The By Any Means Coaches Podcast

We're back!! Our first guest since the hiatus us Alex Sarama, Alex is a basketball coach from the UK. He's extremely good at what he does, he's immersed himself in the literature of skill acquisition and ecological dynamics in order to develop basketball players and ultimately change the way we as an industry look at developing basketball playersAlex is a delight to talk to, he's extremely genuine and truly wants to change this industry for the better. I think he's one of the best coaches in this field and this is just one podcast that shows thatMake sure to check out Alex on all platforms!IG - https://www.instagram.com/alexsarama/Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlexJSarama?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5EauthorSome great videos I came across -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGOUh0rmsaEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-SSSyUfDhMhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Xt5Ouu3g98Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-basketball-podcast/id1398261897?i=1000558143105

This week I talk about how to design better practices and how to optimize those practices. I discuss some important mindset shifts, important concepts and much more in order to accomplish the goal of designing better practicesFollow me on socials:IG - https://www.instagram.com/tc.performance_/

The past two seasons with SMCC have been beyond rewarding: 2 YSCC Conference championships (back-to-back), first ever USCAA Division 2 National Championship in program history, multiple All Conference and All American players. I was lucky to be apart of all of it, and I was able to learn a lot from it as well.My takeaways:1. Trust & Buy-in = Everything2. Film is so important3. The mind is powerful beyond comprehension 2 Bonus points:1. The college system as a whole could do a better job with their practice design2. Freshman need to come into the season better prepared Make sure to check out all my stuff on social media:IG - https://www.instagram.com/tc.performance_/

Ross is one of the most passionate professionals in this field I've had the pleasure of connecting with, not only is he passionate but he knows what he's talking about! Ross gets in depth talking about how he builds athletes and so much more along the wayYou don't wanna miss a second of this episode!Check out Ross on social media and his program as well!IG: https://www.instagram.com/coach_ross_dpt/Program "Good Drills": https://good-drills.com/ 

John Evans is one of the best jump coaches in the world and is notably the performance coach for pro dunkers Isaiah Rivera, & Jordan Southerland (1footgod), as well some other very incredible dunkers/jumpers and thousands of athletes all over the world now with his online business "THP Strength". John was a treat to have on, the conversation was free flowing and a fun one to have. Early on he and I talk a little about skills training and what I think the top 3 trainers in the industry are, we then talk about what his approach would be with a brand new athlete to the weight room with their goal being to dunk a basketball. We talk a little about long term athlete development and some stories from Johns end, then John finishes up talking about olympic lifting and 1-foot bounce There was a lot of great stuff in this episode as well as it being a great listen!Check out John on all his platforms:IG - https://www.instagram.com/johnevans_thp/Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thpstrength/id1503429069Website (THP Strength) - https://www.thpstrength.com/

Jon is on a mission to help athletes get to the next level with mental performance, he specializes in basketball mindfulness and it's clear by the way he talks about it and implements it that it's extremely effective.The mental performance side of sports is something I'm super intrigued by. I've studied it, implemented it with my athletes, with myself and I've seen results in both. It's an extremely powerful thing, Jon thinks so as well.Jon and I talk about what mindfulness is to him, he talks about his 3 buckets of mindfulness. We also talk about how he implements mindfulness, strategies as well as some tactics to use for both individuals and teams or groups. We then touch on some specific topics like "being totally involved but unattached", self-talk, dealing with emotions/feelings and also breath work and the role it plays in all of the aboveMake sure to check out Jon on socials:IG - https://www.instagram.com/playfreebball/

Mitchell is a player development coach in southern New Hampshire, he integrates the science of motor learning/skill acquisition along with sports psychology in his practice. He develops his clients holistically as humans and not just as basketball players, we had a great conversation.Mitchell and I talk about a lot of different things regarding sports psychology, things like what he's seen are important in the development of psychology in himself and his clients: focus & confidence. Some of the tactics he uses to develop the brain, his training methods as a whole help with that (training with chaos, challenging things like focus and their current ability, etc) as well as things like visualizationWe also touched on how we both agree that the player development on teams, be it college, high school, etc could be better and need to improve. A lot of programs preach and teach what they think is right and what they think is going to get players better but it's not actually helping them translate skill to the court.Lastly, we talk a little about Mitchell's experience in Columbia playing professionally.Check out Mitchell on socials:IG - https://www.instagram.com/hoopin_mitch/

Different format to this weeks episode: I'm joined by Coleman Ayers, Gabe Macias, Dario Saisan, Martin Andrade and Danny Metser to talk about some really interesting topicsSome of the things we discuss were: psychological stressors and the effects they have on things like free throw shooting, finding alternative consequences to physical punishment (running, push-ups, etc), what is the "it" factor in players - where does it comes from, the different styles/subcultures in basketball depending on where you are in the world geographically I enjoyed this episode a lot because everyone of these guys are super open minded and extremely intelligent when it comes to basketball skill development, performance and a lot more. That made this discussion as great as it was!Check everyone out on socials:Coleman - https://www.instagram.com/byanymeansbasketball/Danny - https://www.instagram.com/dmhoops/Dario - https://www.instagram.com/saisantraining/Martin - https://www.instagram.com/onlyaboutbball/Gabe - https://www.instagram.com/gametimeelitetraining/

Shea Frazee is a skill development coach in Southern California, he's worked with 35+ NBA athletes and a lot of the top high school prospects in that area. Shea is an extremely intuitive & intelligent individual, he understands training & coaching on a different level than most.Shea and I talk about his training philosophies and how he trains his players, we touch on how he trains both in a 1v1 setting and also in a group setting. We talk about how he goes about adding "cognitive load" in his sessions, how he can challenge his athletes psychologically as well as physically. The game of basketball is not 1 dimensional, it's 3D and multifactorial - sometimes we neglect the psychological aspect of the game in our training sessions.Shea also speaks on his perspective in building confidence and what exactly goes into confidence, he has a 5 important steps in building confidence (towards the end of show).Check Shea out of socials:IG: https://www.instagram.com/shea.frazee/Website: https://www.sheafrazee.com/

Our confidence starts during early childhood - how our parents nurture us, how our teachers teach us, how our youth coaches coach us, the people that have a position of influence at that stage so early actually have a massive influence on your confidence today.Were you boxed in and not allowed to express yourself creatively at home, or in the classroom or playing youth sports. If you were that can trickle into you as both a person and an athleteI don't say that to scare you, because if that's you don't worry. There are things you can to increase your confidence, I talk about those things in this episode. I break it into how players can increase confidence and then how coaches can be a helping hand in increasing a players confidence