Just Fly Performance Podcast

More show notes at https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-366/

Today’s podcast features USA Football senior manager of education and training, Andy Ryland.  Andy has been with USA Football since 2010, has consulted with programs at every level of competition, and is widely recognized as a foremost expert on developing the fundamentals necessary for a successful shoulder tackle, as well as the developmental, and skill building process for athletes. He previously appeared on episode 170 speaking on a “humans first”, “athletes second”, “specialists third” approach to athlete development.

In the process of developing athletes, it is easy to compartmentalize training components, ultimately to a fault in the overall process.  If we are working in a sport or skill building capacity with athletes, we should have a basic understanding of their physical capacities and capabilities, as well as how training adaptation and specificity work.  If we are working on strength and more base level movement components with athletes, we should have a handle on their needed skills and tactics on the field.  Ultimately, the more situations we can coach in, the more ages, and sports we work with, the better our overall intuition gets on the process of teaching skills, and guiding athletes to their highest potential.

Andy Ryland has a deep understanding the developmental process that players need to succeed in their sport.  On today’s episode, Andy digs into key points on the art of athletic skill building.  A primary part of this is how he runs the “whole-part-whole” system, which can be adapted to more global, or strength based skills.  Andy discussing how to integrate “prescriptive extra’s”, or “work-on’s”, as well as micro skill development in sport and S&C.  He also covers key aspects of improving agility, teaching concepts in athletics, creativity in coaching,

Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs and Exogen wearable resistance gear.

For 15% off of Exogen Wearable resistance, head to lilateam.com and use code: jfs2023 at checkout.

For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly.

To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com.

More show notes at https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-365

Today’s podcast features track and S&C coach, Matt McInnes-Watson.  Matt is the owner of Plus Plyos, an online coaching platform that provides plyometric training programs, courses, and systems for coaches and athletes. His initial coaching experience was as a track coach for jumpers and multi-eventers, which led him to work as the lead S&C coach for Itchen College Basketball in the UK.  Matt teaches and delivers seminars around Europe and the US, while working with athletes from football to figure skating, using his expertise in jumping and plyometrics to enhance performance.

Plyometrics, in the general sense, are as old as time.  How we have classified them and integrated them into training for sport started with track and field, and now is branching out more and more into team sport.  Within both track and team sport, we have aspects of specificity, rhythms, coordination and integration that we can consider to really hone in our plyometric efforts on the ultimate progress of the athlete.

For today’s podcast, Matt covers his background as a soccer player, and the role of swing leg dynamics in kicking, and in its link to jumping.  We talk about various plyometric combinations from the perspective of direction, height and distance, and how this factors into common exercises like bounding and hurdle hops.  Extensive plyometrics in team sports, especially in season, is a debated topic we cover, and we finish with Matt talking about the origin and implementation of the “deep tier”, or full range plyometric exercises.

Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs and Exogen wearable resistance gear.

For 15% off of Exogen Wearable resistance, head to lilateam.com and use code: jfs2023 at checkout.

For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly.

To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com.

More show notes at https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-364/

Today’s podcast features guest Mark Hoover.  Mark works for SimpliFaster in a coaching and technical consulting capacity and is the Director of Athletic Performance at Metrolina Christian Academy in Indian Trail, North Carolina. Coach Hoover started his career coaching football at both the high school and NCAA levels. After spending nearly 20 years in the dual role of sport coach/strength coach (including 11 years as a head football coach), he made the transition to full-time strength and conditioning in 2015.

Mark is a growth minded coach who is continually evolving his training process.  Mark is continually evaluating his program based bettering one’s abilities on the field of play.  The qualities it takes to be a weight room warrior are not the same as the fundamental speed and decision-making elements happening in the game itself.

As an individual who was better in the weight room than he was in sport, Mark has dedicated his own process in a different direction for those athletes he works with, doing what he can to ensure that they are adept movers, in addition to being strong and robust.

On today’s podcast, Mark talks about his approach to building game speed, rehearsed vs. problem solving agility movements, the role of basketball in overall movement development, and we finish with a brief chat on the role of the 1x20 strength system in Mark’s program.  This show delved into some really important concepts of athlete development, and although it primarily discusses work done with high school athletes, the concepts are helpful for those on all levels of performance.

Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs and Sprint Acceleration Essentials.

For 15% off of Exogen Wearable resistance, follow this link to lilateam.com or use code: jfs2023 at checkout.

For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly.

To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com.

To learn more about the Sprint Acceleration Essentials course, head to justflysports.thinkific.com

More show notes at https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-363/

Today’s podcast features track and speed coach, Chris Korfist.  Chris has been a high school coach in track and football for 3 decades with close to 100 All-State athletes.  He is currently the sprints coach at Homewood Flossmoor high school in Chicago, owns the Slow Guy Speed School”, and has consulted with professional sports teams all over the world, including the NFL, MLB, NBA, and Rugby League.  Chris has been a favorite podcast guest on this show and is constantly evolving and innovating his methods.

Sprinting is a simple, yet complex topic, and one that requires a continual analysis of mechanics, exercises and training models.  There are many ways to train athletes, and with this in mind, it’s important to understand the “first principles” of any training system.  With many first principles taken from the brilliance of the “DB Hammer” training ideals, Chris has steadily evolved his training system, year over year, to the place where it is today.

This past season, Homewood Flossmoor won the Illinois state track championship, and won the 4x100m and 4x200m dashes on their way to the title.  Chris’s adjustments to his speed training models worked well, with some athletes chopping off a second or more off of their 200m times from the previous year.

On the podcast today, Chris starts by talking about his mental training approach, and some unique mental training elements of this past year’s team.  He then gets into the main changes he utilized this past training year, including reducing the speed endurance component of the work, and replacing it with some potent “AN2” bracket (30-40 second) specialized training for the sprints.  Chris also goes into how he would specialize the exercises for sprinters of different archetypes (stompers vs. slicers) and much more.

Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs and Exogen wearable resistance gear.

For 15% off of Exogen Wearable resistance, head to lilateam.com and use code: jfs2023 at checkout.

For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly.

To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com.

More show notes at https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-362/

Today’s podcast features strength coach Kevin Hollabaugh. Kevin is a strength coach working at the New York Yankees Player Development Program, and is also the owner of Pro Force Sports Performance in Cincinnati, Ohio.  He has been working in strength and conditioning since 2009. He previously served as the director of baseball player development, and also currently an adjunct professor at the University of Cincinnati. 

Pro Force SP happens to be only a few miles from my home in Cincinnati, and I’ve enjoyed spending time there to play ultimate frisbee games with pro baseball players, as well as observing the data-points and training process on the 1080 Sprint with Kevin and his staff.

It's important to check your training process with some level of numbers and quantitative feedback to go with the qualitative process of coaching.  Amongst other training tools, Kevin has two unique machines that allow him to pin data to athletic movements, on the level of the Proteus motion and 1080 Sprint.  This show isn’t so much about those technologies and data points specifically as it is how Kevin has used the data to refine his speed and rotational training methods over time, how he now looks at training given those data-sets, and how it has evolved his programming.   

In this episode, we’ll also talk about the Ultimate frisbee game variation that ProForce athletes love so much (as well as myself), balancing force vs. elasticity in swinging/throwing and sprinting, training weaknesses vs. strengths, and more. 

Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs and Exogen wearable resistance gear.

For 15% off of Exogen Wearable resistance, head to lilateam.com and use code: jfs2023 at checkout.

For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly.

To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com.

Today’s podcast features David Weck and Chris Chamberlin of WeckMethod. 

David Weck is biomechanist, and the creator of a number of inventions that work key characteristics of human locomotion and movement, including the BOSU Balance Trainer.  David started the WeckMethod as a project to inspire and educate individuals on the importance of optimizing's human balance through locomotion as he works to make “Every Step Stronger” for everyone.

Chris Chamberlin is the Head Coach and Director of Education for the WeckMethod. Chris has over 15 years of coaching experience and a lifetime of personal practice in movement efficiency that has earned him recognition as a leader in innovative thought in the fitness industry.  Chris has both a creative approach to multi-planar training, as well as impressive “raw” strength levels in the traditional lifts.

If you browse the internet, you will easily see a lot of “functional” training exercises, designed to catch eyeballs, that build neither strength, nor functional ability.  The key in the effectiveness of any movement beyond a basic strength exercise is in its patterning, and closeness to the key characteristics of human locomotion, swinging and throwing.  When you find movements that allow your body to truly feel more of what it uses in these core human patterns, you can then “port” that movement into the scope of your core strength and speed training.

At the end of the day, whether you like the BOSU Ball or not, David’s keen observations of the core components of human movement have played a substantial role for me in how I observe the twisting, side bending and general locomotive mechanisms of the human being.  Chris Chamberlin has taken David’s observation and creativity, and put his lens of practicality onto the total process. 

On the show today, David and Chris talk about how the WeckMethod helped Chris’s big-lifts to get even better, tool usage as an essential aspect of human movement, primal movement patterning in respect to training volume, bending and twisting integration into more traditional strength methods, concepts on the foot, and much more. 

Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs.

For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly.

To learn more about the Sprint Acceleration Essentials course, head to https://justflysports.thinkific.com/courses/sprint-acceleration-essentials

More show notes at https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-360/

Today’s podcast features strength and performance coach, Ethan Reeve. Ethan is the director of strength and performance for MondoSport USA.  He is the former president of the CSCCa, and has 44 years of experience coaching in college and high school ranks.  In addition to decades in NCAA athletic performance, Reeve was a SEC champion wrestler, and was the head coach of the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga wrestling program from 1985 to 1990, achieving 5 Southern Conference titles in 6 years.

In the process of strength and conditioning/physical preparation; we can never get too far from the process of physical education and routinely observing the core qualities of athleticism

An interesting element in sport performance, and sport coaching in the past decades is that, compared to the pre-2000’s era, there are less coaches now who have physical education backgrounds.  Perhaps, this is because, as the industry moves forward, physical preparation/athletic performance has swung more towards the quantitative aspects, than the “art” form of the process.  Maybe it’s that most strength and conditioning jobs are working with high school or college athletes who are “further” along in their athletic development.  Maybe it’s how the role and funding for physical education has been devalued over time.  Despite all of this, as I get older, the more and more I realize just how much physical education has to offer, not only young athletes, but also the thought process in working with more established ones, and I believe physical education, and multi-sport coaching principles (such as wrestling in the scope of today’s show) should be far more common-place in athletic development conversations.

On today’s podcast, Ethan talks about his blend of the principles found in physical education and wrestling, and how these funnel into a sports performance training session.  He speaks on how he views physical training through the eyes of a wrestling coach (of which he was a very successful one) and the learning environment he looks to set up in his training sessions.  We discuss “belly up” speed training, key ground-based training movements, and other important principles of building a total athletic development program.

Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs and Exogen wearable resistance gear.

For 15% off of Exogen Wearable resistance, follow this link to lilateam.com or use code: jfs2023 at checkout.

For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly.

To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com.

More show notes at https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-359/

Today’s podcast features coach, writer and educator, Dan John.  Dan is a best-selling author in the field of strength training and fitness, with his most recent work being the “Easy Strength Omni-Book”.  He is known for his ability to transfer complex material into actionable wisdom, has been a many-time guest on the show, and is one of my single greatest influences in the way that I see the process of coaching and training.  As I grow older, coach more populations, and see the field evolve, I view and value Dan’s process and wisdom in new and even more meaningful ways.

One of those tenants of Dan that means more in each coming year is that, at its core, our training and movements are simple… it’s just the years and years of consistent, dedicated immersion in training to fully bring out that simplicity, that “trip up” many people.  So often, we get caught up in the hacks, the shortcuts, and the “3 tips for X” within the social-media fist-fight for eyeballs.

On today’s episode, Dan talks about a few important concepts that any coach or athlete needs to come back to over and over again in their process, including the power of “compression”, the power of less, and the power of withholding.  Dan speaks on this as it relates to cold track seasons (right before the 80 degree conference meet), and how it relates to the spark of coaching intuition that can happen in an environment deprived from one’s typical tools, and even how it can apply to our movement biomechanics.

Dan also gets into the nuts and bolts of “snapacity” (snap + capacity) that defines the core of athletic movement (elasticity and the work capacity to sustain it), and the related key muscle actions he calls “The 3 P’s”.   Throughout the talk, Dan highlights the simple and core principles that drive training progress over time, as well tying in concepts on philosophy and personal growth that transcend training itself.

Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, and LILA Exogen Wearable Resistance Training Gear.

For 15% off of Exogen Wearable resistance, go to lilateam.com and use code: jfs2023 at checkout.

For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly.

To try Pine Pollen for FREE (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com.

More show notes at https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-358/

Today’s podcast features Mark McLaughlin.  Mark is the founder of Performance Training Center, and currently works as a physical preparation/strength coach in the Lake Oswego school district. Mark has had a diverse sporting history as a youth, and has been active in the field of physical preparation since 1997. Mark has trained over 700 athletes at all competitive levels, from Olympic to grade school athletes, and has worked with organizations such as the NFL, MLB, NBA, NCAA universities, high schools, and youth sports.

The field of sports performance makes a lot of pendulum swings.  We go from over-conditioning athletes to denouncing conditioning.  From static stretching, to not stretching, to reconsidering stretching, to name a few.  In the process of the swings, we do trend upwards (such as saving athletes from over-conditioning based practices with poor motor learning tactics).  At the same time, I don’t believe we ask ourselves often enough if we are letting the pendulum swing too far.

What I’ve found is that for every rule that seems to be created, there are instantly going to be athletes, or entire training groups that break that rule.  The only way to understand it all, is to constantly be expanding your viewpoints.  We need to look at the broader mechanisms of biology, psychology, motor learning, and the long-term developmental principles of athletes to really gain wisdom in our guidance of athletes and individuals to their highest potential.

On today’s podcast, Mark talks about the polarity of his physical preparation process, on one end, giving the kids a dynamic pedagogical, free play-oriented training experience, and on the other, using technology to assess biological readiness markers and preparation levels for their sport.  Mark finishes the show speaking on aerobic readiness as a recovery marker for explosive sport training.  No matter where you are on the sport training spectrum, be it sport coaching, motor learning or purely physical development, there is a lot to be learned from Mark’s broad spectrum of knowledge in this episode.  This show connects physical preparation with a depth of true sports development

Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs.

For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly.

To try Pine Pollen for FREE (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com.

More show notes at https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-357/

Today’s podcast features podcaster, and educator, and physical preparation coach, Angus Bradley.  He coaches out of Sydney CBD, and co-hosts the Hyperformance podcast with his brother, Oscar.  Angus has a wide-spanning knowledge base from both in and outside of the strength and conditioning field, with a focus on inter-disciplinary over-arching principles.  He works with a diverse crowd from strongman to surfing and everything in between, has been a 2x previous guest on this podcast, and runs regular mentorships for strength coaches and personal trainers.

Part of the fun of running a podcast, and seeking education from a wide variety of coaches is the ability to create links and connections between different fields of thought.  When we can observe multiple training camps saying similar things about the gait cycle, squatting, or breathing, we can level up our total coaching and training perspective.

On today’s podcast, Angus talks about learning from fields outside of fitness, to become a better coach and overall student of life.  He also talks about links within the field of fitness, such as the positional and rhythmic relationships between Olympic lifting and sprinting.  A main talking point on today’s episode is Angus’s approach to training “early stance” in a physical development world where so much is devoted to training that ends up focusing more on “late stance” in the gym.  Angus shares his thoughts on how he approaches late stance type training, how he uses more “mid-stance” to train the knee, and also gives his thoughts on how good Crossfit boxes get a lot of trainees stronger than many strength coaches would often like to believe.

Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs and the Elastic Essentials Online Course.

For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly.

To try Pine Pollen for FREE (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com.

Find out more about the the online course, Elastic Essentials, by heading to justflysports.thinkific.com

For 15% off of Exogen Wearable resistance, go to lilateam.com and use code: jfs2023 at checkout.