Just Fly Performance Podcast

Today’s show welcomes back Bobby Whyte.  Bobby is an athletic performance and basketball skill enhancement trainer operating out of northern New Jersey.  Bobby recently appeared on episode 178 of the podcast https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-178-bobby-whyte/, speaking on his integration of strength and skill training for basketball. The world of sports performance can easily suffer from isolationism in the realm of strength, speed and movement skill.  In the recent podcast with Tony Villani, the difference between 40-yard dash speed, and actual game speed in the NFL was made very clear.  We need to understand more about the nuances, and principles of movement in sport to prepare athletes for it, instead of over-focusing on linear speed mechanics. When we understand the over-arching principles of learning and movement, we can apply them to any sport or skill.  Throughout this podcast, we’ve had intelligent minds like Adarian Barr speaking on biomechanical principles, and then folks like Michael Zweifel, Tyler Yearby, and Rob Gray talking about foundational principles of learning and skill acquisition.  Bobby Whyte has been using those principles, and tying it all together in his basketball performance program. On the show today, Bobby Whyte speaks how he has taken concepts picked up from Adarian Barr and applied them to movement training and acceleration in the game of basketball.  He shares his thoughts on key physical abilities in basketball, and how he uses motor learning principles to help athletes improve their specific skill array for the game.  Bobby will speak on how he has taken motor learning principles into landing mechanics and common injury prevention themes in training, and finally Bobby will talk about how he specifically seeks to develop the all-important confidence level in his players in his training sessions. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster and Lost Empire Herbs. 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 Find out more about the the online course, Elastic Essentials, by heading to justflysports.thinkific.com View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points: 5:21 – What Bobby has been learning and integrating since his last time on the podcast 2 years ago 6:45 – How Bobby has integrated some of Adarian Barr concepts directly into basketball speed and movement training 18:49 – How basketball, and related movement training, has universal application into many other sports, such as football 24:44 – Key physical abilities on the basketball court that can transfer into great gameplay 28:33 – The importance of chaos in basketball qualities and carryover 35:26 – How Bobby views landing and landing mechanics for his basketball athletes, and how good general strength training can go a long way in helping prevent injury without needing to do plyometrics where athletes need to move a “certain way” 42:45 – Bobby’s take on feedback and instruction in the course of coaching his athletes, and avoiding over-coaching 51:54 – How confidence in one’s specific game and skill abilities is a key and defining factor in athletes that make it to the next level of performance 59:01 – What is a “good drill”? 1:03:14 – Bobby’s thoughts on the benefits and drawbacks of the vast amount of information available to athletes today “The best athletes can maintain (Adarian Barr’s) athletic posture until… it’s time to cut, it’s time to shoot, etc.” “When I’m falling (to drop into a basketball move), I’m almost pulling myself down” “A lot of players will go into that horizontal fall, and there will be a pause before they get moving… our goal is to smooth that out” “They players that struggle with (coming up off the knees into an acceleration) struggle to get on their arches” “All of those physical abilities just give me more action capability; the athletes who succeed are the ones who understand how to apply their physical gifts in an effective way where they are making decisions in their sport” “I look at everything, not as a race to speed, but as a race to position” “If you spend all of your time shooting alone in the gym, with no chaos, it’s not going to hold up, so you have to experience that chaos” “We can’t train perfectly for a game that’s imperfect” “Give me an athlete that can do a 360 layup, and he’s not bad at finishing, it’s going to be hard to find one” “I try to have those opportunities to let athletes figure things out themselves” “The last thing I want to think of when I’m jump shooting is where my elbow is” “If there’s a hiccup, there’s a hitch (in a shot) there’s a whole bunch of things that simply adding speed will correct and make it fluid” “I don’t want you to have an emotional attachment to the goal (making the shot)” “This is what moves the needle more than anything, if you can rewire a player’s mind” “The best players I have, the ones that end up getting scholarships, they have very little or no self-doubt; on the other hand, I have players who get bigger, faster, stronger, get more skilled, and never really do much with it” “(when Bobby gives a star player a difficult challenge) The other players in the group will see the best player struggling, and overcoming it, and he becomes a teacher” “I don’t want to teach players how to move, I want them to learn how to move” Show Notes Coaching the “Two Falls” Specifically for the Game of Basketball   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by HyPower Performance (@bobbywhyte) About Bobby Whyte Bobby Whyte is an Athletic Performance and Basketball Skill Enhancement Trainer operating out of Northern New Jersey. Focusing on developing the complete player athlete, Bobby practices the “Evaluate – Educate -Empower” program he experienced first hand growing up training with now world renown trainers and specialists. His personal journey, beginning with a 12” vertical jump at age 15 to playing and coaching basketball internationally provide him understanding and the confidence needed to tailor programs which maximize individual development. With a quick wit, Bobby makes tough, challenging sessions entertaining. Bobby is a certified NASM Personal Trainer and FMS Movement Specialist.  He’s also certified with I’m Possible Training, the world’s largest basketball training company. He’s worked with athletes ranging from beginner to NBA/NFL/Overseas Professionals. Most recently, he spent 6 months working in China as the Head Strength Coach for the Guangxi Rhinos. Bobby has the ability and knowledge to develop skill and performance programs to deliver complete, healthy athletes. He believes growth takes place at the edge of ability and it his passion to bring athletes to that edge.

Today’s show welcomes Tony Villlani, sports performance coach and owner of XPE sports in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.  Tony has coached over twenty #1 finishes in the NFL combine and is the creator of the Game Speed and Separation Movement Web.  Tony has worked with many of the top NFL players in the league, but will tell you that his learning from those athletes was a much bigger deal in Tony’s development than the fact that he “trained them”. Clearly you have to have a level of speed that’s well above average to be successful at many high level sports.  At the same time, the fastest athletes in sports where having a level of speed is important, such as at the NFL combine, are not the successful ones in pro-football. Interestingly, the fastest receivers in the history of the combine have never had truly successful careers.  This brings up the question, not only why this is, but also, how can we distribute our training efforts over time to optimize the way that athletes actually move on the field?  Clearly, we need to work to get athletes fast in a linear sense, but how much are we helping if we overly focus on linear speed (and spend lots of time hair splitting linear speed in twitter arguments) and don’t address the types of speed utilized in sport. Tony deeply understands the nuances and categories of direction change in sport, and actively trains these components in his sessions.  This isn’t to say that Tony doesn’t love traditional speed training (just look at his combine success) but he also loves building speed that gives athletes the highest chance of success in their sport. On the show today, Tony talks about how he “ratios” linear speed training to game-speed training, as well as how he frames NFL combine style training in light of game speed to those trainees.  He’ll get into why he feels that the fastest athletes in the history of the combine have never been the best actual football players, and then gets into a substantial layout of his key points in change of direction training.  Tony also lists some key aspects of offensive and defensive agility, as well as how agility can differ between sports.  This was a podcast that you’ll never forget if you train any type of athlete for speed in their sport. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster and Lost Empire Herbs. 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: 6:07 – How having young children has taught Tony about the process of athletic development 7:47 – Tony’s take on the balance of how linear and game-speed training should progress as an athlete develops 23:48 – Tony’s thoughts on why the very fastest NFL receivers in the combine actually never had a good playing career 29:22 – Approaching linear speed development when an athlete is truly not as fast as they need to be from that perspective 36:14 – Tony’s take on the inverse relationship between the 40 yard dash times and 3-cone/shuttle events in the NFL combine 41:29 – How Tony feels the NFL combine agility tests transfer to performance, and what he does for agility instead 54:12 – Comparing types of game speed between athletes, and the general zones of speed pro football athletes will use in competitions 59:58 – Tony’s finer-point breakdown of change of direction technique 1:07:42 – How Tony views “first chance” opportunity in change of direction (one point of attack opportunity) in football vs. basketball or soccer “Everyone should get as fast as they can possibly get with their own genetics, but after that, I turn off the (linear) speed switch” “With our combine athletes, it’s, unfortunately, how to teach them to run out of control… I always tell our combine athletes, quit thinking of football, think track and being out of control” “It’s not that hard to (cut .2 off a 40 yard dash) you just have to shut down everything else and get them fast” “We spend about 30% of our time on linear speed training, but it’s not our holy grail anymore” “The younger you are, the easier it is to win with speed…if someone has always won with speed, and then they get on the field of play where they can’t win with speed, they are not equipped to” “I think increased speed hurts your agility” “I see too many coaches working on acceleration drills with kids but you need force to accelerate” “Watch us prepare 30 guys for the combine every year, and you’ll see the fastest guy require the most time on the 3-cone shuttle” “For the shuttle and 3 cone, we have to do it the perfect way, those are planned steps.  When we are out in the field (of play) we don’t know when those planned steps are going to change and we have to find 3-4 ways to do the same thing” “I call that “playing basketball”… you’re in a wide base, you’re shuffling.  When you are playing zone and man to man you want to “play basketball” as long as you can” “Anyone who is attacking on the lacrosse or soccer field is trying to play a setup for where they want to go” “(For all sports) Learn defense from a defensive back, learn it in tighter spaces from a linebacker, and learn how to fight from offensive and defensive linemen, and boxers” “Basketball, they don’t have to turn and run as much as you think; a DB doesn’t set up in a wide base like a basketball player, their shuffle is different” “The great players in the NFL have told me “teach me how to not run on that football field”” “Luca Doncic is not fast! He is one of the most un-athletic guys on that court, but he gets to the hoop at will, not by going around people, but by going through them… all of that dancing stuff, it doesn’t work, but it looks cool” “We are working on all of those techniques that allow us to win between that 14 to 18 mile an hour zone” “Instead of just running around cones for position work, my athletes ask me “how do you want me to run around that cone?... we change directions 6-8 different ways”” “Speed kills (the athlete’s ability to change directions) and fast-feet don’t eat… fast-feet are for salsa dancers.  Fast-feet don’t eat…. Feet that separate do” “(regarding the importance of first-chance opportunities) I’m setting (the defense in an agility drill) up for the loss because I’m not letting (the offense) dance, he’s got one move, he’s got to pick a shoulder and run right through it” “I understand why they got off the ladder… great strength coaches are like, I’m not doing dance drills with my athletes, I’m doing force application.   But force application into what? Force application into the right foot position; so let’s go back to the ladder and let them learn foot position, then throw your force application into the right foot position and you’ve got an athlete” Show Notes 4 Ways to Attack COD Using Ladder https://youtu.be/qDG2fMlWiyQ   Tony talks Agility and Change of Direction with NFL Pro Anquan Boldin https://youtu.be/hebzMFw-86o   Intro to “BPS”: Brake-Plant-Separate https://youtu.be/6sQMU2K9Vx0   About Tony Villani Tony Villani created XPE Sports in 2002 and has trained many top athletes in the world, most notably in the NFL. He loves creating speed in athletes, as shown by almost 20 number one 40-yard dash finishes at the NFL Combine, but more recently he has dived into creating a Game Speed and Separation Movement Web curriculum. This “Web” helps athletes, coaches, and trainers alike understand how to use speed and agility correctly to win on the field of play. Tony likes to say, “If speed is king, then agility is the queen that keeps the king moving in the right direction.” Notable athletes trained during his first decade were WR Cris Carter, WR Randy Moss, WR Hines Ward, RB Jamal Lewis, RB Dorsey Levens, LB Takeo Spikes, and DE Osi Umenyoria. The second decade under XPE Sports only got better as notable athletes included WR Anquan Boldin, DB Darelle Revis, S Eric Berry, DB Stephon Gilmore, RB Mark Ingram, OL Mike and Maurkice Pouncey, LB LaVonte David, TE Travis Kelce, S Justin Simmons, and many more. These names are important to Tony because he feels as though people think he “trained” them, but they were actually teaching and training him how to pass along knowledge and train others. Currently, Tony spends most of his time training athletes in Fort Lauderdale at XPE Sports with Matt Gates and his off-time with the development of the SHREDmill, a manually powered treadmill that is a key piece of XPE’s speed training.

Today’s show welcomes back chiropractor and neurology expert, Dr. Mark Wetzel.  Mark has been on this show numerous times talking about the effectiveness of long isometric holds, as well as digging into many aspects of their performance. So often in the training and performance field, we just look at exercises, sets, and reps, but then don’t desire to dig into the nuance of those movements we are programming.  With isometrics, we can certainly get results by simply having athletes hold positions indiscriminately, but we can multiply those results by understanding the underlying mechanisms that help make isometrics more effective. One of the beautiful things about isometric holds is that the lack of movement brings one’s awareness to a high level, and one’s ability to focus on things like breathing, posture, and muscle tensioning, on a higher level.  One’s mental and emotional state has an extremely close correlation with the length of time that you can hold the movement. Holding isometrics for extended periods of time also has an impact on the fascial lines of the body, and even the meridian lines (if your belief system takes you that far).  Isometrics are truly a “total body”, functional experience. On today’s show, Mark Wetzel gives his thoughts on how a positive mental state can increase one’s ability to hold an isometric position (or increase muscle endurance in general).  He’ll speak extensively on the postural and muscle-tone aspects of holding an isometric, as well as speak on the connections made between the fascial/meridian lines, electric signals, and organ function.  Finally, Mark gives his take on what he feels “neurological” strength truly is, and how this is manifested in a program. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster and Lost Empire Herbs. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 5:24 – Mark’s thoughts on the mental and emotional aspects of fatigue (and perceived fatigue) during a difficult or taxing movement such as an isometric 14:34 – What it means to be “in position” as an athlete gets into an isometric hold 24:47 – Why some athletes have a lot of trouble “pulling down” into an isometric position and discussing the use of “constraints” such as a band around the shin, to help an athlete pull down into an isometric 34:19 – Using a one-arm bench press hold to help improve the pushing ability and breathing of individuals who struggle with isometric pushup holds 42:01 – What “good posture” means for Mark 47:05 – Mark’s take on organ health, meridian lines, and reflexes, particularly in light of utilizing isometric exercises 57:52 – What it means to have “neurological strength” from Mark’s perspective as a chiropractor with neurological training 1:05:35 – Depth jumps and drop landings as an assessment of neurological efficiency Dr. Mark Wetzel's Quotes “When I am in those moments (of fatigue) I try to bring up some sort of happiness or joyful emotion to try and take my mind off of it” “The “fear based” mentality is almost a traditional way of training” “Posture comes back to the breath; typically when people have bad posture it is because they have bad breathing mechanics” “When you do a bunch of calf rebounds in a row, your body will position you in a way that (you have to be in to keep breathing under fatigue)” “You can accomplish so much in an isometric exercise by focusing on “where is my breathing”” “I always back up (a chiropractic adjustment) with exercise” “The meridian lines are all connected to an organ” “What’s cool about an isometric is that you are creating a lot of tone throughout the whole body” “If the brain is telling a muscle to stay weak, then it is going to stay weak no matter what you do” “The more you can stay calm, breathe, smile to yourself while you are going through that discomfort, I feel that transfers more to what that neurological strength is” “Where your intention is, is where your energy goes” Show Notes Single Arm Bench Press Hold https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsAlxydk9Lw Inner Smile Meditation for Increased Muscle Endurance (and Vitality) https://www.amazon.com/Inner-Smile-Increasing-through-Cultivation/dp/1594771553 About Mark Wetzel Dr. Mark Wetzel is a Chiropractor based in Nashville, TN. Dr. Mark received his Doctorate of Chiropractic from Northwestern Health Science University in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Dr. Mark has diverse experience and is an expert in the neurology branch of chiropractic care and sports performance. He completed his undergraduate studies at Indiana University while competing for the Indiana University Men’s Swimming and Diving Team. Dr. Mark has a passion for treating and educating people who want to achieve a healthier lifestyle and enjoys helping them reach their health and fitness goals.

Today’s show is with performance coach, Kurt Hester.  Kurt is currently the Head of Football Preparation at the University of Tulane, and was previously the head strength coach at Lousiana Tech University from 2013 to 2021.  He has decades of experience coaching in both the collegiate, and private sectors, and is the author of the book: ”Rants of a Strength and Conditioning Madman”. When it comes to the results we get out of a training program (or the experience an athlete has in a sport organization), we usually think on the level of sets, reps and exercises.  What we typically don’t consider as much, is how an athlete perceives the training from an emotional and sub-conscious, perspective, and how important building the right relationship is to the holistic success of the program. Kurt Hester is the kind of strength coach I wish I had when I was a young athlete.  When we talk about what it means to be a coach, and to be a servant-leader, Kurt is one of the first individuals that comes to mind.  He not only has been studying and living the art of physical training for almost half a century, but he also has a focused sense of how to train individuals on both the athlete, and human levels. On the show today, Kurt talks about how he connects with his athletes on the “human” level, to help improve their total experience as an athlete, gain trust, and improve the quality of training sessions.  He’ll talk about how he uses games and fun activities to improve, not only the emotional content of the training sessions, but also the total effort level of the athletes.  Finally, Kurt digs into some details around the sports performance industry itself, what he considers “mental toughness” to truly be, and gives his advice on developmental practices in leadership and communication. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster and Lost Empire Herbs. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points: 5:31 – How Kurt started to survey his athletes to learn more about them, and how this helped him to connect with athletes on a stronger level 10:14 – How to command a room in a coaching setting, while still getting to know athletes on a more personal level 13:27 – How players at Kurt’s former university rated the importance of the “strength coach” so high, in regards to why they attended the school 17:432 – Why Kurt uses games as a critical portion of his physical preparation program, as well as the injury prevention benefits of using game-based agility training 29:17 – Kurt’s learnings in his training with elite track and field athletes in the 1980’s and how many “modern” training methods have been around for a long time 32:14 – How strength coaches should have good all-around GPP, and be able to play games, do dynamic warmups, and demonstrate sprinting 40:15 – What Kurt would re-brand the field of sports performance 48:53 – What Kurt considers “mental strength” and “toughness” to truly be, in light of sports performance training 58:32 – Kurt’s advice on helping coaches to be able to understand athletes and lead them on a better level “You can’t serve who you don’t know” “The athletes who trusted me, and I had the best relationship with, those were the ones who excelled the most… the closer I had a relationship with them that was not about (sports) where they trusted me at a very high level, they developed at a faster rate than an athlete I wasn’t close to” “A lot of strength and football coaches think that, if you have fun, that you are not working hard or at a proficient, high level, and I never wanted to be in this field, to not have fun” “Most athletes don’t like to train, and that’s what most strength coaches don’t get… 99% of strength coaches do not understand that fact, they are not you! So that’s always in the back of my mind, how can I make it fun” “(In games) you are never going to get that out of a regular drill; that speed, that force into the ground in moving” “Most people would rather play (ghetto-ball) than their true sport” “(In a game) they will run harder than they will ever run on a timed sprint, or a tempo run” “Tag games was (track coach Brent MacFarlane’s) GPP” “From the 60’s to the 90’s, it was heavy, heavy on the lifting aspect, 70% was lifting, and 30% was running dudes to the ground, on the glycolytic level” “We’re still stuck in “lifting is more”; we have destroyed our DB’s and wide receivers over the years, and made them non-reactive because of so many years of them spending time in the weightroom; once you get to a certain level of strength, it’s not going to help you at all” “You are not going to beat an athlete into the ground, and make him a tougher person” “What will happen is (the bottom 10% of athletes who fold or quit in conditioning work) they’ll be a better conditioned 10%, but they are not mentally tough” “We changed their entire life, but we weren’t beating it out of them, it was from talking to them from a human aspect, and not an athlete aspect” “If you have that high trust level with your athletes, I’ve seen more guys make it, versus those athletes that I didn’t spend the time and get to know them on that human level” “Instead of buying new books, go back and read the books you already bought” “If you are still fighting over, “should we front squat or back squat”, then we will not progress as a field” About Kurt Hester Kurt Hester is Currently the Director of Strength and Conditioning for University of Tulane Football, and was previously the head strength coach at Lousiana Tech University from 2013 to 2022.  He is the author of the book: ”Rants of a Strength and Conditioning Madman”. Kurt served as a National Director of Training for the D1 Sports Training Center in Nashville, Tenn. since 2008, and worked with training several professional athletes in many different sports.  Concurrent to his tenure at D1 Sports Training, Hester also worked as the Director of Training at the Manning Passing Academy as he designed a training program for over 1,300 high school athletes and delivered a specific training seminar for high school and college coaches. From 1997-2008, Hester was the owner and Director of Performance at HS2 Athletic Performance in Mandeville. He developed and mentored area coaches for college and professional coaching careers with several going on to BCS-level schools and NFL teams. Over 500 athletes he worked with received collegiate scholarships during that time as he oversaw the development of over 400 junior and senior high students per day. Hester was an assistant strength coach at LSU from 1995-98, working with the speed development program for then-football coach Gerry Dinardo and worked primarily with the LSU baseball team as it won two national championships under legendary coach Skip Bertman. Hester also worked with the men's basketball, women's soccer and women's golf programs as well as with the varsity cheerleaders. Kurt graduated from Tulane University in 1995 with a Bachelors of Science degree in exercise physiology. He also served as a graduate strength coach at Tulane for two years.

Today’s show is with coach and educator, Dan Cleather.  Dan is a reader in strength and conditioning and the programme director of the MSc in strength and conditioning at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, UK.  Dan began coaching at Cal State Long Beach, and then worked at the English Institute of Sport.  He has coached national and international medalists across a wide range of sports, and in particular has worked with World and Olympic champions. Dan is the author of several books on the topics of science and sports performance, including “Force”: The Biomechanics of Training, and “The Little Black Book of Training Wisdom”.  Dan has published over 40 peer-reviewed and scientific articles, and is a founder member of the UK Strength and Conditioning Association. When it comes to performance training, coaches often cite a disconnect between what they are coaching, and what actually happens when an athlete competes.  We can gain a greater understanding of this issue by simply looking at how movement actually happens in sport, and how athletes actually manage forces.  Many control points in coaching tend to revolve around slow, or easily observable aspects of movement (usually the end-points), when the complex reality of movement renders coaching around these endpoints obsolete, if not counter-productive. On the show today, Dan will share with us how he views common coaching practices revolving around scientific terminology, such as “force absorption”.  He’ll go into some fallacies around force-based principles involving landing dynamics in sport, deceleration training, and how coaches go about instructing Olympic weightlifting.  Dan will speak on where science, and “evidence-based” practices fit in with one’s coaching philosophy and intuition, and will share his thoughts on the link between gardening plants and coaching athletes. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster and Lost Empire Herbs. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points: 4:37 – Dan’s background as an athlete and what got him into strength and conditioning 7:58 – Dan’s take on learning skills as a coach, in order to be a better learning (and coach) of skills 15:11 – Dan’s thoughts on what applying science to training actually is 22:42 – How coaches tend to frame “force-absorption” in athletics, and what it actually is 32:47 – Thoughts on the body dealing with forces from a perspective of being a “machine” or from a self-organizing perspective 41:27 – Dan’s thoughts on any sort of deceleration training for sport, and how coaches tend to spend too much time on versions of movement that are too reductionist 48:20 – The link between seeds, plants, gardening and athletic performance 52:58 – Dan’s take on traditional Olympic lifting practices in light of force development “The more skills you learn, the better you get at learning skills” “Evidence based doesn’t mean that the science is prescriptive, we see 8 parts of a 30 piece jigsaw puzzle, which are the bits of evidence we are getting from the science, and we work out the rest of what that puzzle looks like based on our experience, our discussions with the coaches, etc.” “The scientific evidence is an important part of our philosophy but it’s our philosophy that guides the decisions that we make” “If you do something because your previous coach did it, that’s the evidence of what they did” “Coaches find out what works, and 25 years later, the sport scientists come along and explain why… if you had to wait for the science before you were prepared to make a decision then you wouldn’t be able to do very much” “Absorption implies that there is something you have got that is being sucked up by something, and can be released later” “We call a softer landing with more flexion of the knees and hips “force absorption”, but we are not actually absorbing force when we do that, we are reducing the likelihood that we will have high peak forces” “Your muscles don’t absorb force when you land, they produce force… if you didn’t produce force you would collapse into the floor” “There is research that landing drills with at-risk populations will decrease their injury risk” “We have to remember that, in many cases, landing slow, in competition is a disadvantage” “I think it will be those kids who haven’t done that sort of play (jumping and dropping off of things in play) where you have to do more regressive things and teach landing mechanics” “As a profession I think we tend to over-teach things, we want to drill and control movement, where you need to make sure that your athletes are safe, but once you’ve done that, letting them work things out for themselves is more effective” “I’m not sure we’re mitigating much injury risk by having 80 players do something that most of them do fine (regressive drills)” “If things look too pretty, the athlete isn’t being challenged enough and they aren’t learning anything.  Keep pushing the envelope of what you are asking the athlete to do until they are not looking pretty anymore” “We can help ourselves to self-organize, or we can help our athletes to self-organize, but if you think you are going to control them, or they are going to control them, you are mis-informed about how systems work” “I do feel like gardening is a good practice for S&C coaches” “For me, weightlifting is jumping, and everything is built around that skill” “What people see in Olympic weightlifting is the end of the second pull because athletes aren’t moving there and they are about to go down again.  Inexperienced coaches can see that and so they then try and coach that, but the problem is they coach that with reference to what they are seeing, and why you are in an extended position is because of what happened earlier in the movement.  You don’t coach an extended position by saying “hit and extended position” you do it by having them do things earlier on” “When people cue people to hit a fully extended position, they are actually asking them to try and exert force at the point when they should not be exerting force and being ready to catch the barbell, and you see that a lot” “Loaded jumping and (Olympic) weightlifting are not the same movement” About Dan Cleather Dan Cleather is a strength coach, educator, author and scientist.  He is a reader in strength and conditioning and the programme director of the MSc in strength and conditioning at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, UK. Before joining St Mary’s he was employed as a strength and conditioning coach at the English Institute of Sport. Dan began his coaching career as a volunteer assistant strength and conditioning coach at California State University Long Beach. He has coached national and international medalists across a wide range of sports, and in particular has worked with World and Olympic champions in track and field athletics, rowing, canoeing and rugby. Dan is the author of several books on the topics of science and sports performance, including “Force” The Biomechanics of Training, and “The Little Black Book of Training Wisdom”. Dan’s PhD is in biomedical engineering (from Imperial College London) and his research interests include musculoskeletal modelling, functional anatomy and strength training. He has published around 40 articles in peer reviewed scientific and professional practice journals. He is a founder member of the UK Strength and Conditioning Association and currently serves the organisation as Director of Finance and Administration.

Today’s show is with Boo Schexnayder.  Boo is a current strength coach and former jumps coach at Louisiana State University, and is regarded internationally as a leading authority in training design.  Boo has been a two-time previous guest on the podcast talking about speed and power training setups.  In a world of complexity, and nearly infinite ways to train athletes, Boo knows the art of managing athletic performance by using training means that are not more complex than they need to be. In my coaching (and athletic) years, I have loved looking into all of the complexities, and details of the human body, training, motor learning and biomechanics.  It’s always been a swinging pendulum in terms of digging in to understand important training nuances, but then zooming back out, to pull along the key pieces of what it really important, both in general, and for each individual athlete. When we over-complicate training, over-coach, and give out exercises that require too much distraction from actual outputs or muscular adaptations, we create a diminished experience for the athlete, and also create a program that is harder to learn from as a coach.  Knowing how and when to make the complex simple is a mark of an accomplished coach who can really transmit training to an athlete in a way that allows them to self-organize to their highest potential, both on the level of skill development, and maximal outputs. On the show today, Boo goes in detail on his own upbringing and mentorships in coaching that have led him to become the coach he is today.  He speaks particularly how his work in the rehab process gave him increased confidence in his regular coaching abilities.  Boo will speak on the process of how far he will go on the complexity rung in the gym, and how he balances coaching skill and technique with the self-organizing ability of the athlete.  Finally, Boo gives some of his thoughts on training that focuses on an athlete’s strength, and his take on heavy partial lifts in the gym in respect to the total training system. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster and Lost Empire Herbs. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 5:02 – Boo’s early development as a coach, early mentors, and his work in rehab that led him to where he is now 15:30 – Some specifics that Boo learned from the world of rehabilitation that intertwined with his performance coaching practice, and how rehab and training follow the same principles and draw from the same well 21:50 – Boo’s advice on arriving at the place where things can be made optimally simple in coaching 25:10 – Why coaches end up chasing things in athletics that aren’t that important 36:28 – Where Boo draws the line on complexity in the weightroom to the point where exercises aren’t helping to accomplish the primary goal of training 40:26 – The extent of complexity Boo would utilize for single leg movements 46:01 – How athletes must train their strengths in order to potentiate their weaknesses 52:48 – A discussion on how the Buffalo Bills didn’t squat in season and still experienced substantial success 57:20 – Boo’s take on heavy quarter squats and partial step ups in performance training (vs. full range of motion) “The earliest (change) is when I finally understood specificity and I developed a healthy non-respect for coaching culture, I realized that a lot of coaching is traditional and needs to be evaluated” “Another bright light that came on is when I got involved in the rehab field” “I think the key thing to keeping things simple is understanding what you are trying to accomplish” “So much of what we do in traditional coaching cultures is just filler work” “I feel that one thing that holds back lots of coaches is technology, there is so much technology out there that so many coaches have been data collectors, but they really don’t know what they are doing” “Coaches are obsessive over (small pathological issues) don’t understand that those lie outside of the boundaries of what we try to teach” “Once you get athletes in (movement bandwidths) you have to trust them to do what they do…. I never had to coach athletes to perfection, I only had to coach them close to perfection and then allow their movement organization processes to take them the rest of the way and that’s how you keep it simple” “If athletes are training in the right direction, just shut the hell up, and let the athletes movement processes take over and trust them the rest of the way, and get involved when things aren’t going so well” “For everything I coach, I have got it down to 3 or 4 boxes that need to be ticked… I’ve developed this philosophy that all these things are not that complicated, what you are trying to do is build a body in the way to best execute those things” “Feedback addiction is a real thing; it’s not the healthiest thing for you to say something every single time” “When I look at my highest intensities of training, the Olympic lifts are probably about as technically complicated as I would get; that’s my ceiling as I might say” “I always keep it super simple when I’m trying to reach those highest levels of intensity.  The simpler the movement pattern, the more muscle mass that is going to be involved” “I’ve experimented with single leg Olympic lifts a bit, they are a nice change of pace, but you can’t build your program around them” “Skinny people are built to sprint, not to lift, so do more sprinting and less lifting.  Big people are built to lift, not to sprint, so do more lifting and less sprinting… a lot of times the athlete’s strong point is potentiating improvements in the weak area” “My track athletes, I don’t squat them in season but we do every variation of jump squt you could imagine, we Olympic lift, it’s not like we are not lifting, there are just many ways to do things” “So many of goofy running mechanics and change of direction mechanics go away when you start using full ranges of motion” “There are strategic blocks in my program where we will use super heavy quarter (squats) but they are not my default” About Boo Schexnayder Boo Schexnayder is a current strength coach and former jumps coach at Louisiana State University, and is regarded internationally as a leading authority in training design, possessing 37 years of experience in the coaching and consulting fields. Most noted for his 12 years on the Track and Field coaching staff at LSU, he is regarded as one of the world’s premier coaches, having developed 19 NCAA Champions and 10 Olympians. Schexnayder has coached multiple World Championship and Olympic medalists and has been on several national team staffs, including the staff of Team USA at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He also possesses 13 years of experience in NFL player development and combine preparations. He frequently lectures and consults domestically and internationally in the areas of speed and power development, training design, motor learning, and rehabilitation. He has operated Schexnayder Athletic Consulting and serves as director of the USTFCCCA’s Track and Field Academy and Thibodaux Regional Medical Center’s performance division. Prior to his collegiate and international career, Schexnayder was a successful prep coach for 11 years, coaching football, track, and cross country.

Nick Winkelman is the head of athletic performance & science for the Irish Rugby Football Union and a renowned expert in coaching science. He discusses the importance of blending psychological understanding with physical training to create meaningful learning experiences for athletes. The conversation highlights how effective communication and soft skills can enhance athlete engagement. Winkelman also emphasizes the power of storytelling in coaching and the beneficial role of external cues in improving performance.

Today’s show is with Rob Gray, professor at Arizona State University and Host of the Perception & Action Podcast.  Rob Gray is a professor at Arizona State University who has been conducting research on and teaching courses related to perceptual-motor skill for over 25 years.  Rob focuses heavily on the application of basic theory to address real-world challenges, having consulted with numerous professional and governmental entities, and has developed a VR baseball training system that has been used in over 25 published studies.  Rob is the author of the book “How We Learn to Move: A Revolution in the Way We Coach and Practice Sports Skills”. When it comes to anything we do athletically: playing a sport, sprinting, lifting weights, even holding an isometric position; all of these things are learned skills.  So often, the various compartments of athletics, the sport coach, the strength coach, the rehab specialist, are relatively disconnected, and there is often no common playbook when it comes to athletics and the learning process. The principles of the way we learn, and how this learning fits with our movement strategy and ability, are universal.  By understanding what it takes to be a better mover via the learning process, we have an understanding of the general process of athletic performance training from a broader frame of mind. On today’s show, Rob Gray speaks about the fallacy of training a “perfect technique” via drills or repeated cues.  He talks about why using a constraints-led approach to help shore up any key movement attractors (technique) is an ideal way to facilitate skill development.  Rob will get into his take on how to approach learning the “fundamentals” in any sport skill, and also get into important concepts of variability in sport, the differences between novice and elite in variability, and then how there can be “good” or “bad” variability in sport training.  Finally, Rob covers the role of variability in injury prevention, and talks about the sport coach/strength coach relationship in light of variability and the constraints led approach to skills. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, Inside Tracker, and Lost Empire Herbs. For 25% off of an Inside Tracker order go to info.insidetracker.com/justflysports For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 5:05 – The story of Tim Tebow, and how he was so dominant on the NCAA level, but why his NFL career was very unsuccessful from a perspective of throwing biomechanics 9:08 – Rob’s take on the idea of “perfect technique” 13:47 – Approaching the “fundamentals” in any given skill, in the learning process 23:37 – Looking at drill-work in sport and its original intended purpose 25:33 – How much variability elite versus amateur athletes exhibit in their skills 28:59 – Variability across a spectrum of skills, such as running in football versus running on a track in sprinting 32:42 – Using variability in “basic” sports such as track and field or swimming 39:17 – How variability changes as one moves from novice, to intermediate, to expert, particularly on the level of an individual sport, like track and field 45:28 – Rob’s take on variability and injury-prevention 50:57 – The idea of donor sports and how those sports can offer helpful variability to one’s eventual sport specialization 56:35 – How strength coaches might be able to use variability in the gym that might connect to skills athletes are trying to improve on the field “There can’t be one perfect, ideal way, because the world is not staying the same around you” “Being skillful is not about repeating the same solution to the problem, it’s about repeating coming up with solutions to problems” “I like to think about giving athletes problems to solve instead of the solution” “The process of solving problems is how you become skillful” “So instead of trying to give them these attractors first, then plugging it into the actual action, I’d rather start with the action, and then pull back with constraints as a coach” “The fundamental issue with dribbling around cones is, there is no problem there” “Experts do tend to be more consistent in certain aspects of their movement, but it depends on what type, there is good and bad variability” “Good variability is any variability that keeps you on your goal; it allows you to adapt” “Experts tend to have this functional motor synergy, things working and varying together, is what we mean by good variability” “On the surface, we want to say those (poor athletes with no facilities) are at a disadvantage, but it’s counter-productive to make (their facilities) perfect” “I would really like to see some variability all of the time (even in individuals sports like track or swimming)” “I’m a believer in basketball, deliberately trying to shoot the ball off of the back rim so that it comes back to you… doing that requires you learn the relationship to your movement, in given the new problem to solve; so we’re not going for here’s the one solution, do it over and over, let’s learn to solve related movement problems” “Broad variability is just changing pitches and varying the speeds, focused variability is like getting a batter and saying “I only want you to swing at these pitches”” “Doing (specific/focused variability) with a young athlete is kind of a waste of time… on the elite end, you are trying to squeeze that last little bit out” “Sometimes we make things boring in sports for no good reason” “Learning is about being challenges, and making mistakes, it’s about being in an environment when you look bad sometimes” About Rob Gray Rob Gray is a professor at Arizona State University who has been conducting research on and teaching courses related to perceptual-motor skill for over 25 years. He received his MS and PhD from York University in Canada with a focus on the visual control of movement. An important aspect of his work has been applying basic theory to address real-world challenges which he has done in positions with Nissan Motor Corp, the US Air Force, serving as an expert witness for driving accident cases, and consultant roles with several sports teams and organizations. In 2007 he was awarded the Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychology from the American Psychological Association.  Rob is the author of the book “How We Learn to Move: A Revolution in the Way We Coach and Practice Sports Skills”. One of the accomplishments he is most proud of is the baseball batting virtual environment/virtual reality that he developed over the course of several years and which has been used in over 25 published studies. In 2017 (Gray, Frontiers in Psychology) he published the results of a 10-year study using a virtual reality training protocol which led to clear evidence of transfer of training to real performance. In his career, Gray has strongly emphasized the communication and dissemination of scientific knowledge. In 2015, he started the Perception & Action Podcast (perceptionaction.com) to help bridge the gap between theory and the field. With over 350 episodes and 2 million downloads, it has become a critical resource for individuals working in areas including coaching, talent development, training and rehabilitation.

Today’s show is with performance director Daniel Bove.  After spending several seasons with the Atlanta Hawks and Phoenix Suns, Daniel is now the Director of Performance and Sports Science for the New Orleans Pelicans, and is also the author of the book, “The Quadrant System, Navigating Stress in Team Sport”. As Michael Zweifel has said previously on the podcast, every coach should have the opportunity to work with youth athletes, and pro sports, at some point in their career.  I’ve done a lot of shows talking about youth sport concepts, as well as principles of training through the lens of a child development, but I haven’t done as many shows detailing some of the nuances of working with a pro population specifically. When it comes to that other end of the spectrum, with professional athletes, the art of strength & conditioning is largely the art of “load management” and stress consolidation, especially over the course of long competitive seasons.  This art of training athletes at the highest level is certainly interesting if you are in the small percentage of coaches who work in this group, but the concepts and ideas behind it can be helpful to understand, regardless of what population you end up working with. Daniel has come up with a unique system of load consolidation, working with an NBA population that makes a lot of sense.  Not only is “The Quadrant System” a wise method for pro athletes, but understanding the Quadrant System is also helpful from the perspective of understanding “high-low” style training in general (making high days truly “high” and low days, truly “low”), as well as the art of dealing with monotony over the course of long training periods.  On the show today, Daniel gets into his four quadrants of training (recovery, repetition, speed and of course, strength), and how he utilizes these methods of loading through different points in an in-season training schedule, as well as off-season. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, Inside Tracker, and Lost Empire Herbs. For 25% off of an Inside Tracker order go to info.insidetracker.com/justflysports For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 4:23 – How Daniel categorizes load for athletes that he works with 14:48 – How the quadrants might alter as athletes get further down away from the pro-level 15:58 – How high-low training and undulation of the type of stimulus players get offers substantial benefits for players, particularly those in the course of long playing seasons 20:22 – Daniel’s take on the “speed day” in the quadrant system, and how that balances with the explosive work and speed players are doing in their practice 25:48 – How the quadrant system may change when the strength coach doesn’t have a “seat at the table” of the sport coaches and practice volumes 32:05 – Validating heavy lifting in season, on the terms of what Daniel is seeing from data and force plates, and what types of volumes athletes are doing for heavy strength work in season 37:05 – How to approach heavy lifting after game-day if players had a poor game 40:24 – Daniel’s experience with buy-in and the spectrum of players responses in regards to heavy lifting on game-days 43:01 – Nuances of the heavy strength day and how Daniel chooses to load athletes on that day 44:45 – How Daniel approaches tendon health and the repetition day/quadrant 2 47:58 – How the quadrant system changes when athletes are in the off-season or in developmental cases in-season 50:14 – Daniel’s view on a daily micro-dosing program, versus a high-low, quadrant system oriented program, and common movements that may actually be micro-dosed in the pro/NBA setting 55:04 – How Daniel uses work that creates more movement potential within the hips, as a preparation for players to use that range of motion effectively on the court 57:01 – How Daniel views the role of rhythm in training “That’s the goal of the book, how do we consolidate stress, and how do we manage chaos” “I matched up strength with high intensity high volume (in the quadrant system), and those are our game days typically” “Repetition days tend to fall at least two days out from competition and those are for tissue quality” “Quadrant 3’s (speed days… anything above .75 m/s) tend to fall the day before the contest” “My population views heavy lifts as the most stressful, which is why I place it after a game day” “In practices that are extremely high load, high intensity, they become your quadrant 4 (heavy strength day) and your game days become your quadrant 3” “I can’t just do isos with them every single day, because they have 82 games, and they’ll want to rip my head off” “(By lifting heavy loads in season) I do think you are setting the athlete up for success to be a more robust athlete… when athletes do start to take 1-2 weeks off of lifting, you do start to see force plate numbers go down, the things that help you buffer ground reaction force start to change” Athletes, in my opinion, are more receptive to training hard on the days that are supposed to be hard…. It’s a lot easier to get them (for heavy lifting) on the day that they are already pumped up” “On a quadrant 4, we are typically going with a hex bar (on quadrant 2, repetition and tissue health, it’s a more squat, or hatfield squat oriented day)” “You have to come to grips with, is this player's limitation physically oriented, or is it skill oriented?” “The monotony of micro-dosing wouldn’t be great in the (82 game) NBA season” “One thing I do like for micro-dosing at the NBA level is Lee Taft style change of direction work” “I like things that involves reciprocal AFIR on both sides, maybe I pair a kettlebell deadlift with a kettlebell self-pass” Show Notes Kettlebell Self-Pass Lunge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOcal46KrEA About Daniel Bove After receiving a B.S. in Kinesiology from Penn State University and an M.S. in Exercise Science from University of South Florida, Daniel began his career as an NBA physical preparation coach.  After spending several seasons with the Atlanta Hawks and Phoenix Suns, Daniel is now the Director of Performance and Sports Science for the New Orleans Pelicans.

Today’s show is with coach Brady Volmering.  Brady is the owner of DAC Performance and Health. After starting out in the world of baseball skill training, he’s since moved into the human performance arena, putting the focus on increasing the capacity of the human being.  Brady looks at what “training the human being” actually means and how that relates to increases in specific sports performance. Ever since I’ve been in a formal weight room training setting for athletes, I’ve really wondered about the thought process of how the various barbell and dumbbell exercises were going to help athletes actually be better at what they do on the field.  I’ve always tried to keep a close eye on elements of gym training that could possibly link to athletes who were more successful in their actual sport. It’s important to ask the question: “what is training?”, and realize that the answer includes “how” just as much as “what”.  Weights are just one tool, or manifestation of the ability to be strong, and if we zoom out from the tool of barbells and dumbbells, we can look at the process of training and adaptation on a broader level.  Muscle tension (and relaxation) can be achieved in a wide variety of ways.  If we take a close look at the mental, emotional, and physical components can be put into the simplest of exercises, we can make then a better conduit by which to improve the whole state of the athlete’s system. On today’s podcast, Brady gives us his experiences with training athletes on a “human” level.  He goes into the tool of isometric holds, and how to modulate those to draw out different intentions, into ideas on learning the way a child does, the importance of menu systems, as well as “breaking the rules” with higher repetition training schemes (and the qualities it takes to adapt to “unreasonable” training loads).  This is an “outside the box” episode that covers a lot of important concepts in training the total human for sport and beyond. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, Inside Tracker, and Lost Empire Herbs. For 25% off of an Inside Tracker order go to info.insidetracker.com/justflysports For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 4:51 – How Brady started in the specific skill training of baseball players, and how he transitioned into more “human level” training and performance 9:09 – How Brady views the transfer of training ideology in light of the “human layer”, or GPP layer of performance 15:35 – Different intentions Brady prescribes during exercises, particularly isometric type exercises 22:31 – Elements Brady notices that transfer between human-level skills and how an athlete is performing in their sport 29:22 – The mentality by which children make rapid progress in skills, and how to harness that developmental ideal 39:16 – How Brady looks at menu systems for athletes, and giving them the power of choice 47:49 – Brady’s take on “breaking the rules” with high volume training experiences 58:36 – Thoughts on the balance and handing of high volume training versus the minimal effective dose of work 1:02:32 – “Human level” principles of athletes who can absorb and adapt to training volume on a higher level 1:07:58 – What an average training session looks like for Brady in light of the principles discussed in the show 1:11:50 – How to look at sets and reps, versus the construct of time, to direct intention of the athlete 1:14:07 – Some single-joint, high rep modalities that Brady enjoys using at the end of training sessions “When I’m training a human, I’m not thinking at all about transfer to their sport” “The goal is the deep pushup is for them to direct their intent into whatever it is they are doing; the pushup is just one way to practice that” “That’s where the human aspect of things is “how can we go into the human and take off inhibitors so they can direct themselves towards anything in the best possible way”” “That’s one intention, is you are going to hold (the iso) as long as you can… or as long as you can maintaining an exhale that’s twice as long as an inhale” “The best athletes in the world aren’t there because they did the right superset, or whatever, they are there because the level of their system is leveled up” “That’s been something that’s been on my is that training doesn’t equal weight room, training equals changing the human” “If we can take away those stories and get into the athlete being able to go inside themselves, and feel exactly what they need, as they are connected to that intention of the goal that they have, of the outcome that they want, their body is going to tell them what they need” “Some athletes don’t know how to feel what their body is telling them, because there is so much junk that has gotten in the way” “You take the athlete where they are at, you find out where their lowest functioning system is, and you level that up” “High volume isn’t the goal, it’s meeting the athlete where they are at” “Where we get lost a little bit in strength and conditioning is we only have a small box we look through of exercise, of weight room, of barbell, of exercise, of whatever… if we take all that away, we look at “what is training”, training is taking the human and making them better.  To do that, we need to input a stimulus that challenges whatever is inhibiting them right now so that inhibitor gets taken off and now they are at a high level.. that might be something in the weight room, it might not” “Every way you could challenge a human being is going to be on that (training) menu” Show Notes Lessons from 661 depth drops https://www.instagram.com/p/CXCu9GRsjrm/ About Brady Volmering Brady Volmering is the owner of DAC Performance and Health. After starting out in the world of baseball skill training, he’s since moved into the human performance arena, putting the focus on increasing the capacity of the human being.  Brady looks at what “training the human being” actually means and how that relates to increase in specific sports performance.