194: Rachel Balkovec on High Performance Team Culture, Tough Love and Transitioning From S&C to Hitting Coach in Pro Baseball | Sponsored by SimpliFaster

Today’s episode features Rachel Balvokec, a professional baseball hitting coach working with the New York Yankees.  Rachel made headlines when she become a minor league strength and conditioning coordinator and coach for the St Louis Cardinals from 2011-15.  Rachel also has experience working with the Houston Astros, as well as the Dutch national baseball and softball teams, and has also worked with many successful organizations such as EXOS, Louisiana State University, the White Sox and many others.  She is also a former NCAA Division I softball catcher. When working in any sort of team environment, knowing keys of successful organizational culture is not an option if you wish to be great.  Those of us working in the coaching field often have many different “hats” that we wear, be it strength coach, sport coach, nutritionist, or “unofficial sport psychologist” (or maybe even official sport psychologist).  It’s very easy to get buried in the X’s and O’s of exercise selection and periodization (and it’s good to have these things mastered) but it’s critical to zoom out and look at the greater principles that lead to the success of an organization. This show is about both of those things.  On the front-end, Rachel talks about what she has learned as a strength coach that she’s carried with her into her time as a hitting coach.  She discusses what spurred her to move “up the ladder” in regards to the amount of change and impact she new she could make on players by moving to sport coach, as she moves towards her ultimate goal of being a general manager.  Ultimately though, this show is really about the second portion, which is high-performance leadership, team culture, and tough love.  It’s about what’s really demanded at the highest levels of competition and performance, whether in a sports, military operations, or business. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 6:20  Rachel talks about her transition from strength and conditioning coach, to hitting coach, and her career aspirations 20:20  How Rachel approaches hitting coaching in light of her former strength and conditioning experience and how helpful it is for sport coaches to have S&C experience 24:40  How Rachel views periodization for working with hitters, and how hitting is  generally behind pitching in regards to the application of sport training principles 32:05  General concepts in regards to what good hitters can do from a weightroom perspective 36:40  Rachel’s rear view thoughts on the strength and conditioning industry and advice for strength coaches 41:35  Rachel’s perspective on what a strength coach offers from beyond a strength, KPI and “X’s and O’s” perspective.  What the heart of being a strength coach really is. 47:00  Thoughts on tough love and culture in winning teams 58:00  Rachel’s take on why Augie Garrido’s “chewing out” of his players an example of tough love and the importance of “high support, high demand” parenting, coaching and leadership 1:12:30 Critical Hardships in Rachel’s life that formed who she is now "There’s something to be said in having a larger role if you can have an administrative position” “No matter what was going on in the field, I could go and crush it in the weight room where 1+1 =2” “It’s not tough (not doing the strength and conditioning workouts anymore) because my passion has always been coaching” “Being a hitting coach is not that different for me personally (than s&c).  Now I’m just coaching the body to do something else” “Every strength coach’s dream is to have a sport coach who used to be a strength coach” “If you were to apply general periodization principles to hitting you would A: have days off, which never happens”