Just Fly Performance Podcast

More show notes at https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-346/

Today’s guest is Richard Aceves.  Richard is an innovative movement specialist with a diverse athletic background.  After a mountaineering near death experience at an early age, he worked his way back to health and training capacity, eventually working towards becoming an elite powerlifter, professional GRID athlete, and has experience in a variety of strength and movement practices.  Richard is a coach, mentor, education and pioneer in the world of movement in context of the human experience. 

There are always going to be pendulum swings in any profession, and sport performance is no exception.  On the level of conditioning, success in sport is more about skill, tactics, speed, confidence than the adaptation acquired from grinding out tough conditioning sessions.  At the same time, there is a mental, physical and emotional gold that can be found, when the body is pushed to its limits.  Using physical exploration and stressors with purpose can provide a far fuller and more rewarding experience to each individual, allowing them to level up in new ways that go beyond sport, into life itself. 

On today’s podcast, Richard covers his near-death experience and injury that kickstarted his journey into the inner aspects of human performance.  Throughout the episode, Richard covers the physical, mention and emotional aspects of training, and how training can be modulated to address each of these important elements of both athletic ability, and our human experience.  Richard goes into his warmup process, and breaks down the dynamics of a “good” and “poor” conditioning session, and how to better facilitate the conditioning process.  Being able to get into the “present-minded” state is one of the most important elements in both training, and in life, and Richard goes into this concept heavily in this episode.

Today’s episode is brought to you by Strength Coach Pro and 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-345/

Today’s guest is Nick DiMarco.  Nick has been the director of sports performance at Elon University since 2018, and is a leader in the realms of high-performance ideology.  He is both a former professional athlete (NY Jets and Baltimore Ravens outside linebacker in 2014), and has a Ph.D in Health and Human Performance.  In addition to being well versed in the intuitive aspects of athleticism, Nick is skilled at applying logical models to a high-performance training environment.  He has been a guest on multiple episodes of this podcast, speaking on the physical preparation process with a focus on American football.

In the preparation of an athlete, all roads must ultimately lead towards the specificity, chaos and decision making of the sport itself.  The days of putting outputs on a pedestal (such as a squat max or “canned” SAQ score), are still with us, but integrative coaches are seeing the higher-links within the total training equation, and the win-loss column.  Ultimately, a good sports performance program never loses sight of the ultimate goal, which is to prepare players towards their sport as well as possible.  If you caught the recent episode with strength coach, turned football coach Michael Zweifel, this message likely hits on an even deeper level.

On today’s show, Nick gives an overview on the Elon football team’s performance over the last few years, and the integrative factors that contributed to their recent success and low injury rates.  He gives his evolving take on the important elements to cover in preparing players for the speed and movement demands of the game of football, including acceleration, maximal velocity and agility/change of direction.  In this episode, Nick goes in depth on his weekly speed and strength training format, talks about the metrics he measures, gives his take on deceleration training, and much more.  Nick’s ideas are both cutting-edge, and incredibly pragmatic, useful for any sports performance coach.

Today’s episode is brought to you by Strength Coach Pro (strengthcoachpro.com) and 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-344/

Today’s podcast features Henk Kraaijenhof.  Henk has several decades of experience as a performance coach in a broad array of sports.  His coaching credentials include working track athletes such as Nelli Cooman (former 60m dash world record holder), Merlene Ottey, and Troy Douglas as well as elite team sport competitors. His specialties are physical and mental coaching, stress and stress management, technology, and the methodology or training.  In addition to world-level performance, Henk’s coaching has also bred longevity, as Ottey and Douglas ran world class times in their 40’s.

In the current coaching age, it’s easy to think that because we are doing “new” looking drills, have increased our data collection, and have created various technical models of sport skill, we have a massive edge on what athletes were doing 50 years ago.  At the same time, general trends in injury rates and performance markers should have us thinking twice (for example, Bob Hayes running 9.99s in the 100m in 1964 on a chewed up cinder track).  At the end of the day, it is more “core” elements of training philosophy that stand the test of time, and help us to better understand the needs of the athlete in front of us.

On today’s show, Henk digs into speed training through the decades, and how many perceived “new school” elements, are actually much older than we think they are.  He talks about how he approaches “technical models” of sport skill (sprinting specifically), coaching the current generation of athletes, and where our modern world is heading in general on the level of technology.  He talks about the skill of patience in our current coaching environment, and shares some key philosophical ideas on the nature of coaching track and team sport athletes, and what we can learn from nature itself.  Finally, Henk gives his views on his own current technology use in his coaching role.

Today’s episode is brought to you by Strength Coach Pro (strengthcoachpro.com) and 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-343/

Today’s podcast features movement focused strength and performance coach Julien Pineau.  Julien is the founder of Strongfit, which started as a gym, and is now a full educational program for coaches and fitness/movement enthusiasts.  Sports have been a part of Julien’s life since he was young, and he has athletic backgrounds in a variety of areas from competitive swimming, to mixed martial arts, strongman, and more.

In 1993, Julien began his coaching career as a conditioning and grappling coach for the MMA gym where he trained and in 2008, he opened his own gym that focuses on strongman training. Julien has a fascinating ability to visualize and correct proper human movement patterns, and has worked with athletes from a wide variety of disciplines.  He is a man on a journey inward as much as he is outward.

The current world of training seems to exist on a level of “exercise proliferation” much more than it does digging into the main principles of human performance and adaptation.  Coaches often times have their own favorite exercises and drills, and have athletes perform them to “technical perfection”, citing the ability to hit particular positions as a marker for program success.

On today’s podcast, Julien Pineau goes into the fallacy of training athletes based on one’s preferred exercise selection, or technical positions, while rather viewing training on the level of the “human first”.  Julien views training on the level of the entire athlete, and has exercise principles starting with the “inner most” human mechanisms.  He gets into his ideas on internal and external torque chains extensively through this show, and describes how to fit muscle tensioning patterns to the needs of athletes in the realms of speed, strength and injury prevention.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, 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

More show notes at https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-342/

Today’s podcast features Seth Lintz, a pitching performance coach, based out of Scottsdale, Arizona.  Seth was a second-round pick in the 2008 MLB draft, carrying a maximal fastball speed of 104mph.  Known as the “Pitching Doctor” on his social media accounts, Seth has trained over a dozen individuals to break the 100mph barrier in the past 2 years, using a progressive training system that combines a priority on neuro-muscular efficiency with intuitive motor learning concepts.

Of all the high velocity activities humans can do, throwing a ball at high speed is the “fastest”, and is a truly special skill worth studying.  Within a high-speed throw comes critical use of elasticity, explosiveness, levers, and fine-tuned coordination of one’s movement options.  Seth is a coach who has a very high-level, innate feel for all of the factors it takes for a human being to achieve extreme throwing velocities, connecting elements of physical performance with skill acquisition, while integrating the all-important role of the mind.

On the podcast today, Seth shares details from his early immersion in throwing mechanics, gives his take on the mental elements and kinesthetic, feeling-based elements of throw training.  On the training end, he talks about the ability to “surge” and change speeds within a movement, the use of different training speeds, from super slow to over-speed, and developmental aspects of throwing with different weights and objects.  Within the show, many connections are made to sprinting and human locomotion, and this is an episode that coaches from baseball to track, and in the spaces in-between, can find helpful in their process.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, 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

More show notes at https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-341/

Today’s podcast features strength coach, Zach Even Esh.  Zach is the founder of the Underground Strength Gym, and has been a leading figure in creative and adaptive strength training means.  He is also the host of the Strong Life podcast and the creator of many educational resources in the realm of human strength and performance.

As the world moves forward, the world of training has become an interesting place, accelerated by the changing club sport scene, technological advances, social media, and more.  At the same time, the actual human being performing the training hasn’t changed, and human beings have far more nuances to them than simply being based on the same concepts that a machine, such as a car, does.  In many ways, human beings are being trained less and less like actual humans, and more as machines.  Cones and ladders have replaced playing basketball or soccer.  “Speed Training” has replaced running track, playing other sports, or racing friends on the playground.  This isn’t to say that our collective intelligence hasn’t created a substantial leap forward in understanding training frameworks, but at the same time, increased intelligence doesn’t automatically equal understanding how to create the richest possible environment for an athlete.

On the show today, Zach speaks on the importance of imperfect, and chaotic elements in training.  We talk about how these elements are not just important with respect to the chaos of sport, but also in the level of how we are meant to adapt to training in general as human beings.  He talks on the power of a nature-based training system, his menu-based training days, as well as what we can learn from training that “breaks the rules” or would be thought to create “sub-optimal” adaptations.  Finally, Zach hits on the important elements of community in the world of sport, and the modern plague of business that has enveloped the schedules of kids, as well as society in general.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, 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

More show notes at https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-340/

Today’s podcast features coach Michael Zweifel.  Michael is the special teams coordinator, defensive backs coach and co-defensive coordinator for the UW-La Crosse football team.  He is the former owner of the “Building Better Athletes” performance center in Dubuque, Iowa.  Michael 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”.  Michael is a multi-time appearing guest on the Just Fly Performance Podcast, speaking on elements of sport movement and skill, ecological dynamics and more.

It is interesting to consider our current format of sports performance training (strength coaching sessions in the weight room, sport coaching on the field, and a substantial degree of separation between the two), and if our current model will be the same one seen in 20 or 50 years in training.  Michael has always been in both the strength and skill side of athletic performance, but has recently moved to a skill-side only element, in his move to football coaching at The University of Wisconsin, LaCrosse.

For the show today, Michael talks a bit about what led him to close down his private-sector sports performance business, and move into only football-coaching.  He’ll chat on the sport movement and ecological dynamics principles that he took with him into that football coaching job, and his vision for the strength program that would fit within his sport coaching role that is quite different than the norm in college sports.  We’ll also chat on maximizing the transfer in speed work for sport, and the chaotic nature of adaptation and performance in sport, versus a more linear sequencing in traditional S&C settings.  This show is one that will stretch our thinking regarding a lot of current beliefs and practices, and makes for a great conversation in the high-performance dynamic of sport.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster.com, 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

More show notes at https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-339/

Today’s episode features strength and performance coach DJ Murakami.  DJ has over 15 years of experience in the coaching realm, and has a wide history of movement practice which includes work in bodybuilding, Olympic lifting, rock lifting, movement culture (such as Ido Portal), rock climbing and more.  DJ has created training courses such as Chi Torque, the Predator Protocol, and others, and mentors coaches and fitness enthusiasts through his Human Strong training organization.

In today’s strength and fitness world, it’s almost easier to tell individuals the things they shouldn’t do than what they should.  Given all of the existing systems in strength and performance training, we can create excessive and robotic training programs that take us far from the core of our humanity, and therefore our potential to enjoy, connect with, and adapt to the work we are doing.

DJ Murakami is a coach who has studied a massive number of systems and methods, as well as having trained, himself, in a large variety of movement and strength expressions.  Through it all, DJ has acquired knowledge on how to make training as effective as possible for each individual without over complicating and over-coaching the process.

On the podcast today, he shares his athletic and coaching background, and then goes into how his coaching has evolved into what it is today: a system that prioritizes the “quest” of those he is working with, within each session.

He also shares his knowledge of the internal and external muscle torque system (created by Julien Pineau) which can not only simplify the way we look at exercise selection, and the purpose of various movements, but also gives us an effective way to help athletes and individuals embody and understand muscle tensioning in the scope of their athleticism.  DJ is a wise coach who walks his talk on a high level in addition to his powerful training insights.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster.com, 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: https://justflypinepollen.com

More show notes at https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-338/

Today’s episode features Kyle Waugh.  Kyle is the owner of Waugh Personal Training and hosts the podcast “Waughfit Radio”.  He started in fitness and rehab as a track and cross-country athlete and transitioned in his early 20s to a gym rat riddled with injuries.  Kyle worked through his injuries, and after being told to never lift again and get surgery, he is now robust and pain free through the process of good training and movement.  Kyle is a holistic movement and fitness specialist focused on optimizing the human experience. He looks to bridge the worlds of physical therapy and fitness together and get people living their best life, and is certified in both strength and conditioning and as a physical therapy assistant.

We live in a world that is absolutely loaded with information.  If you have an athletic performance need, or a pain/injury issue, you can instantly get hundreds of articles and many experts telling you what you should or shouldn’t do to improve.  Based on the nature of information and marketing, most of us tend to be presented with more bells, whistles, and overall complexity than what we truly need to reach our next level in training or rehab.  Wisdom is gained through personal experience, and Kyle has achieved that in spades, overcoming physical pain that would wake him up throughout the night, to becoming strong healthy and robust, while learning from some of the greatest minds and systems in the industry.

On today’s podcast, Kyle goes through his athletic background, and how he got into, and out of pain in his own training.  He’ll go through his own common-sense approach to overcoming movement limitations and how we need to “earn our complexity” in training and exercise.  He’ll also cover the important idea of being “nocebo’ed”, or being told things are wrong with us may not be true, or matter in the grand scheme of our recovery, but if we believe it, can limit our progress.  Later in the show Kyle gets into his favorite progressions and exercises in the scope of getting strong, while limiting negative adaptations, and how he moves through the ranks of movement intensity without getting overly complex.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster.com, 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

More show notes at https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-337/

Today’s episode features Dan Back.  Dan is the founder of “Jump Science”, as well as the creator of the popular “Speed.Science0” page on Instagram.  Dan coaches at Xceleration sports performance in Austin, Texas.  He works with team sport athletes, as well as “pure output” sports, such as track and field, and dunk training.  Dan reached an elite level in his own vertical jump and dunking ability, and has been helping athletes run faster, jump higher and improve overall physical performance for well over a decade.  I first met Dan in my own time at Wisconsin, LaCrosse, where I was working on my master’s degree in applied sport sciences.

One element of human outputs (sprinting, jumping, throwing, etc.) that I’ve found fundamental over the years is the idea of one’s strength/structure determining their technique they use.  I found very quickly in my early track and field, as well as team sport ventures in jump and sprint technique, that getting an athlete to exhibit the technique you were asking for to surpass their old personal best almost never happened.  Athletes would generally be using a technique that amplified their physical strengths and structure, and if you asked for a technique that took them away from that, performance would inevitably decline.  At the same time, many coaches will approach sporting skills without regard to pre-existing strengths/structure, and that sport technique is a singular factor that relies only on a mental “computer program”.

On today’s show, Dan gives his perspective on how athletes strengths (or weaknesses) show up in their sprinting technique, and how sprint technique will differ from one athlete to another as such.  He’ll go in depth on building elasticity, plyometrics, building up an athlete’s vertical force capacities, give his take on sprint drills, and much more.  Dan has a practical style, where his experimentation is backed by data, and results.  This show is a deep dive, not just into important principles of performance, but also practical nuts and bolts on how to get more out of one’s athleticism on a high level.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster.com, 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