Just Fly Performance Podcast

Today’s podcast features speed and strength coach Brandon Byrd.  Brandon Byrd is the owner of Byrd’s Sports Performance in Orefield, Pennsylvania.  Brandon is an alumni of the University of Pittsburgh and has learned from elite coaches such as Louie Simmons, Charlie Francis, Buddy Morris and others. Brandon’s unique blend of rotating training stimuli, and his competitive, PR driven environment has elicited noteworthy speed, power and strength gains in his athletes. If you follow Brandon on social media, you’ll see the regular occurrence of sprint and jump records from his athletes.  Brandon has some of the highest-output training out there in his ability to cultivate speed and strength. I always enjoy digging into the training of elite coaches, into the nuts and bolts that drives their systems.  Some of the running themes on this show have been ideas such as the rotation of big training stimuli from week to week (such as in EP 190 with Grant Fowler), the power of resisted sprinting (EP 12 and 63 with JB Morin and Cameron Josse), overspeed sprinting (EP 51 with Chris Korfist), and then the power of competition and PR’s (EP 135 with Tony Holler). This episode with coach Brandon Byrd truly brings all of those elements together in a way that gets some of the best training results you’ll find.  On today’s podcast, Brandon goes into the core of his system, and how he rotates his sprint efforts based on the needs of the athlete, to get the most out of their system.  He also goes into his background with Westside Barbell, and the elements he learned from Louie Simmons that go into his training, as well as strength pre-requisites he carries for his athletes to optimize their readiness for the strength and speed program. (Note that when Brandon is talking about fly 10’s he is talking yards, not meters) Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage   Timestamps and Main Points 5:00 Brandon’s main influences in athletic performance and speed training 11:30 How principles of West-side Barbell training show up in Brandon’s sprint training system 22:45 How Brandon rotates uphill and downhill sprinting to blast personal bests in speed 29:30 How Brandon uses wickets in context of his speed and sprint training 39:30 Concepts in using resisted sprinting, as well as jump training in Brandon’s program 45:20 More specifics on how Brandon rotates and progresses his speed and sprint training throughout the training year, and also how he modulates this for stride length, vs. stride frequency style athletes 58:50 What Brandon’s weekly sprint setup looks like for athletes 1:07.20 The power of “PR”s in Brandon’s system and how that feeds into his entire training session “Once you can control 90% of the force-velocity curve, you can create great athletes” “I don’t think the FMS is a great thing, because when you are sitting statically and not under high forces or high loads, everyone is going to look great, but once you are high speeds in sprinting, or high loads in lifting, you are going to see some weaknesses” “I believe your technique in sprinting is determined by your weaknesses… once you fix their weaknesses, then it is easier to fix technique” “Glute, hamstring, and opposite QL, those must fire explosively and fast, and they all must be strong… when I start an athlete, the first thing I do test is that QL” “In my gym, if you can’t do so much in a 45 degree hyperextension, I can’t put a bar on your back” “The body is scared to go faster… it hates change, so you have to force change by changing modalities… regular sprinting can’t do all those things (in context of using uphill, downhill and resisted sprinting to help break barriers)” “65-75% of the kids I get are heel strikers; they have to run foref...

Kevin Foster and Grant Fowler discuss non-linear training methods for high-powered athleticism. They cover topics such as wearable resistance, mobility training, and the importance of foundational mobility. They also discuss specific exercises for javelin throwing, improvements in throws and lifts with non-linear training, and the concept of intuitive training and self-regulation. The chapter on training methods and peak performance explores structured training methods, predicting peak performance, and the importance of adaptability.

Today’s podcast features Dr. Michelle Boland and Dr. Tim Richardt, speaking on the topic of exercise categorization and classification, as well as the process of selecting and integrating gym training movements based on the specific needs of athletes and clients. Michelle Boland is the owner of michelleboland-training.com and has several years of professional experience as an NCAA DI strength coach working with nationally ranked teams, and a wide variety of sports. Michelle is a leader in the integration of concepts rooted in the work of PRI and Bill Hartman into practical sports performance application.  Michelle has appeared previously on this podcast on episode #108 speaking on functional performance training based on PRI ideals and more. (You can grab Michelle’s “Resource Road Map”, a compilation of the best resources in the fitness industry for free at michelleboland-training.com/resource-road-map) Tim Richardt is a physical therapist and CSCS who has been a competitive runner and strength training junkie since the age of 14.  Tim has an awesome blend on knowledge on all things running, rehab, gait, and strength training principles.  Tim’s personal journey through injury and rehabilitation, including 2 hip surgeries, has given him unique insight into effective long-term resolution of overuse injuries among endurance and strength athletes. In traditional strength and conditioning and fitness models, we tend to have things like “squat”, “hinge”, “push”, “pull”, and perhaps several other movements, based on our preference, when working with athletes.  Although the “old-school” classification certainly serves to facilitate a general balance of forces and muscle groups, we can improve our process even further by understanding how the human body works in gait and dynamic movement, and then reverse-engineer our exercise selection from there.  When our movement execution processes can match gaps, or reinforce strengths in running, jumping, throwing and sport movement technique, we can eliminate guess work and give our clients, and/or ourselves, greater results. On today’s show, Michelle and Tim speak on the evolution of their training processes and how they classify movements in the gym.  We get heavily into running as a specific example, and how to reverse engineer training movements based on run technique.  We also finish with chatting on how Michelle and Tim continue to integrate the “big lifts” into their programs, and what adjustments they have made in the versions of those lifts that stick with them in their training schemes. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage   Timestamps and Main Points 5:20 Michelle and Tim’s recent modes of exercise and training and what they have learned from them 9:20 How Tim has been incorporating “one arm running” into his training and coaching routines 15:00 Tim and Michelle’s journey of evolving the lifts they utilized 20:50 What role do the big lifts still play in Michelle and Tim’s program, in light of other evolving categorizations 35:15 What starting point do Tim and Michelle go from when constructing a strength program for performance (for running specifically) 45:50 Adjusting the lifts in a program based on biomechanical running goals of the athlete 58:40 How a performance-driven session for Michelle goes in light of the big lifts and a modern idea on exercise classification “We need to get out of these gross (exercise) categorizations that have really come from other sports (powerlifting, Olympic lifting)” Boland “There is a difference between fitness and movement” Boland “I think there is a huge benefit to bilateral lifts because we can hit them as a high intensity stimulus and maintain that over time, and then use split stance,

Charlie Reid, personal trainer, massage therapist and musician, discusses the redundancy of 'corrective exercise' and a learner-centered approach to performance. Topics also include pain and discomfort, coaching for autonomy, the role of the nervous system, self-massage tools, individual responses to exercise, and the importance of breathing in movement.

Today’s podcast welcomes coach Ty Terrell.  Ty is currently an NBA physical preparation coach and has a wealth of experience ranging from training athletes out of a garage, to coaching high school basketball, to being mentored by some of the top professionals in the coaching industry.  Individuals such as Lee Taft, Bill Hartman, and Mike Robertson have fostered in Ty a unique and powerful perspective on blending gym-training methods with athletic biomechanics and outputs. A running theme of this show has been using gym training methods to cater to the organic manner by which athletes live and move, rather than working against it.  In a recent episode, #220, Kyle Dobbs talked about “hingy, knees-out squats” and the cascade of negative effects these brought out in the athletic population.  Personally, I had loads of elasticity in my teens and early 20’s, but I slowly started to lose the “elastic monster” by starting to train “by the book” according to current strength and conditioning methods and protocols. This show (and podcast in general) is about winning that elastic power back.  Ty Terrell starts off by sharing some of the key points he learned in his beginnings as a coach under Lee Taft in regards to training athlete speed and movement.  From there, we transition into all things squatting, and the load-unload, “expand-compress” paradigm that has come out of the work and ideas of Bill Hartman, and how this relates to athletic movement on the court or field of play.  We finish with some practical ideas on how to make trunk and core training highly transferable, and represent the movement principles we want to embody in our total-body athletic movements. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 4:00 Ty’s start with Lee Taft, and some cornerstone teachings he has learned from Lee that have kept with him in his coaching 10:45 How to use bands and resistance to create lines of force on an athlete that can help them use joints better, or get into desired athletic positions 23:45 Approaching elite athletes versus youth in regards to training their sport movement ability 34:00 Questions on general versus any sort of specific skill movement training for a professional athlete 41:45 How athletic movement works in light of the expansion and compression of the pelvic floor, and the body in general 57:30 The effect of overly “hinging” every lift, and how a state of anterior tilt reduces aerobic capacity and even muscular compliance and elasticity 1:06.30 Reflexive core training and experiences to help athletes train their trunk and pelvis in a manner that reflects load and explode paradigms “When I started, it was important that Lee made me be a coach first (before the standard “textbook” learning)” “As long as you have forward momentum, it’s OK not to be perfect today” “Those are the three things that you are looking at in a single motion in athletics: Can you achieve the position, can you produce the force you need to in the time you need to, and can you do it in the context of the situation” “If you get a 10-year old, they are pretty compliant.  They don’t have years of physical stress to let compensatory strategies come into play” “With the younger kids, you don’t necessarily have to focus on power to improve power because they are just improving everything” “It’s the simple stuff (the pro athlete) doesn’t do well (such as a basic squat pattern), because they never had to… I’ll say this, it’s the fundamentals that save pro athletes” “How many times can you do near-max efforts before your body can’t handle it, and says, “I need to cheat somehow”” “The number one thing I find (the NBA population) needs is the ability to squat.  When I see someone who can squat,

Strength coach Christian Thibaudeau discusses Omni-Rep Training for athletes, muscle phases in training, and the intricacies of book publishing. Topics include tailored training methods for athletes, incorporating various muscle contractions, and optimizing performance with warm-up sets. The conversation also covers RPE-based training, managing adrenaline levels, and the importance of individualized programs for speed-power athletes.

Today’s podcast features coach and consultant, Kyle Dobbs.  Kyle is the owner and founder of Compound Performance which offers online training, facility consulting, and a personal trainer mentorship. Kyle has trained 15,000+ sessions and has experienced substantial success as a coach and educator.  Kyle has an extensive biomechanics and human movement background which he integrates into his gym prescriptions to help athletes achieve their fullest movement, and transferable strength potential.  He reaches thousands of coaches regularly through his Instagram account where he offers practical movement solutions in the gym to help people get stronger in context of how we are meant to move as humans. One of the topics that I am most passionate about in training is in regards to why in the world athletes can increase their strength outputs in the gym, but become slower and lose elasticity in things such as jumping in the process.  I tend to see athletic outcomes of barbell strength tools as a sliding scale of increased performance due to increased power outputs and increased tissue strength, and then potentially decreased performance due to the body adapting to the needs of moving a heavy external object, and being coached to do so in a way that works against the gait cycle.  This topic of the gait cycle and squatting/lifting is what this show is all about. In today’s episode, Kyle goes in-depth on all things squatting and the gait cycle, and offers real-world solutions to help athletes lift weights, as per the needs of one who needs to sprint, jump, cut and hit.  Kyle also lays out helpful ideas on how to restore internal rotation abilities in those athletes in need of this vital element of movement.  At the end of this show, you’ll know the crucial mechanical differences between back squatting and front squatting, powerlifting squats, and Olympic squats, that make a real difference on our biomechanics and transfer to athleticism. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage.   Timestamps and Main Points 4:00 How doing manual labor and playing one’s sport through high school led Kyle to being more athletic than improving his squat and deadlift in college and becoming slower 7:00 How starting running again after spending years training primarily lifting and gym training has gone for Kyle, and what goes through Kyle’s mind in his run training 12:20 Thoracic dynamics, breathing and run performance concepts 24:15 Kyle’s evolution in the big axially loaded lifts, and their relationship to gait and reciprocal human movement 32:20 Internal and external femur rotation mechanics in squatting, and how hinging-squats have a negative effect on internal rotation capabilities for athletes 39:50 Distinguishing between “good” knees in, and “bad” knees in during a squat, based on adduction and internal rotation mechanics 46:30 Kyle’s taking on intentionally squeezing the glutes at the top of a squat 50:35 Reasons that you usually see Olympic lifters knees “clicking in” when coming up from the bottom of a squat, versus what you tend to see in a powerlifter 1:01:35 General principles in exercise selection and execution regarding squatting with athletes 1:04:50 Functional coaching points in unilateral training exercises 1:06:50 How to restore femoral internal rotation in athletes who are lacking it “I’m someone who for the last 5 or 6 years has done almost exclusively weight training, so getting back into unilateral reciprocal and trying to find femur IR, has been fun” “I think more about respiration (when running)” “As someone who has been doing a lot of bilateral, kind of more supinated based lifting, it is hard for me to get “inside edge” without consciously thinking about it”

Today’s podcast features performance coach and breathing specialist, Leo Ryan. Leo is the founder of Innate-Strength.com. He has studied athletic training, health and breathing since he healed himself of asthma in 2004. Leo has achieved a prolific amount of education in human performance and breathwork.  He has attained multiple diplomas and certificates from many elite personal training, physical therapy and breathing schools including Dip. Buteyko Method, Wim Hof Instructor, Oxygen Advantage Master Instructor, Fascial Stretch Therapist, Strength and Conditioning Specialist and Pilates teacher. Leo’s love and experience for health and physical performance has seen him research more than 70 breathing techniques, mentor with coaches to Olympians, UFC Fighters and World Champions. Breathing is truly on the top of the totem pole when it comes to our day to day health and well-being (we take around 20,000 breaths per day).  It has a massive impact on our mental state, as well as the physiology of the body, in addition to its implications for athletic performance.  We can run longer, recover faster, and gain enhanced mind-body states through simple breathing drills, as well as becoming more educated on the topic. Today’s show was longer than average, largely because the concept of performance breathing is so expansive, and we as a coaching community, generally don’t approach it in much depth.  Often times we are just told to belly breathe, or nose breathe, and leave it at that.  In this show, Leo covers all aspects of our breath, including nose breathing versus mouth breathing for performance, breathing as a readiness assessment, performance versus recovery breathing, diaphragm release techniques, and much more (including his experience in running a marathon, and recovering from it extremely well, despite ZERO run training).  This is yet another “staple” episode, as it truly covers this intersection of health, well-being, and athlete performance in the topic of the breath. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 5:30 Leo’s story of running a marathon on zero run training through optimal breath work and breathing techniques 16:30 Training repeat versus short sprint ability with nose versus mouth breathing 19:30 The importance of an aerobic base for the majority of athletes, and how breathing plays into this base 24:30 Why breathing and breath training is so under-appreciated by many coaches and individuals in training 29:30 How Leo uses breathing as a readiness assessment as opposed to HRV 43:15 Leo’s battle with asthma, and how that led him to studying breathing and breath for athletic performance enhancement 53:10 What people should be able to do with their breath, and “hardware” issues that could hold back the ability to breathe well 1:00:20 Breath training in context of a typical gym session with Leo 1:05:00 The link between breathing, adrenaline, and recovery times in training 1:15:00 Tensioning the body through breathing for improved power application 1:23:30 Methods to restore the function of the diaphragm “If I really wanted to perform in marathon, and hit a PB, and I trained for it fully, I wouldn’t mouth-tape (nose breathe)” “We know that pure mouth breathing will burn more sugar than nasal breathing” “Unless you are a pure power sport like Olympic weightlifting, a powerlifting type sport, you do want a decent aerobic base to you” “The benefits of breath training is all about recovery; for me, it is the main recovery modality, it’s where it all starts” “You don’t want oxygen just in the blood, you want it in the cell” “There are psychological aspects to breathing as well” “I only use HRV now with people who are not tuned into their br...

Today’s episode features performance coach and nutritionist, Matt Cooper.  Matt has been a multi-time podcast guest and writer on Just Fly Sports, and trains athletes and individuals out of his gym in Los Angeles, California.  Matt is a bright young coach who has encapsulated many of the training concepts from top coaches, nutritionists, and human performance specialists, into his own system which keeps the athlete operating in proper neurological and fascial harmony. One of the things I’ve really enjoyed observing in the work that Matt is doing is his incorporation of the work pioneered by Marv Marinovich and Jay Schroeder, into his own training design.  The combination of proprioception, reaction, and neurological emphasis is something that creates explosive and adaptive athletes, with a priority on the function of the body, rather than a priority on lifting a barbell max at all costs (and when you respect the nervous system in training, you tend to get improved lifting numbers without the neurological cost that comes from hammering away at bilateral sagittal plane lifts). Recently, a few arenas of training that Matt has been working through that I found particularly intriguing, were his thoughts on training the fascial system, as well as a recent article of his defending proprioceptive training, when we define its role in the training process correctly.  For today’s podcast, Matt talks about the role of the fascial system in human movement, as well as its importance in regards to training in light of exercise selection.  Matt also talks about proprioceptive training, its role in light of the greater training process, and practical exercises for training both the proprioceptive and fascial systems. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 6:15 What training the fascial system means to Matt 16:15 Methods to engage the fascial system appropriately in training 24:45 Reasons that barbell squatting can cause neurological irritants to high-performance athletics over time 37:35 Training movements that can improve tensegrity in the body and fascial function 46:15 How Matt programs Olympic lifting and Keiser/Supercat machines, in respect to the feet and fascial dynamics 53:15 The value of proprioceptive and dynamic balance work in training and performance “The fascia being well-wound together is not just an injury prevention concept, but the fascia being well-woven together like a basket, that actually helps store, transfer and release elastic energy effortlessly” “(In a powerlifting squat) the athlete’s fascia has to revolve around the bar path” “If the fascia is adapting around these big compound movements, and they are the centerpiece of our training, then we are sort of adapting athletes neuro-myo-fascially to be sagittal movers, and not everything else” “You can do corrective exercises in a way that get the neuro-myo-fascial segments of the body well-orchestrated” “The main emphasis of our training is one that respects natural biomechanics” “You are setting off a completely different muscle firing pattern by having someone squat off the heel; and the heaviest load is going to happen at the joint angle that is most compromised” “The engine of the car in humans is a lot more horizontal, it’s push-pull; this is the engine that really drives the car, and if you really (axially) stack the body, chances are you are not going to see that turn into more fluid movement” “If I’m doing a little too much sagittal lifting, the movement is too much about the bar and the bar path, and the athlete has to mechanically adapt around that load” “I’ve been having my guys do Olympic lifts, pretty much all off the forefoot” “The bread and butter should not be the pure sagittal...

Today’s episode features performance coach, author, and speaker, Brett Bartholomew.  Brett is the founder of “Art of Coaching™”, which works with corporations in the financial and tech sector, medical professionals, military, as well as professional sporting organizations to enhance their leadership ability through improved communication and understanding of human behavior.  Brett is the author of the best-selling book “Conscious Coaching”, and has spoken worldwide on performance and communication topics.  Brett has served as a performance coach for a diverse range of athletes, ranging from youth to Olympians, those in nearly every professional sport, as well as those in the U.S. Special Forces and Fortune 500 companies. Coaching is a rapidly evolving field.  Strength coaches must grow in a multi-disciplinary manner on a variety of levels to stay competitive and serve athletes better.  Sport skill coaches cannot simply use the same rigid cues and drill sets and methods that their coach used on them.  Rather, a thorough understanding of human learning and psychology, a more holistic model must be found to facilitate the optimal technical and tactical development of the athlete. Brett Bartholomew has evolved greatly in his time as a coach, and his diverse coaching background has given him the means to see a large problem in the field: A lack of education, skills, and emphasis in general on communication and understanding of human behavior.  Being a better communicator means acquiring better buy-in, more effort, and more enjoyment on the part of those we are coaching, and there are a lot of means by which we can improve in this arena as coaches.  On today’s show, Brett talks about why communication has been under-emphasized in coaching (despite its importance) how improving in this area can improve athlete outputs, as well as practices and exercises that coaches can utilize to improve their own leadership and communication abilities. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 3:30 Key moments in Brett’s evolution as a coach, and his drive towards an emphasis on communication in learning 11:45 Why communication is under-emphasized in most coach education programs, and why coaches are often blind to their own coaching communication abilities 20:40 Concrete outcomes of better communication on the level of the coach and athlete 26:10 How improving one’s communication can help one’s evolution as a coach and leader 38:00 Impression management in life, as well as in the coaching profession 44:10 Types of activities that can make a coach better in a chaotic environment “Most leaders at companies at high level organizations are making decisions with less than 70% of the information that they need” “Athletes are people first… you have to show varying levels of yourself, building buy in requires you to get on the level of other people” “Why do we think we are so good at communication when so few people get evaluated (in communication)” “We think that just because we value getting information a certain way, that other people value that way as well” “When the foundation of coaching is communicating with others, and knowing how to translate literally and metaphorically what you mean to broader audience, and you can’t do that, something has gone wrong” “You need to be able to tune your message into different frequencies” “If you are a better communicator, you are going to get more out of people” “Success with high performance environments is not just about managing an athlete’s training, it’s about managing the athlete themselves, and their environment” “There’s 5-6 forms of various impression management tactics people use, and once you know them,