Just Fly Performance Podcast

Scot Prohaska, a nationally recognized sports and executive performance consultant, discusses total athlete development and the six lanes of high performance. Topics covered include the importance of mental strength, bar speed monitoring units, leadership traits, teaching honor in sports, and the power of coaching in high performance.

In this episode, strength and athletic movement coach Austin Jochum discusses the importance of athlete experience and creativity in training. They explore athlete autonomy, decision making, and emotional growth, emphasizing their transferability to sports and life. The speaker also highlights the limitations of a weight room mindset and the need to prioritize movement training and mental toughness. Additionally, they discuss the benefits of exposing athletes to uncomfortable situations and the importance of sprinting fast in training. The chapter concludes with a focus on training approach, goal-setting, and injury prevention.

Today’s episode features biomechanics specialist and rehabilitation expert, David Grey.  David runs the Grey Injury Clinic and helps athletes with injury, pain, rehab, and performance.  David has learned under a great number of mentors, and is influenced greatly by the work of Gary Ward who is a 2x previous podcast guest and the creator of the “Anatomy in Motion” system.  David is also influenced by systems such as PRI and the martial arts. Through his diverse studies and experience, David is able to get athletes and clients out of pain who have previously been through months of traditional therapy with limited results.  He previously appeared on episode #160 of the podcast where he spoke on the link between pronation and using the glutes effectively. In training and rehab, we so often look to exercises that strengthen, before we put a priority on biomechanics and joint actions.  The problem is, that in treating pain, unless we fix the biomechanics, no matter how good the strength treatment was, the problem will eventually return.  We know that in performance training, we want to build a “base of technique” because the way our body forms from a myo-fascial perspective as a season of training unfolds is going to be based on our technique.  Bad technique can yield the result of muscles getting active and trained that shouldn’t, and other important muscle groups getting under-developed.  By training the right joint motions, and getting the feet to work properly, we take a huge step in getting athletes to reaching their highest potential. On the podcast today, David goes through a joint-based approach to working with those who have Achilles pain, and particularly, knee pain.  He gets into the necessary co-contractions needed to help stabilize the knee joint, and why calcaneus mobility is important for both Achilles tendon and knee tendon injury prevention.  We start out the talk with a chat on the feet, how barefoot training might not be all that it’s cracked up to be for some athletes, and the balance between pronation and supination of the foot in performance training.  All this and more is in the latest podcast. 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 The importance of supination in human movement and athletics, as well as why it is more important to think in terms of pronat-ing and supinat-ing rather than pronation and supination. 12:00 How sensation on the sole of the foot is essential for pronating properly and why simply walking around barefoot may not be truly helpful. 26:30 Supination, and its relationship between running, jumping and power in propulsion 36:00 Why joint motion should be the root of our efforts in injury prevention, rather than simply treating the tissue through strength-based exercises 45:30 Major biomechanical issues that show up with those athletes who have knee pain 50:00 The importance of stiffness, when called upon, in preventing knee pain 54:30 Using isometrics to assist co-contractions to help improve knee function 1:04.30 Thoughts on a joint based approach to knee pain “I would be much happier with you having a flat foot that can experience some pronation and supination, versus a person with a neutral foot who can experience neither” “People saying that “pronation is bad” is like saying “you shouldn’t bend your spine to the left” “A collapse and a pronation are two different things” “I don’t sell posture as a way to fix pain, I only relate to posture as a way to access movement” “(In regards to tendon pain) If we are always going to presume that the tendon is the problem, then we are always going to assume that strength is the answer… but the problem is not always the tendon”

Today’s episode features Phoenix Suns' head strength coach, Cory Schlesinger (and myself) answering questions on athletic performance training sent in from listeners.  Topics for this show ranged from programming based on athlete-autonomy, to isometrics, to foot training, as well as important questions on blending strength work into a level of high-performance play where sport skill development far super-cedes one’s physical strength development. Cory previously appeared on this show for episode #138 and is a popular speaker and podcast guest.  Cory’s creative, yet practical style is an “athlete-first” method that gets results and leaves athletes with not only a first-class physical training experience but also facilitates their ownership in the process. 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 4:50 The utilization of tumbling and wrestling means into athletes of various levels of development (college/amateur, up to pro) 22:40 What the “Sun Café” is, and how it deals with the power of autonomy 34:05 Cory’s favorite isometric exercises for athletes 44:10 Achilles tendon injury prevention and gait biomechanics 51:50 Using floating heel work to improve the connection from the foot to the hip 0:58 Progressing an athlete’s strength development in tandem with their skill development “You genetically gifted athletes who don’t need a lot of bar(bell) work, to be honest” “Certain people need experiences that are a new experience, or experiences that give them a lot of confidence” “Your grinders… what makes them confident? Squatting heavy weight, and you have got to give them that, but how do I expose them to things they are not good at to make their human capacities better?” “You leave breadcrumbs to where you think the athlete needs to go” “When I saw squat numbers go up, when I saw force place numbers go up… I did not see wins go up!” “I don’t care what squat pattern a kid does, I really don’t” “At Stanford, there was an environment where they got to pick the squat pattern, the extension pattern, whatever the meat and potatoes was that day” “There is nothing more intentful, than them getting to choose what they want to do… having that autonomy is going to drive more results than them getting to predict their own success” “Just because they do a between-the-legs dunk doesn’t make them a good athlete, that’s just one aspect of athleticism” “The biggest low hanging fruit to get work done for me, is isometrics” “My favorite (isometric) is a yielding isometric at the sporting angles that they create the most often” “One of my favorite movements to load up is safety bar split, with a Hatfield hold (with a floating heel)” “The one thing I do the most when identifying energy leaks, is super-heavy prowler pushes” “In isometrics, if you put them in a position for long enough, you are going to see where their energy leaks are” “The prowler was the original “floating heel squat”, if you do it right (without letting the heels mash down)” “That’s how most Achilles tears happen (in basketball), is that false step, right into that forward (drive)” About Cory Schlesinger @schlesstrength Cory Schlesinger is currently the head strength and conditioning coach at the Phoenix Suns.  He has over a decade of experience as a strength and conditioning coach, having spent the previous three seasons at Stanford University.  Cory also has experience working at UAB, and Santa Clara University.  Schlesinger also has experience as a coach at the Olympic Training Center and as a sports nutritionist for Major League Soccer’s San Jose Earthquakes. Cory has worked with NBA and NFL players as well as Olympic Games athletes. Schlesinger served an undergraduate internship at Wake...

Josh Hingst, head strength coach of the 2018 Superbowl Champion, Philadelphia Eagles, interviews Joel Smith on topics including the effectiveness of sprint drills in team sports, the influence of Darien on sprint mechanics and foot steering, perspectives on orthotics and minimalist footwear, incorporating isometric and oscillatory training, preventing hamstring injuries in football, and the importance of balancing heavy weights and resilience in strength training for athletes.

Today’s episode features personal trainer and human movement expert, Rocky Snyder.  Rocky is the owner of Rocky’s Fitness in Santa Cruz, California, and is an experienced personal trainer, as well as an accomplished surfer and snowboarder.  Rocky has taken an absolutely immense amount of continuing education in human performance and is the author of four books.  His most recent being “Return to Center” , which featured a unique integration of a joint-based model of training and movement coaching, combined with neurological assessment of effectiveness. “Return to Center” is the first training book in a very long time (outside of “Even with Your Shoes On” by Helen Hall that I read earlier this year), that I absolutely devoured (both books has heavy inspiration from Gary Ward, who has been a 2 time guest on this podcast, and developed the “Flow-Motion” model of tri-planar joint based analysis of human movement). When it comes to “functional training” we often think of things like working on balance boards, or perhaps in a more realistic world, things like single-leg training and lots of bodyweight gait-pattern style movements, like crawling and heavy carries.  Even in using these movements which are inherently more tied to human gait, they are often still performed under “manufactured” paradigms that take them outside of the scope of natural human movement and elasticity.  Rocky has an incredible command of human movement principles, and can describe how these principles are showing up (or not!) in any exercise done in the gym, which is really the core of what we might call functional training. For today’s podcast, Rocky tackles questions regarding his own joint-centered approach to training, as well as specifically how he looks at lunges and single-leg training in relation to the gait cycle, and how doing this optimally will improve joint health, VMO, and glute development, as well as athletic performance markers and injury reduction.  This was a show that is a real key-stone in being able to truly train athletes on an individual level. 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 8:10 Key aspects of Rocky’s journey of movement and learning about the human body 22:40 How Rocky assesses clients using a tri-planar and joint-centered approach 29:10 How Rocky uses lunges in all three planes to assess athletes 45:40 When inward knee travel becomes a problem to Rocky in athletic movement 56:10 How to observe athletes to determine if athletes have excessive medial knee travel in their general movements 59:10 How to train squatting under load with respect to the natural movement 1:03.10 Rocky’s take on bilateral to unilateral/functional work in a training program Quotes “When getting the body to move as joints are expected to move, amazing things can happen” “If we bring the body back into a more centrated place, the brain is going to allow a greater deal of force production” “If you’re not going to explore how the (frontal and transverse planes) move then it’s going to reduce your ability to produce force in the sagittal plane” “By knowing how the joints move in any exercise, it can tell the coach exactly what you are missing… the bottom line is that you should know how the body moves” “The knee, when it pronates, should be flexing and externally rotating… the knee joint itself is rotating towards the midline faster than the tibia… am I seeing that when someone is lunging, or are they keeping it over the second toe because they have been told that it shouldn’t drive inward” “A lunge is just an exaggeration of a walk, a gait pattern, that’s what a lunge should be” “(In a lunge) Is the pelvis rotating away from the back leg and towards the front leg”

Today’s episode features strength coach Christian Thibaudeau.  Christian has been involved in the business of training for the last 18 years, having worked with athletes from 28 different sports.  He is a prolific writer and presenter, having written four books, as well as presenting to top coaches and organizations all over the world. Christian is also the creator of the Neuro-typing system, which classifies athletes according to the neurotransmitters they seek out.  This system has the categories of 1A,1B,2A,2B and 3, and Christian has covered this topic extensively on this podcast, as well as many other shows. There are many intersections of the neuro-typing system, as well as other categories of individualization.  As discussed on my recent talk with Ross Jeffs, the “concentric”, “elastic” and “metabolic” sprinter types tend to fit with the 1A,1B and 2A neuro-types in regards to their strengths and optimal training regimen. One element of training that I’ve been considering a lot is optimal training splits for sprinting and jumping athletes, and reconciling 4-day training splits (or even 6-day) where there is an intensive CNS element, versus more of a “high-low” split that Charlie Francis made so popular. This new podcast with Christian digs into understanding how to give athletes their best training split by understanding the relationship of adrenaline to overtraining.  It also looks at things like muscle tone as how one can make a better assessment of an athlete, what training they may respond best to, as well as how to assess them on a daily and weekly basis, and make the best training adjustments.  Christian covers this, nutrition, child development and creativity, and much more on this information-packed show. 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. Timestamps and Main Points 6:25  Christian’s recent thoughts on child development 12:25  The importance of creativity in early age, and how to cultivate it in developmental stages 28:45 Overview and updates of the neurotyping system from a perspective of COMT, serotonin, adrenaline, and methylation 53:15 Muscle tone, neuro-types and training splits 1:17.55 The role of carbohydrates, cortisol, and adrenaline in training Quotes “Any type of blue light or screen time is the number one enemy to child development” “You will always have what I call grinders… they will never become the stars, and the stars are those that have that little extra something, and that comes from creativity” “That’s one trait of high acetylcholine individuals, they will be more creative” “Some people will break down adrenaline super-fast, and if they can do that, they can tolerate a lot more training stimulus.  That is why some people naturally can tolerate a boatload of volume” “COMT is the enzyme that breaks down adrenaline.  The one that is fast will break down adrenaline very quickly after release, on the other hand if I have someone with a slow variation of the COMT enzyme, when you release adrenaline it stays high forever” “The type 3 is very similar to the type 1a from a genetic perspective.  Both have poor methylation, both have slow COMT, they don’t clear out adrenaline fast” “Carbohydrates control adrenaline” “The 1B is only aggressive under high adrenaline… they will be super chill until it counts” “The 1B if he fails he will just try again.  The 2A, looking foolish is destructive, because what others think of him is super important” “Anxiety is nothing more than your brain firing too fast for you to control it” “That person (who has high muscle tone) always has high adrenaline.  To me that person has slow COMT, he doesn’t break down adrenaline fast” “9 times out of 10 what we call overtraining is a desensitization of the beta-adrenergic receptors”

Today’s episode features Feldenkrais practitioner and human movement specialist, Edward Yu.  Edward is a former triathlete, current martial arts enthusiast, and perennial student of Masters Li Xueyi and Ge Guoliang in the art of Bagua.  Edward has worked with members of the US Olympic Track Team as well as those in the Portuguese National Ballet.  Edward is also the author of “Slowing Down to Run Faster” the impetus of which came years after Edward quit running and discovered that conventional approaches to training are not always effective in turning people into better athletes.  Edward’s interest in how people learn and process information has led him to mix the disparate fields of sports, martial arts, dance, psychology, cognitive science, information theory, and political economy into both his teaching and writing. Learning about human movement and the acquisition of technique in sport skill has been an incredible, yet humbling journey for me.  After hearing cue after cue from coaches that never worked, I was always looking into how we actually process and acquire skills as human beings.  Two areas that I’ve dipped my toe into that I feel are vastly under-appreciated in sports performance are the martial arts, and then the world of movement through sensory awareness (such as the Feldenkrais method). Today’s podcast is all about exploring human movement and sport technique from a wider lens.  On the show, Edward and I cover many aspects that are particularly human when working on sport skills, such as over-trying, self-sabotage and motivational factors.  Edwards also gets into his ideas on our sensory and motor development has humans, how our skills as adults hinge on things we need to learn as children, and how understanding that can lead us into new territory when it comes to guiding athletes to their optimal technique. 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 6:25 Why people lose the joy of running and turn the action into a shuffle 13:25 The roots of “too much effort” in training and competition and how to combat it 21:55 How adult human beings self-sabotage their movements versus the purity of movements in children 34:40 How to look at motivation in context of our own movement practice, as well as learning to be easier on ourselves 43:10 How to improve one’s technique by learning to “slow down to run faster” 55:55 Ideas on exercises that can foster better learning in regards to running 1:08.25 How to use the slowing down method to gain awareness of the feet in running “If you don’t feel powerful (running), you aren’t going to enjoy it very much” “We have a culture that’s really heavy handed with using will power and discipline and pushing to try and get results” “I think if we look at the individual without looking at culture, and political economy, we are missing a lot.  You have to look at both together” “The self-sabotage in our culture has a lot to do with habits.  If you just removed (the chair (from our culture) you gain a lot of advantages” “If something is not learned in childhood, it is going to affect all more advanced/directed movement in the future.  If we don’t go back and try to learn those fundaments, they will not be as efficient as they could be in the future” “The potential for learning is not as vast (in animals versus for humans)” “To learn to fun faster, you need to know what it means to learn” “The way we are often coached is to try to imitate the ideal, but you can’t imitate what you don’t know in your own body” “The fundaments for learning appear from the time we exit the womb, to the time we are 6,7,8, and a lot of that happens on the ground.  It is very powerful to go on the ground,

Today’s episode features track and sports performance coach, Ross Jeffs.  Ross is a sprints, jumps and hurdles coach at the Aspire Academy in Doha, Qatar.  He formerly worked in the Netherlands as a sprints and jumps coach at Atletiek Trainingscentrum Rotterdam, and has also coached under the guidance of Jonas Dodoo within the Speedworks system.   Ross has also worked with a number of athletes from a range of sports including a grand slam tennis player, professional boxers, Olympic medallists from basketball and rugby sevens, and World Cup finalists in rugby.  Ross appeared on the podcast recently in episode 145. In the training of athletes, be it in track and field or team sports, not all athletes respond to the same stimulus in the same way.  Give 20 random athletes a diet of fast sprinting and heavy weightlifting, and some will respond amazingly well to it, others average, and some poorly.  The same thing could be said of a plyometric focused program, as well as other types of setups.  I first remember this idea of individualization in reading how the late Charlie Francis had mentioned some athletes liking heavy lifting, others plyometrics and bounding, while others responded well to the use of tempo training.  Since then, I’ve been able to dig into things like Christian Thibaudeau’s neurotyping system, as well as Ross Jeff’s “trainers vs. racers” ideas on designing programs for athletes based on how far or close they can get to their competitive best in a practice environment. Ross Jeffs is one of my favorite coaches and thinkers when it comes to training setups and organization to get the most out of athletes.  He is continually asking questions and getting outside the box in order to help coaches and athletes understand training, adaptation and peaking better.  Our conversation focus today is on sprinting, and how the differences of “concentric oriented”, “elastic oriented” or “metabolic oriented” are going to impact how these athletes are best trained and coached.  This episode is also incredibly valuable for team sport coaches, where there is guaranteed to be more diversity than in a single track and field event in the process of coaching. 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 3:20 An overview of Ross’s classifications of concentric, elastic and metabolic sprinters 18:15 How the different sprint types (concentric, elastic, metabolic) might fit with Christian Thibaudeau’s neurotyping system 26:00 The squatted element of how concentric runners tend to enjoy the weightroom, squatting, and are better at sprinting and accelerating with lower centers of mass 30:30 How to help concentric dominant athletes become better at their weakness, which is top-end velocity running 35:25 Unpacking the need for variety in rhythmic upright running in elastic runners 49:10 Strength training ideas in regards to elastic sprinters 53:40 Metabolic sprinters and stride length/frequency concepts 56:10 How big of a factor nature vs. nurture is in the different types of sprinters 1:00:10 Rules of thumb in training strengths versus weaknesses based on sprint type 1:03.00 Thoughts on sprint typing and working in team sports 1:06.25 If the ideas of “trainers” vs. “racers” fits into the sprint typing model at all Quotes “Concentric sprinters run fast because of their strong strength and power capabilities.  These are usually your 60m and 100m specialists.  They perform very well in countermovement jumps and have a deeper lowering phase” “Concentric sprinters prefer less lactic tempo running” “They like to do jumps which utilize long stretch shortening cycle mechanisms” “They also seem to respond well to full-range heay movement” “When we sprint and strike the ground,

Guest Boo Schexnayder, renowned strength coach, discusses training organization and variation. Topics include building a power development program, using 'trump cards' for max performance, and the importance of change and variety in training for injury prevention. Also explores differences in jump and plyometric training for track vs. team sport athletes, training distinctions for younger and older athletes, and the evolution of strength training throughout a season.