Just Fly Performance Podcast

Our guest for today’s show is Dr. Edythe Heus.  Dr. Heus is a nationally known chiropractor utilizing kinesiology with 22 years of experience.  She is the founder of the RevinMo, a unique corrective exercise program and co-author of ProBodX.  Dr. Heus is a thoughtful investigator whose diagnosis and treatment is based on specialized knowledge of the body's interconnectedness. Dr. Heus has enjoyed great success, and works with many professional and Olympic athletes. When training individuals, it’s easiest to focus only on “outputs”, such as the load on the bar, or how fast an individual ran through sprint gates.  In taking a full-view at training, it’s also important to understand more subtle inputs, and how the body organizes movement from a fascial perspective. I’ve routinely noticed in the world of track and field, and swimming, a cycle where athletes experience an injury, have to do “rehab” (subtle) work (and also get a deload from the typical intense work they are doing) and come back to their sport to set personal bests within a few weeks or months.  As such, it’s worthwhile to study the full spectrum of “rehab to outputs” in human and athletic performance, and how we can organize each of these methods through a training session, or one’s career. On the show today, Dr. Heus will speak on balance and proprioceptive training methods, such as pipes and slant boards, advanced foot training concepts, and information on the fascia and how it responds to various training methods.  This is an important concept for anyone, and particularly those individuals who wish to learn more about the “softer” side of performance that can make a large impact on one’s function and resistance to injury. 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 6:00 – How Edythe got into a more “alternative” position on exercise and training in her career 19:30 – Deeper thoughts on balance training, and how it benefits the nervous system 38:30 – From a balance perspective, what athletes should be able to do from a fundamental movement perspective 56:00 – Assessing the feet and the abdominals in the course of balance-oriented training 1:02.00 – Using slant boards to train the feet 1:06:00 – Edythe’s thoughts on toe strength 1:21:15 – How Edythe can feel the fascial system working in a particular exercise, and what exactly is “fascial training” “A quality of a person’s life is directly related to the health of their feet” “I see what I do, whether it is treatment or training, because I don’t separate those, as a collaborative team effort (between myself and the client)” “(I want to know) why are we not getting the response from the nervous system or the fascia that is possible?” “Balance, for me, isn’t just standing on unstable surfaces” “Balance is a form of novelty, and the brain thrives on novelty… I also challenge them textually” “Instability just simply, makes the cerebellum work” “Balance comes in so that your inner and outer environment can better communicate with each other” “One of the components I think is critical in training is a perception of risk” “Do some of my stuff before the lift, do it after, and then your lift is going to be better, and you are going to build on what you gained from that lifting, so heavy weight stuff definitely has to be on a stable surface” “I don’t think that without an unstable surface, that you are going to get all parts of your being integrated” “We want to automate as much as possible so there is not much thinking involved, so when you do have a skill you actually want to learn, you’ve got more bandwidth for that skill, so that you are not using all your bandwidth (for your sport skills)” “Let’s automate everything that we can, our body is designed for automation” “The thing I teach is, “are people able to be in their feet”” “The fascia has a spiral design; if you had to train a single plane of movement, it would be rotation” “I will allow people to struggle with that “arch downhill” just a little bit, because when they get it, it’s solid” “The arch uphill is the least needed of the four slantboard positions” “Anyone with a pronation problem, I ask, “what’s going on with your pelvic floor”… you aren’t going to get the feet working properly if you got pelvic floor issues” “(the fascia) doesn’t like held positions; holding a posture more than 10-15 seconds straightens out the collagen fibers, and you lose the waviness that lends to elasticity” “Some shoes are very rough, and they create problems all the way up, from the texture of the shoes” “Be very particular about the (physio) ball having the same tone that you would want in your tissues, which means that there is elasticity and give, not tension that feels unpleasant… I can’t even look at someone on a deflated (physio) ball” Show Notes Pipe Training https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyceUFmvlEo Slantboard Training Methods https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITXRchznLz4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS9ENhUH1a4&list=PLGlTos0mCZTytU-Y4pk7mPG2vtSiBU0vP   Win a 3-Pack of Virtual Classes with Dr. Edythe Along with the show today (depending on the time you are reading this) you can win a free 3-pack of virtual classes with Dr. Edythe, and to get in on that deal, you can follow these instructions: Select 3-Pack on RevInMo Virtual Classes(scroll all the way down to see packages) Make account on MindBodyOnline When shopping cart comes up, there will be a field to enter promo code, enter “FLYREV” and the shopping cart should be at $0. About Dr. Edythe Heus Dr. Edythe Heus is a nationally known chiropractor utilizing kinesiology who during 22 years of experience has embraced a holistic concept of health. She is the founder of the RevinMo, a unique corrective exercise program and co-author of ProBodX.  Dr. Heus is a thoughtful investigator whose diagnosis and treatment is based on specialized knowledge of the body's interconnectedness. Finding the point of origin of injuries, she uses appropriate sequences of exercise to improve performance and keep patients from coming back with the same recurring injuries. Dr. Heus has enjoyed great success, and works with many professional and Olympic athletes. Throughout her career, Dr. Heus has lived by the mantra, “Challenge what’s possible.” And that is what her clients see her do every day.

Our guest for today’s show is Erik Huddleston.  Erik was recently on the podcast, on episode 269, speaking about important elements of squat technique based on individual frames of the athlete.  After the show, I had some other important questions left over that I wanted to discuss, and also in that time, Erik has made a career transition to working in the NBA. Erik is currently an assistant sports performance coach with the Indiana Pacers and head performance coach for their G-League affiliate, the Ft. Wayne Mad Ants. He is the former director of performance at Indianapolis Fitness & Sports Training (IFAST), along with having NCAA D1 experience. When we program training for athletes, what factors are we considering when we select exercises? Do we just pick movements that are novel and random, or do we have a greater philosophy that helps us decide what types of movements to use, and when?  What about timing, such as exercise selection in the training sessions coming off of, or leading them up to competitions or tough practice periods?  Or, do we ever ask ourselves about what an athlete’s development level (youth vs. pro) might mean for them with the types of exercises we are prescribing from a compression and expansion perspective? On the show today, Erik speaks on organizing exercise selection based on an athlete’s training schedule (such as post or pre-competition periods of the training week, or even training year), how to use weight placement to train various athlete body types, and some critical differences in training, from an expansion/compression perspective, regarding youth vs pro level athletes.  It’s so easy to fan-boy (or girl) over the workouts of “elite” athletes, but the key to good coaching is always knowing how to engage an athlete where they are at in their own development. 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 5:28 – How to organize training based off of periods of “expansion” and “compression” 11:42 – How Erik quantifies what players are experiencing in practice and games from a “expansion/compression” perspective, and how to give them what they don’t have then, in a gym setting 14:54 – Exercise selection principles that help athletes optimally reset in their “off” days 21:55 – How to adjust exercises to help them ramp up to a game or competition situation 24:20 – What a pre-season training load looks like compared to in-season in professional basketball 29:00 – What pre-season training looks like in high school sports where athletes have a lot more time to prepare without high volume sport loadings 34:41 – Situations where more compression will help an athlete, vs. situations where it will potentially hurt an athlete 39:25 – How to set up training for “pylon” shaped individuals to help their reversal ability in jumping and athletics 46:20 – How “flipping the pylon” of the torso, and having wide shoulders impacts squatting selection 52:06 – How the shape of one’s torso impacts the types of plyometric exercises that players should utilize 54:46 – How to prescribe jump programming to individuals who have a hard time yielding in their movement relative to the ground 59:10 – How to approach plyometrics and jump training for youth athletes vs. elite athletes who are already at a relatively high level, and playing jump oriented sports constantly “Keeping player assets on the court is the most important part of my job” “Give them some of what they don’t have that they are getting from the training and the basketball stimulus” “I have to assume that the vast things that are occurring on the court are output driven… that’s where we get into that compression end of the spectrum” “My training before a game is really really output driven, it’s really force production driven… ramping them up like that is the appropriate thing to do” “When they have an off-day, that day is generally going to be an input day, or this expansive quality that we are looking for… how do I restore position that allows them to recover well”? “When things are intense, when training loads in the court are high, we try to match that with a high intensity in the weight room also” “When you are prescribing your compression in the right way, it doesn’t take a lot of it to move the needle forward in terms of force output… but it quickly on the back end can take away from some expansive qualities” “Muscle mass by nature, is compression… and whether that is positive or negative is a case by case basis” “If I’m looking to bias the inhaled portion on a split squat, I’m going to coach an inhale” “That traffic-cone shaped individual, they just don’t have the base in their thorax to be able to re-direct pressure and volume… so obviously that’s something we want to work on with the force output side of things” “Breath hold and exhale are the game thing…. A breath hold is just an exhale against a closed glottis” “I’m not big on coaching cues while doing something, I want to set (an exercise) up in a way where an athlete will be successful” “(For young athletes) I use line hops, ankle hops, with the emphasis of getting off the ground quickly.  (Pros) I band assist a lot of their jumps… they are already really good at getting off of the ground quickly… I try to allow them more time (to find the heel in their jump… you do want these guys to have access to the positions where they can redistribute force well” Show Notes Expansion/contraction flow chart for training   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Erik Huddleston (@eph.24) About Erik Huddleston Erik Huddleston is currently an assistant sports performance coach with the Indiana Pacers (NBA) and head performance coach for their G-League affiliate, the Ft. Wayne Mad Ants.  He is the former director of performance at Indianapolis Fitness & Sports Training (IFAST).  Erik previously spent time at Indiana University & Texas Tech University with the men’s basketball teams.

Our guest for today’s show is Randy Huntington.  Randy is a track and field coach, who has spent his recent years as the national track and field coach for the Chinese athletics association and has over 45 years of coaching experience.  Huntington is rated as a USATF Master Coach in the jumps, has been the coach for many world-class athletes over the years, including eight Olympians and seven World Championship Team members.  Mike Powell and Willie Banks set world records in the long jump and triple jump, respectively, while under his tutelage. More recently, Randy has had tremendous success coaching in Asia, a capstone of which has been Su Bingtian, who recently set the Asian 100m dash record of 9.83 seconds at age 31.  En route to his 100m record, Su broke the world record in the 60m (as a split time) with a 6.29, which converts to around a 4.07s 40 yard dash. When a teenager, or relatively untrained individual takes a few tenths off of their 40 yard dash, or drops a half second in the 100m dash over several years time, this is a normal and natural occurrence, and isn’t something that really demands digging far into.  On the other hand, when an already elite athlete, who is at, or slightly past their “prime” years, moves into their 30s and smashes sprint records, this is something that is truly worth putting a close eye on. On the show today, Randy Huntington speaks on some of the training elements that helped sprinter, Su Bingtian achieve his recent results.  Randy goes into his views on special strength training for speed, particularly on the level of the lower leg, and speaks on the use of banded and wearable resistance in speed training, as well as some nuts and bolts on resisted and sled sprint work.  On the back end of the show, Randy gets into training the elastic and fascial systems of an athlete, and how to optimize an athlete’s elastic response to training in plyometrics 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 5:02 – What’s been happening with Randy in his last 4 years of coaching, particularly with Su Bingtian and his success 12:24 – Some of the big training elements that helped Su Bingtian get down to 9.83/6.29 from 10.0/6.50 in his time working with Randy 18:37 – Using banded and wearable resistance methods for improving speed and “bridging” the gap between the weight room and the track 25:58 – Randy’s advice for using sleds/heavy sleds in training 32:59 – The “train your frame” system and the importance of body proportions and structure on optimal sporting events for athletes 37:01 – How Randy uses sleds for contrast training, as well as concepts on wave-loading and how many sets in a row to utilize 40:25 – The importance of elastic energy in athletic performance, and how under-estimated the elastic contribution to performance is, as well as how important dynamic elastic ability is for running endurance 50:44 – The nature of the advanced spikes and track surface used in the Tokyo Olympic games, and its impact on athletes 55:04 – Randy’s take on optimizing the elastic and fascial systems of an athlete, as well as a chat on ground contact times in plyometrics 1:06.28 – How improved foot strength played into Su’s improvement in the 100m dash, as well as in various portions of the race, as well as how Randy trained Su’s foot strength 1:08:26 – The role of harmonics and resonance between one’s foot/body and the running surface, especially in the course of a 100m dash race 1:19.56 – How to increase the eccentric rate of development in standard exercises, such as a partner pushing a partner down into an exercise 1:28.10 – Randy’s take on jumping off of an angled surface, versus a flat surface in jumping, or in jumping machines “(In 2016) I took (Su) over to the Kaiser seated calf, and tested him, his power output was 735 watts, which was weaker than my weakest female triple jumper… so our first goal was to get that soleus strength as high as we could get it… now he is in the 26-2700 watt range” “Even though (Su) was a quick starter, he wasn’t a fast starter” “Elasticity wise, (Su) couldn’t rebound off the ground… so we got him into low amplitude single leg rebounding and slowly brought it up” “I see 3 things that are my best teaching tools, the 1080 (sprint) and the sled… then the exogen, and then the activator belt (a belt with tubing attached to limbs)… those are the 3 most important integration tools, integrating the weight room to what you are doing on the track” “When we do drills, we’ll do activator belt, exogen, off” “You can’t underestimate the need for the psoas the other hip flexors to be really powerful and strong” “If you are going to use external loading, you had better be prepared to rest a while” “A heavy sled to me is a sled with close to your bodyweight, then we went half the bodyweight, then we would quarter the bodyweight” “Even that first step (in a sprint) becomes elastic in nature, pretty quickly” “In the jumpers, we are seeing close to a 1 to 1 ratio between femur and tibia… the RSI indexes are reflective of the anthropometric indexes of the athletes” “I do things in 3’s… occasionally I do them in 4’s if I want to push the nervous system to take it” “When you start talking about (elasticity/power) in isolation, or discreetly, you can get yourself in trouble because the body is a system” “That’s the whole goal is to figure out how to get the athlete to access that elastic ability” “To train (elastic/fascial) we go back to low amplitude” “I started wearing earth shoes in 1977 and my vertical jump was gone, because the Earth Shoes had a negative heel, I just kept stretching slowly, my Achilles and I lost the elasticity in my calf” “I don’t know if there’s one exercise you can pick, but high hurdle hops may be close to it, as a great way to destroy anybody’s elasticity and their ability to create good ground contact times” “(Regarding ground contact times) you have to measure it, to see at what height athletes achieve their best ground contact times, because then you can go a little above it, or a litte below it” “I don’t use the word “jump” very much with jump training, I use “bounce” training” “Soleus is usually the most undeveloped muscle in the lower extremity” “The key to the 100m is,  you have to wait for the track to give something back, and at that point, that’s when you feel and go…. you gotta race enough to feel max velocity” “The Keiser seated calf is one of the most under-rated training machines ever made” “You must get your foot adjusted (by a therapist) if you are a jumper, sprinter, thrower, distance runner… it’s like having a race-car” About Randy Huntington Randy Huntington is currently the national track and field coach for the Chinese athletics association and has over 45 years of coaching experience.  Huntington is rated as a USATF Master Coach in the jumps – one of only five in the U.S. He has been the coach for many world-class athletes over the years, including eight Olympians and seven World Championship Team members. Mike Powell and Willie Banks set world records in the long jump and triple jump, respectively, while under his tutelage. Six of his athletes have been in the U.S. all-time top ten in their respective events. Huntington coached Powell to the Olympic Games in 1988, 1992 and 1996, where Powell won a pair of silver medals in the long jump. On Aug. 30, 1991 in Tokyo, Powell broke Bob Beamon’s 23-year-old long jump record that was expected to never be broken, leaping 29-4 1/2 (8.95m) – a record that still stands. Willie Banks, who Huntington coached to the 1988 Olympics, broke the world triple jump record with a mark of 58-11 1/2 (17.97m), June 16, 1985 in Indianapolis, and under Huntington’s coaching twice jumped over 18 meters, which is the longest in American history. Huntington has also coached Olympians Joe Greene (long jump bronze medal in 1992), Sheila Hudson (American indoor and outdoor record-holder in the triple jump), Al Joyner, Darren Plab, Tony Nai and Sharon Couch. At least one of his athletes has competed in every summer Olympic Games since 1984. Powell, Greene, Hudson, Couch and Nai were all World Championship team members that he coached, along with Kathy Rounds and Kenta Bell. Huntington has also worked with professional athletes in other sports, notably football. He has worked as a conditioning and/or speed consultant for several teams including Indianapolis, St. Louis, Miami, Denver, Philadelphia and Cincinnati, and has worked with numerous individual players including Trace Armstrong, Terry Kirby, Henry Ellard and Ed McCaffrey. He has also worked with college football programs at Florida, Oklahoma and Notre Dame including training for the NFL combine, working with athletes such as Kyle Turley and Grant Wistrom.

Our guest for today’s show is Logan Christopher.  Logan is a strongman, author, owner of Legendary Strength and CEO of Lost Empire Herbs.  Logan previously appeared on episode 111 and episode 187, where he discussed mental training in depth, as well as the “6 layers” of strength.  Logan has also written several books including “Mental Muscle” and “Powered by Nature”, both of which I have found impactful reads.  Logan is a master of using the natural machinery of the body, our mind, and our environment to help us reach our highest potential as humans. An interesting saying you hear over and over again is that “the game is all mental”, or it is “90% mental” by many elite athletes.  Although there are general physical standards to be successful in many sports (think of the body type of a runner or a jumper, or the long arms that are very helpful in making it to the NBA) it is impossible to overlook the role of the mind, especially in elite performers.  Perhaps one’s genetic structure can help one to “get in the door” in the sport they are most suited for, but it is always going to be the mind that allows them higher levels of success. On the show today, Logan talks about many facets of both physical and mental training.  He starts with an important facet of coaching we haven’t gotten much into before, and that is on the language a coach uses to describe exercises, and training in general, and how these can impact training outcomes.  He also speaks on specific learning styles that can also be used in one’s visualization routines, as well as his take on the use of analogies and imagination in athletic skill performance.  Logan also goes into elements of old-school strongman training, as well as a quick take on why testosterone has dropped across the world over the last 50-100 years by a substantial margin. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster and Lost Empire Herbs.  For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to www.lostempireherbs.com/justfly. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 5:40 – Talking about managing training in context of holding back and achieving balance in order to have continual progress 11:10 – How the language a coach uses in the course of a workout can impact the outcome of the training (especially on the level of over-training) 14:25 – The four learning styles, and how to leverage these learning styles for better training results 20:40 – How to specifically optimize the auditory learning style in training 23:10 – How to approach strengths vs. weaknesses in terms of the four learning styles and physical training 32:00 – How analogies, as spoken about by Nick Winkelman, can be effective for athletes in light of Neurolinguistic programming philosophy 33:40 – How imaginatory ability impacts one’s physical and athletic abilities 39:10 – If Logan could pick only one mental training tool for himself now, and then 10 years ago, what he would utilize 43:10 – How much mental training Logan does now that he has over a decade of mental training under his belt 50:10 – Some old school strongman lift performances from the past that haven’t been touched in the last 50 years 55:25 – Speaking on the link between breathing and strongman training 59:10 – Why testosterone has dropped so much in the last 50 years “Typically I don’t even refer to my workouts as workouts, I refer to them as “training”” “I like to use the word “severety” for “effort” instead (of intensity)” “Words do matter, this is going to change the results we get” “(With language) taking a small thing and compounding it over time is going to be a big difference” “The four (learning) styles are visual, auditory, kinesthetic and digital” “Most people in sport tend to be kinesthetic learners…. The visual and kinesthetic are common in athletes” “As a coach, we are going to coach predominantly in our own style” “Very often, we find the audio component is completely missing from internal imagination, but there is tremendous power in the potential of audio to “boost the signal” (related to a physical performance)” “The quality of your audio matter, more-so than the words you are saying to yourself” “If you can’t (scream “I am the greatest”) you can imagine it, and you can feel that energy as if you are saying it out loud with that sort of tone or belief behind it” “Beliefs structure what we do” “Mental training is not a “then and there” kind of thing, but also a building thing over time” “Here’s the thing, you are mental training whether you think it or not, because you may not have the awareness, but thoughts are going through your head, visualizations are going through your head, you may have to step back and tweak it to make it work well” “If people want to get really good results, you are going to have to learn some things about mental training, and then practice” “You are doing mental training whether you think you are or not, so some people are going to by default be better at it… going under the hood and actually looking at the techniques and what kind of specific mental drills we can do is a surefire way to improve your performance” “(Why testosterone has dropped so much) the basic answer is: Pollution” “(In terms of helping support our endocrine system/testosterone) Eating organic food, drinking fresh or filtered water…. skin care products are quite horrible (more of an issue for women than men)” “When I talk about testosterone it is more of a healthy living plan” “Here’s something to keep in mind, anything you put on your skin is going into your body, it absorbs through your pores” About Logan Christopher Logan Christopher is a strongman, entrepreneur and mental training expert from Santa Cruz, CA.  He is the owner of legendarystrength.com and is the CEO of Lost Empire Herbs lostempireherbs.com.  Logan is the author of Mental Muscle and Powered by Nature, along with having written hundreds of articles on strength, health, herbalism, mental training and more. Logan is regarded as an expert in the mental performance field, and he has in depth expertise as an NLP Master Practitioner and certified hypnotist.  As a strongman, Logan has numerous feats to his name, such as phonebook tearing, nail bending, truck pulling and kettlebell juggling.  This blend of interests and abilities gives Logan a unique perspective in the strength and human performance industry.

Our guest for today’s show is Austin Jochum.  Austin is the owner of Jochum Strength where he works with athletes and “washed up movers” to become the best versions of themselves.  He is also the host of the Jochum Strength Podcast.  Austin was a former NCAA D3 All-American football player and a hammer thrower (MIAC weight throw champion) at the University of St. Thomas, where he is now the speed and strength coach for the football team.  Austin has appeared on episode 213, and also has written numerous articles for Just Fly Sports. One common theme of this podcast for so many years has been finding ways to make one’s training transfer to sport more, not just on the physical and mechanical level, but also on the mental and emotional level, and on a perception-reaction level.  At some point, the hair splitting that happens in regards to weight room exercises (arguments on what set-rep scheme to use, single leg vs. bilateral lifting, etc.), or the minutia of biomechanics, can start to take away from developing other important components of athletics. Austin Jochum is a pioneer in the blending of sport elements into the traditional gym setting for athletes.  He is a meathead, but also a die-hard athletic-mover, and passionately trains in a way that encompasses both the archetypes of strength, and performing ideally in one’s sport and movement practice. For the show today, Austin speaks on the art of developing a love for movement and play in athletes, how to build a “scorer’s” mentality, as well as how to optimize game-based scenarios in the gym to help improve transfer to the field.  He then gets into an excellent discussion on exposing athletes to their weaknesses in a gym-game setting, and finishes with how he sets up his own training programs from not only a physical, but also a mental/emotional perspective, moving from external to internal states, relating each type of training stress to the emotional state of the athlete. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster and Lost Empire Herbs.  For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to www.lostempireherbs.com/justfly View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 5:00 – A story of two different soccer coaches and their approaches to training with their groups 11:00 – The link between love of movement/sport, obsession, and subsequent greatness, 15:30 – How to preserve, and grow, love for movement in coaching athletes 18:30 – Thoughts on “leveling up” on the levels of movement, as well as mental and emotional levels, in a training session 27:30 – How to set up games in a training session that can help to build a “scorer’s mentality” in athletes 29:00 – How to modulate the space of the field, and 1v1, or 2v2 type situations that can help athletes 36:00 – How to transfer between what athletes are really good, and really bad at, in their sport in order to create more robust athletic ability 44:30 – Insecurities that are wrapped up in not being able to expose one’s self to failure 51:30 – The importance of being on the fringe, and evolving the field, and realizing that no one individual has all of the answers 59:30 – The line between order and chaos within a training session, and how a strength session looks for Austin, and how he moves from fun, to funneling the energy into outputs or skill, then taking the athletes into themselves “If you listen to really really good athletes talk, I look at my own past successes, it is because you are obsessed with it… and how do you become obsessed with something? You gotta fall in love with it” “Something we’ve been doing is saying, “if this kid scores”, it’s worth two points, so now the stud who is always scoring is going to find a way to give the ball to someone else, he is going to expand the field” “Watch when your athlete, the first time you meet your athlete, watch how they walk into the gym, because you’ll know right away, almost 100%, what they are thinking in that moment, who they are, how they interact with the world” “(To create a scorer’s mentality) let them score from all angles, in all situations” “Let’s say you have a really fast athlete that is struggling with some change of direction stuff, then you make the space wider and shorter” “We’re talking about sets and reps, and this exercise selection, and it doesn’t matter if you aren’t looking at it on the field” “Conjugate style your games, expose them to as many games as possible, and then ebb and flow between what they are good at and then what they suck at” “Maybe there is an arrogant athlete… expose them to something they suck at… and how do they handle that? I would much rather you lose in this (gym) setting” “There are so many fringe pieces that we can experiment with, but our egos don’t let us” “Joy, looking forward to training and learning a skill is really important for skill retention.  In the weight room, having freedom has a ton of benefit with things like soreness, then what do you do with that energy? Now we funnel it into something we want to work on that day” “Now, how can we ebb and flow back into, how can I hold this position for 5’, or doing 1000 drop-catch reps… now they have to internally focus, and can you bring them back out of that?” “Not very many athletes are good at going internal; in those iso’s, they want to move, they want to twitch, in that stillness practice… so expose that to them a ton until they do master it, and have conversations about it” Show Notes Eli Franke water polo story https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9SBkUA-Iwg About Austin Jochum Austin Jochum is the owner of Jochum Strength where he works with athletes and washed up movers to become the best versions of themselves. He also operates The Jochum Strength insider which is an online training platform for people trying to feel, look, and move better. Austin was a former D3 All-American football player and a hammer thrower (MIAC weight throw champion) at the University of St.Thomas, where he is now the speed and strength coach for the football team.

Our guest for today’s show is Katie St. Clair.  Katie is a strength and conditioning coach out of Charleston, SC who has been training general population and athletes for over 20 years, and is the creator of the Empowered Performance Program. She is passionate about helping everyone reclaim movement and find joy and reduction of pain using sound biomechanical principles alongside proper breathing.  Katie has embarked on a journey of learning and combining that knowledge with her love of athletic movement, as well as her passion for empowering female movement professionals, with the intent to elevate the entire industry standard. In my last few years as a coach, I’ve become more and more aware of the underlying physical and structural characteristics of athletes that work to determine biomechanics that show up when they perform various sporting skills.  I’ve really enjoyed having a variety of coaches on this show who have gone in detail on the biomechanics of the human body, (the pelvis, ribcage, breathing, etc.) and then have linked that up with what we might see in athletic movement, such as sprinting and jumping to name a few. Katie is an expert in human performance, and the fine details of human movement.  On today’s show, she takes us on an approach to forward pelvic tilt, breathing mechanics, abdominal function, the feet, proper squatting, plyometrics and more that comes from a perspective of the underlying function of the human body.  Katie helps us understand the “inside” mechanisms that are so often leading to compromised movement seen on the “outside”. So often we have athletes who just can’t seem to “find” the right joint motions in their movement, and this is when we need to have the ability to go a level deeper in our coaching, or our ability to know when to “refer out” to experts better able to cater to those areas.  The more you know from “the inside out”, the greater the bandwidth of athletes you can serve in your efforts. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster and Lost Empire Herbs.  For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to www.lostempireherbs.com/justfly View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 4:45 – What led Katie into working in fitness and performance 10:15 – Katie’s “inside out” view, of helping athletes acquire better technique via changes on the level of the thorax, pelvis and rib-cage 15:45 – The art of coaching humans in a manner that helps them self-organize and learn to move effectively 18:45 – How being biased, or stuck, in anterior tilt impacts one’s ability to move, and how to help athletes get out of that position 25:45 – How to use inhalation and exhalation to neurologically reinforce supination/ER and pronation/IR 42:15 – General primers on how to start working with breathing and breath for clients 45:50 – Ideas on how compression can drive expansion on the opposite side of the body, and ideas on “functional” abdominal muscles 49:50 – Katie’s view on building strength at length with the abdominal wall 55:50 – Why some athletes (particularly female swimmers) often have a lot of spinal extension patterning in a pushup movement, and then what to do about it (if it is even a big deal in that group) 1:00.05 – Hypermobility as systemic laxity, versus adaptations that can lead to acquired hypermobility in the limbs via proximal stiffness 1:05.35 – The dichotomy between accessing the heels, and then moving into the forefoot in the process of squatting 1:14.50 – Dynamics of “no-toes” squatting and what it can do for athletes, and how it zeros in on the mid-foot 1:17.50 – The balance between being able to keep the heel down and pronate, and then get off the heel to make the foot a second class lever, in squatting and even in running/jumping 1:29.50 – How to help people who struggle to yield to gravity be able to do so, and achieve better glute activation in the process “I realized I was looking at everything from the outside in, instead of from the inside out…. I would see these patterns all the time, but just coaching it didn’t change it, I had to alter the mechanics of their thorax and their rib-cage and pelvis to be able to create the change that was necessary” “(Athletes) are creating compensations that are really genius” “The trees, the way the rocks are, the seashells… (nature) gives you an appreciation for what the human form is” “The foot diaphragm and the thoracic diaphragm are going to alter the ability for the foot to do its’ thing too” “You have to have enough expansion to create compression…. if you don’t have enough range you are going to compensate to get it” “They do need to learn the fundamentals of getting the diaphragm to dome up, both the pelvic diaphragm and thoracic diaphragm, and to use the breath to leverage that position” “If I can use the breath, then I can create a neurological change in the brain” “If I am on my heels, that is going to generate that internal rotation, the increase in all the curvature… now I can do the complete opposite by going to my toes, tucking under, and decreasing the spinal curvature by inhaling and allowing the chest to rise” “If the ribs don’t move, the spine is not going to move” “Expansion where you need it does require holding tension on one side to drive expansion on the other, so if I gripped my abs, and held them down and took an inhale, the pressure is going to push back into my ribs and create some expansion” “We have to manage the leaks in the system to push the pressure elsewhere” “I almost think the athletes who can lengthen the abdominal wall and create tension, are the ones who are impressive… that’s a very athletic body to me, when you can create tension in a lengthen position, that’s the jam” “If you suck at lengthening and eccentrically loading  position, try exhaling when you are all the way out in that lengthened state (not allowing yourself to go into an excessive extension pattern) exhale, then pull back and inhale” “You see this a lot, people can’t pronate or supinate, so the arch of their foot is not as dynamic as it should be, so they create a lot of mobility at the ankle joint because the midfoot is so rigid” “Allowing the knees to go forward, and more pressure into the mid-fore foot, to allow for internal rotation… that is much needed, and so if you are always elevating your heels, how are you ever getting that, so I think it makes sense to bring a person down to the lowest range they can work with at that time, plus doing other activities to get the thorax over the pelvis” “We need that moment of the knees jutting forward, and the arch coming down and the calcaneus tipping without going onto the toes and missing that, so when you try to squat with your toes off of something, there is no cheating it” “Not doing a quick jump, holding a heavy yielding isometric, and then sinking into the ground, doing a depth drop, but instead of a reactive jump you are sinking into it, I’ve used it in my programming and 9/10 the people that can’t feel their glutes in the bottom of a squat and utilize that, that’s when they tell me “I finally felt my glutes”” About Katie St. Clair Katie is a wife, mom, strength coach, educator, business owner, and lover of all things movement. After 20+ years in the industry, Katie decided to create an educational program based on her passion for seeing other women excel in the industry as leaders and educators. There was a time when life got in the way and she couldn't be the professional she wanted to be because she had to put her family first. She has spent the past 5 years embarking on a journey of learning and combining that knowledge with her love of athletic movement, as well as her passion for empowering female movement professionals, with the intent to elevate the entire industry standard.

Today’s show features Dr. Chris Gaviglio.  Chris is a current senior strength and conditioning coach for the Queensland Academy of Sport, working with Olympic-based sports and athletes.  Chris has been involved with elite sport for over 15 years working across multiple Olympic sports and professional football in both the northern and southern hemispheres.  Chris provides applied sports science projects for the athletes he works with, particularly in the areas of salivary hormones, passive heat maintenance, blood flow restriction training, warm-up strategies, and power/strength development. I don’t often do shows that center around a piece of training technology, and the main reason for that is simply accessibility.  If a training tool costs thousands of dollars, it isn’t something a large proportion of the athletic, and even coaching population can rationalize having in their training arsenal.  The nice thing about blood flow restriction training is that it is available at a relatively low price point, with common units starting around $300USD.  Other setups using squat wraps, for example, can be done basically for free, but I would recommend using an automated system for the safety and precision of band tightness (see show notes regarding safety considerations and contraindications to BFR, such as concussions or deep vein thrombosis). Blood Flow restriction training has been a training tool that has been on my radar for a long time.  After seeing the results that a high-level Olympic swimmer I worked with got from them, and then hearing some results from Nicolai Morris having a 1.5 second drop in the 100 freestyle of a swimmer as well, as well as several of my coaching colleagues using the method, I knew that there was absolutely something to BFR that I needed to get further into.  In using the AirBands from Vald performance myself, I continued to realize how beneficial this training stimulus is to our physiological response. For today’s show, Chris takes us into many topics of BFR, including its mechanisms and many benefits.  As opposed to methods of mechanical stress (such as plyometrics, sprinting, heavy strength training methods) which tend to dominate this shows podcasts) BFR is a physiological stressor, and through this discussion, we can gain an appreciation for the contrast of physiological stress to more mechanical means.  Chris finishes the show talking about how coaches and athletes can integrate BFR training, and gives many anecdotes and points of research, on how BFR can improve strength and speed recovery. Finally, our sponsor, Simplifaster is doing a Blood Flow Restiction cuff giveaway (Vald Airbands) so if you would like to get in on that, until November 11th, you can sign up for a chance to win a free pair of cuffs at bit.ly/freebfr . Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster and Lost Empire Herbs.  For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to www.lostempireherbs.com/justfly View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 6:00 – Chris’s experiment during quarantine using lighter, or minimal weights in an at-home training setting 17:00 – Discussion on using lighter implements and bodyweight in developing one’s athleticism 20:30 – What blood flow restriction training is, and where it originated from 27:00 – How the metabolic stress from BFR creates beneficial responses, similar to high-load lifting 35:25 – What BFR definitely helps with, and what elements of performance it is not as helpful for 41:25 – How BFR can help with creating “mild to moderate” doses of lactate – Using BFR style work in warming up for a training session 53:10 – If there are any similar places in sport where athletes will experience situations similar to what is created with BFR means 57:00 – How to get as close to BFR as one can in a gym without any sort of cuffs or wraps 1:00:00 – Anecdotes on how to integrate BFR in performance and rehab based situations 1:10:00 – Where to get started for those interested in BFR “BFR is a metabolic stress” “BFR is a method of strength training with the addition of pressure” “What is BRF doing, we are partially restricting blood flow, and what that allows us to do is you are actually restricting the venous return of the blood from your muscles, so the blood flows freely into the muscle, but you are restricting it coming back out” “The first (benefit of BFR) is an increase in concentration of metabolites” “The second (benefit of BFR) is (anabolic) hormonal response” “The third (benefit of BFR) is intramuscular signaling, we are talking here heat shock proteins, myostatin, mTOR pathways” “They had two groups, they did not lifting, but one used heat sheets to heat the muscles and the second had none, and the group that used heat got stronger…. BFR can also stimulate this” “The fourth (benefit of BFR) is intracellular swelling, or “the pump” The fifth (benefit of BFR) is muscular recruitment, our slow twitch fibers tire out earlier than normal, and our fast twitch fibers get innervated” “Normally in an injury or rehab scenario, that’s where we see a lot of BFR… “In athletic populations, load is still king, but could we dial that percentage down a little bit, still use the BFR cuffs, and give them a little juice in the tank to perform their speed session the next day, could we be smarter with that?” “In long term structural adaptations, there has been some research to show that lactate increases collagen synthesis in fibroblasts, which is essential for blood vessel formation and wound healing.  Also correlations have been shown between increased lactate levels and concentrations of growth hormone and noradrenaline after BFR training” “Usually if we are going to lift above 80% of 1RM, traditionally we have (the cuffs) off… I did have one athlete who was doing heavy step ups with the cuffs on, he felt he would have a good 400m time the next day” “The bands will get you (to lactate) faster, and with less mechanical stress on the system” “I have some colleagues who will do over-reaching, and in their recovery weeks, they will do a lot of BFR, high reps” “Everyone thinks the first time I have an athlete I stick a BFR cuff on them, but it’s not true” “(BFR) is a stress, and we are using metabolic stress instead of mechanical stress” Show Notes Although BFR has been proven safe, there are some safety considerations and contraindications concerning BFR to be aware of: Thebarbellphysio.com/blood-flow-restriction-training-safe/ Performancehealthacademy.com/blood-flow-restriction-training-101.html Theprehabguys.com/blood-flow-restriction-training-in-a-nutshell/ Notes on protocols and usage with Dr. Jeremy Loenneke Informfitness.com/podcast/64-blood-flow-restriction-training-with-dr-jeremy-loenneke/ About Dr. Chris Gaviglio Dr. Chris Gaviglio is a current senior strength and conditioning coach for the Queensland Academy of Sport, working with Olympic-based sports and athletes.  Chris has been involved with elite sport for over 15 years working across multiple Olympic sports and professional football codes in both the northern (Bath Rugby) and southern (Wallabies – Australian National Rugby Union team and Gold Coast SUNS – Australian Football /AFL) hemisphere. During his time in the UK (Bath Rugby), Chris was involved with UKSport in multiple applied sports science projects.  His major project involved monitoring salivary hormones (testosterone and cortisol) responses to competition and training in rugby union and culminated in his thesis. Chris has several papers already publish as a result of this work and other collaborative work with other applied sport scientists. Aside from an interest in using salivary hormones as a marker for training and competition, he continues to provide bespoke applied sports science projects for the athletes he works with, particularly in the areas of: Passive heat maintenance Blood flow restriction training Warm-up and peri-competition strategies Power and strength development Chris is also an entrepreneur and enjoys designing training products that compliments his strength and conditioning passion. The first two products he produced were back mobilization tools in the Thera-wedge and then the Backsak. More recently he designed the Sports Rehab Tourniquet to be used for Blood Flow Restriction (BFR) training. This is a total body training system for both the upper and lower body. As a progression from designing this BFR training tool he has developed training workshops and instructional videos to help educate users.

Today’s show features Frank Forencich.  Frank is an internationally recognized leader in health and performance education. He has over thirty years of teaching experience in martial art and health education. Frank holds black belt rankings in karate and aikido and has traveled to Africa on several occasions to study human origins and the ancestral environment. A former columnist for Paleo Magazine, Frank is the author of numerous books about health and the human predicament, including “The Exuberant Animal”, the book I read that originally led me to Frank’s work. We live in a time where early sport specialization and pressure has led to burnout and high injury rates amongst athletes, but the “rabbit hole” to a dis-satisfaction with sport and movement in general for so many, goes much deeper than that.  As much as we fall prey to the stress-laden, year-round competitive schedule that leads athletes to higher pressure situations at younger ages, we also have “forgotten” our roots as athletes, and more importantly, as human beings, in so many senses of the word.  We miss out on both training results, satisfaction and longevity by failing to study our ancestral nature. On today’s show, Frank Forencich goes into many important elements of our humanity that can help athletes not only recover and train better, but also help increase enjoyment of the training process.  These elements include human biorhythms, dance, play and exploration, getting in the dirt, benefits of training in nature, purpose driven movement, and more.  This podcast was truly important on the level of helping us use the principles of nature that define who we are, to help us in training, and far beyond. If you bring drums into your gym, or for your workout after this episode, PLEASE let me know. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster and Lost Empire Herbs.  For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to www.lostempireherbs.com/justfly View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 5:20 – Key trends seen in the animal kingdom, in physical movement that humans should pay attention to our own movement practices 11:50 – “Effortful striving” in human training versus more of a purpose-driven approach that is characteristic to non-human animals 20:30 – What the idea of “dancing being the original PE” means to athletes and all-human 28:20 – How play and exploration influences how we adapt to movement and training 33:50 – Frank’s thoughts on when to specialize in a sport, or movement practice 35:20 – The difference between the “jungle animal” and the “desert animal” and what this means for humans, training and moving in context with their environment 38:35 – The impact of bioregion on movement practice 40:40 – The impact of training in nature, versus training in an indoor gym setting, and then the “Bio-Philic” need of humans in regards to connection with nature 45:45 – Jim Thorpe’s primal and natural training methods 48:20 – The importance of getting “in the dirt” and actually connecting with dirt and the earth itself for the sake of the micro-biome 54:05 – Low hanging fruits on how to deal with stress better in context of our human biology 58:05 – The role of the athlete in modern society 1:01:55 –  How to build a total training day based on the rhythms and mechanisms of the human being “There is no emphasis on appearance (regarding movement and “exercise” as observed in the animal kingdom)” “It’s important to remember that sports are movement specialties” “In human athletics, there is constant striving all the time that is divorced from habitat; it is almost as if we are training in a bubble” “For the playful athlete, the motivation is purely intrinsic” “We’ve lost sight of the fact that the dose makes the poison, the dose makes the medicine… the wisdom lies in remembering the shape of the inverse U-curve” “I don’t think we give our animal bodies enough credit for knowing what’s going on… I think we just need to listen more” “(Dancing) is not sagittal movement, it’s transverse plane movement” “There’s rhythm everywhere, drumming and dancing are fundamental for all of us” “At various weightlifting facilities, bring drums in and use them, that would an easy thing to add that would increase enjoyment and it would increase performance too” “Play is deeply wired into the primate-mammal body” “If you isolate rodents (from being able to play) they will grow up to have huge social deficits and dysfunctions” “What I’ve tried to do with people is have a bio-regional approach to athletics” “Native people always identify with habitat, and that is something we have lost a lot of in the modern world” “The blue collar stuff is really under-rated (for physical fitness)” “Our microbiome now is completely out of whack, and the way to get back to that is to put your hands in the dirt and actually contact the soil, or run barefoot, or go climbing (outside)” “(Modern ambient noise) is an assault on the autonomic nervous system” Show Notes Oregon State football dance-battle (rhythm and dance is foundational) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vafso7rClUY   One of Frank’s movement classes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2bcq3769ps About Frank Forencich Frank Forencich is an internationally recognized leader in health and performance education. He earned his BA at Stanford University in human biology and neuroscience and has over thirty years of teaching experience in martial art and health education. Frank holds black belt rankings in karate and aikido and has traveled to Africa on several occasions to study human origins and the ancestral environment. He’s presented at numerous venues, including the Ancestral Health Symposium, Google, the Dr. Robert D. Conn Heart Conference, and the Institute of Design at Stanford University. A former columnist for Paleo Magazine, Frank is the author of numerous books about health and the human predicament. He’s a member of the Council of Elders at the MindBodyEcology Collective and a Diplomate member at the American Institute of Stress.

Today’s show welcomes back coach Michael Zweifel.  Michael is the owner and head of sports performance for “Building Better Athletes” performance center in Dubuque, Iowa.  Building Better Athletes focuses on building the athlete from the ground up by mastering the fundamentals of movement mastery, strength/power training, recovery modalities, and promoting ownership in athletes.  Michael is also a team member of the movement education group, “Emergence”.  He has been a frequent guest on this podcast, speaking on topics of perception-reaction, exploration in the weight room, creativity and more. As I’ve grown as a coach (and a human mover/athlete) it’s been really enjoyable to experience sport, and movement in different ways.  In working in a college weight room, it was also very interesting to pay attention to the defining characteristics of the best athletes.  They weren’t always the strongest, or even the fastest, but they could move and react incredibly well in context of their sport… and they loved to play.  One of the things I’ve been enjoying doing recently, is coaching youth sports (5 year olds, to be exact) and it’s a learning experience that impacts my philosophy, all the way up the chain into high level performers. With play and exploration at the core of athleticism and sport, why is it that the culture of the gym (and in many sports performance settings) completely the opposite?  So much of modern sport acts like athletes are robots, a culture based on lines and whistles, and a perception of needing to do everything one particular way. On today’s show, Michael Zweifel goes into a deep dive on how his warmups fit with the key characteristics of elite athleticism. He speaks on how he connects his warmups to core human instincts and needs, and talks about how to develop a love for movement and play that transcends organized sport play.  Michael and I also take on a broad-scope discussion on the over-structuring that is rampant in sport (and our culture in general).  This show is truly important in light of our modern sport culture. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster and Lost Empire Herbs.  For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to www.lostempireherbs.com/justfly View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 4:50 – Michael’s thoughts on trail running, longer runs, and elasticity 13:20 – Michael’s biggest changes in his warmup process over the last decade 16:30 – What Michael would take back with him in terms of his warmups and training if he returned to the university sector of training 21:50 – Comparing “routine” warmups (lines, movement prep, etc.) versus a more dynamic and adaptive form of warming up for a training session 28:50 – Speaking on the different stages of the warmup defined by Emergence: Ownership, exploration and attunement 33:50 – If there are any general warmups that Michael’s athletes will actually do, and how he approaches that type of work 35:50 – A broader-scope discussion on coaching, creativity versus militaristic coaching 48:00 – What age groups and settings Michael feels sports performance coaches should work with to optimally learn the nature of training sport 52:50 – The critical nature of play for human beings, and how professional athletes are very play driven 1:05.35 – How Michael might lead up to a more output driven day in the gym from a warmup perspective 1:07:50 – Some more specific changes in the warmup process that Michael has made in the last few years: Applying “levels” in sport and human movement 1:14:50 – The sad reality of kids quitting sports early, and without preparedness for how to enjoy life from a movement practice at that point 1:20:50 – Key differences in what Michael has in the warmups of different age groups (elementary school, middle school, high school, etc.) “What transitioned my warmup was being in the private sector.  In the private sector, each and every day I have to win my athletes over… in the college sector my athletes will be back no matter what I do” “If you think about the basic dynamic warmup, with the lines, we never do any of that stuff anymore; I think there is so much more opportunity to engage our athletes in a deep level…. We’re attacking the warmup from a perceptual standpoint, we are attacking the warmup from an emotional and social standpoint, we are attacking our warmup from a technical/tactical standpoint” “The transition to transforming my warmups has been hard; every day is about reading the room, asking questions, giving certain athletes autonomy and ownership; the warmups are alive” “If I value my athletes being adaptable, and I value my athletes being creative and having abundance in movement solutions, how is doing the same warmup day in and day out building that capacity? It’s not, it’s restricting it” “Our three stages (of warming up at Emergence) are ownership, exploration and attunement” “For youth athletes, exploration is the key to learning” “I’m a big fan of allowing each athlete’s individualism to stand out, and ost team sports try to kill that” “(speaking on militaristic warmups) What you are doing in a non-contextual environment is going to have no bearing what is going on in a game” “People think people like Saban and Bellichek are really militaristic; if you actually study those guys, they are a lot more lenient, and give freedom and autonomy and they let individual styles show out, much more than people think” “Do you think athletes are going to turn a switch, in our on fields sessions, and are going to turn this switch, and be this adaptable, creative, abundant mover, when in the warmup we stripped away all this stuff? I think that is why a warmup is a really, extremely important thing for our athletes” “All my professional athletes, that’s all they want to do (play), at the end of the day, sports is just a game, it’s just play… we each have this deep, inherent desire for play” “The big thing with our youth athletes, is they get superpowers… find ways for people to feel special in certain moments” “What makes video games successful… they are inclusive, they tell a story, there are levels… so how can I do some of these things in my games, my warmups, so I try to tell more stories in how we design our activities” “60-70% of kids are quitting (sports) by 12-13 years of age” “As athletes get a little older, middle school, high school, that ownership piece will expand” About Michael Zwiefel Michael Zweifel is the owner and head of sports performance for “Building Better Athletes” performance center in Dubuque, Iowa.  Michael is a CSCS, IYCA certified practitioner, and was the all time NCAA leading receiver with 463 receptions in his playing days at University of Dubuque.  He is also a team member of the movement education group, “Emergence”. Building Better Athletes (BBA) is committed to an evidence based practice towards sports performance, and attaching physical preparation from every angle possible – physical, mental, nutritional, soft-tissue, mobility.  Our focus is building the athlete from the ground up by mastering the fundamentals of movement mastery, strength/power training, recovery modalities, and giving athletes ownership of the Other 23. Using these methods and principles, BBA has been fortunate to help athletes to: 5 NFL Players 1 CFL Player 1 Gatorade State Player of the Year (Basketball) 7 Collegiate All-Americans 12 Conference Player of the Year 11 Division I Athletes 52 All-Conference Athletes

Today’s show is with Kibwé Johnson.  Kibwé is the director of track and field at SPIRE Academy, in Geneva, Ohio, and the founder of FORTIUS performance.  Prior to SPIRE, Kibwe coached throws at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida for 4 years. In his time as an athlete, Kibwé established himself as one of the USA’s best hammer throwers by being ranked first or second for over a decade, and his personal best of 80.31m/263’5” in 2011 the best mark by an American hammer thrower in over ten years.  He also owns the world’s all-time best HT/DT/WT combination of distances. Kibwé has personally worked with some of the most well regarded coaches in the US and internationally.  His coach for his final 10 years, Dr. Anatoliy Bondarchuk, greatly influenced the development of Kibwé’s own methodologies.  Kibwé’s coaching philosophy is built on communication and cites his experiences as a husband and father with learning how to become more effective as a coach. In my time as a coach, I’ve learned that technique and skill are more than a set of instructions, or a final “model” to shoot for through a series of drills and cues.  Although these instructions can certainly be helpful for lower level performers, once an athlete gets to a more advanced level of performance, drills lose their luster, and we must become more attuned to the actual interaction between the athlete and their environment (implements, the ground, gravity, etc.). On the show today, Kibwé talks about his experiences as an athlete, particularly with Dr. Bondarchuk that helped him develop as a thrower, and in his eventual career as a coach.  He talks about the unique, high velocity and cyclical elements of the hammer that demand a particular relationship to the instrument, and things we can take from this relationship that can transfer to other skills, or life itself.  Finally, Kibwe speaks extensively about drills, vs. holistic skill performance, and the many “subtle” elements, such as awareness, that go into enhancing holistic performance on the highest levels. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster and Lost Empire Herbs.  For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to www.lostempireherbs.com/justfly View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 6:40 – Kibwé’s evolution as an athlete, and what led him to his philosophy of “The Tao of the Hammer” 10:25 – Kibwé’s experience in working with Dr. Bondarchuk and how the communication barrier actually helped Kibwé to figure out his throw without the use of words or cues 18:20 – How the hammer throw in track and field is unique in respect to other throwing events due to its unique, very high velocity rotational dynamics 21:10 – Kibwé’s take on teaching athlete’s fundamental positions vs. letting them figure out skills in a different manner (or on their own), particularly in context of the hammer throw 26:40 – How acquiring the “feeling” of a good throw is helpful to scale to throws of all distances 32:25 – How people tend to want a “list of things” when doing something, and the battle of getting an athlete outside of a list of cues, and to facilitate them figuring things out on their own 34:40 – How to learn, from a “Tao of the Hammer” perspective, and what awareness in a hammer throw means to Kibwé 46:40 – Examples of elite athletes who have had their mechanics “fixed”, as per a “technical model” and had poor seasons or failed to improve 51:25 – How Kibwé would address a “mistake” in an athlete’s throwing, and portions of an athlete’s technique 56:40 – Where drills fall short in training a complex movement, such as the hammer throw 1:02:40 – Reactivity as needed between the hammer and the athlete, and how to “do less” in the course of a throw from a perspective of actively putting force into the implement “It really came down to trying to find the words to explain how I was feeling when I felt my best; because I wasn’t seeing that anywhere” “It’s pretty typical that a coach will use a whole lot of words, but in all of those words, there is no space for that athlete to fill that with their own natural instincts, or nests.  What makes that own individual amazing gets tripped away with a ton of words, in my opinion” “In track and field and the technical disciplines, the athletes who were allowed to grow and evolve and change on their own, are more artists in a way, if that makes sense” “There is an importance to teaching a base level, “how do you move, kind of thing”…. But there is part of me what says, “why not?”” “Hammer throwers who started at 10 or earlier, it is beautiful to watch” “My thing there is when an athlete is essentially connected to that feeling, and they can maintain that through the throw, you can have that feeling no matter how hard you throw” “The next day, the feeling they received from that cue that you gave them (the day prior) is different, for an innumerable number of reasons” “Both are needed, masculine and feminine, yin/yang.  Both are needed, but then there are points when one is not needed versus the other, or vice versa, and trying to work that out for yourself” “It’s just being intentional with my movement, and that in itself is meditation.  With hammer and movement, it’s as simple as that, and it’s basically opening yourself up to really feeling what’s happening with your body in space.. and your mind too honestly, instead of not knowing how you got there” “We lose so many athletes to (a highly technical coaching system) because we have this one-size-fits-all system that we are thrown into, and some have “success”, but the artists, they just fall off, never to be seen from again” “When I trained with Dr. B I felt like I couldn’t do anything else, but throw a hammer… I found it funny” “The hammer doesn’t go just because you want it to go far.  You have to work with it, and you have to be part of it… it doesn’t care how strong you are” “By removing myself, the hammer is free to do whatever it needs to do” “I don’t understand why you would coach everyone the same way, train everyone the same way, everyone’s different” “Between eight and thirteen 80 meter guys, not one of us looked the same, (Dr. B) allowed for everyone’s individual-ness to come through, and everyone threw really far” “When the opportunity is kind of stripped from you, you lose that opportunity to learn about yourself” About Kibwe Johnson Kibwé Johnson is the director of track and field at SPIRE Academy, in Geneva, Ohio.  He is also the founder of FORTIUS performance which focuses on track and field throws training.  Prior to SPIRE, Kibwe coached throws at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida for 4 years. In his time as an athlete, Kibwé established himself as one of the nation’s best hammer throwers of all time by being ranked first or second for over a decade. In that time, he secured 5 US titles, 4 US runner-up, and numerous US national teams.  He has personally worked with some of the most well regarded coaches in the US and internationally in Don Babbitt, Bob McKay, Stuart Togher, 4x Olympian Jud Logan, and lastly Dr. Anatoliy Bondarchuk.  Kibwé deeply values his 10 years spent with Dr. Bondarchuk as their time together greatly influenced the development of Kibwé’s own training methodologies. Kibwé’s winning toss and personal best of 80.31m/263’5” at the 2011 USA Outdoor Championships was the best mark by an American hammer thrower in over a decade, making him only the fourth American to ever to go beyond the mythical 80-meter line. Boasting a personal best of 65.11m/213’6” in discus, and 25.12m/82’5” in weight throw, Kibwé is the most versatile throws athlete of all time (All-Time World Best HT/DT/WT combination). Kibwé’s coaching philosophy is built on communication and cites his experiences as a husband and father with learning how to become more effective as a coach.