Les Spellman is a Strength & Conditioning, Performance & Speed Development expert. He is also owner of Spellman Performance, a company that helps athletes from all levels and areas of sport achieve their goals. He works with USA Rugby, USC Lacrosse & various NFL players. He also runs one of the most successful NFL Combine training & preparatory programs in the United States.

Topics:

Multi-tasking, attention issues & coaching, coaching life vs. ‘normal’ life, online strength vs. speed programming, the traditional views of speed training & technique across sports, gimmick models vs. research models, developing speed with young athletes vs. elite athletes, the importance of postures & mechanics in acceleration, the relationship between mechanics & speed progressions, the unique approach needed to develop acceleration and speed in team & non-track sports, acceleration vs. max velocity in non-track sports, working with multi-sport athletes, loading parameters & program design in speed training, cueing & teaching speed workouts, communicating cues with athletes, strength training with youth athletes & the contrast to speed development, long term strength progressions, LTAD & PHV in youth training and much, much more.

In this episode of EvelChat, Derek discusses the Bondarchuk Training System; principles, advantages, myths and common questions.

Topics include:

Meeting Dr. B, advantages to using the system, peaking, individualization and long term rate of improvement, wave loading volume & intensity, exercise classification, planning based upon an individual's reaction to a stimulus load, specific reactions to training, 'Block periodization', density, max Strength loads within the system

In this episode of EvelChat, Stu McMillan returns for his 2nd discussion with Derek, getting deep into a number of important issues around coaching & training such as the direction of current coaching methods and the place of sport science in coaching practice. Other topics include:

Embracing technology, understanding and managing component parts and their interactions, Bondarchuk and Polarized training and their benefits in terms of managing variables and component parts, the dangers of too many variables / inputs in a training program & making assumptions based upon individual constituent responses. Our understanding about the body and respecting the complexity of it, outsourced, siloed & recipe thinking vs. independent ideas in coaching practice, the quantification of neural load, fluctuating vs. stable loading to achieve adaptation, hormetic vs. Kurtosis types of loading, defining neural load: 6x200m 92% (6), 4x300m 90% (5), 6x200m 85% (4), 150m, 200m, 250m, 200m, 150m 87% (5)

In this episode of EvelChat, Derek discusses the different levels or classifications of coaching and offers a new definition and criteria set for evaluating development coaches.

Topics include:

Traditional views on evaluating coaching, physical preparation as a coaching standard independent of results, development vs. High Performance vs. Elite coaching: a continuum, why development coaching is, in some ways, more difficult than elite coaching and vice-versa, success, injury history and retention of trainability as clear definitions and standards for evaluating developmental coaching, developmental coaching as a specialized form of coaching.

In this episode, Derek and Stu discuss:

Jazz, entrainment & the crossover to rhythm & sport performance

Why music isn’t wallpaper

Hifi, active listening & the similarities to expert analysis & coaching

“Watching” vs. “examining” in coaching

The danger of over-analysis

Mastery as ‘simplicity on the other side of complexity’

The problem of reductionism vs. amalgamation in study & coaching practice

Matt Jordan's First Principles of Periodization

‘Lymbic Friction’ Stu’s plan for self-obliteration

Self-reflection and motivations for coaching

Communication & context in coaching education

The ALTIS Endurance Course

“Movement Expression Quality” & a universal term for speed

Speed as both an “Energetically Determined Conditioning Ability” and an “Information Oriented Coordinative Skill”

Enjoy!

In this 2nd EvelChat episode, Derek discusses:

· Derek’s style of presenting

· How the name EvelChat came about

· Derek’s measuring up to his mentors (it isn’t pretty)

· Derek’s experience and transparency

· Goals of the podcast

· The problem with coach development and education

· Developmental vs. High Performance vs. Elite coaching

· Terminology

· Interpreting coaching and research data and studies.

· Confusion by Complexity and Pseudo-Expertism for sale

· Derek’s 6 steps to financial freedom

· Derek’s three questions every coach must ask themselves to avoid BS

· Where to find good material / education (including the Holy Grail of written sport science material).

Welcome to EveltrakSport.com's new coaching podcast, EvelChat! In this first episode of EvelChat, Derek sits down for a one to one talk with Dr. Scott Samlan. Dr. Samlan is an emergency room physician and CEO of North West Indiana ER & Hospital. There he has been one of the front-line workers in the fight against Covid-19 for the past 6 months.

Before that however, for 15 years he was an ER physician and Regional Director for a number of inner-city hospitals in Chicago, dealing with some of the hairiest, most professionally challenging experiences a doctor can face.

Derek and Scott discuss a number of issues around ER medicine and the crossover to coaching, including: what it's like to be an ER doctor and NW Indiana Hospital's unique approach to patient care, COVID-19, the second time they met, working within a bureaucracy, the personality types that get attracted to ER medicine (and coaching), high-stress management and the impact such "lifestyle" work has on their families.