Just Fly Performance Podcast

Today’s podcast features strength and performance coach, Ethan Reeve. Ethan is the director of strength and performance for MondoSport USA.  He is the former president of the CSCCa, and has 44 years of experience coaching in college and high school ranks.  In addition to decades in NCAA athletic performance, Reeve was a SEC champion wrestler, and was the head coach of the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga wrestling program from 1985 to 1990, achieving 5 Southern Conference titles in 6 years. In the process of strength and conditioning/physical preparation; we can never get too far from the process of physical education and routinely observing the core qualities of athleticism An interesting element in sport performance, and sport coaching in the past decades is that, compared to the pre-2000’s era, there are less coaches now who have physical education backgrounds.  Perhaps, this is because, as the industry moves forward, physical preparation/athletic performance has swung more towards the quantitative aspects, than the “art” form of the process.  Maybe it’s that most strength and conditioning jobs are working with high school or college athletes who are “further” along in their athletic development.  Maybe it’s how the role and funding for physical education has been devalued over time.  Despite all of this, as I get older, the more and more I realize just how much physical education has to offer, not only young athletes, but also the thought process in working with more established ones, and I believe physical education, and multi-sport coaching principles (such as wrestling in the scope of today’s show) should be far more common-place in athletic development conversations. On today’s podcast, Ethan talks about his blend of the principles found in physical education and wrestling, and how these funnel into a sports performance training session.  He speaks on how he views physical training through the eyes of a wrestling coach (of which he was a very successful one) and the learning environment he looks to set up in his training sessions.  We discuss “belly up” speed training, key ground-based training movements, and other important principles of building a total athletic development program. 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 2:57 – Ethan’s journey physical education and wrestling training, and how that blended into his strength and conditioning practices 6:10 – The importance and correlation of integrating basic physical education movements, into sport performance training 12:41 – “Belly Up” movements transitioned into sprinting, for athletic development 19:31 – Examples of blending physical education principles into track and field and sport performance training settings 23:16 – Ethan’s take on how to be a better student of learning and teaching in one’s sport coaching process 35:10 – The importance of the total environment in the learning process for athletes 41:00 – How to use the 80/20 or 90/10 principle to help determine one’s core principles and focus in practice 46:19 – The intersection of what wrestling and track and field has to offer in terms of general physical preparation 54:42 – How Ethan views the role of the weight room from middle school, up until college in training 59:12 – Calisthenic, gymnastics, and rolls that Ethan feels great athletes can do well in the movement section of training 1:03:13 – Gymnastic, tumbling type work, and its impact on athlete mobility Ethan Reeve Quotes “(In physical education) We were taught dance, and rhythm, as well as lifetime sports” “We had ropes we climbed, we had pegboards, we had tumbling mats, rope skipping was big, just a lot of good human movement; I wish we will had that structured movement for the young kids” “I think the eye of the coach is still the best way to do this” “If you want to be able to move, you have got to be able to bend, and if you can’t move, you can’t help us” “When you start doing tumbling, the fluid in your ears gets jumbled up, but when you do it every single day, you get more athletic… when you can do it without getting dizzy, you can orient yourself quicker” “Our best wrestlers were those that could be in a wrestling stance, get their chest belly to the ground, and then get back to that stance the most quickly; those tended to be our better wrestlers, something about getting down to the floor and getting back up…. We did a lot of speed work getting up from the belly” “Every 9-15 minutes out of a 60 minute lift, I would spend on athletic movements” “When I walked into a weightroom, I approached it like teaching wrestling” “The term in wrestling is that champions come in pairs” “If you are going to teach and coach, the first thing you need to have is, is you have kids that are coachable and teachable” “We found that the kids that did the poorest with that hand-eye coordination (test) were the ones who got injured” “If you ever get the chance to go to the baboons and chimpanzees, you can sit there for hours and watch the moving, wrestling, and jumping around of these baboons and chimpanzees” “That’s my favorite, the Silverback gorilla, nobody messes with it, but it also has that gentleness to pick up that baby gorilla” “In middle school, their strength is going to come from climbing ropes, and pushups, but now you are in 9th grade, you got to put some weight on the bar” I think skipping rope is one of the best things, still, and ladder drills, that connection to the ball of the foot is so important” “What’s going to help with skipping rope, hurdles, tumbling is if you do it every day” About Ethan Reeve Ethan Reeve is the director of strength and performance for MondoSport USA.  He is the former president of the CSCCa, and has 44 years of experience coaching in college and high school ranks.  Ethan has worked as a strength coach at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, Wake Forest University, and Ohio University, as well as the high school realm.  In addition to his experience in athletic performance, Reeve was a 2x NCAA All-American and 4x SEC champion wrestler at the University of Tennessee.  He was the head coach of the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga wrestling program from 1985 to 1990, achieving 5 Southern Conference titles in 6 years.

Today’s podcast features coach, writer and educator, Dan John.  Dan is a best-selling author in the field of strength training and fitness, with his most recent work being the “Easy Strength Omni-Book”.  He is known for his ability to transfer complex material into actionable wisdom, has been a many-time guest on the show, and is one of my single greatest influences in the way that I see the process of coaching and training.  As I grow older, coach more populations, and see the field evolve, I view and value Dan’s process and wisdom in new and even more meaningful ways. One of those tenants of Dan that means more in each coming year is that, at its core, our training and movements are simple… it’s just the years and years of consistent, dedicated immersion in training to fully bring out that simplicity, that “trip up” many people.  So often, we get caught up in the hacks, the shortcuts, and the “3 tips for X” within the social-media fist-fight for eyeballs. On today’s episode, Dan talks about a few important concepts that any coach or athlete needs to come back to over and over again in their process, including the power of “compression”, the power of less, and the power of withholding.  Dan speaks on this as it relates to cold track seasons (right before the 80 degree conference meet), and how it relates to the spark of coaching intuition that can happen in an environment deprived from one’s typical tools, and even how it can apply to our movement biomechanics. Dan also gets into the nuts and bolts of “snapacity” (snap + capacity) that defines the core of athletic movement (elasticity and the work capacity to sustain it), and the related key muscle actions he calls “The 3 P’s”.   Throughout the talk, Dan highlights the simple and core principles that drive training progress over time, as well tying in concepts on philosophy and personal growth that transcend training itself. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, and LILA Exogen Wearable Resistance Training 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: 2:01 – An update on how Dan’s track season has been, speaking on the upsides of the “compressed” format of his season based on weather 7:25 – Why “compressing and expanding” is such a critical element of one’s athletic performance, as well as life itself 12:13 – The importance of effort-level in human movement, and not “over-striking” a hammer against a nail 18:11 – The “3P’s” of muscle action; on the level of “Point, Poke, and Snap” as applied to explosive sport movement 29:41 – The importance of myth, story and tragedy in sport, life, and re-inventing ourselves” 35:01 – How sport movement, such as the discus or hammer, is like a symphony in nature, and how “over-trying” and imbalance of fluid effort reduces ones results 46:38 – The application and training of the critical athletic trait Dan calls “Snapacity” 1:00:09 – The simplicity, yet patience that the sport of track and field requires in athlete development Dan John Quotes “We often say, “what you compress, expands”; that is probably one of the greatest truisms of my coaching career.  If I go into your gym and eliminate 9/10 of the equipment, then I find out how good of a strength coach you are” “Sometimes taking things away is what makes you great” “If you hit (the hammer too hard into the nail), it’s going to be worse….you’ve explained track and field, football, and every sport I’ve ever done in my life” “The 3 P’s (of muscle action), point, poke, and snap” “I teach discus throwing, javelin throwing that “you are a bag of rubber bands” and what we want to do for elite performance is get you to a place where we stretch those rubber bands, and then the important thing is, we release it, crappy throwers, crappy hurdlers, crappy jumpers, try to “add” a little more, when it’s too late” “When you pull the arrow back, you don’t “push” the arrow forward, you let it go, elite performance is letting it go, it’s letting the muscles “snap”” “I’m always amazed when people think isometrics are new” “It’s really hard to make money pushing sleep, fasting, protein and veggies” “That’s why I like working with special operations guys, they are at a place where they know that simple is best” “I talk to my athletes about stories (myths), when my athletes have a bad day, I quote Don Quixote to them… I also quote Chumbawumba” “(In writing down my top 10 worst and best things that happened to me in my athletic career) all my worsts were followed by all my bests” “When you find tragedy, go through it, breath out, because something better is coming around the corner” “I think of symphonies as the way you throw a discus; lots and lots and lots of individual pieces, you blend them” “Koji really specializes in getting rid of the excessive movement. When you break the flow of the rotation (in the hammer) you feel like you threw it farther, but it doesn’t go nearly as far, and that is a life lesson” “If I was going to work with a team, I would train everybody as triple jumpers; there is something amazing about the triple jump where if you have an error, it got exposed” “When I go to a high school program and watch them do plyometrics, I often cringe” “(For track throws) In the offseason, you should keep your squat up, keep your bench up, and play basketball 2-3x a week; that should take care of everything you need” “Instead of having throwers do plyometrics, have them (play games)” “You can put together the best plyometric program in the world, but when I watch elite basketball players, they look like they jump pretty well to me” “Bulgarian Secrets, that’s your next book: If you put Bulgarian, or Soviet, it sells” “My high school coach was from West Germany, and he called the stretch reflex “shishh-kUH’ “We’re trying to build this capacity up by doing things that are relatively safe (like hill sprints, loaded carries, heavy weighted bag carries)” “With Charlie Francis, if you hit any personal record, you were done for the day” “I can teach you everything you need to know to be an elite discus thrower on day 1, it’ll take a decade of us pushing, prodding and snapping for you to figure it out” About Dan John Dan John has spent his life with one foot in the world of lifting and throwing, and the other foot in academia. An All-American discus thrower, Dan has also competed at the highest levels of Olympic lifting, Highland Games and the Weight Pentathlon, an event in which he holds the American record. Dan spends his work life blending weekly workshops and lectures with full-time writing, and is also an online religious studies instructor for Columbia College of Missouri. As a Fulbright Scholar, he toured the Middle East exploring the foundations of religious education systems. Dan is also a Senior Lecturer for St Mary’s University, Twickenham, London. His books, on weightlifting, include Intervention, Never Let Go, Mass Made Simple and Easy Strength, written with Pavel Tsatsouline as well as From Dad, To Grad. He and Josh Hillis co-authored “Fat Loss Happens on Monday.” In 2015, Dan wrote Can You Go? on his approach to assessments and basic training. In addition, Before We Go, another compilation akin to Never Let Go became an Amazon Bestseller. In early 2017, Dan’s book, Now What?, his approach to Performance and dealing with “life,” became a Bestseller on Amazon. Hardstyle Kettlebell Challenge became available in September 2017, too.

Today’s podcast features 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. The field of sports performance makes a lot of pendulum swings.  We go from over-conditioning athletes to denouncing conditioning.  From static stretching, to not stretching, to reconsidering stretching, to name a few.  In the process of the swings, we do trend upwards (such as saving athletes from over-conditioning based practices with poor motor learning tactics).  At the same time, I don’t believe we ask ourselves often enough if we are letting the pendulum swing too far. What I’ve found is that for every rule that seems to be created, there are instantly going to be athletes, or entire training groups that break that rule.  The only way to understand it all, is to constantly be expanding your viewpoints.  We need to look at the broader mechanisms of biology, psychology, motor learning, and the long-term developmental principles of athletes to really gain wisdom in our guidance of athletes and individuals to their highest potential. On today’s podcast, Mark talks about the polarity of his physical preparation process, on one end, giving the kids a dynamic pedagogical, free play-oriented training experience, and on the other, using technology to assess biological readiness markers and preparation levels for their sport.  Mark finishes the show speaking on aerobic readiness as a recovery marker for explosive sport training.  No matter where you are on the sport training spectrum, be it sport coaching, motor learning or purely physical development, there is a lot to be learned from Mark’s broad spectrum of knowledge in this episode.  This show connects physical preparation with a depth of true sports development Today’s episode is brought to you by 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 2:57 – The diversity of groups that Mark works with, from football, to alpine skiing, to dance and many places in between 10:38 – Thoughts on fluidity and rhythm in the development of athleticism and even within injury prevention 17:16 – The use of gymnastics in athlete robustness and development 22:25 – Mark’s thoughts on helping to train kids in light of motor learning and a regular lack of general physical preparation 28:03 – The role of “economic constraints” in creativity and sport development 40:05 – The benefits of multi-age/multi-grade education, as well as athletic development and play possibilities, as well as a discussion of the Norwegian sport model and the success of Erling Haaland 49:16 – Mark’s system in terms of delaying intensive training stimuli in an athlete’s long term development 55:16 – The role of aerobic training in Mark’s system for team sport athletes, in capacity building and recovery 1:01:27 – “Zone 0” training in Mark’s system, inspired by the work of Landon Evans 1:05:37 – How to determine if athletes are in a resting sympathetic, or parasympathetic state for their training and workouts Mark McLaughlin Quotes “In dance, their events last two minutes, but their heart rates hit 200… there is a psychological driver of heart rates” “I actually use our dance team to teach our football players how to dance; sport and movement is rhythm” “Training with music is a big thing, gymnastics is a big thing, dance; I mean there are simple dance movements in the warmup that we do with all of the kids, and it is going to force them to learn a new skill” “Durability equals availability” “Ronaldinho grew up playing barefoot, and his dad said it was to improve his touch, but really, they didn’t have money to get shoes for him” “The first 30 minute of each (training) day is free play… then they come in and we start the formal session” “I have training sessions where I don’t speak for 4-5 minutes” “I let them be creative, because coaches want them to be creative on the field” “Wearing felt boots taught him to move at different speeds, and anticipate the opponent differently; these economic constraints made him the player he was” “When people say I have to run a 4.5s 40 yard dash, or get strong to do this, I think that’s such a narrow look at things; human performance is so much more than that” “When they would select teams, he would make sure he was on a team with less talent, so he would have to play on another level to win.  I made kids play football and catch with their off hand… keep making it harder and harder so you get used to these difficult situations” “'Joy for sport, for all', that’s based on the Norwegian sport model” “Being a great human being is at the top of our pyramid” “In the Norwegian youth system, I don’t know if they even keep score until age 12-13” “There are a couple of things I look at when intensifying training, 1: How do they adapt to it when you look at heart rate variability” “If they have a resting heart rate of 75-80, we need to get them down through some extensive modes” “At the high school level, it’s kind of crazy all this velocity based training, it’s all output driven, which I get to a certain point, but team sport you need some biological development of your hormonal system, your cardiac system, your mitochondria, both the slow and the fast twitch fibers, how can you handle stress, which is a totally different training modality” “I can get guys powerful and fast, that’s not an issue, (the question is) how can I build their reserves to withstand a 3 hour game” “If you are always sympathetic driven at rest, you are not going to perform well, you are not going to recover well, so I look at it as, we are going to improve that aerobic system to improve your autonomic function, so you can recover better from harder work” “That’s why I like the long, extended warmups for kids because it’s going to give them that (cardiac) stimulus, because they are constantly moving” “If you are sympathetic over-reaching, we’re not going to go out and do a ton of sprints” “Right now, I would say on average the guys that are testing, the football players, the average heart rate is like 52” “We can facilitate the aerobic system even more through oxidative work of the slow fibers, slow weight-room movements at 4 seconds up 4 seconds down” “If players have a good aerobic base, they are not going to get into their glycolytic tissues so fast” “One of our athletes improved his standing two leg triple jump from 28’11”, to 30.5” and he was doing 3x a week of this oxidative work plus 5000 yards of tempo a week, and he’s 215lbs, and his resting heart rate was 46 this morning” Show Notes Johannes Klaebo Norway, Cross Country Skiing Technique https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8lw_tla_88   Erling Haaland and “As Many as Possible, as Long as Possible, as Good as Possible” https://footblogball.wordpress.com/2020/03/08/erling-braut-halland-as-many-as-possible-as-long-as-possible-as-good-as-possible/   Pavel Datsyuk “Becoming the Magic Man” https://www.researchgate.net/publication/357242592_Pavel_Datsyuk_Learning_Development_and_Becoming_the_Magic_Man About Mark McLaughlin Mark McLaughlin is the founder of Performance Training Center, and currently works as a physical preparation/strength coach in the Lake Oswego school district. He attended college at the College of Sante’Fe in New Mexico and is an Oregonian residing in Portland. Mark's love for athletics grew during his teenage years, where he participated and competed in various sports. Through his sports experience and education, he developed a strong dedication to the overall well-being of athletes. This dedication led him to continually educate himself in athletic performance enhancement, and he has been active in the field 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. Along with his online training and consulting services, Mark also speaks at various organizations locally, nationally, and internationally.

Angus Bradley, a Sydney-based physical preparation coach and co-host of the Hyperformance podcast, dives into innovative training techniques. He emphasizes the importance of learning from outside the fitness world, linking artistic expression to scientific training principles. Angus discusses the critical 'knees behind toes' strategy and explores the biomechanical parallels between Olympic lifting and sprinting. He challenges conventional strength training norms, promoting a creative balance between structure and play in athlete development.

Today’s podcast features Dr. John Cronin and Joe Dolcetti.  John Cronin is a sport scientist with a physical education and coaching background, who after getting his Ph.D, has spent most of the last 20 plus years at Auckland University of Technology.  He has published over 400 peer-reviewed papers on speed, power and strength, along with having the opportunity to train a variety of athletes and teams, ranging from youth development to world champion level. Joe Dolcetti has had a 35-year career in high performance sport coaching, science, and conditioning training across the globe.  As an inventor, he has developed, and launched Exogen®, the world’s most advanced wearable resistance.  All in all, Joe has worked with many of the world’s top sporting programs including the NBA, NFL, NHL, Major League Baseball, the English Premier League, UFC and many others. Sports performance training is making the shift from the classical “1RM” powerlifting mindset, into athletic speed development.  This is great, but there are still many holes to fill in the athletic equation.  We may obsess over bar velocities in the gym, but the gym is dominated by many force-oriented levers while sport is uses many speed-oriented levers (third class), such as limbs swinging in space.  At some point we must expand our training awareness beyond the what (basic force) into the where (placement), and in the process deepen our understanding on how the body produces high speed sport movement. On the show today, John and Joe get into their journey of high velocity resistance training for athletes (such as wearables including vests and ankle weights, and then sprint sleds).  We’ll talk about the differences between training “stance” phase of movement, and aerial elements, and how the latter is a missing piece of training the force-velocity curve.  Finally, we get into the development of the Exogen system of wearable resistance, and how it encapsulates principles of high speed and specific training adaptation. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, and LILA Exogen Wearable Resistance Training 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: 3:25 – John and Joe’s journey in exploring various wearable and external resistance training methods and how it led them to where they are now in their view of wearable resistance 16:00 – John Cronin’s early research and findings using weighted vests in pursuit of improved athletic performance 20:00 – Effects of sprint sled training versus weighted vest training 23:52 – Philosophy of training “stance” versus training what is happening in the air in athletic movement, and the implications of stance-based vertical force not being the holy grail of sprinting and athletic movement 35:35 – Lever systems, angular velocity, and ankle weights 42:18 – The principles behind the Exogen wearable resistance gear, and how it trains the angular momentum aspect of loading to improve athleticism 1:04:33 – Final thoughts on training sport speed through a focus on wearable resistance and angular velocity training Dr. John Cronin and Joseph Dolcetti Quotes “That’s where we’ve gone the last 6-8 years, unpacking that limb loading” “Where you put load, in many ways, is more important than how much load you are putting” “The one thing I’m confused with is the parachute, I tried them and just thought these are better for jumping out of an airplane” “(Training with a weighted vest) the vertical ground reaction forces will stay pretty much the same) when you put that mass on, you don’t jump as high, the center of mass displacement is compromised, and the (vertical) effect stays pretty much the same” “The weighted vest gives absolutely nothing in terms of horizontal force production in running” “You get a lot more horizontal force production with sleds (vs. weighted vests)” “What you are doing in the air is really really important (in sprinting) and that is something you don’t get with the sled” “Great for overload in the stance phase with the sleds, but the airborne phase, it goes missing” “Any sort of externalized load is working at the point of ground contact, but if you are a sprint coach, 90% of your work is what they are doing in the air” “S&C is kind of ground contact, what’s going into the ground… everything the coach is doing is what’s happening in the movement, with the ball, in the air” “It’s the kinetic energy of the movement that really really counts for things; it’s mass x velocity squared… we’ve shown a 120kg squat, the kinetic energy around the hips is exactly the same as a 500g load being moved by a fairly good sprinter, moving a light load really quickly” “Most of the work we are doing is in the grams and ounce range… in traditional resistance that would be 5-10lb… light is definitely the new heavy” “I was going through and found the fascial systems, and I looked at the cross fascial systems at the thoracic spine and the lumbar-umbilical region, those are the rotation points of your body and everything builds from there;  I told the team that’s the construction lines we need to focus on.  As soon as we put it on the body, people said, I don’t know why it’s comfortable but it’s comfortable” “I looked at (muscle) pennation, and I knew, that’s the answer, that’s what the load has to emulate” “What we want to do is get people to think: “Where are we going”… I think where we are going to go is a better understanding and appreciation of moving and connecting with the organic aspect of why people compete and play sports.  Why do people play sports? Because it feels good” “This is why the natural athlete rejects what a lot of S&C does: Because they are like “I understand movement”, you don’t, “I know what’s fast”” “The part that’s missing at the bottom of the force velocity curve is the intuitive feeling of the athlete, and that’s not expressed in the parameters of the curve” “Three of the biggest variables that drive adaptation have been force, velocity and length, and we have been very force centric for many years, but people need to understand that there is another variable” “Weight training is not just about more anymore… my goal is to empower strength coaches with the ability to solve problems” Show Notes Weighted vest jumps and ankle weight high knee runs added to a strength program found superior to a standard strength training program alone for vertical jump and, particularly, 40 yard dash speed, in trained college athletes: https://journals.lww.com/nsca-scj/Citation/1980/02000/The_Effects_of_Plyometric_Training_with_Ankle_and.2.aspx Plyometric exercises with ankle weights found superior for improving short sprint speed and change of direction ability versus an un-loaded plyometric program with high school soccer players: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33121121/ About Dr. John Cronin Dr. John Cronin is a sport scientist with a coaching and PE background.  His early career was in physical education.  He has spent most of the last 20 plus years at Auckland University of Technology lecturing in the Undergraduate and Postgraduate programs in sport and exercise science. He is currently a Professor in Strength and Conditioning at AUT.  He has published over 400 peer-reviewed papers on speed, power and strength, and has supervised 30 PhD and 30 Master’s students to completion.  He also has had the opportunity to train a variety of athletes and teams, ranging from youth development to World champion level in sports such as rugby, track, boxing, cricket, and more. His personal research interests are in human movement research around strength and conditioning for strength, power, speed and change of direction, and more recently youth athletic development, sport technology and wearable resistance research themes. About Joe Dolcetti Joe Dolcetti has had a 35-year career in sports science, high performance coaching and conditioning training across the globe, and has had the privilege to rub shoulders with some of the greatest athletes in history.  Joe has an extensive background as a sports performance coach, and his athletic background includes competitive boxing and rugby. As an inventor, Joe conceptualized, developed, and launched Exogen®, the world’s most advanced wearable resistance. The flagship product of Lila®, Exogen is rapidly gaining ground as one of the most significant advances in specific coaching, technical conditioning, movement correction and speed training for sport, rehabilitation and fitness. All in all, Joe has worked with many of the world’s top sporting programs including the NBA, NFL, NHL, Major League Baseball, the English Premier League, UFC, World Rugby, Track & Field, PGA and ITF. Over 9 Olympic cycles, Joe has prepared and trained elite athletes in Canada, US, UK, China, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand and Argentina. Joe splits his time between driving Lila and consulting elite sport and athletic programs on the integration of Exogen.

Today’s podcast features coaches Dan Back and Tim Riley. Dan Back is the founder of Jump Science and is a coach at Xceleration sports performance in Austin, Texas where he trains both track and team sport athletes. Dan has been a guest on episodes 263 and 337 of the podcast, speaking on sprint and jump topics. Tim Riley is the Director of Sports Performance at Kollective in Austin, TX where he supervises all pro, collegiate, and youth athletic development.  Tim currently oversees and conducts strength and conditioning sessions for NFL, PLL & AVP athletes. In the quest for improved athletic qualities, we often look at things in isolation.  We look at the most powerful training means, right now, to help us to achieve better performance.  For the best results, however, we need to broaden our view of training, and understand the qualities at the bottom (early athletic development) and the top (maximal strength and force training) to maximize potential.  We need to understand all of the iterations of skill and strength that come before the sprint, jump, throw, agile moves, etc.  you see on the field, and how everything works together in the grand scheme of training. On today’s podcast, Dan and Tim speak on their own early athletic experiences, the critical “base level” abilities explosive athletes need for a better vertical jump (as well as general explosive movement), where and how maximal strength work fits into the long-term development equation, warmup and game-based concepts, assessments, and more. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, and LILA Exogen Wearable Resistance Training 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 3:30 – Dan and Tim’s early sport and training experiences 12:30 – Dan’s take on track and field speed and abilities within the scope of team sport performance and two leg jumping 18:00 – The potential of mass-amounts of calf raises to have a negative impact on speed later in life 23:30 – Core general physical preparation methods in athletic performance, such as grappling, hurdling, racing, tag, etc. 27:30 – Discussion as per the pyramid of jumping and jump preparation 37:00 – How Tim and Dan view the warmup process, considering more of a traditional warmup versus more of a game-oriented warmup 51:30 – Dan and Tim’s assessment process for athletes, and looking at macro-type assessments (performance driven) vs. more micro-level assessments (joint based or more discrete movements) 1:04:15 – Thoughts on how strength training can transfer more easily, given an appropriate base of explosive movement training and skill Daniel Back and Tim Riley Quotes “I can see (the martial arts drills) in my daughter’s ability to fall and get back up (in other sports)” TR “When I first started getting obsessed with jumping, my standard workout was 2 sets of 100 calf raises 5 days per week, and looking at myself in my 20’s I was a great jumper, but I wondered why my maximal velocity was so bad, and I really wondered about some of the negative influence of all those calf raises as a teenager, vs. what if those are all sprinting contacts instead?” DB “I saw these kids at 4 and 5 years old, 6 and 7, and the bulk of their training is broad jumps for distance, bounding for distance, jumping from one mark, and landing on one foot, climbing up wall” TR “Jump in a way that’s fun and do it consistently for years… and that should come on top of a base of more variety; and that’s where running, agility, interacting with other people and the ground that should be in the movement variety skill” DB “The best athletes were already really explosive, fast, powerful, good movers before they touched a weight… or took weight training seriously” TR “The most dynamic play-makers are people who have had exposure to a bunch of different modalities, and then they get strong” TR “A basketball hoop in the shallow end of a pool is the most fun” TR “I’m starting to get some things in from a workout standpoint, in the warmup” DB “Why that dynamic warmup is really useful; it’s a double edge sword with them getting better at the test, but isn’t that a good thing, if they are getting better a squat, a hinge, a lunge, a single leg hop” TR “With the micro-assessment, watching the warmup is as far as I take that generally” DB “Weightlifting should be a tiny-tiny fraction, if at all, for youth athletes, and you really want to focus on those explosive components first” DB “You eventually learn, they very well may add 80lbs to their squat and jump like an inch higher, there’s just not any guarantee of transfer when you don’t have that base, that background of athleticism, variety and development” DB “You can’t replace a childhood of athletic activity with a 6-week jump program… you need that diverse background and years of jumping, if you are going to get really good at jumping” DB “I don’t know if there is a perfect time to infuse weightlifting for performance.  How do you quantify when someone is ready (to use weightlifting to enhance their performance)? Maybe when the potency from (all the preceding sprints, jumps, movement literacy, etc.) We’re not getting the same sort of feedback, now let’s introduce this external implement and see how your body responds” TR “There have been plenty of young football players where I’m like, “this dude’s isn’t going to get any faster after sophomore year, because he is going with the path of strength rather than speed; I’ve definitely had that thought of wishing strength was playing a smaller role (in these guys middle school football programs)” DB About Dan Back Dan Back is the founder of “Jump Science” and is a coach at Xceleration sports performance in Austin, Texas where he trains both track and team sport athletes.  Dan reached an elite level in his own vertical jump and dunking ability, and has been helping athletes run faster, jump higher and improve overall physical performance for over a decade.  Dan has been a constant source of coach and athlete education in the last decade through his website and social media channels. About Tim Riley Tim Riley is the Director of Sports Performance at Kollective in Austin, TX. He supervises all pro, collegiate, and youth athletic development. Most notably, Riley currently oversees and conducts strength and conditioning sessions for NFL, PLL & AVP athletes. Riley started his training career five years ago after receiving a lifelong training certification through NPTI, under the supervision and mentorship of Professor Dave Boetcher. He then founded The Most Performance LLC, a training company working with young athletes. Throughout his career, Riley has acquired a plethora of certifications (NPTI, NASM, Precision Nutrition, & USAW among others) to further his education and better serve the training community, while also gleaning wisdom from multiple mentors: Connor Harris, Dr. Pat Davidson, Dr. Ben House, and Jeremy Hills, to name a few. To date, his professional experience spans across all ages; from high school athletes and collegiate athletes, as well as professional athletes in the NFL, MLB, PLL, AVP, and NBA G League. Riley works year round, and specializes in NFL in-season, off-season, and pre-draft training. Annually, he works in collaboration with Jeremy Hills, assisting in coaching “NFL Elite Week” when over 60 NFL athletes came to Austin to train for the upcoming NFL season. Riley also consistently develops diverse training programs for in person and online coaching sessions, and is starting to offer programs in an easy to use PDF format for athletes who prefer to train on their own.

Today’s podcast features Adarian Barr and Jenn Pilotti.  Adarian is a former college track coach, a multi-national movement consultant and educator.  Adarian has been a huge mentor to me when it comes to the integrated workings of the body in a variety of sport and movement skills and has had many appearances on this show.  Jenn Pilotti is a movement coach, author and educator who has been studying the principles of movement for over 2 decades.  Jenn’s movement disciplines include running, dance, soft acrobatics, and aerial arts. Jenn regularly lectures and teaches workshops for movement educators and curious movers. She co-authored "Let Me Introduce You”, along with Adarian Barr. Training the feet is a lot more than going barefoot a little more often.  In sport movement, and locomotion, we have collisions of the feet into the ground that need to be managed skillfully.  There is nuance to the “force production” into the ground.  Great athletes can manage collisions extremely well, in regards to the specific sport skills they are being called on.  They also have the tissue adaptation that matches the pressure they need to output within movement. In today’s podcast, Adarian and Jenn discuss their process when it comes to the operation of the feet in locomotion, and important distinctions that need to be made on account of points of pressure within the foot.  They chat on the differences between sprinting on account of collision management, as well as vibration, talk about the balance of sensory work and outputs in movement, and much more. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, LILA Exogen, and the Elastic Essentials Level II Seminar, July 14-15 in Cincinnati, Ohio 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 4:38 – How Jenn and Adarian got connected and Jenn’s early learnings from Adarian 8:05 – How Adarian’s process on the foot impacted Jenn, and how she integrated it into her running 14:04 – Looking at learning from the “hard” and “soft” side of movement, and how sensing the body fits in 17:26 – The origins of where Adarian started with his sensory approach to movement 27:46 – Principles of inputs and outputs as they relate to athletic movement 34:25 – Usage of the lateral aspect of the arch of the foot 38:19 – Pressure management and barefoot sprinting on a track 43:19 – How athletes manage shorter or longer collisions in their sport movement 50:30 – How to explore pressure as it relates to movement 58:01 – How to optimize and integrate foot pressure in the gym Quotes from Adarian Barr and Jenn Pilotti “I focused on keeping the pinkie toe long, and reaching it a little away from the foot; and it created a very different impact away from the ground… and I had like a 3 mile chunk where my mile splits were within 8 seconds of each other; and I’m not working any harder” “A lot of people just do and they don’t sense, or they just sense and they don’t do… we need both” “The body awareness you gain from the softer side just makes doing so much better” “Whenever I was drinking out of a glass (instead of a plastic cup) my hand doesn’t get tired; that started taking me down this whole feeling, sensing, imagining road” “In early track, I didn’t feel it.  I might jump well, but I didn’t know why I jumped well.  When I left Colorado I was struggling, because I was only jumping 51 feet, I left Colorado I spent a year training myself.. the first track meet I went to, boom 53 feet.  What happened? Now, I can feel this. “You want to feel the impact as you run, take time to feel the impact so you can learn what to do with it.  If you never learn to feel it, how can you even think about doing something with it” “Understanding how pressure relates to input was a light bulb moment for me” “If you understand pressure and how to direct pressure into the foot that’s on the ground, everything changes” “The input is the output” “It’s not the force you have to deal with, it’s the pressure” “If you run flat footed, it’s the same amount of force, but the pressure is different now” “You feel you are faster, something significant has changed, and I understood that it was how I was pressurizing my system and it started with my foot” “In ice skating you have to create enough pressure to turn ice into water” “With sprinting, because it’s such a short amount of time in contact with the ground, you can have unwanted vibrations, that’s not a good thing if you are a distance runner” “The easy thing to do (to integrate pressure) is to train your feet on firm surfaces… in a gym setting it’s easy to use soft surfaces; something like an Airex pad is going to teach your foot to respond slowly” “Your (foot) will work harder on the clay brick than the cement brick” “It’s a fine line, how can I push to the edge of elasticity and not break? If you look at Rojas in triple jump, she goes to the edge but stays elastic, she doesn’t go to plastic” “If you are training barefoot, remember how the foot is moving and working, because when you put your shoes on, you want the same thing” Show Notes Barefoot Sprinter (Rotation) https://www.instagram.com/p/CqGeGlvLJQW/   Training With Bricks (Increase Pressure in Feet) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cpu24E_gBvO/ About Adarian Barr Adarian Barr is a track coach and inventor based out of Yuba City, California.  His collegiate track and field coaching stops have included UW-Superior, Indiana State, UNC Pembroke, Yuba City Community College. He has invented 9 devices from footwear to sleds to exercise devices. Adarian is a USATF Level II coach in the sprints, jumps, hurdles and relays. He has a master’s degree in Physical Education. Adarian’s unique coaching style gets results, and his work on speed and biomechanics is being adapted by some of the top coaches in the nation. About Jenn Pilotti Jenn Pilotti has been studying the principles of movement since 2002. She holds a B.S. in exercise physiology, an M.S. in Human Movement, and has studied a number of movement disciplines, including dance, soft acrobatics, and aerial arts. While in graduate school, she became fascinated by the lack of research on endurance running (one of her favorite past times), and it wasn't until she met Adarian in 2020 that she began to finally understand the components that allow a person to run fast in a way that is energy efficient. Jenn also lectures on topics such as mindfulness for the Navy Senior Leadership Seminar and regularly lectures and teaches workshops movement educators and curious movers. She co-authored "Let Me Introduce You” with Adarian Barr, and is a student of movement, teaching and people, viewing movement as a form of expression and a source of intrigue.

Neurology expert and personal trainer, Scott Robinson, discusses the power of self-affirmation and mental reinforcement in training. He explores visual training methods, warm-up techniques, working with the subconscious mind, and the placebo effect. Additionally, he shares insights on rehabbing injuries, improving visual motor skills, enhancing eye function, and understanding mental and emotional states in training.

Today’s guest is track coach Ryan Banta.  Ryan has over two decades of experience, is the author of the Sprinter’s Compendium, and is a MTCCCA Hall of Fame Coach. He is a frequently appearing podcast guest and writer on many popular track and field, and athletic performance platforms.  His teams have achieved substantial success, including winning the 2022 girls Class 4 Missouri State Championship. One of the beautiful things about working with human beings is that there are multiple ways to train athletes towards their highest physical potential.  Different coaches achieve success with different training parameters and exercise selections, mannerisms and personal styles.  At the same time, there are also some core philosophies to the entire process of training that are foundational to progression, and can make training more understandable.  Some of the over-arching principles that are helpful to study are those of core training cycle setup, training the “ends” vs. the “center”, and principles of progression and variety in a program.  By better understanding these core ideas, we can have a better idea of where we are starting, and where we are heading in a program. On today’s show, Ryan gets into the core philosophies and principles of the Critical Mass training program in track and field, which is a broad-spanning path of development from freshman to senior that incorporates a span of abilities ranging from hurdles to the 400m.  Ryan then gets into his speed training philosophy, taking a “centrist” path to speed, and how that differs from going “ends to middle”, or taking a block-based approach to a training season.  Ryan goes extensively into concepts around his 14-day speed training cycle, how he adds variety into his program, how he utilizes resisted sprinting, and much more. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, Strength Coach Pro, and the Elastic 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. 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 4:35 – How Ryan’s recent track seasons have been coming along, and some of the recent successes of his track and field group 14:40 – The core components of Ryan’s speed training blocks and cycles, particularly his 14-day training cycle 24:18 – How Ryan includes the hurdles early on for his freshmen athletes, to help set up their skills throughout their high school career 42:15 – Ryan’s take on a balanced an athletic approach to 400m training, and his approach as they progress through high school 46:29 – Philosophy of going “ends to middle” vs. being more of a centrist in training 54:38 – How to avoid staleness over time while using a “centrist” system that is regularly training all main athletic qualities, and how to use constraints and novelty to improve one’s sprinting technique 1:03:50 – Ryan’s take on Tony Wells training system 1:12:16 – Ryan’s take on sled training and resisted sprinting Ryan Banta Quotes “I never build my sprint program around 7 days, we need to go 14 days” “Throughout the program, I believe in resting the system, but not necessarily resting the athlete” “I like to start in the middle, so I am going to start in the 200-400m area in my training, and then play with systems below that (100-200 focused days), and above that (more 400-800m days)” “Monday we might do max velocity and acceleration, Thursday of week do I am going to have something like looks like that again, but in the meantime there are going to be other sessions where those qualities get ticked off of the box” “You are either race modeling or competing every Saturday; competitions are your best practice” “I think that hurdles, by far is one of the best things.  Our distance girls at the end of every one of their aerobic runs does hurdle mobility, our sprinters hurdlers and jumpers every Wednesday does hurdle mobility.  We teach them to bounce, they don’t just step over” “This is the point of the critical mass system, I want to make decathletes, I want my athletes to be good at everything” “I want to make sure I’m honoring the athletic experience by stimulating them like they are a heptathlete, like they are a decathlete” “Running 24x200’s is an abuse of a developmental athlete” “I have two days in a 14 day micro-cycle where we are going really really fast and then two competitions” “With short-to-long the psychology is that I don’t want to go run a 150 now, while my philosophy is lets rip the bandaid off on all of those things” “You flip flop the key performance indicator workouts the following week; I have a week that’s built around speed, a week that’s built around power, a week that’s built around endurance, and then a recovery week” “We’ll do a fly 10,20,30 with different variations of movement, for example we are going to do a run for 30 meters, and we are going to have you go with as long as stride as you can, then the next as high of frequency as you can” “We want to constantly require a kid to deal with something novel and new while sprinting” “We go from hills to a resisted sled, to vests, to a bullet belt, so we are constantly trying to go from basic skills to more advanced” “One of the best things about sleds is it teaches an athlete how to push” “(With sleds), I like to go heavy, medium, then light, we get potentiation and we are mindful of coordination.  Early on, hills might be the best because you can get a lot of people in it at once… from a pure management perspective” About Ryan Banta Ryan Banta is a coach with over two decades of experience and the author of the Sprinter’s Compendium. At the high school level, his girls track team has had 7 top-five finishes at the state championships, a team state title in 2022, 7 district championships, 6 district runner-up finishes, 7 conference team titles, 248 state semi-finalist (sectionals), 174 state qualifiers, 3 state records (3200, 4×800, and 100HH), 20 national ranked events, 163 All-state Medalists, 16 state champions, 21 runner-up performances, and 2 Gatorade athletes of the year. He has been elected Missouri Track and Cross Country Coaches Association (MTCCCA) president and served on the Missouri State High School Activities Association (MSHSAA) advisory board.  Ryan is a frequently appearing podcast guest and writer on many popular track and field, and athletic performance platforms.

Today’s guest is athletic performance coach and consultant, Sam Portland. Sam has had a lengthy career in professional sport, and is the creator of “Speed Gate Golf” and the Sports Speed System.  Sam provides mentorship and education to coaches, athletes and teams looking to further progress their abilities.  His combination of skills ranges from physical coaching, to sport coaching, athlete psychology and beyond. With the impending AI and technological revolution, we must ask ourselves questions regarding the nature of coaching, training and progression in athletics.  On one hand, we have numerical outputs and data points relative to an athlete’s abilities, workloads, and suggested training routes, and on the other we have the social-emotional and intuitive elements that are much more human by nature.  In a sense, what is the most human about coaching itself is the “conversation of training” that happens on multiple levels within any training session. For today’s podcast, we cover the types of intensity and mentality that go into playing various sports (such as Rugby vs. American Football), Sam’s take on sport training technology, such as force-velocity profiling, an athletes “speed age” and how athletes progress through each level, and finally, we’ll get into the 5 types of player archetypes that range from bodybuilder, to sprinter, and how coaches can identify and optimize training for each unique athlete they train.  This is a show that highlights how having experience and skin in the game, not only training, but also playing the game Today’s episode is brought to you by LILA Exogen Wearable Resistance, Lost Empire Herbs and Strength Coach Pro. 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 3:29 – Sam’s experience working with, and playing American Football in Europe 8:00 – The types of intensity that is present in different types of sports, such as continuous sports (rugby, soccer) vs. interval sports (American football) 18:12 – Sam’s thoughts on Force Velocity profiling and technology in speed and game-speed training 30:41 – What Sam values in a speed and game-speed training program as opposed to a more data-oriented, mechanistic approach to speed 37:15 – Thoughts on heavy sled training and heavy resisted training in general 44:06 – Sam’s take on “Speed Age” in athletes, and how he looks at speed training progressions over time 59:13 – The importance of complexity and psychology in the process of coaching, and the conversation that happens between coach and athlete 1:06:50 – The 5 archetypes of athletes Sam categorizes and considers through the sport and physical preparation process 1:18:18 – Approaching the “games player” archetype in particular from a physical preparation perspective Sam Portland Quotes “With American football, one of the toughest things was that the play wasn’t building in front of me (like Rugby), the play was building behind me” “How do people become successful coaches? It is intuition, and it is getting reps on the field” “Nothing’s changed in the last 30 years, it’s the experience of the coach that creates the change, and we should do that by playing, 100%” “In part, the strength and conditioning problem is that everyone wants to develop speed, but they start in the gym” “I got more guys that run over 21 miles per hour, just by doing long accelerations, and specialized developmental exercises that I stole from Verkhoshansky” “I believe we are in the tech age… you remember when the first computer came out, we are literally there” “Movement is a conversation… everyone watches a wave break, but they don’t watch the magic that happens when it builds” “I had an athlete who could squat 250 kilos, and that was great, but it didn’t translate.  Someone like this I’ll use a stable to unstable continuum.  The most unstable thing you can do in moving is over-speed maximal velocity.  On the other side is a slow, deliberate wall squat, acceleration type drill” “We increase instability and add velocity in order to nurture that conversation” “Big guys struggle to find knee flexion in early acceleration, because they are so big” “In my coaching, I’m never trying to acquire more information about what I’m doing, until I know what information I have can do” “People are very attracted to shiny things, not the simple, consistent things” “You’ve got 4 levels of speed age: Learning to sprint, training to sprint, sprinting to compete, and sprinting to win” “We’ve got physical capacities, we’ve got technical capacities and cognitive capacities” “If we can’t find rhythm, timing coordination at sub-max velocities, how the hell are you going to find it when putting your foot to the floor” “So if slow, heavy sled walks are working, do them until they stop working” “I had a prop, a big prop forward, and he would literally do 3 to 4 low level drills, and then we would do bouncy runs for 40 meters for his whole session; 10 meter time under 1.7 seconds, over 9 meters maximal velocity inside 40yd, and he was 125 kilos, and that’s all we did” “You go from bounce runs to high cycling runs, so you train the other side, you are spinning your wheels faster; I’m a massive proponent of running slow with high frequency before running fast, because it’s easier to put speed on frequency, as opposed to frequency on speed” “The people who understand psychology the most as coaches, will be the most successful coaches” “If you are not training at sport speed, then it’s not sport speed” “The reason we need things to be harder is to prove our worth… I’ve made this thing more complicated so it reinforces what I do, my sacrifice and everything, so I’m going to get the most reward out of it because it’s hard… rather than, let’s make this the most simple and easy thing, so I can go home when I’m finished, and I can be with my family, and I can go to sleep.  I can tell you my whole system inside of 5 minutes, and if that’s OK with you, let’s give it a go, and that’s what we need to be working towards” “If you ever consider why a player is disagreeing with you, or not fully buying in, you don’t know how they see themselves, you don’t know the story of how they see themselves as a player” “Your powerlifter archetype equates strength with performance; you got the crossfit archetype which needs to put work in their body, because they probably come from a background that has been built on hard, high-volume work” “The sprinter, their linear speed is not a problem, they just need to learn how to play the game” “Everyone has a story, and if you are living out of your own story when trying to help someone else, you are not helping their story” About Sam Portland Sam Portland is an athletic performance coach from the UK, the creator of speed gate golf and the Sports Speed System. Following a lengthy career in professional sport he now consults with athletes/teams and helps guide coaches to happier, healthier and more financially fulfilling careers. Sam has worked with premiership rugby, American football, Olympic athletes, international competitors across a plethora of sports including hockey, bobsleigh, and track and field.  Aside from this Sam keeps in touch with the grass roots aspects of athlete preparation by hosting his ‘combine program’. This program is a long-term athletic development program filling the essential gaps in physical literacy that are not fulfilled at school or by club sports.