ultimately what's going to help them race successfully. ” – Andrew Sheaff (00:29:00) Because, you know, if I put a pair of fins on, you know, ten different swimmers, there's going to be a general impact of those fins, but there's also going to be a specific impact for each swimmer because the fin and the swimmer interaction, and those interactions are going to be a little bit different. – Andrew Sheaff (00:44:17) "If you're running like 6x200s with the wind at your back, you get the exposure of running a little. Feeling easier, feeling faster, feeling more elastic for that." - Joel Smith (00:49:00) “Another example would be with the paddles. That can help them feel like what it's like to hold water. But then you take the paddles off with some swimmers, and they hate the feeling of it because it feels like they're pulling with toothpicks. And then the other opposite extreme, sometimes you have swimmers use the tennis balls and you open them back up and they feel like their hands are gigantic and it feels awesome to them. But sometimes you open the hands back up and their hands feel gigantic and they feel like they can't control them like they want to. And so, the after effect, I guess, it's usually predictable within a person, but it's not always predictable from person to person” – Andrew Sheaff (00:57:38) "There's nothing great intrinsically about any of these tools. It's whether you have a goal, you have something you want to accomplish, and if they can help you accomplish that better than not using them, then it makes sense to use them." - Andrew Sheaff (01:00:59) "The idea is, is what matters. And like, that's how you create the progression and the challenge and it's the same thing with skill stuff." - Andrew Sheaff About Andrew Sheaff Andrew Sheaff is a swim coach, most recently working at the University of Virginia where the Cavaliers won multiple NCAA team championships. He is also the author of ‘A Constraints-Led Approach to Swim Coaching’, a book that examines how to build skills organically during the training process. He is currently consulting with clubs and coache

Today's podcast features Liz Gleadle. Liz is a three-time Olympian, high-performance consultant, and TEDx speaker. After retiring in 2022, Liz had a transformative epiphany, recognizing the profound impact of emotions on posture, movement quality, and power production. At that moment, she decided to "un-retire" and train with a whole new approach to rewire her mind and movement patterns for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. There is a wealth of material in training and coaching on exercises, sets, reps, parameters, and "positions" athletes should be in. In general, much of movement training is based on static ideas, positions, or black-and-white constructions. The reality of movement, training, and performance runs much deeper, is more connected, and has a far greater richness to it. On today's podcast, Liz speaks on her process of infusing dance, flow, and connection into the throwing javelin while also leveling up athletically. Liz digs into key aspects of training: "training side-quests," connectivity, overcoming fear in movement, and facilitating a dynamic ecosystem of training, learning, and growth. Liz has an expansive perspective on the deeper process of athletic movement, and this episode pushes into a new and powerful space of human performance. Today’s episode is brought to you by TeamBuildr and Plyomat. TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. Use the code “JUSTFLY” for a free 30 day trial of the TeamBuildr software at teambuildr.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at plyomat.net View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Liz Gleadle Main Points 6:12- Enhancing Athletic Performance through Dynamic Choreography 14:03- Choreographic Approach Enhances Javelin Precision 22:39- Dynamic Preparatory Routine for Javelin Practice 28:43- Enhancing Athletic Performance Through Foot Proprioception 32:49- Building Confidence to Overcome Hurdle Fear 40:14- Precision Development Through Varied Javelin Weights 42:10- Discover Technique through Varied Javelin Weights 50:34- Enhancing Athletic Performance Through Dance and Connection 53:03- The Intricate Connection of Successful Jumping 58:07- Sensory Communication Through Hands and Feet 1:06:49- Embodiment of Rhythmic Self-Expression through Dance 1:10:41- Enhancing Athletic Performance Through Rhythmic Movement 1:12:48- Gratitude-Driven Precision in Javelin Throwing Quotes 2:55 "I started diving into all the different ways that I had been holding myself back due to my thoughts about my lack of athleticism, my lack of being able to jump, my lack of explosiveness, my klutziness, and I realized that it had completely dictated the way I moved as a thrower and as an athlete, and it had completely held me back from reaching my peak." Liz Gleadle 7:25 “I think it's almost like sometimes coaches crave static for certainty. Oh, we're certain about this static thing, and that's how we can measure progress. But in reality, the actual being in the movement and embodying it, there's certainly. Yeah, it's definitely. You're getting into dancing territory now” Liz Gleadle 17:20 “When I say dance, I don't mean choreographed dance or having to follow a specific way of moving. I mean exploring in time relative to music and really simple movements, but feeling a connection to your body” Liz Gleadle 17:40 “When we hit that beat, we get dopamine. When we feel a connection from one side of our body to the other, we get another huge hit of dopamine. If we do it in conjunction with other people, even something as simply as bouncing in time, we get a massive hit of oxytocin. And all these things make us learn faster” Liz Gleadle 24:50 “I'm constantly asking myself, where do I feel like? Do I have the connection line all the way from fingertip to toe across my body, on the same sides of my body, between my legs, between my arms, and where am I missing it and what do I need to do to activate that part of the line so that the whole line can be connected” Liz Gleadle 26:54 "There's a lot more waves in the process than that, especially with like the down waves, things that dip into the sensation, rhythm and the feeling of something. And then you take that back with you into that maximal output." Joel Smith 42:40 “But then you say, okay, I understand the difference between a six and a one kilo, or 600 grams and a one kilo. Now, what's the difference between a six and an eight? What's the difference between a six and a seven? And so when you keep comparing it back towards the middle, each one teaches you something different” Liz Gleadle 49:57 "I like thinking about, like everything has to have some sort of precision to it. And there might be a maximal there, but it might not be in exactly the way we start out thinking about maximal, but I think there&

Today's podcast features strength coach, educator, and consultant Justin Lima. Justin owns the Strength Coach Network and has extensive experience as a strength coach in American Football across the B1G, ACC, Ivy League, and CAA. He holds a Ph.D. in health and human performance and has significantly contributed to the development of numerous coaches and athletes. In athlete development, zooming out and viewing the entire training process is crucial. Understanding a sport's skill and physical demands is essential for effectively complementing an athlete's sport play with strength, speed, and conditioning programs. In today's episode, Justin discusses balancing a speed program with sport, the nature of in-game speed, 1x20 strength programming, alternative power training methods, and the importance of collaboration between strength and sport coaches. Justin is a comprehensive and practical thinker and communicator, offering a profound perspective on the sport training process. Today’s episode is brought to you by TeamBuildr and Plyomat. TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. Use the code “JUSTFLY” for a free 30 day trial of the TeamBuildr software at https://teambuildr.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Main Points 3:46- Enhancing Coaching Through Strength Training Synergy 9:18- Strategically Tailored Sports Training Schedules 12:21- Optimizing Athlete Training Through Coach Collaboration 15:09- "Preference for Strength Programs in Track Coaching" 24:45- Enhancing Game Speed Through Max Velocity 30:10- Tailoring Speed Development Programs for Athletes 32:41- Rotational Training Plan for Athletic Success 47:25- Progressive Learning Approach for Young Athletes 50:07- Strength Building Through Systematic Progression and Variation 59:19- "Optimizing Muscle Mass with One by 20" 1:00:49- One by 20 Training for Weight Class Athletes 1:02:18- Enhancing Athlete Performance with Alternative Power Training 1:08:10- Overtraining Risks from Olympic Lift Preferences Justin Lima Quotes (00:25:10) “So in a GPP phase, you know, we're going to talk about 1x20, but I called it 1x20 on the field, where we would need to get some, accell, some max velocity, some curvilinear, some change in direction, and some agility work just a little bit each day” Justin Lima (00:30:50) “oh, it's minimal effective dose. What about, like, max recoverable volume? How can we push, right. It doesn't always need to be do the least amount of work to get it done. Like, sometimes you have to actually bake the cake, do the difficult things so that way they can hold on to those gains longer. And that minimal effective dose can be, you know, it is valuable at the time that you go to apply it” Justin Lima (00:32:41) “Instead of trying to tell them, hey, run it, you know, 80% of your max velocity. Sure, no, run as fast as you can, but we're going to constrain your arm so you can't hit that max velocity” Justin Lima (00:39:00) “I work with Desmond at the University of Iowa, and they tried saying that he was slow because he ran a 4.54 40 in his pro day. Why was he first team All Pro punt returner and second team All Pro corner in 2018? Because he was game fast. Like game fast. Understood. Understood when to accelerate, understood when to change direction”Justin Lima (00:41:00) “Another example was Daniel Raymond hit 22 miles an hour, this fastest recorded speed ever. But he was in Pads. But like you said, he was on the backside of a play where they were running like a swing pass to the running back, and he had to take a pursuit angle dive, shoestring, tackle him. And in that process, he ran the fastest he's ever ran wearing pads, which shouldn't happen, but it's because he had that external. I've gotta go” (00:55:20) “Typically, your best athletes maybe don't like to train, but what they start to see is they start to see this linear path of like, all right, I come in, I'm doing this one by 20 thing. And like, you get to, it's almost like misery loves company. And, like, you earn your stripes. It's like, yeah, I went through that one by 20. Like, oh, man, it was boring. But, like, you know, he was right. I got stronger” (01:07:00) “Like an example, our. Our skill players, instead of always doing the weighted jump, we would do an approach jump, or we would give them a. We had a bunch of foam dodge balls, and we didn't have low level dunks, but we would do pretend dunks, and they would go. And they would do a windmill and, like, slam it into the. The low ceiling that we had” About Justin Lima Dr. Justin Lima is a high-performance consultant who has worked with elite American Football players across major conferences such as the B1G, ACC, Ivy League, and CAA. He ho

Today's podcast features NBA performance coach Andrew Paul. Andrew is the Director of Performance and Rehabilitation for the Oklahoma City Thunder. He is both a sports performance coach, as well as a physical therapist, and utilizes his wide-ranging expertise in his position. Andrew has previous experience in the NCAA, as well as with military special operations, and was named the NBSCA strength coach of the year in 2022-2023. As the sports performance profession moves forward, we are understanding that training is not a one-size fits all experience, while finding new ways to classify athlete archetypes, exercise classifications, and how to piece it together to meet the needs of an athlete. Part of what makes training and coaching enjoyable is seeing the diverse range of athletic movers, and the optimal exercises and concepts by which to create their programming. On today's podcast, Andrew discusses key differences between muscular and elastic movers in basketball and related training implications. He goes into propulsive and absorption-based exercises, range of motion concepts based on athlete types, and how to assign individualized training based on strengths, weaknesses, and the needs of an NBA season. He also speaks on slow-tempo work, connective tissue health, foot training, and much more on this information-dense podcast. Andrew is pushing the envelope in high-performance training, and I really enjoyed this conversation. Today’s episode is brought to you by TeamBuildr, the Plyomat, and LILA Exogen. Use the code “LILAJUSTFLY10” for 10% off of any Lila Exogen wearable resistance training, including the popular Exogen Calf Sleeves. For this offer head to Lilateam.com TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. Use the code “JUSTFLY” for a free 30 day trial of the TeamBuildr software at teambuildr.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at plyomat.net View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Main Points 6:18- Momentum Generation and Force Absorption Techniques 8:48- Tailoring Training Programs for Athlete Movement Styles 12:12- Movement Styles: Muscular vs. Fascial Preferences 15:58- Optimizing Workouts for Fascial and Muscular Movers 22:10- Chains for Novice Lifters in NBA Training 26:36- Explosive Strength Training for Elastic Athletes 37:51- Enhancing Connective Tissue Quality Through Training 39:21- Holistic Approach to Athletic Development 45:18- Viscous Range Training for Tendinopathy Recovery 49:46- Optimizing Stiffness for Athletic Performance Safely 52:55- Injury Risk Profiles in Different Movers 1:06:23- Foot and Ankle Characteristics in Athletic Movement 1:18:41- Training Dynamics: Matching Momentum for Athletes Andrew Paul Quotes (00:10:14) “I think the hard part, so being able to observe athletes in an unbiased manner and is a very difficult thing for strength coaches to do. And the reason why I think that is, is that I grew up as an Olympic lifter. I gained a lot of confidence in the weight room, and I became a strength coach because of that, because that's kind of where I grew up” – Andrew Paul (24:00) “There's nothing more explosive and elastic than what's going on in the court” – Andrew Paul (25:00) “A heavy step up for someone who has an asymmetry is a very propulsive, dominant movement, particularly a higher step up. When you start getting into lower, lower step ups, you're starting to deal with more like a elastic range” – Andrew Paul (00:39:59) "The more you train for high outputs in a course, in an 82-game season, the more you're going to have issues related to output, which is like strains." - Andrew Paul (00:44:00) "I just think there's so much to be said about just finding things that feel good, that help the tissues” - Joel Smith (00:47:58) "It's so easy to start blasting kids early. You know, we're in middle school, Let's start getting after the heavy lifts or the heavy versions." - Joel Smith (01:04:10) “A lot of times those athletes are great at using their heel and their forefoot. And so they're able to get under their heel and then launch themselves, basically bypass their midfoot and then launch their forefoot. And we see that in our elastic guys a lot. They're usually more rigid in their foot” (01:07:50) “Muscular people like to get into that midfoot. And so they probably don't have that quality of being able to get behind themselves and go. It's like, have you ever watched a power lifter try to run and just jump from a running start? Yeah, they almost have to a complete stop and like find their midfoot and go” (01:22:42) "You're dealing with impulse impulses and how they view how they want to do things." - Andrew Paul About Andrew Paul Andrew Paul is the Director of Performance and Rehabilitation for the Oklahoma City Thunder. In this

Today's podcast features coach Tim Anderson. Tim is the co-founder of Original Strength and has been a personal trainer for over 20 years. He is an accomplished author and speaker known for streamlining complex ideas into simple and applicable information. Tim is passionate about helping people realize they were created to be strong and healthy. He has written and co-written many books on this subject, including The Becoming Bulletproof Project, Habitual Strength, Pressing RESET, and Original Strength Performance. Tim's message is simple yet powerful: We were created to feel good and be strong throughout life. Many systems, philosophies, and assessments start with clients and athletes feeling broken, while Tim's work blends a positive message with functional strength and restorative movements. The longer I go through my journey as a coach, athlete, and mover, the more I value Tim's work, and I have incorporated many of his ideas into my own methods and programming. On today's episode, Tim and I discuss fluidity of movement, body tension, and creativity, followed by a discussion on utilizing a variety of speeds in training. Much of our talk centers around the benefits of slow movements and how these can, in turn, benefit much higher velocity motions, as well as ideas on how these fit in training complexes. Tim speaks on this and much more in this episode. Today’s episode is brought to you by TeamBuildr, the Plyomat, and LILA Exogen. Use the code “LILAJUSTFLY10” for 10% off of any Lila Exogen wearable resistance training, including the popular Exogen Calf Sleeves. For this offer head to Lilateam.com TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. Use the code “JUSTFLY” for a free 30 day trial of the TeamBuildr software at teambuildr.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at plyomat.net View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Main Points: 2:09- Enhancing Well-Being through Natural Movement Integration 2:42- Movement Exploration: Learning Through Curiosity 6:24- Exploring Fluid Movement for Enhanced Performance 11:58- Dynamic Seagrave Warmup for Track Athletes 15:39- Embodied Awareness for Enhanced Well-Being 16:32- Dynamic Speed Integration for Athletes 20:36- Enhancing Body Control Through Slow Movements 32:28- Enhancing Physical Expression Through Creative Movement Exploration 48:41- Fluid Movement Inspired by Childlike Joy 54:11- Animal-Inspired Visualization for Enhancing Movement Patterns Tim Anderson Quotes "You have to experience what it feels like to you so that you get that connection between your mind and your body. Otherwise you're disconnected." - Tim Anderson “So I'm a huge fan of exploring slow motion in movements. Now, I do primarily do that, like during pressing reset, like say for crawls or rolls or rocks. But you can, you can do it with any, any movement whatsoever. And the beautiful thing about going slow, though, is that it teaches you so much about your body, but it also exposes the areas of, of your movement that you don't really have control of yet” - Tim Anderson “Sugar Ray Leonard, like, he was extremely, he was lightning fast, but he would also do super slow shadow boxing to, like, where like it trick photography, slow motion.” - Tim Anderson "It's not that going fast isn't great for you. It's just that it's only one end of the spectrum. You got all this other room that you can play in and learn from that actually will help you move faster when you do want to go fast." - Tim Anderson "So it's not beyond just moving slow. Um, is to. To kind of be curious to see where you can move. Like, a lot of times your body will. It'll give you barriers. You know, a lot of people say, well, I can't move that way because I get stuck right here. Great. Like, use that. That barrier to learn from it." - Tim Anderson "I know correctives are well intentioned, but I think they can be dangerous or mismanaged because if you do start labeling people as broken, they're going to, that's what they're going to. That's the program you've given them and they're going to run the program. I mean, we are, we are so programmable. - Tim Anderson "Everybody starts at good because you already know this. A person, if they're, they have compensations or limitations, they are already moving exactly the way their body is designed because their brain is telling their body to move that way because it's not getting the information it's looking for. So they're not moving bad or wrong. They're doing exactly what their brain is telling them to do because it's working the way it's supposed to." - Tim Anderson "If you give me ten minutes of movement every day in a year, you've given me 3650 minutes of movement. And you

Today's podcast features coach Bobby Whyte. Bobby is an athletic performance and basketball skill enhancement trainer in northern New Jersey. He trains players from multiple sides of the athletic equation (strength, speed, skill, general physical development) and has been known for the "good drill" ideology and training system. In the world of modern sports performance, coach Bobby Whyte's approach stands out for its comprehensive nature. It's not just about 'speed' or 'skill ', but a balanced integration of all aspects of athleticism. This approach reassures athletes that their training is not one-dimensional, but a wide-spanning pyramid of development. In today's episode, Bobby speaks on his process to help take basketball players to the edge of their ability, speaking from his perspective as both a basketball skills coach and athletic development coach. This show hits on filling the right bucket an athlete needs, at the right time, taking an integrated view on transference to the game itself, versus a more compartmentalized view. He also keys into the 7 first principles he uses, and refers to, to help push athletes to the overall edge of their ability. Also discussed are the importance of unstructured play, creativity and fun in the development process. I love these conversations because they help to push the envelope of how the entire athlete training process unfolds, not only on a singular skill or strength side of things. Today’s episode is brought to you by TeamBuildr, the Plyomat, and LILA Exogen. Use the code “LILAJUSTFLY10” for 10% off of any Lila Exogen wearable resistance training, including the popular Exogen Calf Sleeves. For this offer head to Lilateam.com TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. Use the code “JUSTFLY” for a free 30 day trial of the TeamBuildr software at teambuildr.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at plyomat.net View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Main Points 2:36- Biomechanical and Mental Focus in Athletics 8:22- Exploring Athletes' Mental Edge in Sports 13:15- Skill Progression and Creative Athletic Training Approach 14:59- Game-Specific Skill Development in Athletic Training 16:52- Dynamic Drills for Creative Basketball Training 25:55- Enhancing Basketball Performance through Comprehensive Strength Training 32:00- Unstructured Play for Skill Development in Sports 42:25- Ball Handling Impact on Basketball Speed 46:35- Enhancing Basketball Skills Through Dunking Drills 52:17- Creative Skill Development Through Low Rim Dunking 53:42- Fun Training Activities Boost Skill Development Naturally 1:04:20- Optimizing Player Development through Training Principles 1:13:27- Mastery through Obsession: Training Hunting Dogs & Basketball Bobby Whyte Quotes (8:40) "The top performing athletes are willing to go into the unknown, right? They don't have fear of the unknown." - Bobby Whyte" (12:33) "The more I'm willing to step into this kind of experimental role of guidance with these athletes, I start to see it doesn't matter as much about what I'm doing, but the intention behind what I'm doing. And that's bringing them to the edge of their ability in the direct line of what their goals and dreams are." - Bobby Whyte (35:03) "Kids that couldn't do something, now they can do something. All right, now they can do that. Let's raise the bar a little bit higher. Let's make it a little bit more complex. What else can they do? What else can they do? What else can they do? And that's what I'm. That's it." - Bobby Whyte (44:00) “My guess would be that the best athletes, right, their time (sprinting while dribbling) a ball is a lot closer to their time without a ball than, than the lesser basketball players” - Bobby Whyte (46:39) "That is normal. That is right now what happens everywhere, because all of the training. It removes all of that stuff, whether it's a person or a chair of this." - Bobby Whyte (47:40) "Sometimes I go, you know, for this game, it's three on three, but dunks only, right? And now you are forced to kind of step into that unknown, step into that fear that you've been avoiding." - Bobby Whyte (54:01) “They're on low rims now. That's how they learn new dunks. Pro dunkers now are on low rims. It's like the same mindset, honestly, of taking the thought of the finish away, right? You removed a barrier. Right? You removed a fear." - Bobby Whyte (56:36) "Here's things to do. And no one talks about observing anything. For me, just watching Kids play, watching Kids play before practice, all that stuff. That's a huge, like, source of inspiration for how we learn and move and then the dynamic pieces as well." - Joel Smith (1:1

Today's podcast features sprint coach Jack Edwards. Jack is the coach and company co-founder with Track Speed Development and is experienced in club and high school track coaching. He runs the "Metamorphosis Track Project" page on social media, is the creator of the "Acceleration Monster" training manual, and can often be found at the Bankstown athletics track in Sydney. Jack works closely with individuals from diverse backgrounds and age groups, ranging from national-level competitors to newcomers in track and field. Jack's coaching approach underscores the significance of individual observation, athlete identity, and tailored strategies to optimize each athlete's s movement and performance. It is easy in sprint training (or general athletic performance) to focus on the "micro" or isolated aspects of athletic performance training. It is easy to treat all athletes the same in programming and cueing. Although a general structure must exist in training groups, it must also be understood what drives each athlete's performance engine, their ideal cues and communication strategies, and related training constraints and exercises. In today's episode, we delve into the unique coaching approach of Jack Edwards. He shares insights on painting a comprehensive picture of the athlete, considering the driving mechanisms of their movement, psychological factors, and adaptation in sprint training. Jack also discusses the importance of developing an athlete based on their needs, their "superpower ", and "identity", bringing the power of story into the sprint training equation. We also explore the concept of coaching based on big picture elements, versus a "micro" approach. Tune in to gain a deeper understanding of these topics and more in today's episode. Today’s episode is brought to you by TeamBuildr, the Plyomat, and LILA Exogen. Use the code “LILAJUSTFLY10” for 10% off of any Lila Exogen wearable resistance training, including the popular Exogen Calf Sleeves. For this offer head to Lilateam.com TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. Use the code “JUSTFLY” for a free 30 day trial of the TeamBuildr software at teambuildr.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at plyomat.net View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Main Points 2:20- Jack’s Take on “Classical Ab Training” for Sprinting and Athletics 13:02- Natural Movement Evaluation for Optimal Coaching Success 20:51- Athletic Identity Development through Varied Training Programs 22:19- Optimizing Speed Coaching Strategies for Individual Athletes 29:05- Training with Imaginative Superheroes: Inspiring Athletes 39:20- Enhancing Sprint Performance through Strategic Training Approaches 44:29- Enhancing Performance Through Sensation and Awareness 54:49- A Holistic Viewpoint of Speed Training Jack Edwards Quotes "I would have just probably reading some old Charlie Francis stuff, and I just started banging out just classic crunches and leg raises for time push-ups, all those sort of body weight calisthenic exercises on off days, and I don't think it was useless whatsoever. I think that the demands of sprinting and lifting weights and, and getting jacked is such a stressor on the posterior chain, and as someone who has some anterior hip issues historically, I almost felt like the ab circuits were my postural restoration, as silly as that sounds- Jack Edwards "I think that my goal when I first start working with someone, I guess, is to try and paint a picture as to who the athlete is." - Jack Edwards "I think that there are probably common factors which need to be included in the program and the sort of movement styles that athletes probably need to move towards to become faster runners." - Jack Edwards "I was working with at a all boys school, and we're coaching a variety of different athletes. And, like, the one thing I really wanted them to get out of the training experience is sort of like, to be proud of their strengths and to understand them as well, and to not be, to not have shame about what they don't have, so that they continue to push forward in their athletic endeavors.- Jack Edwards “Explosive like a firebender. Or if a rugby player, like a prop who's going to be like a bigger boned kid is next to like a little greyhound, I guess it's comforting for the earthbender child to understand that in a rugby scrum, this airbender has got absolutely no chance against him, even if he's going to lose in this 20 meters run. And so, yeah, I really buy into athlete identity because I think it paints a path for success. And we all have a very different” - Jack Edwards “Fire would be like Christian Coleman, you know, Air would be like Andre de Grasse, perhaps. And Water would be like Alison Felix, where the

Today's podcast features Kevin Mulcahy. Kevin is an experienced sports and S&C coach and owner-operator of the Design the Game Project. He has worked with various sports teams, athletes, professionals, and clubs across three continents, for over 30 years. Kevin takes a multi-lateral focus on human movement, skill development, and S&C, led by a deep interest in ecological dynamics and the constraints led approach to coaching and motor learning. Sport and the process of athlete development has undergone a major shift in the last 3-4 decades. Where free play used to be a hallmark of young athletes, the majority of athletic development now happens in the realm of supervised, cognitively overloaded, and hyper-accelerated practices and games. This aspect of sport (and sports performance) does get talked about, but the nuances of how things should actually change from both a developmental aspect are rarely discussed. On today’s show, Kevin gives his perspective on ideal athlete development from an ecological and environmental point of view. He lays out the difference between the dominant “cognitive” approach to coaching and training, relative to an ecological approach. Kevin also gets into skill development, game-play and the importance of motor learning, and an overall athlete-centered, approach to training. Kevin’s experience crosses many of the traditional lines drawn in athletics, and as such, helps us to form new connections and understand the athlete development process on a deeper level. Today’s episode is brought to you by TeamBuildr, the Plyomat, and LILA Exogen. Use the code “LILAJUSTFLY10” for 10% off of any Lila Exogen wearable resistance training, including the popular Exogen Calf Sleeves. For this offer head to Lilateam.com TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. Use the code “JUSTFLY” for a free 30 day trial of the TeamBuildr software at teambuildr.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at plyomat.net View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Main Points 3:44- Kevin’s Evolution of Movement and Strength Coaching 10:32- Gaelic Football's Impact on Soccer Development 13:45- Nurturing Creativity in Gaelic Games Athletes 29:45- Balanced Development Through a Free Play Approach 33:16- Small-Sided Games for Tactical Coaching Success 47:10- Athletic Success: The Genetic Advantage Perspective 54:02- Optimizing Training Schedules for Performance Enhancement 59:21- Irish Sports Clubs: Community Support and Culture 1:02:46- Enhancing Sports Performance Through Soft Coaching 1:07:29- Tactical Deficit-Focused Conditioning in Team Sports 1:12:06- Enhancing Sports Performance Through Motor Learning Principles 1:18:23- Engaging Sports Coaching and Skill Development Initiative Kevin Mulcahy Quotes "I'm not sure we all know how deep the science of sports goes yet." - Kevin Mulcahy “How do we learn skills? How are they connected to skill as we see it? Because we see the action of a player throwing a basket, pulling a dummy solo, dribbling through a player in soccer, whatever and we see that as a fixed skill and that's something they did and they must practice that a thousand times. But versus the more ecological way looking at it like, you know, they saw an opportunity to act, they saw a gap, they saw space, they got free at the corner for a three point shot, whatever it is. And they just took it” - Kevin Mulcahy “But traditionally, I would have struggled to get soccer and basketball players to engage in strength and conditioning more than any other sport, right. I don't know if that related to the street element where they have so much exposure, they have so much play, they feel good from it, they look good. I don't need (S&C). Why would I need that? You know, I'm well built. - Kevin Mulcahy "I believe it was Steffan Jones, the cricket fast bowling coach, who had said something about, like the death of a natural athlete, like that athlete who grows up on free play. And there's this, like, exceptional artistry that comes out of that" - Joel Smith "And that ecological psychology suggests that direct perception is what happening? And it's nonlinear learning, right?" - Kevin Mulcahy "My perception has evolved. Now I'm perceiving the play to come towards me in a very similar manner to what happened three minutes earlier. So I can't play it the same way." - Kevin Mulcahy ” The cognitive feeling that they have the information to give it, whereas the ecological belief is that the information is in the game. Right. So let's give them the opportunity to learn about the game. In the game. - Kevin Mulcahy "Absolutely, I think strength and conditioning has to move more towards a better and deeper learning of motor learning, right? And that soft coaching side of it." - Kevin Mulcahy&q

Today's podcast features Cameron Josse, Assistant Strength & Conditioning Coach at Auburn University. With experience at Indiana University Football and DeFranco’s Training Systems, Cameron has worked with athletes from various levels and sports like NFL, NHL, UFC, and WWE. A former football player at the University of Rhode Island and current PhD candidate at Jean Monnet University, Cameron's approach to performance training is both practical and comprehensive. As we move forward in sports performance training, there is more data around speed training for athletes than ever, as well as corresponding logistics and systems. We are understanding that physical preparation is not a one-sized fits all approach, not only between sports, as well as within positions in a single sport. By better understanding key aspects of speed development on an individual level, as well as in knowing the evolving role of strength training over time, we can better serve the needs of the individual athlete. On today’s episode, Cameron will cover the process of optimizing resisted sprint protocols in college football athletes, as well as important individual differences he sees between positions and maximal speed ability. We will cover strength training in light of long term athlete speed and power development, sprint biomechanics and injury prevention, as well as concepts of integration between strength and sport skill staffs. Cameron is a brilliant coach with an expansive view of the training process. This conversation is a valuable addition for anyone interested in long term development of speed and athleticism. Today’s episode is brought to you by TeamBuildr, the Plyomat, and LILA Exogen. Use the code “LILAJUSTFLY10” for 10% off of any Lila Exogen wearable resistance training, including the popular Exogen Calf Sleeves. For this offer head to Lilateam.com TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. Use the code “JUSTFLY” for a free 30 day trial of the TeamBuildr software at https://teambuildr.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Main Points 4:08- Optimizing Power Output Through Velocity Variation 11:27- Position-Specific Biomechanics in American Football Players 19:31- Position-Specific Force-Velocity Profiles in Sprint Performance 27:50- Enhancing Sprint Training in Team Sport 31:08- Neural Efficiency in Skill Player Performance 36:20- Neural Processes in Sports Performance Optimization 42:30- Optimal Pelvic Alignment for Efficient Running 47:53- Enhancing Movement Quality Through Motor Techniques 57:47- Optimizing Performance by Removing Physical Constraints 1:07:06- Optimizing Training Programs for Athlete Profiles 1:15:02- Explosive Velocity Training for Muscle Hypertrophy 1:17:14- Optimizing Athlete Performance through Strategic Training 1:20:52- Sprinting’s Impact on Weight Room Training Integration 1:25:49- Collaborative Communication for Athletic Development Success Cameron Josse Quotes "It's like you're not going to get a ton of return on it if you just keep chasing (gym strength) forever and ever and ever. It seems like there's a certain point where enough is enough, right?" - Cameron Josse" What we're finding is that the, like, the step velocity itself, like how fast the leg moves through the push phase, is really, really important for the bigs. It seems like it. There's a big correlation to performance for those guys, but it's not really. It doesn't seem to be as big of an important factor for the skill guys. Cameron Josse The bigs are so big, they have less opportunity to compensate to a certain degree. Yeah, like, they. It's like, I got to get this big body moving, and, like, we all kind of need to self organize to do this better or else we're not going to move, you know. Cameron Josse As soon as you go from, like, a 50% (velocity decrement) to a 20% (velocity decrement), and now they're operating at 80% of their relative maximum speed, they. Those fast guys are blowing everybody else out of the water. I'm talking by, like. Like miles per hour, plural. Right? Like, it's. It's off the charts different. And so it's. It's pretty interesting how you're right, like, those who are more elastic, more reactive, faster in general, have better, more efficient nervous systems. "When we watch a skill guy in American football, everybody's enamored with the 40-yard dash, and, like, how fast is this dude? Or when he's got the ball in his hands, can he just take the top off or make everybody look silly around him? And so all of those factors that we're enamored with are indicative of a very high functioning, efficient nervous system, to me, very elastic, very reactive." - Cameron Josse" "If we don't

Today’s podcast features Rafe Kelley, owner of Evolve Move Play. Rafe has studied and taught a multitude of movement practices spanning gymnastics, parkour, martial arts, weightlifting, and more for over 20 years. His passion is to help people build the physical practice that will help make them the strongest, most adaptable, and most resilient version of themselves in movement and life. Rafe has had a profound impact on my coaching and training philosophy and has helped me expand my views on the totality of the bio-psycho-social model of movement and human performance. Much of modern training is overly prescriptive, reliant on drills, and overemphasizes winning. This leads to practices with a reduced learning potential, a downplay of creativity, and a lowered ceiling of movement and skill potential. It also leads to less engaging practices in general. In today’s episode, Rafe delves into his unique methods and teachings that foster creative and adaptable athletic movement. He explores the interplay of constraints and play in sport and skill training, underscores the significance of creativity and improvisation in movement (and how to cultivate it), and shares insights on the role of joy in movement. Rafe also touches upon collaborative movement training, rough-housing, dance, and movement improvisation, and how these elements can shape better learners and movers in their respective sports or movement practices. By gaining a deeper understanding of play, exploration, and constraints, we can unlock the full potential of human performance. Today’s episode is brought to you by TeamBuildr, the Plyomat, and LILA Exogen. Use the code “LILAJUSTFLY10” for 10% off of any Lila Exogen wearable resistance training, including the popular Exogen Calf Sleeves. For this offer head to Lilateam.com TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. Use the code “JUSTFLY” for a free 30 day trial of the TeamBuildr software at https://teambuildr.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Main Points 2:30- The balance between constraints and free play in coaching, as well as children’s skill development 15:30- Training based off of “following one’s joy”, versus more set skill rehearsal 25:30- Creativity and improvisation in human movement and sport performance 32:30- Athleticism, dance, and individual dancing versus dancing with others, in context of sport 41:00- Roughhousing and links to team sport movement and problem solving 48:00- Forms of play that are both done for winning, as well as learning, exploration and mutual growth 57:30- Scaling and continuums of effort in individual and team sports, for improved learning 1:07:00- The use of roughhousing, and contact improv oriented work, on facilitating play states, and opening up movement options in a donor sport format Rafe Kelley Quotes “Soccer works because there is a set of constraints; there are structures that allow the game to exist, but there are infinite degrees of freedom once the constraints are in place” “Usually I’ll have 3 areas I’m working in, and then one core skill” “At the end of the session, I’ll ask them “What was your rose, your bud and your thorn”. They get to reflect on what they want to hold going forward” “Sweet, we are playing tag. How do we add a little more speed demand to that tag. How do we play a version of tag that looks like this, and gives you the thing you are looking for?” “Creativity is the ability to create a solution to a movement problem, in a sport situation” “What made Barry Sanders special wasn’t that he did set plays better than anybody else” “A gymnast doing a high bar routine, is actually adjusting constantly to try to achieve the goal; they are not doing the exact same thing… but that’s far less chaotic then adding another player” “We tend to fall in love with expressions of Type 1 athleticism (sprinting, jumping, explosive power)” “(Jokic) is able to attune to everyone else on the team incredibly well; so he conducts his team on an extraordinary level; I do think that in some sense, that’s the type of thing that is cultivated in dance” “A human being is a super-predator because of our capacity to do what quarterbacks do” “I found you could break down (10 human core capacities) into locomotion, manipulation, and combat” “The reason we enjoy football is because it allows us to experience (locomotion, cooperation, combat)” “One of the things we discovered with contact improv, is that removing the competitive intent, or creating a creative intent allows to you explore spaces you would avoid, if you were having a competitive interaction’ “What we are going to play with is a coach/athlete dynamic, the coach’s role is to provide the environment that the athlete becomes skillful within” “Once you have reached a certain level of skill, you shouldn’t be giving yoursel

Today's podcast features Austin Jochum. Austin is the owner of Jochum Strength and is a strong proponent of athlete centered, play based, robust physical training. Austin was a former D3 All-American football player and a hammer thrower (MIAC weight throw champion) at the University of St.Thomas. Austin has been a multi-time guest on the podcast, and every conversation with him has been both enjoyable and enlightening. Much of sport coaching and training today takes place in a “fractured” version of ultimate training and performance. The balance point of training is shifted heavily towards “perfect technique”, drill work, and high output, low variability practices that reduce the movement solution potential of the athlete. This mentality feeds into sports performance, where singular physical markers (especially maximal strength) tend to be accelerated as fast as possible, rather than tending the patient, purposeful growth of the entire athletic library of skills and physical abilities. On today’s episode, Austin gives his take on the foundations of athlete-centered development model that prioritizes joy, the learning process, and long-term development. We discuss the role of play and exploration in achieving both one’s ultimate athletic performance, as well as enjoyment of the process. Austin goes into his take on games as a pre-cursor to prescriptive training measures, highlights the importance of confidence and emotional aspects of training, and much more. Today’s episode is brought to you by TeamBuildr and the Plyomat. TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. Use the code “JUSTFLY” for a free 30 day trial of the TeamBuildr software at https://teambuildr.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net Sign up for Austin and Joel’s live 1-day seminar in Cincinnati, Ohio on June 8th, 2024 View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Main Points 1:30- Rock Climbing Lessons and Athletic Performance Enhancement 7:27- Enhanced Performance Through Enjoyable Movement Practices 13:59- Athlete-Centered Coaching for Optimal Performance and Success 17:03- Athlete-Centered Coaching for Enhanced Performance 22:00- Joyful Training for Enhanced Athletic Performance 24:24- Athletic Success through Mental Fortitude and Confidence 40:35- Play-Based Warm-Up for Athlete Development 43:13- Optimizing Skill Development Through Varied Environments 48:33- Psychological Influence of Coaches in Sports 54:10- Balancing Creativity and Structure in Athlete Development 1:00:35- Empowering Athletes Through Training Autonomy 1:04:14- "Peak Performance through Passionate Pursuit" Austin Jochum Quotes " So how can you make things harder to get a stimulus to the body at a very, very low cost? And that is the complexity model that you were talking about. It's like hop on the (rock climbing) wall instead of just doing more pull ups with more weight. You're going to have to continually add so much more stress (in pull ups) to get the same level of stimulus that you could just do climbing a wall because there is so much going on there.." - Austin Jochum "We're just prescribing strength, we're just prescribing hypertrophy, whatever it is. We're just throwing that out there. Use the play to drive the prescription. What do they need? What are we finding out when they are playing? What do we see? Then you go prescribed”.- Austin Jochum "So, in fourth grade, we had an under the lights football game, and me and my buddy Luke, we scored a touchdown in that game, and it was the only touchdown scored in that game, and we were the only two to end up playing college football. And at that time, and never once were we the most athletic. Never once were we the highest. But in fourth grade, we scored a touchdown. He passed it to me. I caught the ball. We scored in fourth grade. It was terrible football, whatever, but we scored, and we talked about it from fourth grade until we graduated, about that moment of scoring that touchdown and having that belief." "I'm going to take them back out to the general aspect to again try to get more data points. And that that's really where I find the value in the variety approach with these games is what data points am I getting from that? Because if I just throw them in the same things over and over again, and that's what a lot of football practices I find out the same things over and over again and we're just going to continue to brash our head against the wall." "One of the easiest ways to think about this is hardcore, okay? You jump over a low hurdle, you have 400 different options to jump over a low hurdle. As that hurdle goes up, you start to have one option to jump over that hurdle and you're just going to have like, you don't have a choice anymore." - Austin Jochum&quot

Today’s podcast features Scott Leech. Scott is the head strength and conditioning coach at the University of Rhode Island. He oversees football, women’s tennis, and women’s track and field and manages all strength and conditioning aspects for the department. Scott is a former football captain and earned academic honors at Springfield College. Agility training is far more than cones, ladders, and tires. It is a multi-faceted training construct based heavily on task-based stimuli. Modern coaches are understanding in greater detail, the need to help players adapt to the tasks of the game. There is a place in performance where further strength and linear speed gains no longer move the needle for an athlete in their on-field play. At some point, a broader understanding of movement must be taken up by coaches who desire to improve transfer points in their performance program. On today’s podcast, Scott gets into the weekly breakdown of his speed and agility training program. He talks about how he pairs specific on-field perception and reaction tasks with more linear speed, jump training items, and strength work done in the gym. Through the podcast, Scott makes distinctions between games done for fun and for task-specific purposes, the role of exploration, as well as manipulation of variables in speed and agility games. This podcast will really expand your understanding of off-season training and performance. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr and the Plyomat. TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. Use the code “JUSTFLY” for a free 30 day trial of the TeamBuildr software at https://teambuildr.com. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Main Points 1:15- The “200” rule for bench press in Scott’s gym 7:15- Defining moments in how Scott’s approach to game speed has evolved 10:45- Scott’s ratio of linear or developmental work, to applied agility work 20:15- The role of “fun games” and then specific developmental agility games 22:15- Scott’s 3 types of training days in his weekly regimen 29:15- Manipulating race and chase drills to increase competitive richness 35:15- Setting up drills to allow for exploration of techniques and creativity 43:15- The nature of Scott’s maximal velocity day 51:00- Scott’s change of direction oriented training days 59:15- How Scott assesses athletic capacity Scott Leech Quotes “Can it be reactive, but can it also start looking a little more like football.. it’s easier when it looks like a drill they did at practice” “We like to start with high intensity, competitiveness (in speed and agility training), and then we backfill with what we need” “Coaches see a 1v1 on social media and think, that’s a good drill, but in my head, there is more to it then that, there is “what are the entry points for the offensive and defensive person?”, “Is it a static start, or are they shuffling and starting the drill”? What happens when you add obstacles to the situation” “Handball is purely a game, let’s go out and have fun; but I can’t use it to help them move off a pick and roll” “We’ll do acceleration, horizontal plyos, and single leg lifts (on Monday), and guys will come back feeling better then when they walked in, this is good work but it isn’t crushing me” “Wednesday we run fast, we jump high, we lift heavy, and we get paid!” “It’s ok if you have something a little bit lateral on your acceleration day, or curved sprints, where does that fit in?” “Now make it, the front person can’t leave until the back person moves (in a basic chase drill)” “Well I undercut the barrel because I thought I get there before he a move, but he beat me with speed. Well he lost but at least he is trying something new; there is so much more value in that versus doing an L drill and just saying “you won it and you lost it”” “When you come to this level, players get exposed, because everyone is fast, everyone is strong” “The difference between a kid playing and not playing is (angles, perception, reaction); It’s not speed and power, he’s got plenty of that” “Foot is nothing but layers of complexity and the guys who can sift through that are the good football players” “For me, 24x110’s, the only thought in my mind is survive. And I don’t want to be on the football field “trying to survive”” “There’s players that can push all the weight in the world, but they aren’t good at pushing a body” Show Notes: Scott’s Pre-contact course https://contactprep.carrd.co/ About Scott Leech Scott Leech enters his fifth year at Rhode Island in 2023-24. In July of 2021, he was promoted to head strength and conditioning coach after initially joining the department as an assi

Today’s podcast features Nicolai Morris. Nicolai is the Head of Performance for AFLW at Collingwood AFL club. She is also the strength and conditioning coach for World Champion and Olympic medalist high jumper Nicola Olyslagers (formerly McDermott). Previously, she worked as the Head of Physical Preparation of the Australian Women’s Hockey Team, NSWIS, and HPSNZ, working with NZ Rowing and leading NZ women’s hockey. She is an elite level 3 ASCA coach with a master’s in strength and conditioning and over 17 years of experience. Strength is far more expansive than what is gained from lifting barbells. It encapsulates a large number of qualities and abilities. When it comes to helping high-level athletes break through a performance barrier, what is needed is not simply “more barbell strength” but improving one’s total strength and movement package. Many forms of movement and strength can be employed to do this. This week’s podcast guest, Nicolai Morris, uses many strength and movement methods in her training. One of Nicolai’s athletes, Nicola Olyslagers, recently set the Oceanic high jump record at 2.03 meters (6’8”), and in today’s episode, Nicolai goes through the various strength and movement methods that helped set Olyslagers up for success on the high jump apron. Our discussion also deals with pole vault, swimming, and athlete autonomy. This episode was an expansive discussion on the role of strength and coordination in high jump training and beyond. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs and the Plyomat For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Main Points 1:27- Personalized Cues for High Jump and Pole Vaulting 17:39- Enhancing Coaching through Diverse Skill Training 25:52- Surface Variety for Enhanced Athletic Performance 35:48- Cushioned Surfaces for Plyometric Training 38:06- Enhanced Foot Strength Through Sand Training 42:19- Dynamic Training Strategies for Athlete Development 44:40- Optimizing Performance: Balancing Creativity and Structure 55:45- Athletic Success through Joyful Training Mindset 59:07- Targeted Training for Optimal Athletic Performance 1:04:34- Optimizing Movement Quality Through Single Leg Training Quotes “I have to relax. And even in drilling, I do better when I relax rather than tensing up and trying so hard. So it's a really fascinating one. And yeah, in swimming, when you try hard, it destroys you in an event in a 200” “But we've been doing a lot of work on her weaknesses. For her, that's often single leg strength, stability and hinging, hip extension type work and cross chain work are kind of key elements that have come across the whole way through that” “So we added in a bit of an obstacle course where she'd land on different soft, hard, interesting, big surfaces. And I told her to be creative, and she's a creative person, and went, all right, just chuck a bunch of things down on the ground. Make it fun, make it challenging, but make sure you are landing on different surfaces, hard and soft” “But our traditional model will help. We don't really have access to a gymnastics facility over the next four, five weeks. Coming into world indoors, let's go backwards. And we went back to our traditional way of doing things and you could see the position wasn't there. And immediately after the competition, it was. Yet we're going back to gymnastics” “She's got a beach right near her and her initial training, no matter when she comes back, will always start on sand and grass rather than going straight on track, which isn't uncommon. But the sand, she's always done blocks of sand her entire life. So being able to have that intrinsic foot strength, I think has been a big benefit into keeping her injury free” About Nicolai Morris Nicolai is the Head of Performance for AFLW at Collingwood AFL club. She is also the strength and conditioning coach for World Champion and Olympic medallist high jumper Nicola Olyslagers (McDermott). Previously, she worked as the Head of Physical Preparation of the Australian Women’s Hockey Team (The Hockeyroos), NSWIS, and HPSNZ working with NZ Rowing and lead of NZ women’s hockey. She is an elite level 3 ASCA coach with a masters in strength and conditioning with over 17 years’ experience.

Today's podcast features Ryan Jackson. Ryan has been the Associate Director of Human Performance/Nutrition with TCU Football since December 2021. His duties include team nutrition education, counseling, and menu planning. As a performance coach, he works directly with quarterbacks, mids, and advanced athletes. Jackson has been involved in sports performance and nutrition on the NCAA DI level for over 15 years. Tendons and connective tissue are an important aspect of human movement. Yet, compared to muscle, there is relatively little objective data or research on their adaptive processes or key performance metrics. Skeletal structure considerations, such as infrasternal angle, also play a vital role in an athlete's movement strategy and muscle mass dynamics and are also something we are just beginning to learn and integrate into the training equation. In creating a total performance program, it is essential to understand not just the dynamics of muscle but also of bone and tendon. On today's show, Ryan will discuss the correlations found at TCU between the Achilles tendon thickness, Nordboard metrics, fat-free muscle mass, and training season. He will also discuss the differences in Achilles thickness between football positions and the implications for training well-roundedness. Finally, Ryan will discuss the infrasternal angle measurements and how these correlate to an athlete's lean muscle mass and potential for maximal functional muscle gain in the gym. This episode was an awesome deep dive into cutting-edge information about connective tissue and performance. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs and the Plyomat For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Main Points 6:34- Tendon Adaptation in Response to Muscle Forces 7:51- Tendon Thickness Impact on Athletic Performance 16:54- Achilles Tendon Thickness and Athletic Performance 17:26- Achilles Tendon Thickness and Force Production 19:04- Achilles Tendon Stiffness at Malleolis Measurement 36:59- Calf Muscle Stiffness in Elite Athletes 52:56- Optimizing Athletes' Performance Through Body Composition Analysis 59:07- Achilles Tendon Thickness and Athletic Jump Strategies 1:00:19- Hip Dip Strategies Impact Jumping Performance 1:20:06- Enhancing Tendon Healing with Isometric Training 1:21:19- Enhancing Athletic Performance with Collagen and Tendon Training 1:31:42- Structural Differences Impacting Athletic Performance in Bounding Quotes “Defensive backs, on average had bigger Achilles tendons. Interesting. We have a guy the second biggest, and I think it's a product of their movement and their position, where if I'm backpedaling, moving backwards more, it's more eccentric loading. Right?” “So you get the knee bent to a 30 degree angle, and then you push as hard as you can, push your heel up into the strap as hard as you can, and it's like an ISO for like three to 5 seconds, overcoming ISO for like three to 5 seconds. There is an inverse relationship between Infra-sternal angle. So what I mean by that is the more narrow, the more force produced in that test” “But what we saw with that is that, yes, it was very strongly correlated with Isa. With higher. The greater the angle, the higher their fat-free-mass-index is, which in theory makes sense, and that typically that person is going to be wider. So they have the ability to handle more muscle mass on their frame” “So you would think that a big would have the widest ISA on the team. That was not the case. We had a running back, actually had the biggest 205 pound running back, had the biggest ISA in that upper 25% quartile. There was three bigs, four skill and one mid. And reference ranges. There's not a whole lot of information on this, but if you refer to Connor Harris, he has some norms. And anything greater than 110 degrees is technically wide, and then less than 110 degrees is narrow. Our smallest ISA was 118, biggest was 149. It didn't really change, not significantly throughout the year. Usually it was like one to two degrees. If it did” “My takeaway there is that, especially with the data that we see with 180 pound db having achilles tendons as big as offense and defense alignments, that they probably use their tendons to move more, whereas the muscle driven guy uses his muscle to move more. And so if I'm using my tendons to move more, I should definitely be supplementing with collagen” About Ryan Jackson Ryan Jackson has been the Associate Director of Human Performance/Nutrition with TCU Football since December 2021. In this role, he serves as a sports dietitian and performance coach. His primary responsibili

This week’s podcast guest is Angus Ross. Angus is a former Winter Olympian employed by High Performance Sport New Zealand. He works with track and field and several other Olympic sports, including sprint cycling, skeleton, squash, rowing, tennis, and more. Angus has a PhD in exercise physiology from the University of Queensland and has been a multi-time guest on the podcast. He is an absolute wealth of knowledge on all things speed, power, and human performance. There is a lot that the world of sport can learn from track and field, but perhaps the most valuable lessons can be gained by studying the decathlon and heptathlon events. Most sports performance programs will jump, sprint, and throw, but the focused, competitive aspects of those events bring out the highest level of expression for pure outputs, along with the speed-endurance aspects. In today’s podcast, Angus discusses the relationship between the multi-events and the needs of team sports, including the dynamics of creating scoring tables in a performance program and the connective tissue development multi-event training brings about. He discusses the relationship between speedbag training and sprinting. He also gets into isometrics and elasticity, as well as plenty of case studies and examples of putting these principles into action. I always have fantastic conversations with Angus; this talk was no exception. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr and the Plyomat. TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. Use the code “JUSTFLY” for a free 30 day trial of the TeamBuildr software at https://teambuildr.com. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Angus Ross Main Points 3:00- Comparing “Rotational” and “Linear” Events in Track and Field 11:20- Loaded Mobility for Athletic Performance Enhancement 18:24- Enhancing Connective Tissue Quality Through Loaded Stretching 31:45- Heptathlon Training Impact on High Jump Success 35:28- Rotational Movements in Multiplanar Athletic Training 43:03- Elasticity's Role in Athletic Performance 46:26- The Role of Elasticity in Athletic Performance 54:53- Enhanced Athletic Performance through Speedball Training 58:19- Spinal Engine's Role in Speed Enhancement 1:06:03- Enhanced Performance Through Muscle Control Adaptations 1:09:23- The Role of Long Isometrics and the Nervous System 1:11:49- Enhancing Physical Strength Through Structured Workouts Angus Ross Quotes "I just think it's interesting how these different qualities degrade at different rates. And in terms of trying to maintain your athleticism, probably that elasticity, ability to bounce is probably something that we should be thinking about." - Angus Ross" “I talked at a high jump mini conference we had in New Zealand a little while ago. Made the analogy that it's really interesting, too, that the high jump + heptathlon is a really good combination. There's a lot of world class heptathlon athletes (who are really good at high jump). "With the decathlon. I kind of have this idea in my head, like the decathlon principle, in the sense of what could be applied for any event. Like almost this catalog of same but different skills to be good at if you want to be good at one thing." - Joel Smith" “But in contrast, volume of work probably is really good for your connective tissue and your fascial stuff and your tendons. And so perhaps the multi event is. And this is one of the things I was writing a couple of notes when you had some of those ideas to talk about. It's fascinating to me that we have now, we've got decathletes on the scene that can run 10.2 in the 100 meters and they can run close to four minutes in the 1500 meters” "When you're doing this horrible level of fatigue and discomfort, you get to, you learn stuff because you go, well, how can I hold this position? All these motor units are dying on me." - Angus Ross" “That was the thing in Scotland, snows in the winter. They had no indoor facilities. They trained in a little shed. What can we do? We can put a speedball up and hit that and do a body weight circuit. And guess what? They got really bloody fast. Crazy” "Extreme adaptations to extreme demands. There's something in it." - Angus Ross" About Angus Ross Angus is currently employed by High Performance Sport New Zealand in a power physiology and strength and conditioning role, primarily working with track and field. He has worked with a number of sports at an elite level within the NZ system including sprint cycling, skeleton, squash, rowing, tennis and more. Angus has a PhD in exercis

Today's podcast features Paul Cater, a seasoned strength coach with extensive experience in both professional and private realms. Beginning his journey in collegiate football at UC Davis, Paul later ventured into international professional rugby with the London Wasps for seven years. Following his rugby career, he spent a decade innovating strength and conditioning systems in professional baseball with the Baltimore Orioles and Los Angeles Angels. With a research focus on performance and injury reduction in Seville, Spain, Paul now optimizes training methods for the tactical community and is designing "The Lab Monterey," a premier 'smart gym' in the USA. While training is often regarded as both an art and a science, the majority of time and resources are allocated to the scientific aspects, leaving the artistic elements overlooked. The art of training extends beyond communication with athletes, delving into the intuitive process of session unfolding and the natural processes of learning, movement, and community engagement. In today's podcast, Paul explores the alignment of performance with natural learning, emphasizing challenge and mimicry over verbal statements and rote recital of patterns. He details how to create an environment that breathes life into training sessions, fostering engagement, enhanced learning, and improved results. The discussion also covers the role of science in the context of "smart gyms" and how technology can liberate coach resources for more creative investments. In a rapidly evolving world, this podcast is a landmark exploration of understanding athletes and fostering a meaningful coaching process. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr and the Plyomat. TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. Use the code “JUSTFLY” for a free 30 day trial of the TeamBuildr software at https://teambuildr.com. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Main Points 2:30- How athletic dance movements fit with culture, and how it works into Paul’s training ideas 12:30- Priming the environment of the athlete for better results, with the influence of music selection 19:00- Key exercises and “attractors” to help drive flow states and learning via mimicry in training 27:00- How to manage structure and basic coaching guidelines, along with creating space for freedom of movement and exploration 37:00- The nature of how children play, and their background, and implications for training and performance 43:00- Paul’s process of teaching, and education for mentors and assistants 53:00- How upbeats, and downbeats fit with rhythmic movement flow and athleticism 1:07:00- What the ideal world is in training and coaching, in regards to the balance of technology and sports performance Paul Cater Quotes “To really understand a culture, you have to understand their dancing culture and their music integration” “I believe right now in America, we are establishing a culture that is devoid of identify and basic movement patterns” “Dancing is ingrained in battle, and in sport you are mirroring movements, mimicking movements” “I want to have young athletes be more readily available to accept challenges, versus seeing things as threats” “Music, and the opening salvo of exercises can (engage an athlete) on both levels (of challenge and innate movement patterning)” “Birds mimic the sound, and then they vary it” “Choosing a song, mimicing beats and rhythms, within a drill, with peers” “I think if we teach young athletes to memorize drills, or plays, we take away that creative inhibition” “That’s the fine line, you want to challenge (respect the session and coaches authority), but you also want to inspire freedom” “The mountain gyn is a garage, and logs and a bar; and I want it to be that way, and then I have all the tools and tech back in Monterey “Purposefully withholding directive, speech, is a huge part of teaching people, athletes… it’s like Yoda, withholding information for Luke, purposefully” “Often, I let them interpret things, and they’ll change the drill to their interpretation, and I’m OK with that as long as it’s keeping with the core of the movement” “Can kids do these two things, challenge and mimic; that’s part of where the injury prevention comes; it’s not get stronger, or concentric force, or even rates of eccentric loading; it’s how quickly can we adapt, accept, and change” “My goal is to have a smart-gym, where I can get back to coaching, and not be a weight room monitor, or just a rah-rah guy, but really to create the creative rhetoric of challenge, and bring out the mimicry process” “You have to underst

Today’s podcast is with Alex Kanellis. Alex is the founder of Landmine University. He is a former state champion wrestler, Iowa Gatorade Player of the Year (Football), and University of Iowa football player. He has been a scholastic strength coach, wrestling and football coach, as well as having spent time as a performance coach for Weck Method. Currently, Alex’s focus is on training youth wrestlers, as well as his work with Landmine University. Strength training for athletes is fundamentally basic. The powerlift variations, as well as Olympic lifts recruit a large amount of muscle mass and are fundamentally stimulating. At the same time, with the potential to be over-used, “functional” training has emerged, offering light-weight movements with high demands for balance and coordination. Landmine oriented training movements offer a happy medium in a high potential for force application, a rotational and arc-like orientation, as well as short learning curves (unlike the longer learning curve of the Olympic lifts). On today’s podcast Alex goes into his experiences that brought him into landmine training, and how he uses the method with athletes. He also gets into the advantages and unique aspects of the method, and touches on the transfer points to a number of athletic movements and practices. Alex touches on isometric landmine variations, as well as gets into GPP methods for young athletes in general, and what we can learn from the athleticism of wrestling and combat sports. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr and the Plyomat. TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. Use the code “JUSTFLY” for a free 30 day trial of the TeamBuildr software at https://teambuildr.com. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 4:39- Enhancing Athletic Performance Through Rotational Core Movements 10:12- Rotational Landmine Training for Athletic Performance Gains 17:50- Rotational Landmine Exercises for Explosive Athletes 21:23- Spinal Engine Theory for Athletic Performance 32:00- The Role of Fat Grips and Unilateral Landmine Lifts 43:50- Rotational Resistance Training with Landmine Exercises 49:41- Building Athleticism Through Wrestling Movements 55:57- Focused Training for Elite Performance in Gymnastics 57:49- Enhancing Athlete Skills Through Wrestling and Free Play Alex Kanellis Quotes "Landmine lifts too is you really do feel the load go from one glute to the other glute and you can feel, and that's something that is really powerful and also just safe because they're just limited in a way that I like." - Alex Kanellis" "Your spine is the primary engine for locomotion, as opposed to bracing your spine to neutral and powering locomotion with your hips and legs." - Alex Kanellis "What if it's not an argument? What if you just started with more stuff like landmine cleans, or it's a lower bar to jump over, it's more athletic then maybe in high school or later (bring in Olympic Lifts)." - Joel Smith "If we are going to spend those skill points as a coach who's not their sport coach, it does feel really satisfying when just at least a couple of those skill points overlap with what they're working on in their sport." - Alex Kanellis" "Yeah, but it makes you play differently, and it gives you something. And so much. I think a lot of times we almost find things by accident that are because of these constraints." – Joel Smith “And you could ask Donnie Thompson or any of the guys that are into the fat grip stuff. But for me, I remember with even bench press, but deadlift, particularly when I did work with a fat grip, it sort of auto corrected my form. It just became almost impossible to do it with bad form” "So, in the whole system, there's principles that I wrote out, sort of just as a way, a measuring stick, and make sure that these movements were as functional as possible. So it's forward intent, rotational intent, core driven movement, and then progressive overload. – Alex Kanellis “And that also lights up your lat, lights up your oblique. I'm big on giving proximal cues and sort of letting the distal stuff take care of itself. People do come back really sore in the lower leg” – Alex Kanellis “It's interesting because I've always thought it was a great question, like, do wrestlers need a strength coach or do gymnasts need a strength coach? Wrestlers and gymnasts are extremely strong, regardless of their weightlifting background. And they look it, too” ~ Alex Kanellis "Play wrestle. That's all you're

Today’s podcast is with Mark McLaughlin. Mark is the founder of Performance Training Center, and currently works as a physical preparation/strength coach in the Lake Oswego school district. Mark has had a diverse sporting history as a youth, and has been active in the field of physical preparation since 1997. Mark has trained over 700 athletes at all competitive levels, from Olympic to grade school athletes, and has worked with organizations such as the NFL, MLB, NBA, NCAA universities, high schools, and youth sports. On the last podcast (#358), Mark spoke on his creative and wide-ranging approach to athletic performance, with an emphasis on movement training and athlete learning, as well as technology and the importance of the aerobic system in athletes. For today’s show, we center on a case study of one of Mark’s high school athletes who put 2 feet on his standing long jump and 11 inches on his vertical jump in just over 2 years time. Within this framework, we get into Mark’s ideas on athlete autonomy and feedback, jump training, progression and pacing of work, hill sprints, capacity, and more. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr and the Plyomat. TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. Use the code “JUSTFLY” for a free 30 day trial of the TeamBuildr software at https://teambuildr.com. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 6:25- The Role of Autonomy in Athletic Development 10:37- Gradual Increase in Plyometric Training Intensity 15:58- Optimizing Performance Through Reduced Training Volume 25:30- The Benefits of Diversifying Training Methods 35:33- Strength Training Concepts for Well Rounded Development 43:19- Optimizing Performance through Feedback and Monitoring 55:26- The Impact of Intent and Constraints 1:00:26- Jump Testing Device with Reactive Strength Measurements 1:02:59- Plyometric and Jump Training 1:09:16- Hunter's Varied and Intense Training Regimen 1:20:22- Hill Sprinting, Speed and Work Capacity Mark McLaughlin Quotes “So we just basically cut the volume almost by two thirds. And within the first month, his vertical increased like five inches” “Well, as a coach, sometimes I'm kind of constraint led as well. And so, kind of some of the things that I did to facilitate fun and progress was I started a gymnastics program, per se, within the athletic development model that I have there, and all the kids love it. So, number one, and that's part of the warm up. So that's one to get them there, the other thing that we do prior to training is game based. So they could play team handball, they could play ultimate football, ultimate Frisbee. We have a rugby ball, soccer.” “And again, when you ask kids, I think this is part of coaching in this country that is just bad to me, is we're never asking the athletes what they like. How do you feel about the training? Do you like what we're doing? No, I don't. Okay, then let's figure out what you do like. To keep you coming back. I do a questionnaire with every team twice a year to find out through my program what they like, what they don't like, my coaching style. So I can then refine this thing year to year to make it truly athlete centered” “This past year, I bought an adjustable hoop for the weight room, so we were doing different dunks and different jumping activities” “Yeah. I grew up with three younger brothers. We had a dunk hoop that would raise from, like, eight and a half to nine and a half feet, and you would watch Julius Irving dunk on somebody. Then you're trying to go out and dunk on your brother the same way he did it” “I have two tether balls at the school that I throw over the power racks and I pull them up and I'll have kids run and jump up and try to head those like a soccer header. So the intent on that, you have them just jump up and try to touch the top of the power rack” “There's a hockey player from Russia, Pavel Datsuk. They call him the magic man. So Pavel liked to, when he was playing with his friends, they tried to make the game, the constraints they put on themselves to make it harder or more enjoyable. It's extremely fascinating. And so one of the things that Pavel liked to do was he liked to play ice hockey in felt boots on the ice, and he played with a bouncy puck. It was creating a totally different game that he had to start and stop differently” “And so the method that I use is it's an all out sprint, either uphill or with a sled for less than 5 seconds. So you're recruiting as much fast fibers as you can, but because the duration is so short and you do

Today’s episode is a Q&A podcast with Joel Smith. Questions on this episode revolve around swim training, sprint training, plyometrics, and specific training means for athletic development. Much of my philosophy has gone towards motor learning and how athletes can intuitively learn explosive sport skills, that not only gets results, but is also sustainable over time. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr and the Plyomat. TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. Use the code “JUSTFLY” for a free 30 day trial of the TeamBuildr software at https://teambuildr.com. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 2:11- Explosive Athletic Training with Plyometrics 7:25- Retracting the Thorax for Effective Swimming 17:56- Enhancing Energy Recovery through Breathwork Techniques 24:07- Adjusting High Intensity Training for Sustainability 32:23- Exploring Foot Positions and Pressures for Single Leg Jumping 37:24- Constraints-led Approach in High Jump Training 39:50- Explosive Skills and Athletic Movement Enhancement 44:20- Optimizing Performance through Body-Mind Activation 56:39- Avoiding Impingement with Alternative Squat and Deadlift Variations 59:27- Optimizing Sports Performance through Specific Joint Angles 1:07:21- Enhancing Weightlifting Performance through Neural Activity Questions Best plyometrics to prepare for training them again after a long layoff? What's your approach in terms of S&C for swimming? Besides endurance, are there elements of swimming that translate to running mechanics? Top 5 best training modalities on recovery days? Training wisdom for training vertical jump after 40? Has your training changed since turning 40? Best way to organize a workout for a quad dominant athlete vs hip dominant? How do you improve an athlete who can't bring in speed into there 1 foot dunk? Top 3 tips to get better at high jump? What's the one thing you would program to progress with a track athlete from 7th-12th grade? Top 5 isometrics to do pre-court session? Thoughts on an open palm vs closed for sprinting? How to peak for 100m as a muscular driven sprinter in track sprint work? Does maintaining a strength for a sprinter in season matter? Show Notes Marv Marinovich Water Training https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUb1V7hBUMY Transcript About Joel Smith Joel Smith is the founder of Just Fly Sports and is a sports performance and track coach in Cincinnati, Ohio. Joel hosts the Just Fly Performance Podcast, has authored several books and coaches in both the high school and private sector. Joel was a strength coach for 8 years at UC Berkeley, working with the Swim teams and post-graduate professional swimmers, as well as tennis, water polo, and track and field. A track coach of 17 years, Joel coached for the Diablo Valley Track and Field Club for 7 years, and also has 6 years of experience coaching on the collegiate level, working at Wilmington College, and the University of Wisconsin, LaCrosse. He is currently coaching high jump at Milford High School. Joel has coached 4 national champions, multiple All-Americans, and NCAA record holders in track and field. In the realm of strength and conditioning, his programs have assisted 5 athletes to Olympic berths that produced 9 medals and a world record performance at Rio in 2016.

Today’s podcast is with Graeme Morris. Graeme is an athletic development coach and leads the rehab program at Wests Tigers. He is the former head of strength and conditioning at AFL Field umpires, Western Suburbs Magpies and the Newtown Jets. Graeme has consulted for a variety of field based and combat athletes including world and Australian champions in Muay Thai. Graeme has experience designing and implementing strength and power in the gym, as well as speed, agility and conditioning on the field. In athletic performance, it’s easy to get trapped in one viewpoint of improved athleticism, when there are many aspects of good movement and decision making. Graeme has both a wide-ranging understanding of sport and physical training, as well as an ability to understand the role of each coach and specialist in the overall training process. On today’s podcast, Graeme speaks about his time training in the martial arts, and how that impacted his thought process in his recent return to traditional sports performance training. He also gets into thoughts on lateral and curvilinear sprint development, ideas on how to “micro-dose” athleticism in team sport athletes, ideas on staggered stance lifting, and more. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr and the Plyomat. TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. Use the code “JUSTFLY” for a free 30 day trial of the TeamBuildr software at https://teambuildr.com. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps 4:43- The Impact of Training Environment on Performance 13:24- The Importance of Fitness Tests in Sports 20:55- The Importance of "Grapple Strength" in Wrestling 30:43- Building a Resilient Foundation for Athletes 41:04- The Importance of Curvilinear Running in Athletics 46:20- Layered Progression for Athletic Performance Enhancement 53:02- Enhancing Athletic Performance through Variable Training 59:48- Staggered Stance Squatting for Back Relief 1:02:20- Flywheel Training in Athletic Performance Graeme Morris Quotes "But then I believe that in a soccer game that they analyzed, and I'm not saying this is necessarily true in rugby league or what the sports I work in, but 85% of sprints were curvilinear nature. Okay? So all of a sudden we know, okay, this is also preparing guys for game demands." - Graeme Morris "Are you getting taught the correct things? Are you getting taught the correct tactics? Do you have good training partners? If you get training partners is so and so important. The people around you, are they challenging you? Are they pushing you? Are they assisting you? Becoming better every single day? So when I come back to sport, I always think, are we having a training environment that can lead to success? You want to produce a culture there, but that's not only really demanding and you're upholding standards, but it's still enjoyable to come to every single day." - Graeme Morris "But every single player knows what a good time is and what not a good time is. And when they return to training or when they come back, they know what the standards are, whether they're fit enough or they're not fit enough." - Graeme Morris "But you also got to also understand with some of these types of methods when you're in a team scenario as well. It's got to fit in with the holistic nature of what all the other coaches want as well. So you don't always get exactly what you want, whereas if you're doing something individually or when you're just a private coach, you can explore a bit more of these things. You might have this intuitive nature that you think this works and if your athlete has trust in it, it's easy to implement. Whereas in a team scenario, like multiple coaches are going to have input and then that certain thing might not get the tick of approval, so you might not get to have the full say, if that makes sense." - Graeme Morris "But to do that fun stuff, you have to do some of the other stuff before that, I believe." - Graeme Morris "I find the Kbox pushing into these positions like that because it's just forcing you all over the place when you're trying to do it, especially when you're doing it properly with a lot of." - Graeme Morris Show Notes Rugby Contact Drills https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71beRAMIuGQ Transcript About Graeme Morris Graeme Morris is an athletic development coach and leads the rehab program at Wests Tigers. He is the former head of strength and conditioning at AFL Field umpires, Western Suburbs Magpies and the Newtown Jets. He has

Today’s podcast is with Romain Tourillon. Roman is a physiotherapist, researcher and educator carrying an emphasis on the foot-ankle complex in rehab and performance. He is engaged in a PhD thesis on the foot muscles role in sports performance, supervised by sprint research expert, JB Morin. Romain works as a clinician at the Swiss Olympic Medical Center at La Tour Hospital, and has presented at various congresses on aspects of foot and ankle performance. The foot is a massively important, and under-studied aspect of athletic performance, and considering the way the foot is trained and integrated makes an impact in the training program. For today’s show, Romain discusses the roles of the mid-foot and fore-foot in human movement, and gives training applications to optimize each foot section. He gets into the role of the toes in training, sensory input, intrinsic foot strength, and much more. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr and the Plyomat. TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. Use the code “JUSTFLY” for a free 30 day trial of the TeamBuildr software at https://teambuildr.com. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 7:41- The Interconnectedness of Lower Limb Function 11:48- The Impact of Forefoot Strength on Athletic Performance 16:43- Evolutionary differences in foot and hand function 19:16- Improving proprioception and foot function through barefoot training 28:02- Effective Foot Activation Exercises with Dorsiflexion 38:08- Enhancing Foot and Calf Strength and Performance 45:18- Calf Muscles: Force Absorption and Propulsion 52:23- Muscle Groups for Foot Propulsion 1:05:03- Midfoot Strengthening with Tibialis Raises Romain Tourillon Quotes "The lower limb has to absorb and produce force. You say it's not just the foot does that, not just the hip. And so that's why you have to have this holistic push and this link between both (the foot) and every joint here." - Romain Tourillon "I find for proprioception or like balance based exercises, it's a good sign when people are feeling that in the intrinsic foot muscle. I find people who do balance exercises and don't feel it in their foot. They feel like they're calf. Usually those are people with issues. There's a strong link there." - Joel Smith "When you increase the (toe) dorsi-flexion, for example, during the heel raises, you increase the mid-foot moment and mid-foot force production." - Romain Tourillon "But it's pretty good exercise in order to work on this production on the first ray on the big toe, that it's much more economic. You can produce greatest force production and it's better for everything to have this. What I say, good propulsion. I would say good propulsion picture or good propulsion function. Pushing on the first toe." - Romain Tourillon "The first thing is to say, okay, the absorbing foot is this muscle Tibialis Anterior, Tibialis Posterior. So the two biggest. And after, if you look at the calf, it's the Soleus, which are, I would say the greatest absorber in the chunk." - Romain Tourillon "With the long toes, you have an increase of the lever arm within the foot, between the ankle joint rotation and the tooth. So allowing you to have, if you have the, I would say, calf capacity to have a greatest lever arm to produce force on the ground." - Romain Tourillon Show Notes Ziani Step (Toe Dorsiflexion Strength) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbS541xZLdA Romain Tourillon: First Ray Calf Raise https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jKyUeMorsLs Romain Tourillon: Midfoot Weight Transfer https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DNoIFbFhnLU Romain Tourillon: Seated First Ray Calf Raise https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Hbmtr0_vkt8 Little Toe Brick Alignment Toe Brick Alignment Transcript About Romain Tourillon Romain Tourillon is a versatile professional, integrating roles as a sports physiotherapist, researcher, and educator. Leading the foot-ankle service at the Swiss Olympic Medical of La Tour Hospital in Geneva, he is engaged in a PhD thesis on foot muscles' role in sports performance kinetics, supervised by Prof. JB Morin at the University of Saint-Etienne, France. Romain holds an MSc in physiotherapy and an MSc in Training and Sport Performance Optimization from France. He represents the profession internationally as an active member of the scientific organization: International Ankle Consortium. With a Master's in Sports Science (Training & Performance Optimization) from the University of Nantes and a Master of Physical Therapy from IFM3

Today’s podcast is with Ian Markow. Ian is a personal trainer and movement educator based in Delray Beach, Florida, and founder of Markow Training Systems. Ian utilizes methods and philosophies from Functional Range Conditioning, the Postural Restoration Institute, and more as he works with clients from the general population to professional athletes. Ian is an internationally recognized expert in fitness, mobility, and human performance and has a number of educational programs, courses, and workshops. With the vast amount of information on corrective exercise, movement, and mobility training, knowing where to start and how to view the human moment equation can be challenging. As helpful as movement training can be, it can also easily create a training narrative that an athlete is dysfunctional, and promote a “nocebo” effect of movement limitations, as well as create an environment of high pressure on the part of the trainer to elicit particular movement and range of motion outcomes. On today’s podcast, Ian discusses taking a practical perspective that centers on what an athlete can do rather than what they cannot and the simple gateways he manages to engage with the individual's breathing, mobility, and alignment. He also gets into ideas on managing more superficial movement abilities versus more deep-seated structural elements, gives his take on assessments, and much more. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr and the Plyomat. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. I’ve continued to hear great things about the Teambuildr platform, and whether you are looking for an in-house training portal or an online training hub, be sure to check out Teambuildr training software. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 6:17- Empowering Mobility Training with Individualized Care 14:33- Dynamic Shoulder Mobility Through Break Dancing 18:10- Breath Work and Alternative Strength Movements 27:41- Engaging and Effective Dynamic Warm-ups 33:44- Prioritizing Simple Solutions for Tangible Improvements 42:17- Enhancing Performance Through Stride-Based Breathing 47:15- Balancing Intensity and Mobility for Overweight Clients 57:18- Wall-Based Assessments 1:01:20- The Impact of Rib Cage Structure 1:17:47- Yielding and Expanding for Optimal Breathing 1:23:39- Isometric Training with Horse Stance 1:28:42- Ian Markow's Training Methods and Workshops Ian Markow Quotes "But there's corners and things that you're hitting in your CARs that will maintain that joint over time, that simply, I just haven't found anything that gets there." - Ian Markow "I think you can generally get stronger. So let's strength train and keep you fit while we work around some of your limitations, but also specifically for your elbow. When you go to play tennis or paddle, why don't you go ahead and do these elbow CARs? Let's do a few more of these every day and just keep the thing moving." - Ian Markow "I could care less what her hip rotation is because we're obviously crushing it. She feels great. She's more confident. You know what I mean? So those are the outcomes that matter, and it all comes down to the goal." - Ian Markow "In another way of putting it, I'm kind of thinking about stumbling, thinking about what the right phrase is, but just keeping the training vibe. It's keeping the training vibe and is the main thing feeling better and not getting bogged down with other little minutiae." - Joel Smith "I think most people are so crushed in their lower back ribs that when I teach them how to round them and then how to breathe into them and get separation between those ribs, that can be absolutely a game changer." - Ian Markow "I think effortless efficiency is a big, kind of, like, catchphrase that I've been really loving for the past few years. The idea that you use as much tension as you need, but no more than that, because that's what efficiency is." - Ian Markow "And just like the cold plunge is like this huge phenomenon right now, it's the same thing. You're in the bottom of a split squat and your leg is violently shaking. You need to learn how to get through that wall." - Ian Markow About Ian Markow Ian Markow, a dedicated personal trainer and educator from Miami, FL, began his fitness journey at Crunch Gyms, and eventually Goldman Sachs, in New York City. Ian is the founder of Markow Training Systems (MTS), and has a number of courses, training programs, and is a regular workshop presenter. Ian is well vers

Today’s podcast is with Christian Thibaudeau. Christian is a Canadian strength coach with over two decades experience, is a prolific writer, and has worked with athletes from nearly 30 sports. He is the originator of training systems such as the NeuroTyping system and Omni-contraction training. Christian is a wealth of training knowledge, and in addition to his extensive experience, he walks the talk in his training, competing in weightlifting and bodybuilding. I always enjoy having Christian on the show, as he is an absolute wealth of knowledge in multiple areas of human performance. I’ve had a significant number of revelations across my time speaking with Christian that have had a profound impact on my approach to programming and training. On the episode today, Christian talks about aspects of the nervous system and training stress, both in shorter-term cycles and waves of work, as well as year-to-year recovery concepts to restore the body and mind. Christian also covers ideas on training to failure, pre-fatigue and muscle activation work in relation to athletic skill development, loaded stretching for strength, and more. This was an awesome show, and it’s always great to have Christian on the podcast. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr and the Plyomat. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. I’ve continued to hear great things about the Teambuildr platform, and whether you are looking for an in-house training portal or an online training hub, be sure to check out Teambuildr training software. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points: 6:58- Optimizing Neurological Training for Maximum Gains 8:22- The Importance of Structural Abilities in Training 13:29- Neurological Factors and Performance Fatigue 24:23- The Impact of Skill Mastery on Performance 25:58- Enhancing Performance through Systemic Stress Management 31:51- The Importance of Rest and Recovery 35:20- The Impact of Mental State on Training Performance 39:22- Optimal Muscle Growth through Post-Failure Technique 45:00- Targeted Muscle Growth through Low Volume Training 53:20- Maintaining Bar Proximity for Olympic Lifts 1:02:44- Enhancing Performance with Iced Calves 1:10:07- Optimizing Health with Magnesium Supplementation Christian Thibaudeau Quotes "The reality is that when we are talking about training methods that are focused on neurological changes, which would be pretty much all power training methods, reactive training, plyometrics, pros, even the Olympic lifts, and even strength training, as far as in the very low ranges or isometric stuff like that, they all have a very short duration of what effective training can be." - Christian Thibaudeau "But if your body is not ready, what happens is you're creating lots of low grade systemic inflammation. You are causing stress on those tissues, and you don't always feel the pain, but it's still there, and it still sends signal to your brain, which will create inhibition, preventing you from performance, from performing at your best." - Christian Thibaudeau "But I'm telling you, if you do a four to six weeks period where you devote as much focus and thinking into designing a recovery program than you do programming your performance program, dude, when you come back from that, you're going to be a freaking machine." - Christian Thibaudeau "I think it's a mistake to try to do everything with the same tool. Each tool has its purpose. Don't try to nail a nail with a saw. That just doesn't work well." - Christian Thibaudeau "If you understand a movement really well and you understand which muscles do what in that movement, you can think, you know what that technical issue I'm seeing, maybe it's not because of poor technique, but it's because one muscle is overactive versus what it needs to be, and one is underactive versus what it needs to be. So you can try to reverse that and then practice the skill. You might not have to do any technical correction. Just changing that activation fatigue ratio in some muscles might self correct the technique." - Christian Thibaudeau "It actually is a great way to program your brain to use the fast twitch fibers. And it's a great way of doing volume work for the fast switch fibers, because doing typical lifting, if you try to do volume, you'll get that two x to two a conversion which you don't want. With loaded stretching, I don't think that happens. And also you are strengthening that lengthened position, which makes you stronger in that weaker

Today’s podcast is with Dr. Keith Baar, professor at UC Davis and renowned tendon training researcher and expert. Professor Keith Baar received his PhD from the University of Illinois, and over the last 20 years, Keith has worked with elite athletes, as the scientific advisor to Chelsea Football Club, USA Track and Field, Paris Saint-Germain Football Club, British Cycling, The English Institute of Sport, Leicester Tigers Rugby, and the Denver Broncos. He also spent time as an assistant strength coach with the University of Michigan football team where he was an undergraduate. Keith first guest appearance on this podcast, was on the role of various exercise velocities and tendon health, and was an extremely popular episode. Tendon training is crucial for overall health and performance, as tendons rely on loading for adaptation. Isometrics, a potent tool, are key to a robust training program. In this episode, Keith Baar explores tendon tissue adaptation trends and how different forms of isometrics and training methods optimize tendon health and high-tension capabilities. He delves into the impact of both low-speed and high-speed loading movements, emphasizing the compounding effects achieved by combining them for enhanced performance. Dr. Baar discusses essential concepts like tendon remodeling, the body's protective mechanisms, and the optimal sequence for training to realign and remodel tendon tissue. Drawing from examples in swimming, running, and rock climbing, he highlights the integral role tendons play in shaping training and performance outcomes. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr and the Plyomat. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. I’ve continued to hear great things about the Teambuildr platform, and whether you are looking for an in-house training portal or an online training hub, be sure to check out Teambuildr training software. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 5:02- Benefits of Collagen Supplementation for Knee Osteoarthritis 10:03- Determining Collagen Synthesis through Exercise and Supplementation 15:47- The Power of Belief in Pain Relief 21:56- The Complexity of Pain and Tissue Healing 29:45- Optimizing Training Through Body Adaptability 31:46- Effects of Running Surfaces on Tendon Health 43:40- Tendon Health and Performance in Rock Climbing 52:27- Isometric Exercises for Scar Tissue Regeneration 59:54- Movement-Based Strategies for Inflammation and Recovery 1:09:38- Dynamic Adaptation of Muscle and Tendon Tissues 1:23:00- Optimizing Performance and Health through Tailored Training 1:23:47- The Impact of Loading Techniques on Injury Prevention and Performance Enhancement 1:24:12- Estrogen's Impact on Injury Risk and Prevention Dr. Keith Baar Quotes "These peptides, these magical elixirs. They don't really do anything at all." "The hardest part, a lot of times, is having the expert to come in and say, this is what the real underlying problem is. And if you fix this, all the other stuff goes away." "In thinking about human beings as being incredibly adaptable, it's interesting to think about how we can use that adaptability to shift out of, hey, if you mentioned even the tendon with the know, use that adaptability, like, hey, let me get away from the donut part and shift into the strong tissue." "Your movement has to be much, much faster. And that movement through being faster means that the tendons are going to be stiffer and that means that the whole system is going to work very differently." "And so what it really kind of suggests is that, look, the max hang is really going to be important. Because that's what you're testing on. You're testing on as much weight as you can. But when you're doing that again. The load is going to go through the tendon differently. And so when I do a partial hang. I can get almost the same effect. With a fraction of the load. So a fraction of the mechanical fatigue. But I'm getting the signal to the cells so that the cells get the signal to adapt and they're adapting very similar to somebody who's got a much bigger signal." "You can fix the scar, you can fill the hole, you can do all of these things that are going to fix your connective tissue, your tendons." "So, in our paper, where we showed the native effects of these cytokines, these immune cell messengers, we also inhibited using a drug that blocks one of the big inflammatory pathways. And what we did was we made the ligaments almost useless because inflammation is required cert

Today’s podcast is with Vern Gambetta. Vern is currently is the Director of Gambetta Sports Training Systems, and a seasoned coach in athletics, coaching techniques and physical preparation methods, with a career spanning over 50 years. Vern is recognized internationally as an expert in training and conditioning for sport having worked with world class athletes and teams in a wide variety of sports. He is a popular speaker and writer on conditioning topics having lectured and conducted clinics in Canada, Japan, Australia and Europe. There are two side of the coin in coaching, and while the maximal strength and data-based side is heavily emphasized, the more creative, adaptable and “functional” side of human performance is far less built out in programming. That base of knowledge and core process is certainly important, but it can choke out problem solving, fostering adaptability, while developing a creative, dynamic process. In this episode, Vern delves into the fundamental elements of training athletes for optimal performance. He explores the intricacies of his training system, drawing on historical references and influences. Vern articulates his perspective on maximal strength training and emphasizes the significance of rhythm, tempo, and flow in the training process as well as cultivation of movement quality and long-term athlete longevity. Additionally, Vern highlights the crucial role of creativity in coaching, underscoring the continuous refinement of coaching systems and observational skills over time. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr and the Plyomat. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. I’ve continued to hear great things about the Teambuildr platform, and whether you are looking for an in-house training portal or an online training hub, be sure to check out Teambuildr training software. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 9:27- The Influence of passionate and eclectic coaches 20:47- The rhythmic evolution of coaching through music 21:54- The artistic expression of swimming technique 24:49- The eclectic approach to coaching athletes 33:57- Developing athletes' cue systems and body connection 35:29- Building upon progress for long-term success 39:03- The impact of throwing ability on athletic performance 44:47- Real-life movement-based training for athletic performance 53:54- Training for long-term athletic success 1:03:12- Enhancing performance with split work 1:13:29- The relationship between flexibility and performance Vern Gambetta Quotes "But I'm really curious how in high school I didn't even start until I was a senior in football. But I don't know why I wanted to be a college football player. My brother was a great athlete, and he was a really good football player, that never everything came easy. I was the opposite." - Vern Gambetta "Coaching is managing complexity and harnessing chaos." - Vern Gambetta "Strength training is coordination training with appropriate resistance." - Vern Gambetta "I always just kind of weigh the Olympic lifts against a good backward shot put, or even like a good depth jump to a med ball overhead type thing, something like that." - Joel Smith "It's about curiosity. It's about deep investment in a process, creating a system, you know, your own system. And the core of that system, once you coach a few years, never really changes. But on the outside, you're constantly fine-tuning." - Vern Gambetta "Creativity, first of all, is not getting weird. It's being able to look at the same motion with different eyes." - Vern Gambetta Show Notes Victor Salnikov Swim Dryland Training https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rh2GyYH07Q Kadour Ziani Dunker: Creative Training (on Mark Bell’s podcast) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3oj7LkghZk Transcript About Vern Gambetta Vern is currently is the Director of Gambetta Sports Training Systems. He has been the a conditioning coach for several teams in Major League Soccer as well as the conditioning consultant to the US Men’s World Cup Soccer team. Vern is the former Director of Conditioning for the Chicago White Sox and Director of Athletic Development for the New York Mets. Vern is recognized internationally as an expert in training and conditioning for sport having worked with world class athletes and teams in a wide variety of sports. He is a popular speaker and writer on conditioning topics having lectured and conducted clinics in Canada, Japan, Australia and Europe. Vern's coaching experience spans 39 years at all levels of

Today’s podcast is with Logan Christopher, strongman, author, owner of Legendary Strength, and CEO of Lost Empire Herbs. He has been a prior podcast guest speaking on mental training and giving an expansive view of the components of strength in the human being. Logan has written several books, including “Mental Muscle” and “Powered by Nature,” which I have found to be impactful, alongside numerous other manuals on human movement, performance, and mental abilities. Logan is an expert in using the natural machinery of the body in connection with our environment to help us reach our highest potential as humans. Logan’s work has had a substantial impact on my own training experience, especially on the mental and herbalism ends of the equation, areas that I wouldn’t have spent much time engaging with otherwise. One of the low-hanging fruits in both athletic performance and general well-being in daily life is an awareness and understanding of one’s breathing patterns. As Logan has said in previous podcasts, “You are always mental training” whether you are aware of it or not, you are also training your breath, whether you are aware of it or not. The question then becomes, how aware of the breathing patterns that you carry are you or your athletes? In today’s episode, Logan discusses his approach to breath training for human performance and vitality. He also talks about the inspiration he has drawn from Joseph Greenstein, also known as the Mighty Atom, on the level of breath training, and the Atom’s mastery of the mental, inner game in his strongman pursuits. Within this, we discuss the regulation aspects of the body, as it pertains to feats of strength, and the process of working with those regulators in exhibiting feats of strength. We finish the show discussing integrating one’s mental and emotional states into physical training means, such as sprinting. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr and the Plyomat. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. I’ve continued to hear great things about the Teambuildr platform, and whether you are looking for an in-house training portal or an online training hub, be sure to check out Teambuildr training software. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 1:18- Introduction to Logan Christopher and his training challenges 4:53- The Inspirational Journey of The Mighty Atom 7:16- The Transformative Power of Breath Work 14:26- Transformative Breathwork with Visualization 20:02- The Power of Breath in Exercise 24:11- Diaphragm-activated vacuum massage for organ health 28:33- Breath Control Demonstrations of Lung Expansion 35:29- Pressurized Exhale for Enhanced Strength Performance 40:18- Harnessing the Power of the Mind for Peak Performance 55:20- Balancing Easy and Challenging Training Methods 1:02:03- Harnessing Anger for Positive Transformation Logan Christopher Quotes “The breath is the link between the conscious and unconscious” “A good place to start is lung capacity, how long can you hold your breath?” “Breathing through the nose will support nitric oxide, which is important for endurance, while mouth breathing will not do that” “One of the exercises that I really love is box breathing. This is to do an inhale, hold, exhale, hold of the same length of time. Typically you start with a four count. So inhaling to a four count, holding for a four count, exhaling for a four count, then exhale, holding for a four count. Then from this, this is a starting point. Most people just take that and they end there. And this can be really good for relaxing anytime you need to do this.” “If you look at what people naturally do when they are exerting themselves, where strength is, the issue is it's very common to hold the breath. So why would people do this? It's because by holding the breath, you are creating stability. You are creating a container, not having the flow of air come out or in. So this helps with pressure, especially across like the abdominals, where the lungs are involved in, and then that can radiate out to however you're exerting that strength, whether it's the hands, legs, whatever” “So everything I was just saying comes from personal experience that I, like so many men in our culture, was not taught emotional intelligence." "But at the time, I started doing angry hill sprints, so what I would do is just visualizing, using breath, the different tools we've talked about, get myself in an angry state and use that as fuel to drive every step faster and repeat this a couple of different times." "Anger is the thing that drives us towards

Today’s podcast is with David Kerin. Dave is the USATF chair of men’s development, and also chair for men’s and women’s high jump. Dave’s coaching career began with 14 years at the HS level followed by 14 years of collegiate coaching where an athlete set a still-standing NCAA DIII championship record in women’s high jump. A requested speaker and published author, he is perhaps best known for his work: “What is the most direct means to achieve strength gains specific to the demands of jumping events”, as well as the popular article: “Fixing the Right Problem”. David appeared originally back on episode #58 of the podcast in its “classic” days. Curvilinear sprinting is a critical aspect of sport movement, and is also becoming more popular in training, and for good reason. Lateral and rotational aspects of movement are not only critical for sport, but also engage a greater fullness of the body in a training environment. On today’s podcast, David goes into the defining elements of curvilinear sprinting, and what this means, not only for track and field high jump, but athletic movements in general. He also gets into the importance of observing and coaching athletic movement from a 3D perspective, and gives ideas on how to do so, as well as the evolution that technology is making in that direction. Today’s podcast gives us a wonderful perspective on a more complete picture of athletic movement and performance. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr and the Plyomat. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. I’ve continued to hear great things about the Teambuildr platform, and whether you are looking for an in-house training portal or an online training hub, be sure to check out Teambuildr training software. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 2:51- High jump as a transition point for analyzing curvilinear running 8:03- Transitioning from linear to curvilinear running mechanics 10:35- The challenges of turning in sports 13:06- Unique demands of running a high jump curve 18:13- The importance of running the curve correctly 22:53- Benefits of three-dimensional movement in sports 26:29- The role of coaches in developing athletes' skills 29:09- Changing perspective for better coaching results 34:10- Overreacting to foot alignment and rotation 36:52- Mechanical gestures in high jumping vs other sports 42:24- Different ways to train 3D 47:50- Common mistakes in initiating a curve 54:45- Biomechanics lab and motion analysis Dave Kerin Quotes (00:00:15) "I describe the pelvis as a bowl of Jello. And you know how Jello tends to jiggle, how calmly non vibrational, how steady state can I bring that bowl of Jello to the moment?" - Dave Kerin (00:07:44) "The analogy would be the figure skater at the big finish when they start spinning and they've extend their arms and as they draw into the center line or the long axis of the body, they accelerate. So it's not linear acceleration in the traditional sense, yet you are increasing velocity of the plant by leaning on angular momentum." - Dave Kerin (00:18:15) "If you tell the average kid or the average coach, they say you got to speed up in the curve. Well, the kid stands upright and goes to linear sprint mechanics to accelerate. But then they've lost lean, they've lost centripetal, they've lost the benefits of running the curve. So if you run the curve correctly, that's where you get that last 10% while bringing the requisite rotations from backward lean to forward lean, lateral lean to vertical, you create bar rotation and rotation back to the bar, and it gives you more efficient bar." - Dave Kerin (00:37:06) "The efficiency is the key. And why did high jump become inefficient? Well, I think there's a lot of cases we're talking about free play and kids not learning change of direction without coach driven instruction." - Dave Kerin (00:45:10) "More isn't better. Better is better." - Dave Kerin (00:47:31) "The effective methodology to initiate a curve is outside leg separation from the center of mass, lateral pressure in the form of friction force, and then the reaction is the center of mass is redirected. You don't lean to create lean. You don't turn to redirect the center of mass." - Dave Kerin Transcript About Dave Kerin Dave Kerin is the USATF chair of men’s development, and also chair for men’s and women’s high jump. His time has coincided with a resurgence in the event. Dave’s coaching career began with 14 years at the HS level followed by 14 years of collegia

Today’s podcast is with Devin Hayes. Devin is the Pitching Performance Coordinator with the Detroit Tigers. He has worked in both baseball coach and physical preparation roles at Middlebury College, and has worked in the private sector, training athletes from high school to major league All-Star level. Devin currently plays for the Irish National Baseball Team and has included javelin throwing in his athletic repertoire. When we learn skills in one area of human performance, we can become more understanding of them all. A key area of development in human performance is found in the realm of overhand throwing. By understanding the rotational and linear aspects of the throwing pattern, we can not only achieve better throwing results, but we also gain awareness of an important element of athletic function in general. On today’s episode, Devin shares his experiences transitioning from baseball pitching to javelin throwing. He gives the lessons learned from various forms and constraints of overhead throwing, and digs into the elastic and rotational aspects of pitching. A main point of discussion is that of letting athletes find their path versus when and how to intervene in coaching, and finally Devin chats about relaxation techniques, and shaking movements to enhance throwing performance. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr and the Plyomat. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. I’ve continued to hear great things about the Teambuildr platform, and whether you are looking for an in-house training portal or an online training hub, be sure to check out Teambuildr training software. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 3:20 Transition from Baseball Pitching to Javelin Throwing and the Initial Challenges Faced 8:38 Differences between the Motion and Arm Positioning in Baseball and Javelin Throwing, and the Influence of Natural Feel and Rotation 11:39 Exploring the Concepts of Movement Transferability from Pitching to Other Sports and the Role of Track and Field Training 17:01 Application of Motor Learning Principles in Pitching and the Impact of Sprinting on Musculature 20:06 Experimentation with Linear and Rotational Movements in Training and the Progression from Coil to Clear Drills in Pitching 22:05 Exploration of Movement Transferability from Other Track and Field Events to Pitching and the Complexity of Transition Skills 29:13 Self-organization and the Role of Spine in Throwing Motion, as well as the Influence of Side Bending in Throwing Athletes 33:37 Exploration of Arm Slots and Movement Solutions in Throwing, and the Value of Trying New Approaches in Baseball Throwing 41:38 The Impact of Lever Length on Throwing Velocity and the Importance of Coaching Stages and Approaches in Athletic Development 54:12 Importance of Building a Relationship and Adapting Coaching Style, Effective Communication in Coaching, and the Use of Entertainment in Learning 59:16 Creating Levels and Containers for Learning and Development and the Expectation of Instruction in Private Sector Settings 1:02:10 Discussion on Different Types of Athletes and the Importance of Reputation and Proof in Self-Organization 1:06:08 The Ability to Switch Between Competition Mode and Normal Mode, Withholding Energy, and the Importance of Staying Low in Athletic Movements 1:08:56 Exploration of Turn and Burn in Dunk Takeoffs, and the Role of Momentum and Side Bending in Athletic Motions 1:12:10 General Activities for Throwing Harder and the Benefits of Overload and Underload Training in Throwing 1:15:10 The Use of Shaking and Relaxation Techniques in Throwing Motions, and Manipulating the Brain's Feedback for Relaxation 1:22:07 Importance of Focus and Task Orientation in Training, and the Impact of Coaching and Athlete Relationship Devin Hayes Quotes 1. Devin Hayes- 54:12 "So I'm learning Spanish now and the teacher that I have uses emojis or my style of learning. So I'm way more into it than I would be if I was taking a Spanish class and just some writing and I'm trying to figure it out. So I think how a coach coaches, which kind of allowed me to be more of a broad, like build a relationship, not have a specific style of like, I need to tell you my way. It's more so, like, build a relationship and you're going to tell me how you want to learn over time and then we'll figure it out together." 2. Devin Hayes- 56:01 "Yeah, there's a podcast I listened to about people who 90% of people voted they want to be entertained when they learned. And so it's more so like, how can you entertain someone

Today’s podcast is with Chris Bramah and JB Morin. Chris is a consultant Physiotherapist and Researcher at the Manchester Institute of Health & Performance, specializing in biomechanics for injury prevention, especially in running-related concerns like hamstring strains. With over a decade in elite sports and a Ph.D. in biomechanics, he collaborates with World and Olympic Medallists, providing consultancy services focused on sprint running mechanics and their connection to hamstring strain injuries for clients. JB Morin, a full professor and head of sports science at the University of Saint-Etienne, brings over 15 years of research experience. Having published 50 peer-reviewed journals since 2004, he is a world-leading researcher in sprint-related topics, collaborating with top sprinters like Christophe Lemaitre. As a two-time previous podcast guest, JB shares valuable insights applicable to team sports, including his expertise in force-velocity profiling and heavy sled training. Sprinting and sports injuries are complex. Hamstring injuries are common, yet there is not one “unicorn” of a risk factor that determines whether or not an athlete will sustain one. As the roadmap of injury risk is continually unfolding, understanding what is happening from the coaching practices and observations, sports science, and research lenses can all work together to improve our global understanding of building fast and robust athletes. On the episode today, Chris and JB go into various running factors that play into robust sport running performance. These range from force-velocity profiling elements to kinematics and sprint technique, and rotational-based factors. This was a podcast that really digs into the sprint injury equation on a detailed and informative level. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr and the Plyomat. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. I’ve continued to hear great things about the Teambuildr platform, and whether you are looking for an in-house training portal or an online training hub, be sure to check out Teambuildr training software. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 2:00 – Recent research updates from Chris and JB on mechanics and running 5:30 – Primary aspects of connecting running mechanics with on-field injury 29:55 – The importance of fatigue state in the role of injury mechanisms and running 43:45 – Nuances of force-velocity profiling and potential injury risks in athletes 52:19 – What JB and Chris are seeing and studying from a “3D” perspective in terms of running injury and performance 59:20 – Foot strength, and it’s importance in athletic performance and ability 1:04:40 – Trunk rotation as it pertains to sprinting and injury risk Chris Bramah and JB Morin Quotes “All things equal, if you have the same capacity to play your sport, and move with less mechanical strain, then maybe you are tilting the balance (in favor of reduced injury risk)” “We define that as macroscopic strain (GPS, playing hours, etc.). I could have the same 200 meters, and have a different microscopic strain, because my body and my lever arms, put a different level of microscopic strain on my tissues, and especially my hamstrings” “Sometimes you get injuries where the macroscopic load is managed, and there is still an issue” “Because methods are more complex to assess, and to contextualize this as part of a whole system approach, people look at just big microscopic things, and I think sometimes we shy away from them” “When assess my hamstring strength, you have 2-3 ways to do it and 2-3 main variables. When you ask me to run all out at my maximum speed and have a couple of cameras, you are quickly going to end up with 50 variables” “We’ve got evidence showing associations between anterior pelvic tilt in particular and hamstring tissue strains” “Just a 7 degree increase in anterior pelvic tilt increased passive tension in bicep femoris by around 35 percent” “When scanning force output in football/rugby, we see that players who had a drop in the maximal force output ability in linear sprinting, had a higher chance of getting a hamstring strain in the weeks or months after the test” “There is 5-6 big rocks (that have strong anatomical theory or roots in research that lead to hamstring injury), trunk lean is one, trunk rotation is one, and so on. Movements that lead to higher strain in hamstrings” “You have some players with pretty low number of red flags on their kinematics, but a good number of red flags on their kinetics and their strength; in my experience at least, athletes who have a low number of red flags al

Today’s podcast is with Sam Wuest. Sam is a licensed acupuncturist, jumps coach and teacher of internal martial arts residing in San Jose, Costa Rica. Sam combines modern strength & conditioning with Traditional Chinese Medicine/movement arts in his movement practice, and is the creator of the “Meridians Move” system. He is a former Division I athlete and coach of NCAA national champions and national medalists in track & field. I first met Sam at a “Be Activated” seminar, and he has been a two time guest on the podcast in the time afterwards. In the world of movement and athletic performance, we spend a lot of time learning about muscle tension, force production and how to maximize outputs. At the same time, we spend very little time learning about the opposite end of the spectrum, how to relax muscles, optimize resting tension, breathe and recover. Even if we spend a smaller portion of our training time on the recovery aspect, it still is critical to understand the “soft side” of movement. If we don’t spend time on it, we will move more poorly, take longer to recover, and impede our movement longevity. We occasionally see those athletes who are able to compete at a high level of movement skill, and even power output into their late 30’s and early 40’s, but we don’t spend much time considering the factors behind their performance. On today’s podcast, Sam goes into the ideas of movement quality, elasticity, stress, breathing, therapy, and more that can help us achieve better movement capabilities, later into life. This podcast is also a lens by which to observe the entire process of training, but seeing both ends of the tensioning and relaxation spectrum. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr and the Plyomat. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. I’ve continued to hear great things about the Teambuildr platform, and whether you are looking for an in-house training portal or an online training hub, be sure to check out Teambuildr training software. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 3:00 – Details of Sam’s move to Costa Rica 7:30 – Factors that contribute to athletic longevity 16:30 – Using an approach to training that offers more expansion, relative to heavy compression 22:00 – Balance and proprioception in the scope of both athletic ability, and longevity 28:45 – Teaching movement based on reflexes versus cognitive control 34:00 – Community and its role in longevity 38:00 – Movement practices to keep up good tissue quality over time 52:00 – QiGong practice that can easily be integrated into athlete populations for the sake of recovery 1:08:00 – Sam’s take on long isometric holds, and how to use them in the scope of the longevity process Sam Wuest Quotes “The things that you did to make you super athletic are not the same things that you need to keep doing (to maintain longevity across a sporting career)” “I don’t see the return of heavy Olympic lifts being the same for me, at a different stage of life” “The person who is perpetually injured, they have a different muscle tone, or certain adhesions in certain areas” “You find that people will restore qualities, when they can turn tissue off, instead of turning everything on all of the time, which is what our training leads us towards” “Fascial responds best to steady, slow, calm, gentle, and expanding movements” “I think sometimes in the West we focus on one thing and producing a lot of force in it, and we don’t realize that by finding a lot of things that are very similar to that one thing, or different ways to do that one thing, or ways to make that thing novel (are very helpful in improving athleticism and longevity)” “Conscious cognition is never going to be as fast as a reflex” “Countries where the main sport is soccer, the passing allows everyone to play longer (than sports that are more 1 vs 1 or intensive)” “By 2-3 years on average, the racquet sport athletes were outliving the endurance athletes” “It’s known that you lose some elasticity; and so there are certain herbs that can help promote circulation, and nourish the fluids in the sinews” “I like isometrics, holding tension in lengthened positions, because that influences the way that collagen is put down” “I like reflexive actions, I like small doses of higher dose plyometrics, and higher doses of lower intensity plyometrics; even going for a run feels like fascial remodeling… doing things at different levels of intensity is huge” “Stillness is a basic human need. It is a basic animal need. If we do not get that we cannot listen to our own bodies, because that is the best check engine

Today’s podcast is with Alex Lee. Alex is the owner of Circadian Chiropractic & Sport in Sarasota, Florida. He grew up outside Boston and entered the health realm after recovering from several long-standing injuries through a combination of chiropractic care and neurologically-based physical training. Alex played and coached baseball in Europe and Australia for four seasons and ran two private facilities for 3 years following a D1 college baseball career. When he is not doing 5-minute hangs or helping clients achieve a higher quality of life and movement he is intently observing his cats, golfing, or bronzing at Florida Gulf beaches with his wife. If we really break it down, we have two “ends” of the human (and therefore athlete) performance spectrum. On one, we have the ability to generate high tension and forces, and on the other, we have the ability to sustain those forces over longer periods of time. We can liken this to short and maximal isometric holds on one end, and then long, sustained holds on the other. Where central nervous system drive and aggression fuel the former, the ability to relax the body and reach a more “flow” state of being drives the latter. In general, we tend to spend a lot more time considering methods to improve short holds without a balancing element on the sustained side of things. Ultimately, we need to understand both to reach our highest athletic and physical potential. On the podcast today, Alex goes into aspects of long isometric holds on a physical and mental level, and how he incorporates them in his training programs. Alex details the factors and benefits of being able to sustain longer holds, and what that means for athletic and human populations in general. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr and the Plyomat. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. I’ve continued to hear great things about the Teambuildr platform, and whether you are looking for an in-house training portal or an online training hub, be sure to check out Teambuildr training software. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 3:10 – Nuts and bolts of hanging from a bar for time, mindset, and breathing patterns 12:35 – Breathing strategies in isometrics and performance training 19:21 – The importance of the “Strength, Feel, Play” teaching points in Alex’s system 23:34 – The relationship between maximal strength, and maximal hold duration in movement 34:07 – The “non-doing” and withholding aspect of long isometric holds 47:56 – Neurological inhibition, electrical current and the impacts of neurologically focused training 55:37 – Influence of electrical resistance on the local level, and subsequent speed and athletic performance markers 59:37 – The value of being able to take the body to a high level in a “mundane” activity, like isometric holds, relative to one’s sport 1:09:03 – Alex’s take on isometric hold duration for younger athletes 1:12:20 – Basic isometric hold standards for the general population, and then athletes Alex Lee Quotes “What I like with hangs in having sensory information from the environment when the sun is going down” “It’s one thing to meditate, and it’s another to step into what is going to be a simulated, sketchy experience” “I came up with this equation, and it was (neuromuscular efficiency = coordination x time), From a neuromuscular standpoint, how efficient can you possibly be, and that is how long you can stay in a position, while keeping that position perfect” “When I can see people relax their face, or relax their breath, I see a 2 minute hang turn into 2:30, 2:45, or 3’” “95% of sports, you need your body to be very relaxed, and a relaxed body is able to produce and absorb higher amounts of force than one that is pre-tensed” “At the end of 4 weeks of them really grinding out iso’s and neurologically focused training, they can get rid of hotspots and weak links in the same way as someone who is working with (electrical stimulation devices)” “I’ll do sessions of an hour of training with just doing ISO’s and I’ll do grip strength and the beginning and the end, and it’ll be higher at the end” “(For general population iso hold 'standards', picking only 3 exercises) I’d go straight leg raise (3’), lunge (2’) and hang for 90”” “(For athletes) ISO lunge 3+”, ISO Pushup 2-2.5”, and Hang 90-120” depending on frame” About Alex Lee Dr. Alex Lee is the owner of Circadian Chiropractic & Sport in Sarasota, Florida. Alex grew up outside Boston and entered the health realm after recovering from several long-standing injuries through a combination of chiropractic care and ne

Today’s podcast is with athletic performance coaches Hunter Eisenhower and Mike Sullivan. Hunter Eisenhower is the head of men’s basketball performance at Arizona State University, previously spent time with the Sacramento Kings, and has worked in several NCAA S&C departments. Hunter played college basketball for four seasons at Seattle Pacific University. Mike Sullivan is a speed and performance coach at TCBoost Sports Performance in Chicago, IL. At TCBoost, Mike works with a wide variety of athletes, from youth to professional, and transitioned to the private sector after time in collegiate strength and conditioning. Most recently, Mike was at UC Davis and spent time at Illinois State, Notre Dame, and Texas. For a long time in sports performance, weight room strength has been considered the top priority and method of measuring strength and power outputs. At the same time, bodies in motion produce incredibly high forces in jumping, sprinting, and landing (eccentric and reactive forces). Understanding the nature of elasticity and reactivity, and how to measure and train it in greater detail is a must-know for anyone looking to improve athletic abilities. If you were to list three of my favorite sports and human performance topics, they would be: Play, Jumping, and Sprint Development. Today’s show will be getting into these topics, primarily digging into key markers that highlight usable athletic force production, centering around altitude drops onto force plates. We’ll also cover aspects of sprint training from a standpoint of observation and technique, relative to technology readouts, as well as overspeed methods. Finally, we’ll get into Hunter and Mike’s use of play, games, and “aliveness” in their warmups. This was a fun and practical episode from which a wide range of coaches and athletes can find new and valuable ideas. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr and the Plyomat. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. I’ve continued to hear great things about the Teambuildr platform, and whether you are looking for an in-house training portal or an online training hub, be sure to check out Teambuildr training software. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 2:31 – Discussing the UC Davis “Strength and Conditioning Decathlon” 6:37 – Maximal elasticity and reactivity as a function of team sport play, versus training without the athleticism that comes from well-rounded play and elastic activities 9:48 – Discussing scoring systems for power and reactivity 16:14 – Key elasticity metrics for athletes, and key reactivity and elastic metrics based on force plate rate of force development readings 29:52 – Measuring force production through the realm of single leg reactive strength values, as well as thoughts on single leg hops for speed 39:42 – Programing implications based on muscular or elastic abilities 45:49 – Overlaying sprint kinetics via technology (such as a 1080 sprint) relative to observation, and athlete feeling of the effort 53:27 – Overspeed work, and giving sprinting a sense of “ease” 1:00:41 – How Hunter and Mike have put “aliveness” and play in their programming 1:07:37 – Risk/Reward assessment in terms of using a more alive, play based warmup or training approach with a group of athletes Hunter Eisenhower and Mike Sullivan Quotes “Just that little framework of me creating a 50 (centimeter CMJ jump) club drives intent so much more. On a small scale it works, and if you can create it on a bigger scale.. the difference it makes is huge” “Running a fly 10 without lasers is ridiculous, running it with lasers is awesome. Same thing (with med ball throws) throwing a med ball shot put throw as hard as you can, get out a radar, you break 30 miles per hour, it’s awesome” “I dropped off a 48” box and hit 9500 newtons of force… there has to be something here because these are significant numbers that we are getting” “Running full speed, a Euro-step around somebody, is like a low-level triple jump” “A single leg depth drop off 24” box, is a little over 5000 newtons (that I got) but it’s variable because the strategy you use to land is going to change things” “A compliant landing is like 2000 newtons, a “drop legs” (stiff) landing is like 7000” “The idea of a new 1RM in seeing what’s the absolute force producing capacity of the overall system, and the exercise that does it the most is depth drops” “As you increase height, peak force is going to go up, but once you get to a certain height of box, force will not go up” “You train with some of these drop catches… and now you have more of a force reserve for injury

Today’s podcast is with Mat Boulé and Jeff Moyer. Mat Boulé is an osteopath and posturologist educated in functional neurology muscle activation techniques, and is the founder of the IP institute. Mat combines innovative and well-known techniques such as Posturology and Functional Neurology elements to balance the body. Jeff Moyer is the owner of DC sports training in Pittsburgh, PA. Jeff has been a multi-time guest on the show, appearing as a solo guest in three shows and on three roundtables. His expertise includes elements such as Soviet training systems, motor learning, skill acquisition, pain reduction and reconditioning, in addition to neurological concepts as they relate to athletic performance and human movement proficiency. Human beings are complex organisms. Movement is a multi-faceted action, made up of muscular actions, fascial tensegrity, connective tissue transmission, pressure and fluid dynamics, and of course neuromuscular control that is also connected to one’s senses and the outside environment. To have a complete understanding of athletic movement and performance, it is helpful to have a working knowledge of the neurological components of movement, including foot skin sensitivity, vestibular function, vision, and sided-ness to name a few. Today’s podcast digs into those neurological elements that can contribute to performance. Mat and Jeff discuss how they assess and train clients and athletes with these principles, discussing the use of sensory tools, rolling and rocking variations, balance and foot training, as well as the role of a well-functioning neurological apparatus in skilled athletic movement. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr and the Plyomat. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. I’ve continued to hear great things about the Teambuildr platform, and whether you are looking for an in-house training portal or an online training hub, be sure to check out Teambuildr training software. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 2:30 – The Pyramid of Learning, and the main neurological pieces that help athletes and humans to move freely and without restriction in their environment 8:13 – How to determine that reflexes, vestibular, or basic neurological issues are keeping individuals for being good skillful movers 18:10 – Eye contact as it relates to psychology and neurological/visual elements 29:56 – Neurological competency generalities based on level of performance an athlete can reach 35:36 – What to look for in crawling and crawl-based work for athletes and human performance in general 44:34 – Athlete balance in light of not only foot sensation, but also one’s vestibular and overall balance abilities 55:37 – How Jeff triages his neurological training elements in a practical setting Mat Boulé and Jeff Moyer Quotes “You can see that in kids in how they crawl, how one leg works better than the other, since that is where tone is first developed” “For kids who have been labeled “motor morons” that can’t figure out where their butt and their elbow is, the Pyramid of learning has been a great guide (for helping them)” “People who struggle knowing their right from their left (is a neurological/visual red-flag); can they mirror me?” (Moyer) “Being able to take instruction… those athletes where it’s like a new session every day, but you’ve been doing the same things (may have a neurological issue)” “Can you show me that you can feel your foot? That goes for coordination, and athletes who have chronic injuries, who are rolling their ankle; I’ll touch their toes, and they have no idea what toes I touched” “One-sidedness (is also a red-flag)” “If the individual has a hard time perceiving their left or their right, they are going to have a hard time protecting themselves in the environment” “The athletes who are bench pressing and only look at one hand (may be one sided neurologically)” “In less industrialized countries, kids start crawling much earlier, and perform (rhythmic roll-based movements) earlier… and that even starts happening in utero” “In terms of choosing different exercises, we need to make sure the person feels both of their feet” “With athletes, we start with rocking movements, and rolling out the feet (with spiky balls)” “With kids that struggle with right from left, or kids who struggle with proprioception, and how to know where their body is in space, that’s where we start getting into the IP (neurological) stuff” Show Notes Spiked balls used to stimulate the nerves of the feet, hands and skin Ground Based Neurological Exercise Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8Ir3h_

Today's podcast is with Tyler Yearby. Tyler is the co-founder and director of education at Emergence, a leading company in sport movement and skill development education. He is a Former NCAA strength coach who has delivered over 200 domestic & international continuing education courses, workshops, and conference presentations in 12 countries. Tyler has worked with a wide range of athletes, from youth to professional, and is currently pursuing his doctorate in sport and exercise at the University of Gloucestershire (UK). Sport (and the subset of physical training) is defined by how we build and adapt skills over time. Ultimately, both the joy of movement and its eventual mastery are rooted in motor learning and skill acquisition. The sign of coaching where these elements are applied effectively is not just "using textbook principles" but, more so, a total feeling of aliveness and joy in the process of mastery. This is where learning and skill acquisition transcends being something learned in a classroom and is a regular, interactive experience on the part of the coach and athlete. For today's podcast, Tyler goes into important topics that cross the worlds of motor learning and coaching in general. He discusses his take on learning "the fundamentals" for athletes, the significance of "prompts" over traditional "commands" during training sessions, and explores these ideas for both the weight room and sports skills alike. Tyler also delves into the concept of self-organization, examining when it's beneficial and when it could hinder performance. This fantastic conversation has implications for both strength and skill coaches or anyone who wants to understand movement and skill building on a deeper level. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr and the Plyomat. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. I’ve continued to hear great things about the Teambuildr platform, and whether you are looking for an in-house training portal or an online training hub, be sure to check out Teambuildr training software. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 3:15 – Some recent developments with Tyler in his trajectory into the motor learning and skill development aspects of athletic performance 4:37 – The “donor sport” viability of “rough-housing,” free play type activities, such as tackle-basketball 9:40 – How Tyler has learned about learning and skill development from being a father 13:59 – Tyler’s take on the “fundamentals” and what that actually means in movement mechanics and training 20:10 – Prompts and open-ended questions versus commands in a coaching and learning situation 35:29 – Exploring squat and jump-based movements, considering the principle of a base of support 39:17 – How do we know if an athlete’s self-organization strategies continue to help them or if they may be stagnating/using detrimental self-organization and need another form of coaching intervention? 52:25 – Tyler’s doctorate work and the perceived impact and value of education of ecological dynamics in coaching Tyler Yearby Quotes “A lot of times a game is co-created with (kids), and it is designed for them to fall in love with movement” “I’ve learned to be more patient (of a coach) as a father” “(On the level of teaching the 'fundamentals' to athletes) I want them to create a functional fit with an environment, which means starting from a point where they can orient their degrees of freedom, what their thoughts are, and what they are intending to do in a situation” “No man ever steps in the same river twice, because it’s not the same man, and it’s not the same river” “A command is 'do it this way,' where a prompt is illuminating areas that could be. A lot of how my instruction has changed as a coach is, athletes are not going to be successful if they have one way to do something…. We want to develop adaptable movers, not ones that are more stable, if you will” “I still view (coaching a lift or a basic acceleration start) as helping them to explore different ways” “You can make a game out of showing them how to perform the movement, without (directly) telling them how to do it” “Kids need a chance to not only be kids, but even professional movers need a chance to explore a little bit, play a little bit” “When I am harnessing what is comfortable for them (from exploring jump stances), their (squat) numbers go up right away” “When do I step in? A lot of literature is going to talk about, if 75% of the time they are scoring a point, avoid a tackle, something in that realm, then I wan

Today’s podcast is with biomechanics and rehab specialist, Alex Effer. Alex is the owner of Resilient Training, and has extensive experience in strength & conditioning, exercise physiology and the biomechanical function of the body. He also runs educational mentorships teaching biomechanics to therapists, trainers and coaches. Alex has been a previous guest on the show speaking on many aspects of gait, and the links between common gym movements and locomotion. For the amount of talk that goes into particular exercises, or exercise variations, very little goes into looking at human biomechanics first, as a base layer by which to base exercise selection. We also spend little time understanding how two athletes may ideally perform the same movement differently, to optimize their own leverages. We also often hear, or see exercises or training methods designed to improve external rotation, but tend to overly generalize the roles of “knees in/out”, or “inside edge/outside edge”. By understanding more about the biomechanical basis of force production, and how structure determines our base of support, we can achieve not only a better exercise selection process, but a better understanding of athletic movement in general. On the show today, Alex gets into important concepts on how humans produce force in movement, and how the internal and external rotation of joints creates effective motion. This leads into how various body types have different bases of support, and what this means for programming squat and lunge variations, as well as implications on the level of various kettlebell swing and catch exercises. This was an in-depth show that will change your lens on the way you see squat and lunge setups across a breadth of athletes in training. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr and the Plyomat. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. I’ve continued to hear great things about the Teambuildr platform, and whether you are looking for an in-house training portal or an online training hub, be sure to check out Teambuildr training software. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 3:12 – How Alex became the “Thanos” of the biomechanical world 5:38 – What legs that internally, or externally rotate, means for force production strategies 13:16 – How bow-leggedness fits in with athletic movements, such as acceleration, and when varus/bow-leggedness can become an issue 22:22 – Optional squat width, and knees-in, versus knees-out tendencies 27:39 – Concepts on loading the body up in external rotation in regards to force production, considering internal and external rotation in exercise selection 39:33 – The role of swinging weights and kettlebells for the sake of improving biomechanics, such as hip extension, and how to use external loads to internally open up ranges of motion 54:16 – Lateral lunge dynamics in light of valgus, varus, and wide/narrow ISA type athletes 1:07:51 – Dynamics of kettlebell swings and internal rotation, in light of the need to create space to swing the bell between their legs 1:14:06 – Elements that you can learn from athletes by observing their lateral lunge form, and which way they tend to point their toes our knees 1:22:20 – Assessing hip extension quality in lateral lunge and 45-degree lunge situations Alex Effer Quotes “When we are looking at the knees (valgus and varus), we have to consider someone’s base of support” “(With valgus/bowlegged individuals) There are people who don’t have internal and external rotation so they push their knees out to the side, so they only have access to that lateral, frontal plane… they shift their base of support out to the side” “A valgus, instead of a rectangle going out to the side, they have a front to back rectangle; they don’t have space to the side, but they have space in front of them; so they are able to flex their hip but they don’t have a lot of internal rotation ability, so they will shove their pelvis forward to be able to produce force, and usually it comes from their back” “Gait is just a forward progression of our center of mass” “The more my center of gravity goes forward, the more I squish everything” “I’ll get them to have their feet side by side, together, right under their hips. That tells me how much IR you have. If you have your feet together, but your knees are totally turned out to the side, I know that when I get you to press off your metatarsal off the big toe, that force is not coming from the hip, it’s coming from the back, your foot is going to twist out to the side, so you are not getting that push-off we are looking for” “Wherever

Today’s podcast is with movement coach Aaron Cantor. Aaron is a bodyworker, personal trainer, yogi, and movement generalist. He grew up in Japan and Brazil, and has traveled the world, learning from a variety of teachers and movement experts. Aaron has taught in the US and internationally, and works through a variety of game-play, movement, and story-telling-based methods. He is currently a coach for Evolve Move Play, while also working on his own movement coaching and teaching practice. In training, movement, and competition, we have both an “outer game” and an “inner game” at work. The outer game is relatively straightforward and the most common way we tend to interface with movement in the modern world. This includes the game’s rules and also leads into the external methods of instructing that game, such as telling individuals where to put their limbs in space, what motions to make, and what strategies to choose. The “inner game” approaches movement from a fun, connection, feel, and exploration perspective. Training requires some sort of numerical target of improvement (outer game), but at the same time, elite performers that have the “inner-game” skills that gives them a more complete package. Human performance is a combination of both outer and inner elements. By understanding the nature of the “inner” aspects of training, how to explore movements more fully, how to connect more deeply with our own bodies and our environment, we can achieve a more integrated and dynamic training process and, even more importantly, find more joy in sport and movement, and connection with ourselves and others. On today’s podcast, Aaron and I discuss the key aspects of training the inner game of movement, through an exploratory and intuitive process. These principles can apply to any realm of movement, from strength training and general fitness, to running and sprinting, to team sport skill applications. Most of what we study in the space has to do with the “outer game,” so taking time for the inner aspects of movement helps us to paint a more complete picture of the total process of training, play, and competition. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr and the Plyomat. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. I’ve continued to hear great things about the Teambuildr platform, and whether you are looking for an in-house training portal or an online training hub, be sure to check out Teambuildr training software. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 4:32 – The “Maradona Mind” in warmups and athletic mastery 13:20 – The importance of a low-barrier to entry in movement, in terms of building a flow state of performance” 20:37 – Principle vs. Systems based approach to training and global thinking 23:04 – How bringing the inner game into training can level up basic strength and human movement training 29:23 – The difference between a formula, and a trusted path “in” to the workout, to allow for dynamic exploration and flow, while still allowing for a sense of structure to the session 37:15 – Aaron’s “to infinity” practice, to help him get more into his body while learning and performing a skill 45:05 – “Coyote Mentoring” processes, where games and tasks can “trick” an athlete or individual into achieving 50:41 – All of the layers that can go in between moving and exploring, and then competing, in building a more total aspect of athletic and competitive ability, while being able to enjoy the performance on a higher level 58:30 – The value of group collaboration in teaching and performance Aaron Cantor Quotes “It’s playing with the limits of what’s possible. It’s not a conventional warmup, but it’s deeply embodied and it’s really going to help him on the field” “Looking at how it transfers in terms of just looking at the skill, is a very small way of looking at it, because the invisible skill is his relationship to himself, his relationship to timing, his relationship to space, his relationship to the object he is manipulating all of the time” “I think we’ve spent maybe too much time one how obvious skills translate, but invisible skills are key” “It’s tricky, because if you start to turn inner game, or flow state conduction into a formula, you kind of lose it. There is a letting go. It’s strange, you have to hold onto the thing, you have to focus. But at the same time you have to let go” “I prefer simple ways into the experience, rather than a robust, well-thought out system” “There’s something I like about methods that really invite people to create mastery from within, where the constraints are just enough to get you in the expe

Today’s podcast features Clifton Harski. Cliff has been in human performance for two decades and is highly active in movement education, leading over 450 workshops and certifications since 2011. Cliff is the COO for the Pain Free Performance Specialist Certification while developing and running the Functional Kettlebell Training Certification. Cliff developed a small group training fitness franchise, Fitwall, which had 7 locations across 5 states prior to Covid. He has over 15 certifications in movement training, strength and conditioning, and a masterful and inter-connected thought process on all things human movement, strength and performance. What is interesting with the human performance, strength and conditioning model is that it hinges heavily on things that a number can be tied to. Physical strength is very easy to track through various gym maxes, and conditioning is just as simple, based on whatever key test a coach decides to use with their group. At the same time, “movement” requires a greater intuition of the entire process of athleticism. For today’s podcast, Clifton discusses how he looks at the human performance industry in light of movement + strength + conditioning, and not just the latter two. He gives his model of the 3A’s (be able, be athletic, be adaptable, talks about the role of movement variability in training, speaks on rotational kettlebell training concepts, movement coaching, and much more. This episode puts the entirety of human performance coaching into perspective from an individual who has seen a massive range of training methods and philosophies. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr and the Plyomat. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. I’ve continued to hear great things about the Teambuildr platform, and whether you are looking for an in-house training portal or an online training hub, be sure to check out Teambuildr training software. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 3:01 – Clifton’s journey to dunk on his birthday each year at 6’1”, now being 41 years old 9:27 – How to solve problems, using intuition, rather than memorizing exercise sequences 11:25 – Some of the big pillars of training that Cliff has compiled, throughout all of his movement certifications 18:55 – Approaching the “movement” aspect of training, for a general population athlete, versus a sport athlete 25:52 – Thoughts on how to technically coach “form” in exercises that are not an athlete’s actual sport movement 33:33 – The role of rhythmic and reflexive movement in training 36:00 – Cliff’s “BA” Progression: Be Able, Be Athletic, Be Adaptable 46:42 – Thoughts on working with high level athletes who are already “athletic”, in the gym, versus more general population type individuals who are getting very little, if any sort of athletic movement stimulus in their daily routine 53:34 – How Clifton approaches variability in training for clients 57:57 – How to coach movement based on variability, and working with errors, instead of a “universal perfect form” 1:01:15 – How Clifton fills gaps in training and performance in utilization of the kettlebell, particularly rotational pieces that can be adaptable to more athletic qualities 1:12:51 – How Clifton would look to approach training athletes, as opposed to general population type individuals Clifton Harski Quotes “Once a week I practiced dunking on a 9’ foot, for the skill acquisition element, with small balls, and big balls. Twice a week, I would do gym jumping with different approaches, different angles, different approaches. I’m a big believer that a peak expression of what we do is being adaptable” “BFR is monumentally important to me; if I do it two days a week, my knees play nice” “The strength and conditioning industry would be better if it was the “movement, strength and conditioning industry” “To move well means, can you do things on purpose?” “I think that people do need to be stronger, but I believe many people in the strength and conditioning industry over-value peak strength, for non-strength athletes” “The less options you have, the more problems you will have in living day to day, or in performing your sport” “I want to maximize (the amount of movement something has), I want to have it be something I am interacting with; that’s a big piece of athleticism; I’m interested in reflexivity, problem solving, explorative, adaptive” “I think that involving some type of rhythmic practice makes a ton of sense” “Be athletic means organizing and controlling more things” “Be Able (I want you to do the basics, sagittal lifts, bilateral lifts). Be Athletic (

Today's podcast features Jarod Burton. Jarod is a performance specialist, chiropractic student, and health coach. He got his coaching start working with Brady Volmering of DAC baseball and has spent recent years coaching, consulting, and running educational courses in the private sector. Jarod focuses on engaging all aspects of an athlete's being, providing the knowledge for the individual to thrive in their domain. In Jarod's first appearance on the podcast, he spoke on work capacity development and the limits of how far athletes can push themselves on a level of training volume, with many mental concepts as a vital governor. In considering training, it is constructive to look at the complete bio-psycho-social factors before going too far into judging what an athlete can and cannot do. As Jarod said on the last show, "It's so silly to put it in this tiny box and say, 'You can only run 10 sprints.' Then the athletes start believing the fact that if I run more than 10, I'm going to break down." On today's episode, Jarod goes into a topic that he touched on in the last episode: the role of perception in building game speed and athletic ability. The level of the bio-psycho-social and perceptive elements strongly influences speed, and game-like stimuli can dramatically affect an athlete's sprint capacity. We dig further into these concepts for today's show and talk about game-specificity in speed training, impacts of environment perception on movement, variability and randomness in training, the role of play and exploration relative to outputs in training, and more. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr and the Plyomat. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. I’ve continued to hear great things about the Teambuildr platform, and whether you are looking for an in-house training portal or an online training hub, be sure to check out Teambuildr training software. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 3:37 – The origins of Jarod’s views on the importance of perception and environment, in conjunction with speed and performance training. 10:20 – What big factors exist in how Jarod looks at how an athlete is considering and framing the training session. 22:20 – Thoughts on how specific we need to be with relating all perceptual information in training to one’s specific sport. 29:25 – Rotating the pieces of play, exploration, and output within the scope of training. 43:22 – Jarod’s take on modeling the principles of nature in sprint based or gym movements where an athlete may not know how far or long they are going in a set. 50:56 – The impact of randomness on the training environment. 1:02:46 – Thoughts on athletes who may struggle in a practice vs. a game environment and how to adapt training based on these factors. Jarod Burton Quotes “When someone was nasal breathing, the neurons inside of their brain would fire faster, and if they were mouth breathing, the neurons would fire slower” “One of the things I would always look for in weight room training was a cramp, and then they had to work through the cramp” “(With perception/action) Once you know what they are afraid of, that’s the scenario you need to create” “Every time she threw a softball, her arm hurt, but if we threw a football her arm didn’t hurt. So we basically had her throwing with a football, and we had different games, and then we would go to a baseball, then we’d go to a softball, and blend all this stuff through different games; and within a month she was throwing 100 (softball) pitches, pain free” “We were able to put down mats that made the play area look smaller, and if they play areas looks smaller, it looks like you can achieve the distance faster” “You watch and learn how people move; are they running curved, are they typically running 12 or 5 yards; once you start seeing patterns, that’s how you set up your timing gates; now you are starting to tie in whatever happens in the game, into your training experience” “Just because the S&C standard is a flying 10, or a 10, it’s OK to be more specific than that (for team sport)” “I’m looking for an athlete, regardless of external focus, to be able to put 100% into every rep” About Jarod Burton Jared Burton is a performance specialist, chiropractic student, and health coach. He got his coaching start working with Brady Volmering of DAC baseball , and has spent recent years coaching, consulting and running educational courses in the private sector. Jared focuses on engaging all aspects of an athlete’s being, providing the knowledge for the ind

Today’s podcast features Irving “Boo” Schexnayder. Boo is regarded internationally as one of the leading authorities in training design. As co-founder of SAC, he brings 42 years of experience in the coaching and consulting fields to the organization. He is most noted for his 18-year term on the LSU Track and Field staff and has coached 18 Olympians and 7 Olympic/World Championship medalists. Boo has also been very active in the consulting field, working in NFL player development and combine prep and consulting for individuals, high school programs, collegiate programs, professional sports teams, and several foreign NGBs in the areas of training design, jump improvement, speed training, rehabilitations, and specialized programs. He is a routine podcast guest and a listener favorite on topics of athletic development. Boo has greatly influenced my view of training and human performance. He is one of my favorite guests and is an incredible teacher who has a skill for taking complicated ideas and putting them in perspective for coaches to use in a straightforward manner. On today’s podcast, Boo and I talk about proprioception in light of complex training, problems with obsession with drills versus high-speed, whole athletic movement teaching, reflexive leg action in jumping and sprinting, pelvic and lumbar mechanics in running, Olympic lifting thoughts, and much more. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr and the Plyomat. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. I’ve continued to hear great things about the Teambuildr platform, and whether you are looking for an in-house training portal or an online training hub, be sure to check out Teambuildr training software. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 2:41 – Where contrast works its way onto the track, and the nature of a “complicated” training stimulus 9:59 – The nature of proprioception as a key training variable 18:58 – Boo’s take on the work of Giles Cometti and Jean Pierre Egger, and coaching creativity 23:35 – Boo’s take on drills versus doing the entire skill 36:31 – What Boo considers to be the basics, or fundamentals that is taught, versus things that are up to the athlete 41:56 – Favorite setups in speed work, such as plyometric contrast 45:29 – Thoughts on reflexive action of the swing leg coming down towards the ground, versus forcing it down 54:55 – Pelvic mechanics, and the “center” of where speed is produced in athletics 1:02:07 – Heavy wave-loading and potentiation with Olympic lifts specifically 1:04:07 – Boo’s take on Olympic weightlifting in light of track and field, as well as team sports Boo Schexnayder Quotes “A lot of these contrast methods, what they do is play proprioceptive games… and as a result of that you get a complicated training environment, and a certain sharpness, and adaptation comes as a result” “Variety in practice improves transfer to the test, yet variety in practice often decreases the level of practice performance, so what I’m saying is that mixing these things up is likely to make them struggle in the practice environment, but when you put them (out in competition) it all gels and they shine” “I don’t think complexes are good or applicable at all times of the year; because sometimes they are at such a high level from a proprioceptive and complexity standpoint that they are out of reach at certain times of the year. I use them at late specific prep, and at some extent during your peaking times” “If you start training on September 1st, what’s the point of doing a complex, when everything is new to them anyways?” “I see proprioception as an extension of the nervous system; some types of training sharpen that, and some fatigue it” “Weight room complexes, like French Contrast stuff, they alternately damage and restore prioprioception within context of a single workout” “I use (proprioceptive supercompensation) on a regular basis in my speed program; we’ll squat on Monday and fatigue these propriopceptors, and you are back ready to sprint on Thursday and Friday you are even sharper and I always felt that was due to proprioceptive bounce-back… I find that athlete is even sharper than if you didn’t “wreck” the proprioception on Monday” “Coaches, for years and years have found that multi-throws, some types of Olympic lifts, and skipping, seem to regenerate proprioceptors” “(In basketball, etc.) The change of direction is a long contact plyometric activity, then you got the responsive jumps and so forth” “Motor learning research is unanimous that whole learning is better than part learning” “Ultimately we as coaches like drills becau

Today’s podcast features a question and answer series with Joel Smith. Questions for this podcast revolved heavily around the transfer of various strength protocols and systems to speed and athletic performance, as well as many elements on speed training, jumping and footwear/fascia concepts. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr and the Plyomat. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. I’ve continued to hear great things about the Teambuildr platform, and whether you are looking for an in-house training portal or an online training hub, be sure to check out Teambuildr training software. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points: 3:00 – How to get strength training to transfer better to speed and sprint outputs on the track. 6:30 – My take on the “Functional Patterns” training system. 9:15 – Sprint workouts for horizontal jumping events. 13:30 – Can the weight-room make you faster? Where can it not help, or go too far? 23:49 – How “quad dominant” athletes can become better through their foot and hips. 29:30 – How to look at “fascial” training, in light of the other systems of the body in movement. 35:55 – My take on reactive, drop-catch squat type motions. 43:10 – How to sprint in a gym with less space availability. 47:10 – Thoughts on the value of moving light weights fast, versus using heavier weights and sprints and plyometric training. 51:25 – The most valuable thing I’ve learned coaching U5 and U6 kids in soccer. 58:20 – The importance of maximal velocity training for distance running athletes. 1:02:40 – Do I see value of concentric loaded jumps in sprinting. 1:04:10 – The role of minimal shoes in basketball play. About Joel Smith Joel Smith is the founder of Just Fly Sports and is a sports performance/track coach in Cincinnati, Ohio. Joel hosts the Just Fly Performance Podcast, has authored several books on athletic performance, and in 2021, released the integrative training course, “Elastic Essentials”. He currently trains clients in the in-person and online space. Joel was formerly a strength coach for 8 years at UC Berkeley, working with the Swim teams and professional swimmers, as well as tennis, water polo, and track and field. A track coach of 15 years, Joel coached for the Diablo Valley Track and Field Club for 7 years, and also has 6 years of experience coaching sprints, jumps, hurdles, pole vault and multi-events on the collegiate level, working at Wilmington College, and the University of Wisconsin, LaCrosse, along with his current work with master’s, high school and collegiate individuals. Joel has had the honor of working with a number of elite athletes, but also takes great joy in helping amateur athletes and individuals reach their training goals through an integrative training approach with a heavy emphasis on biomechanics, motor learning, mental preparation, and physiological adaptation. His mission through Just Fly Sports is: “Empowering the Evolution of Sport and Human Movement”. As a former NAIA All-American track athlete, Joel enjoys all aspects of human movement and performance, from rock climbing, to track events and weightlifting, to throwing the frisbee with his young children and playing in nature.

Today’s podcast features sports performance coaches Rich Burnett and John Garrish. Rich Burnett is the President and Director of Athletic Development for Triple F Elite Sports Training in Knoxville, TN. He is also the Co-Founder and CEO of Athletic Assessment Technology, known more commonly as Plyomat, and has over 10 years of experience working in high school, and NCAA DI strength and conditioning. John Garrish is the Director of Athletic Development & Performance at North Broward Preparatory School in Coconut Creek, Florida, and the school’s Head Track and Field Coach. John was voted the 2022 National High School Strength Coach of the Year by the NHSSCA and has been a two-time guest previously on this podcast, speaking on a variety of plyometric and speed training topics. The standing vertical jump, or “countermovement” test is a very popular method of assessment for athletes and has been for some time. What the standing vertical leap test doesn’t tell you, is how fast an athlete gets off the ground, which is generally what matters in sport, more so than how high an athlete can reach. Reactivity is also a general coordination ability where athletes can both anticipate the ground and coordinate the proper muscle activation sequences to rebound themselves back into the air, which is critical for a variety of athletic jumping, throwing, cutting, and overall movement tasks. On today’s show, Rich and John will get into how they train reactive ability in plyometrics, with respect to ground contact times, and the function of power that being able to get off the ground quickly provides. We also discuss the differences between double and single-leg reactive strength tests and measurements, and how they correlate to athleticism, as well as the differences between simple plyometric movements based on contact time, versus more complex and coordinated movements, such as skips and gallops. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr, and the Plyomat For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. I’ve continued to hear great things about the Teambuildr platform, and whether you are looking for an in-house training portal or an online training hub, be sure to check out Teambuildr training software. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 4:39 – What “Reactive Strength” is, and how Rich and John use it in the scope of their training programs. 18:32 – Comparing Double vs. Single-leg reactive strength measurements, and how single-leg RSI is a “gold standard” of explosive athletic ability. 35:00 – How Rich and John go about coaching or referencing ground contact times in plyometric exercises. 48:56 – Links between bilateral reactive strength scores, trap bar deadlift ability, and core strength. 58:07 – Thoughts on more “compressed” and simple, intense plyometrics, relative to more long, rhythmic, and coordinated plyometric-type movements. Rich Burnett and John Garrish Quotes “RSI provided a lot of value to the sprinters, triple jumpers, and athletes that had a high level of success at the state level, go figure, had the highest RSI values” Garrish “Just because a kid is good at the bilateral (RSI), doesn’t mean they are good at the single leg (RSI) and vice versa. One of our best pogo kids on the 5 hop is not good at the single leg one” Burnett “I have for sure noticed with the single leg RSI hop (single leg forward, onto one leg on the mat, land on two feet), that has had a huge correlation with my population with speed, with every sprint, in every split… even the early phase” Burnett “With a more advanced population, maybe there is more of a shift to where the elastic part shows out more in the back end; it’s also not a cyclic test (the single leg RSI)” Burnett “An athlete who had a high RSI value, or a high value in power skips for distance, that was an athlete who was going to succeed on the runway, or in athletics in general, regardless of sport” Garrish “If we using RSI, an athlete is going to use a more forefoot contact; if we are going out and trying to skip for height or distance, the ground contact is going to be more hind, or mid-foot” Garrish “.2 seconds is the threshold for me for bilateral ground contact times” Burnett “If I don’t have a jump mat, and want to see what athletes are elastic, have them jump rope, have them do a (speed) ladder” Burnett “A lot of (RSI) had a correlation with trap bar deadlift too, these same female athletes who were scoring really high (on RSI) were some of our highest relative trap bar deadlifters too, and Stu McGill did a study comparing RSI to core strength; lo and behold they are highly cor

Today’s podcast features strength and parkour coach, Chris Scott. Chris has a degree in Sports Therapy and works at “Jump” gym in the UK. Chris is an accomplished athlete in the parkour and acrobatics realm, who also holds a high level of bodyweight strength, doing single-arm pullups, and deadlifting in the realm of 3x bodyweight. Parkour, as a sport, is one that not only highlights adaptability to one’s environment but is also remarkably “plyometric” in nature. The leaps that parkour athletes make resemble long and triple jumps in track and field but in a highly variable fashion. The learning that comes out of variability, makes parkour a sport whose plyometric component can be highly transferrable, or a “donor sport” to other more traditional athletic endeavors. Chris’s skill as a parkour athlete has allowed him to train and perform extremely high depth drops and depth jumps, dropping from over 8 feet in the air, into a landing. Chris has used the recent winter to explore an emphasis on the high-intensity drop training variable, to see how it transfers into other aspects of his reactivity, athleticism, and strength. Training drops have played a large part in the preparation of other athletes, such as Adam Archuleta, owner of one of the NFL Combine performances of all time. On today’s podcast, Chris talks about the results of his high drop training and has it has impacted his athleticism. We also go into single-leg drop training compared to double-leg drop training, and the related implications. We also discuss the impacts of drop training in general, seasonal training aspects, experiential aspects of parkour-type training, variability in jumping, “impulse” training, and more. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr, and the Plyomat For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. I’ve continued to hear great things about the Teambuildr platform, and whether you are looking for an in-house training portal or an online training hub, be sure to check out Teambuildr training software. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 4:43 – Chris’s athletic background in parkour, and how it has influenced his current perspective on movement, training, and coaching 6:43 – Chris’s experimentation with very high-depth drops, and how it impacted his dynamic jumping ability and strength levels 17:43 – Thoughts on the possibility of a high volume of altitude drops segmenting the way an athlete performs a jump dynamically 26:42 – Discussing single-leg altitude hops and hurdle hops in athletic performance 34:42 – How Chris was able to maintain his strength levels while doing a depth drop-oriented training phase with less emphasis on weightlifting (with 1x day a week doing eccentric oriented flywheel squats) 38:42 – Seasonal training aspects, featuring parkour outdoors, and larger box drops indoors in the winter 42:11 – “Combo” movements, such as a series of jumps, coupled with a precision landing in parkour, and the subsequent training effectiveness 48:41 – The experiential, play-based nature of parkour, and fun plyometric-oriented training movements 52:41 – Infusing variability into common plyometric training methods 1:01:40 – When to use time frames, vs. more standard set/rep schemes in plyometrics 1:08:40 – Impulse straps, tendinopathy, and training the bone end of the tendon Chris Scott Quotes “It felt better to rebound out of (an 8-foot drop) than to stick” “A year later (after training with high drops) I was smashing my old hurdle hop heights by 10cm, 12cm; my high hurdle hops, I was 15cm higher” “Not all jumps are going to be as beneficial as other jumps, for all athletes” “I had a really hard time with the single leg drops” “Does a single leg drop reflect athletic capability? Callum Powell is (better than me at single leg depth drops) and that much better than me at jumping in parkour” “(With the depth drop phase and limited strength training) there was no decrease to my strength, but there was an increase in my jumping” “I used to do the 5x5 or 3x10 of jumping or whatever, and these days (with the jump variations, and time as a constraint vs. reps) I notice such greater improvement” “I really enjoy using hurdle jump combinations, and it’s not for the contact times, or the elasticity, it’s for a hard-to-measure thing, the coordination” “The hurdle variations that are quite similar but different enough, I get different heights. For example, a crescendo where each one is going higher, I end up at a lower height than where it’s going low, high, low, high” “I’ll often shake my hands or vibrate before doing hurdle hops” “I don’t even ben

Today’s podcast features trainer, lifter of heavy and varied objects, and philosopher of movement, DJ Murakami. DJ has over 15 years of experience in the coaching realm with a wide history of movement practice, including training in bodybuilding, Olympic weightlifting, strongman (rock lifting), movement culture (such as Ido Portal), rock climbing, and more. DJ has created training courses such as Chi Torque, the Predator Protocol, and others, and mentors coaches and fitness enthusiasts through his Human Strong training organization. As life, in general, becomes more disconnected from our actual reality (think of relationships via social media, decreasing amount of exposure to nature/outdoors and local community), we can also consider how this has impacted the process of physical training. Where we used to move purposefully as part of the daily routine, our “innate” physicality has now been replaced by treadmills, indoor training spaces, lines/lectures/laps, and the reduction of training to either the simplest of drills or fancy movements that try to replicate sport, without actually being sport. The more we can regularly connect physical movement to the meaning and motivation behind it, not only will we have a better present-moment experience actually moving, but we can also find ourselves becoming stronger and better conditioned in the end result. On today’s podcast, DJ speaks importance (and oftentimes, lack of) of consequence and danger in many of our modern tasks and exercise activities, as well as the difference between play and formal training. He also goes in-depth on how we regulate our training from a mental, emotional, and social standpoint, and how this goes into fatigue, our music selection, “mental toughness”, and DJ’s own training methods. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr, and the Plyomat For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. I’ve continued to hear great things about the Teambuildr platform, and whether you are looking for an in-house training portal or an online training hub, be sure to check out Teambuildr training software. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 2:28 – Thoughts on creating a story around the process of training and the related motivation factors 10:27 – Advantages of training athletes with higher possible levels of complexity 18:37 – The nature of physicality in DJ’s training sessions, such as manually resisted corrective training, or “human resisted” strength work 35:22 – The lack of consequence and danger in tasks, and its impact on the nature of training and coaching 40:33 – The role of music selection and training, such as how many males go towards a more angry place in training, and thoughts on the sustainability and health of that practice in the long term 51:36 – The role of emotional regulation through fatiguing movements 59:14 – DJ’s view on mental toughness, in light of a typical team sport training situation 1:05:03 – Thoughts on kid’s games, on the level of engagement, flow, and learning 1:12:04 – DJ’s primary goals in his own training routine DJ Murakami Quotes “Team sports is basically a replacement for military warfare” “The splits is something.. there is a population that really wants that. I think it is less, “ I want a certain capacity in my hips, I want a certain mobility in this joint; no it’s an “I want that skill”.” “If you could take a group of people and work on spinal segmentation and waves facing the wall, and then take people, and get them to learn the worm, which would have a better, more applicable outcome?” “Kids playing tag, versus, “were going to run a lap”, or do gassers… kids move very differently” “I think there’s something about danger and consequence that we are missing from exercise” “When you have all of these corrective drills that you don’t load up, they don’t respond to that very well” “I think there’s something about another person trying to find your weakness; you are instinctually, naturally going to try to fight against someone trying to push you over” “You can use yourself to create constraints that are made by machines” “When you have doubt and fear going into a movement, it completely changes how you execute the movement, and I think it becomes a more dangerous movement” “Looking back to times I hurt myself lifting, there was doubt before the lift, there was something off in my head” “If you put it in a different context, you can easily do the movement; I had a lady who picked up a sandbag and was pressing it, but when I told her we are just going to deadlift it and not press it, she said “I can’t, my back hurts”, becaus

Today’s podcast features sports performance coaches Sheldon Dunlap and Jeff Howser. Sheldon Dunlap is currently serving as a Strength & Conditioning Specialist with MARSOC (Marine Special Operations Command). Previously, he has worked at the collegiate level coaching a wide variety of sports at UC Davis and Duke University. Jeff Howser is a speed and performance coach with strong roots in track and field. He spent 20 seasons as Duke’s speed and conditioning coach and has trained a variety of team sports and high-level track and field athletes. Jeff was a world bronze medalist in the 110m high hurdles and a multi-time ACC champion. When you look at all of the possible training variations out there today in strength and athletic performance, you realize that a great majority of our modern training has been done in some way, shape, or form, many decades ago. One method out there that is more recent in nature is partial range, oscillatory repetition methods with barbells for the sake of improving athletic speed and power. Sheldon appeared way back on podcast #131 speaking on his integration of oscillating reps, into the Triphasic system pioneered by Cal Dietz. Sheldon originally learned the oscillating method from Jeff Howser (who also learned it from Cal’s influence). On the show today, Sheldon and Jeff will be speaking extensively about the nuances of oscillatory strength training for athletics. We’ll be covering repetition style, percentage of 1RM to utilize, integration into the rest of the program, seasonal aspects, tendon concepts, and much more. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr, and the Sprint Acceleration Essentials Online Course. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. To learn more about the Sprint Acceleration Essentials course, head to justflysports.thinkific.com TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. I’ve continued to hear great things about the Teambuildr platform, and whether you are looking for an in-house training portal or an online training hub, be sure to check out Teambuildr training software. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 3:00 – How Sheldon and Jeff first met, and where their training journeys have led them since our latest podcasts 7:30 – How Jeff got started with oscillating training repetitions and his origins with the methods 12:45 – Oscillatory training definitions, and then how Sheldon and Jeff use the method in athletic performance 26:00 – How Sheldon and Jeff bring in oscillatory training throughout the training year 38:30 – Coaching and execution styles of the repetitions in oscillatory strength training 42:30 – The quality of oscillating squat execution, on their athleticism and athletic ability 44:00 – Thoughts on individual factors in oscillatory rep training 47:00 – How oscillatory rep type work differs from simply putting a timer on a lift, as per how long it takes an individual to complete their repetitions 54:45 – How to integrate oscillating rep training into an entire training system, in light of other dynamic movements in a program, such as plyometrics 1:06:45 – Powerlifting 1:10:30 – The ratio of using oscillating training, versus more “health-based” lifting applications in a program Sheldon Dunlap and Jeff Howser Quotes “The main thing for me is controlling the speed and distance of the oscillation and controlling the speed of the oscillation. When I did it the oscillation distances were 6-9 inches, depending on the weight and how deep you were. it’s not a controlled descent, you can take a lighter weight and make it a heavier weight by giving people time under tension activities” Howser “Sometimes we’d go in a descending order, shallow, half squat deep. Sometimes we’d go full squat, half squat, shallow. Sometimes we’d go shallow, deep, shallow” Howser “I’d usually do 3 bounces in the bottom, sometimes I’d go as many as 5. If you do 5 bounces with a heavyweight, there is a good chance you are going to get stuck” “I’d do 3-4 sets of 3-4 reps per set… each set would have 3 bounces… 3 reps with 3 bounces is 9 bounces at the bottom” Howser “As you go from deep squats to half squats, you can make the oscillations much much quicker” Howser “In basically 2 months, he went from squatting 13x135 to 34x165lb (using only oscillatory training squatting with 115lb)” Howser “For military populations (the strength endurance) component is a (really valuable aspect) of oscillatory rep training” Dunlap “Looking at an athlete with a young training age, we could do an oscillating goblet squat” Dunlap “One of the things with oscillating is if you are only hitting the bottom 5 times with oscillating we are hitting 15 reps in that spot” Dunlap “One of the things I’ve found (with oscillating reps) is the safety factor, you can make a lighter weight act heavier” Hows

Today’s podcast features performance coach and tendon expert, Jake Tuura. Jake currently works as a coach and educator who specializes in hypertrophy for athletes, vertical jump development, and patellar tendinopathy rehab. Jake was a collegiate S&C coach for 7 years, with further experience in the private sector at Velocity Training Center. Performance training is, at its’ core, simple, but within it contains many factors. The tissues involved in training include not only muscle, but bones and connective tissues. These tissues experience loading, not just in a linear manner, but also from a torsional perspective, based on pressure. While muscle tissue is by far the most commonly discussed of the muscle-bone-tendon triad, in understanding more about the tendonous and bony structures, and how they adapt to load, we can have a more thorough understanding of performance and rehab concepts. For today’s episode, Jake Tuura covers many aspects of tendon health and performance. These include the connective tissue impact of training on hard surfaces, different elements of tendon tissue (collagen fascicles vs. the interfascicular matrix), the impact of variability on tendon health and performance, strength training vs plyometrics in tendon development, long-term developmental concepts of connective tissue in training, and much more. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr, and Exogen wearable resistance gear. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. I’ve continued to hear great things about the Teambuildr platform, and whether you are looking for an in-house training portal or an online training hub, be sure to check out Teambuildr training software. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 2:09 – Hard vs. soft surface training, horse racing, and bone adaptations for performance 17:24 – Structural tendon rehab concepts, regarding isometric versus non-specific loading 22:28 – The difference between heavy strength, and high rep plyometric work on tendon health and rehabilitation 24:33 – Key differences between collagen fascicles in the tendon, and the IFM, or interfascicular matrix, and what this means for training and rehab 39:42 – How variability factors into training impacts on the tendon, collagen, and the interfascicular matrix 53:20 – The multi-vector nature of tendon training given plyometric or strength movements 1:01:54 – Training based on the long-term adaptations of the connective tissue, in light of both strength and elasticity Jake Tuura's Quotes “That’s where the issues happen, where the tendon inserts on the bone; it makes me wonder about training on hard surfaces and hard impacts, and adapting that (bone insertion) end of the tendon” “The tendon hole was completely filled in 5 months later, and that horse didn’t do isometrics… the animal situations where the tendons fill in without the weight room stuff, that’s fascinating” “You do need movement to load the tendon, but do you have to do the isometrics and heavy strength? I am still going to do them” “When a bone breaks, it’ll heal normally, but if you injure a tendon, it’ll scar” “The tendon is stupid, it doesn’t do anything on its own; if you want to get activation, you have to activate your muscle as hard as possible, or get activation through the bone” “When you are doing lifting, the collagen is crimped and then it goes straight, and you are making that collagen stronger” “You have the collagen within the fascicles of the tendon, and then outside of those fascicles, you have the infra-fascicular matrix, this gel that allows the fascicles to slide and rotate with one another, and when you do heavy lifting, I don’t think you are doing anything to that gel. But if you went and did hopping, jogging, that’s where the gel component would make the collagen fascicles slide and rotate around each other which would protect them from excess strain, excess linear-pull” “The gel has linear stress, but it also has compressive stress… to protect the collagen fascicles from excess linear-pull” “If you have a reactive tendonopathy, and your tendon is blown up and painful, you don’t want to be stressing (the gel) so you don’t want to do jumping, but you will usually be fine to do heavy lifting” “The fascicles work independently, so when you pull on the tendon, you won’t work all 50 fascicles, you might work 10 fascicles” “When you injure your tendon, you could only injure 1 fascicle, and have 49 healthy fascicles” “If you have holes in your tendons, your tendon still works…. you are able to go run because it’s only hurt a few fascicles, and when you give yourself movement variability, you are stressing different fascicles in different manners” “Spikeball is the best for movement variability” “That’s one of the hard

Today’s podcast features coach and educator, Jamie Smith. Jamie is the owner of Melbourne Strength Culture, a strength and performance-based gym in Australia. Jamie worked at high-level S+C in Australia and the US prior to starting his coaching business with Strength Culture. Now he is heavily involved in coach development and education for strength coaches. Jamie has a truly expansive viewpoint on how we consider training in light of more global concepts. In performance training, we must look at human beings on a complete (holistic) level. To do that, it’s helpful to look at prominent and long-established fields of human collaboration and research, medicine to be exact. In medicine, the “biopsychosocial” model was conceptualized in 1977 and has been prominent, particularly in pain science. On today’s podcast, Jamie talks about both the biopsychosocial and top-down/bottom-up models and how to integrate them into a training model. Without considering the importance of mindset and culture, as well as “bottom-up” (using intuition in the training process) coaching, athletes are not going to get the possible level of result or enjoyment of the journey. As Jamie says on the show, building awareness in the athlete or client is one of the most important things you can do, and by defining the overarching structures of the BPS and top-down vs. bottom-up training, we can better understand how our program is actually landing with those we train. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs and Exogen wearable resistance gear. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 4:04 – Discussing the “beer mile” and “milk mile” competitions as track and field spin-offs 7:37 – The BPS, or “Bio Psycho Social” Model, and how it applies to training 13:28 – BPS-based ideas as to why two athletes can be on the same exact training program and get a completely different training outcome 17:42 – The philosophical concept of determinism, in light of the BPS model 23:28 – “Top-Down” vs. “Bottom-Up” methods in looking at training 39:52 – Looking at “Top-Down” vs. “Bottom-Up” concepts in training, relative to global concepts, such as investing 45:28 – Practical steps to integrating balance in Top-Down and Bottom-Up elements of a program 48:27 – Client autonomy in light of training constraints, BPS model, and buy-in 51:19 – A bottom-up approach to assigning training de-loads 1:02:15 – Skillfully assigning load ranges based on BPS and bottom-up concepts in training, and helping athletes feel “wins” in a program Jamie Smith Quotes “I think there are a lot of S&C coaches who have never really trained for events” “The biology (in the BPS model) is the physical nature of the human” “The psychological is your software, your thoughts, feelings, expectations… and ultimately those psychological things shape the lens that we see the world through” “Social is the environment in which we place the human” “Our thoughts, feelings, expectations, shape the way we enter processes; I truly believe the BPS model is the most encompassing model to view how we do things or look at outcomes in life” “When you understand the BPS model, you can’t remove the mental from the physical, or the culture; when you say something, how this is going to be perceived by an individual is influenced by everything they’ve done in their whole life” “A lot of people, became physically attached as a representation of what (rolling and smashing) would allow them to become; when a coach would come along and bash that idea, they are challenging a belief system” “The way in which we communicate matter, the history of a person matters, all of this stuff matters all at the one time…. We are living in a subjective world, with subjective people, trying to make everything objective in the physical world, we are missing a huge portion of what is important in this endeavour of training and life” “The philosophy of the bottom-up world is that we have to be cognizent of training on an individual level (Mike Tucherer)” “The top-down model is a constraint-based model…. We are constrained by these things that we can’t change too much” “There’s always this connection of top down, we are “stuck” and we have constraints we have to work within, and then training should be very bottoms up, we meet athletes where they are at, we collect data and see what works, and we go from there” “Some individuals respond really well to top-down strategies…. Other athletes are not like that, they are a bit more inquisitive, they like to tinker” “It is important to have top-down, we need to have a structure” “At its core, RPE training is the first step to building self-awareness, and if we build self awareness we can get better, more informed information from the athlete” “Actually getting a client to be include

Today’s podcast features human performance coach, Brady Volmering. Brady is the owner of DAC Performance and Health. His focus is on increasing the capacity of the human being. Brady continually digs into what “training the human being” actually means and how that relates to improvements that go beyond the general, into specific sports performance and even one’s daily life. He walks the talk on a high level through his own personal workouts and regularly discusses his training philosophy on his Instagram page. Brady was a guest on episode 291 of the podcast talking about “human” level physical preparation, and high-volume training concepts. On the podcast today, Brady talks about his single leg depth drop practice, the recent changes he made in his programming to physically transform himself across the past year, and then how he has taken those programming concepts into his training for athletic populations. As an already well-trained athlete, Brady’s progress is incredible to see, and the methods he used are simple in nature, and also relatively non-traditional in terms of the typical “rules” we put on training. We also touch on oscillatory reps, high-frequency training, mind-body awareness, “wins and losses” in training, and more, in this episode. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs and Exogen wearable resistance gear, and the Sprint Acceleration Essentials Online Course. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. To learn more about the Sprint Acceleration Essentials course, head to justflysports.thinkific.com View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 3:45 – What led Brady to perform a 6-foot box drop jump 11:15 – How Brady scales drops and difficulty for the individuals that he works with 16:15 – Comparing high drops, to more traditional “serial” plyometrics, such as low hurdle hops 27:45 – Processing “wins and losses” throughout the training session and season 32:45 – The mind-body connection that exists between physical exercise, and sport, particularly within the scope of being presented with a failure 43:45 – The key pieces that have led to Brady’s physical transformation in the past year, one of which was based on training advice from Jay Schroeder 1:02:45 – Keys to high frequency, or daily, integration of a potent training means as opposed to using a training stimulus in a typical 2-3x a week frequency 1:10:45 – How Brady’s training regime filtered into his training concepts for athletes 1:20:45 – Oscillatory training reps and impulse rep concepts for the upper body Brady Volmering Quotes “Really with anything we are doing, I want to set up in a game format, where an athlete has a chance to succeed, an athlete has a chance to fail because that is going to bring that engagement up” “In a (single leg) depth drop, if you don’t learn to direct that intent, you are going to fail… you can learn to direct that intent into other places as well” “Everything after (a 6-foot single leg drop) feels much easier, much less stressful” “I ask, what does it mean when your body speaks to you? When you have pain, what does that mean? When you have tightness or restriction, what does that mean?” “I know what they are feeling right now, what would I do; when I am programming I want to gain enough information about what they are feeling, what they are experiencing… what would I do?” “That’s why I like a lot of the high rep, high volume stuff we do, where if you decide to stop, through that you understand how your system is processing that stimulus, what thoughts are coming in” “When you are training and the only thing that is stopping you is yourself, that is a mini-loss…. In the training session in that mini-loss where you have that threat of stopping, your body is going to that same place when you have had those bigger losses” “If I have all these other verticals that are also in my life, that helps the training; now the session is supporting the sport, the session is supporting the business, the session is supporting the family, the session is supporting the quality of other relationships” “I’m pulling myself further into position, I’m not trying to resist (in an extreme ISO), that little piece right there made a huge difference for me because I can apply that in other areas” “I would do slow lowers every single day, and do a heavy rebound bench and heavy rebound squat every day, and over the course of that time, the rebound bench started at 195, and has went up to 290… when I did that with the slow lowers, I understood how not to resist myself more fully” “For me, I pop up for a rep after (the 3-minute pushup lower) because that is signifying that you are recovering as you work” “Any time I do a new thing, there is going to be a time where I heavily bias that; and then you squeeze it out and there is nothing there anymore, and it goes into t

Today’s podcast features Jason Feairheller (fare-heller). Jason is the Co-Owner and strength coach at Function and Strength in Bridgeport, Pennsylvania, and has been training athletes since 2007. He is the host of the Speed and Power podcast and has lectured on strength and conditioning as an adjunct professor at Immaculata University. Jason has a passion for speed and athletic movement training and is a sought-after speaker on the topic of multi-directional athleticism. He has developed the course “Improving Game Speed Through Multi-Dimensional Plyometrics”. Humans are complex and so is in-game movement. One topic that I’ve considered ever since the start of this podcast was the idea of actually coaching change of direction and sport-speed techniques, versus decision-making being the priority, and then letting game-play dictate how athletes choose to technically move in space. Jason’s passion has been all forms of speed and movement in athletes, and on this podcast, he goes into the fundamental principles of change of direction versus agility (perception) training, and how each method works into his athletic performance programming. Jason will also get into his use of plyometrics, and methods that quantitatively measure change of direction outputs, his take on deceleration training mistakes and misconceptions, agility games, and much more. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs and Exogen wearable resistance gear. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 3:06 – What brought Jason into the game speed space as a primary focus of his training 8:49 – Jason’s thoughts on the place of change of direction training, compared to agility/perception work 16:36 – How the interplay between planned/rehearsed change of direction, and live agility occurs in a training session 31:45 – How Jason looks to quantitatively measure improvements in change of direction ability 41:11 – Considering “deceleration” training in light of having athletes fully stop, vs. redirecting speed 49:08 – Perception/Reaction and game-oriented work Jason uses for his athletes 51:51 – What Jason’s session looks like in terms of warmup, speed/COD training, games, and strength breakdown 53:21 – Jason’s favorite simple COD games he uses in his training 57:12 – Plyometric training concepts, particularly on the level of small hops, leading into larger ones Jason Feairheller Quotes “What makes an athlete really good at (speed in training), it was the ability to link one movement into another” “When I do change of direction training, every single speed drill I do with someone is an assessment” “Ultimately, people need to redirect force, and then get the other foot down quickly” “For the most part, I don’t do a drill for more than 2 to 3 reps without changing it in some capacity” “If I have my feet close together; and I put my feet out to the side, and back, and do a straddle jump like that; what I’m looking at is, how far can an athlete actually get their feet to the isde, and what is that shin angle, where their head doesn’t go up or down; and that distance is close to what they would actually have on the field” “A 5-10-15 tells me how well someone can decelerate when speed is higher” “I watch a lot of video from all different sports, and try to relate change of direction work to some sport scenario in my head” “We have these rubber mats that are 2-3 feet wide, and we have max reps (pogo jumps) over the rubber (you can’t touch the rubber) for 8 seconds; a lot of jumps people track are vertical in nature; but a lot of what happens on the field is horizontal” “I rarely tell people to stick the landing on a drill, the only time is altitude drops or something like that, because I need outputs to be my main goal” “When people focus on only decelerating, they typically get into very deep angles of hip and knee flexion, but what we want to do is create enough strength within the athlete where they can decelerate with minimal knee flexion; and if they want to accelerate hard off of something there needs to be little knee flexion so they can quickly push off of that, because if you are going off of a single leg, you can’t get into those deep angles” “If someone sprints straight ahead, unless it’s for 2 steps, they are not going to stop with their feet in line with each other, they are going to stop with their feet angled to the side, because that’s how someone is going to decelerate anyway” “You have someone sprint 7 yards, but they have to stop by 9 yards, and you time it, and you know if their time is slow, you know they are decelerating too early (and can’t manage a fast stop/redirection)” “I love drills where I’m trying to get both people, to get the other one to move fast in some way, because the faster someone goes, the less movement options th

Today’s podcast features Bill Hartman. Bill is a physical therapist, and in-demand educator in his approach to restoring a pain-free lifestyle, and understanding the governing principles of movement. He has been a mentor to, or has inspired the knowledge of many previous guests on this podcast, particularly in regards to movement biomechanics, infra-sternal archetypes, and the compression-expansion model. Bill owns IFAST Physical Therapy in Indianapolis, Indiana and Co-owns Indianapolis Fitness and Sports Training with Mike Robertson, where he works with clients ranging from very young athletes to professionals. It is very interesting to look at how we approach the nature of “muscle weakness” and compensations in training. For example, it is common to look at all compensatory action in the body as a “bad thing”, rather than looking at how the body actually uses compensatory action to produce force, or adapt to a particular sport skill, in addition to when that compensation might actually be a problem. The human performance field has also looked at muscle weakness in isolation, rather than digging deeper into the underlying structural alignment of the body contributes heavily to what we are seeing out of muscle strength and function. In today’s podcast, Bill goes into the adaptive nature of the body and what it really means when we are seeing compensatory actions in movement. Within this, Bill also gets into the nature of reciprocal, or more “locking” movement of joints, depending on the task an individual needs to accomplish. Bill spends a lot of time talking about strength training, how it can be a positive, but also the dynamics of the interference effect that can lead to undesirable adaptations for athletes over time. Bill also covers external rotation and pigeon-toed athletes, and the nature of power training for wide and narrow ISA archetypes, and much more. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, Exogen wearable resistance gear, and the Just Fly Sports Online Courses. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. To learn more about the Sprint Acceleration Essentials or Elastic Essentials courses, head to justflysports.thinkific.com View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 5:00 – Bill’s journey from working purely in the traditional therapy and training model, into one that embraces more of the complexity of nature, and universal principles of movement 15:28 – The adaptive process of the body, and how this leads into different alignments and representations 18:14 – The compensatory strategies of the body as an adaptive process 29:02 – Examples of when strength gains may end up creating an interference effect on the body 33:32 – How children are so flexible, and the role of shape change in human motion 36:50 – The role of mobility and “stiffness” in terms of speed and running efficiency 43:37 – General thoughts on stiffness and compliance for a typical field sport athlete 49:10 – Connective tissue and stiffness adaptations to heavy strength training, and the point where heavy strength can be a negative for explosive sport activities 1:04:45 – Relative motion and force production biomechanics in squatting, and knee mechanics as it relates to joint pain and injury risk 1:12:42 – The externally rotated, “bowlegged” representation of the legs, on the level of athleticism 1:23:16 – Power training with the needs of a Wide ISA type in mind Bill Hartman Quotes “When you start to look at the human as a complex adaptive organism, your perspective starts to change” “If you are made of water (fluid dynamics) is going to be one of the foundational principles” “The goal is not to negate everything that came before… but the level of reasoning is what the biggest change has been” “The interaction (between the parts of systems) is the most fascinating” “If the muscle was truly the problem, then this exercise should have solved the problem, but it didn’t, because it was a relationship (between parts) problem” “In a circumstance, we join joints together and they move as one; that is a compensatory strategy, because it is trying to solve a problem that relative motion cannot solve, and where this really shows up is force production. Relative motion has a dampening effect on force production; I cannot produce maximal force in a situation where full relative motion is available” “In athletics, where forces are exceptionally high, if you are not compensating, you aren’t performing well. We can’t classify compensation as good or bad, we have to say that this is part of the solution to a problem” “If I use too much compensation, then I can’t dampen forces” “Compensations are absolutely normal, you use them every day, but the question is, “is this helping me, or is it creating interference”?” “Try to get up out of a chair with full relative motions… it doesn’

Today’s podcast features USA Football senior manager of education and training, Andy Ryland. Andy has been with USA Football since 2010, has consulted with programs at every level of competition, and is widely recognized as a foremost expert on developing the fundamentals necessary for a successful shoulder tackle, as well as the developmental, and skill building process for athletes. He previously appeared on episode 170 speaking on a “humans first”, “athletes second”, “specialists third” approach to athlete development. In the process of developing athletes, it is easy to compartmentalize training components, ultimately to a fault in the overall process. If we are working in a sport or skill building capacity with athletes, we should have a basic understanding of their physical capacities and capabilities, as well as how training adaptation and specificity work. If we are working on strength and more base level movement components with athletes, we should have a handle on their needed skills and tactics on the field. Ultimately, the more situations we can coach in, the more ages, and sports we work with, the better our overall intuition gets on the process of teaching skills, and guiding athletes to their highest potential. Andy Ryland has a deep understanding the developmental process that players need to succeed in their sport. On today’s episode, Andy digs into key points on the art of athletic skill building. A primary part of this is how he runs the “whole-part-whole” system, which can be adapted to more global, or strength based skills. Andy discussing how to integrate “prescriptive extra’s”, or “work-on’s”, as well as micro skill development in sport and S&C. He also covers key aspects of improving agility, teaching concepts in athletics, creativity in coaching, Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs and Exogen wearable resistance gear. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 3:54 – The original “failed” games in American Gladiators, and the evolution of “powerball” into what it eventually became 8:57 – Andy’s take on practice plans, creativity, intuition and thoughts on changing the practice plan 17:53 – Thoughts on mixing in various micro-doses of skill and movement into gym-based training 28:06 – Alternating between working the “outer game” of more external strategizing, or outputs, and the “inner game” of the subtle nuance of skill performance, in training 34:53 – The integration of roughhousing into youth football 43:29 – How to use a game-based iterations of a drill, to better prepare for the actual skill execution 48:09 – The need for constant 1 on 1s, tracking and evasion-based work in sport, and how it’s not typically trained enough in sport 52:58 – The role of the “instant activity”, or “welcome game” in a sport practice or training situation 58:10 – The maximal “line length” Andy sees being viable in sport/skill practice Andy Ryland Quotes “I’m a huge whole-part-whole guy. I’ll be the first to tell you, the part aspect is never scripted” “If our arms are terrible, if our legs are terrible, if our strike accuracy is terrible, that’s going to be our “part” (in whole-part-whole)” “If I’m doing a good job, my coaching intervention “part” aspect is not going to be some super stereotyped, copy and paste drill that’s been done since the dawn of time. It’s who are my athletes, what are they struggling, what is the situation where they struggle, and how can I replicate that before going back into the whole thing” “My mentor Richie Grays, worked in professional international rugby for ages, they had prescriptive extras, every athlete had “work on’s” that fit their game. They had a set of bags that was at the entrance to the field, and their rule was you can’t pass the bags, and every athlete had to get 5-10 reps every day of their particular weaknesses” “Within the contact space, one of the most valuable things is feel. Very little is visual, a lot is feel. How I brace and fight is based, not just if your hands are on me, but feeling which way you are trying to put me” “That roughhousing is such a robust stimulus; you need to interact with another human being, you need to learn to be strong with an outside force” “Even if I do a great job teaching it, there is going to be this phase of you needing to learn it in your own body” “Coaches now have to manufacture, some of the free play opportunities that athletes had in the past” “Kids have lost those free play opportunities, and when we get to sport (and play) people will say “that’s not specific”, but if they don’t have the movement foundations and database that past generations had, then it’s very specific to their development” “In our official USA practice plans, there is a 5-minute period every day we called athlete development