Just Fly Performance Podcast

More show notes at https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-336/

Today’s episode features Tony Holler.  Tony is the track coach at Plainfield North High School with 39 years of coaching experience in football, basketball, and track.  He is the originator of the “Feed the Cats” training system that has not only found immense popularity in the track and field world, but the team sport coaching world as well.  Tony is the co-director of the Track Football Consortium along with Chris Korfist, and has been a two-time prior guest on the podcast.  Tony’s ideas of a speed-based culture, and rank-record-publish are making large waves in the coaching world.

It's been said that “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”.  In the coaching world, the desire to be “well-prepared” for one’s sport can easily lead to an excessive amount of conditioning and overall training volume done too early in the season, creating ground for injuries to happen.  It’s extremely easy to just “do more”.  It takes wisdom and management of one’s coaching validation to start the journey of doing less.

On today’s show, Tony goes in detail on his evolution in his “Feed the Cats” coaching system, from the pre-2008 period where he had no electronic timing, to some of the worst workouts he had his athletes do before that critical year-2000 split where he removed things like tempo sprinting (the t-word) from his programming, and centered his program around being the best part of an athlete’s day.  We’ll get into how Feed the Cats is working into team sport training and “conditioning”, and then go in detail on Tony’s speed-training culture built on love, joy, and recognition.  Tony will speak on the “art of surrender” in goal setting, his X-factor workouts, and much more in this conversation of almost 2 hours.  When you are speaking to someone like Tony, the two hours flies by, and you have a spring in your coaching step afterwards.

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-335/

Today’s episode features Danny Foley.  Danny is a performance coach and Co-founder of Rude Rock Strength and Conditioning.  He is well known for his investigation into fascial training concepts, and is the creator of the “Fascia Chronicles”.  Danny has spent the previous six years as the head strength and conditioning coach at Virginia High Performance, where he specialized in working with Special Operations Command (Naval Special Warfare Development Group) personnel. Through his work at Virginia High Performance, Danny has become very proficient working with complex injuries and high performing athletes within an interdisciplinary setting.

The complexity of the human body, and how it moves in sport, will never cease to amaze me.  Humans are “cybernetic” organisms, or “systems of systems”.  Each system is connected to the others in the body.  Perhaps the epitome of that idea of inter-connectedness, as it refers to movement, is on the level of the fascial system, which is the web of connective tissue lying below the skin.  The fascia is laid out in both linear and spiraling lines, which fit with the demands of athletic movement on the linear and rotational level.

When we see the way the fascial lines form in the body, or consider the principles of tensegrity in various architectural structures, or a dinosaur’s neck, for example, there is an instant and powerful connection that forms in regards to how this system must help power our movements.  At the same time, it’s easy to take things to extremes, as the fascia clearly needs muscle to create pressure and pull.

For today’s episode, performance coach and fascial training expert, Danny Foley takes us into an informative deep dive on what the role of the fascia in movement is, how to understand when relatively more muscle or fascial dynamics may be at play in powering movement, and how to train in a way that can tap into the fascial system to a greater degree (although as Danny clearly mentions, the two systems are inextricable).  This was a really informative and practical conversation that offers a lot of insight to any coach, athlete or human mover.

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-334/

Today’s episode features Christian Thibaudeau.  Christian has been a strength coach for 2 decades, is a prolific writer and author, and has worked with athletes from nearly 30 sports.  Christian has been a multi-time guest on this podcast, and is the originator of educational systems such as neuro-typing, as well as the omni-contraction training.  I am unaware of another strength coach with the extensive knowledge of training methods that Christian does, and I’ve taken a small book’s worth of notes from our various podcasts together thus far.

For an athlete, a strength program is only as good as it can 1.) help them to prevent injury and stay robust and 2.) help them to improve their specific speed and power in their sport (and a possible 3. Of building needed size and armor).  When we talk about strength, we need to know how specifically it can plug into helping develop power, and one of the best ways to do this is in light us using complexes.

Last time on the show, Christian spoke in depth regarding power complexes and their neurological demand, versus using more “simple” strength training setups and methods.  In this episode, Christian goes into the distinct nature of power, and how to optimally use pure strength methods as potentiation tools in the scope of a training complex.  He’ll get into his own use of overcoming isometrics in the scope of complex training work, how to progress complexes over the course of training cycles, speak on the “Gunthor complex”, and much more.

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-333/

Today’s episode features strength coaches Kyle Dobbs and Matt Domney.  Kyle Dobbs is the owner and founder of Compound Performance, 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.  Matt Domney is the Head Coach at Compound Performance. He is a competitive powerlifter in the USPA, 275lb weight class, and in addition to powerlifting coaching, has years of experience in general population training..

High-intensity training is a fundamental component of athletic performance.  For a long time, “strength and conditioning” was (and still is) based largely off of the (very intense) powerlifts.  Training that is more athlete-friendly on the level of exercise selection and rep ranges has become more popular in the last couple of decades, and pendulums of corrective movements and exercise selection have swung back and forth in the process.

Powerlifting itself is generally the most polarized expression of how we express strength, and although sport is much different than powerlifting, the pure intensity of the efforts within the sport (are) lend to a key facet of our human nature.  To understand the “middle ground” better, it helps to understand the poles well.  In this case, the poles of the powerlifts on one side, and then low-level corrective exercise on the other are helpful to consider when we are to make an efficient, effective and practice program for the athlete standing in front of us.

On the show today, Kyle and Matt talk about variability within heavy strength training methods, look at the balance of high outputs in sport play vs. the gym, speak more into corrective exercise in the scope of higher intensity work, and then give their take on movement screens, warmups and more.  This was an exercise with a lot of wisdom that offers a great perspective on how to make maximal use of training time and efficiency.

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: https://justflypinepollen.com

More show notes at https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-332/

Today’s episode is a Q&A with Joel Smith.  Joel Smith is the founder of Just Fly Sports and is a sports performance/track coach in Cincinnati, Ohio.  Joel hosts the Just Fly Performance Podcast, has authored several books on athletic performance, and in 2021, released the integrative training course, “Elastic Essentials”.

Questions for this podcast revolved around maximal strength training needs in jumping and sprinting, testing protocols for youth athletes, speed training setups, sprint hardware vs. software, and much more.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster.com, and Lost Empire Herbs

For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to https: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-331/

Today’s episode features Lee Taft.  Lee is one of the most highly respected sport speed coaches in the world.  His methods come from wisdom accumulated not just in sports performance, but also in physical education, sport coaching, as well as observing changes in athletes between the 1990s, into the modern day.  Lee has been a three-time guest on the podcast, a mentor to many high-level coaches, and has incredible wisdom on the level of sport movement.

In a world of specialists, athlete’s processes of mastery can start to become “atomized” (my new favorite word).  Many modern athletes have a sport coach, a skill coach, a strength coach and a speed coach.  At the end of the day, an athlete only has so much time, and all training is only as effective as it can be integrated.  Training effectiveness is also magnified by the level of which the athlete’s learning process can be leveraged.  Hand holding athletes through skill acquisition, or playing games on early levels to win, rather than to learn skills, create early ceilings of performance.

What we need in the world of sport is an intuitive, interconnected model by which to better let flow the natural abilities of an athlete.  To do so, having coaches like Lee who have experience in so many facets of movement, across a wide age group, multiple sports, and multiple decades is crucial.  We need to understand movement and motor learning in sport if we are to truly understand speed in sport.

On the podcast today, Lee details his process in terms of sport skills, constraints, and then when to step in and “connect the dots” on the level of external speed and strength development.  Lee talks about his use of sport itself as “the screen” for athletes, developmental principles of sport skills, and assessing “hardware” vs. “software” limitations in athletic movement.  He also detailed his own process of sport development with his own children, and finishes with an important discussion on how we can change the developmental sport system for the better through travel-ball alternatives.  Lee is a sage in the world of sport, and we all can become better through his teaching.

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-330/

Today’s episode features Rett Larson.  Rett is a physical preparation coach with an extensive and diverse background.  He has worked internationally with the national volleyball teams of Germany, Netherlands and China.  Rett has also worked with professionals, down to athletes of all ages, having prior experience as Velocity Sports Performance’s director of coaching in California.  Rett is a student of movement, having studied not only the top minds in sports performance, but also in general movement training such as taught by Ido Portal and in the scope of physical education.

The evolution of sport is one of integration, and not separation.  Currently, the “silos” of sport coaching and then all of the “supportive” services (such as S&C) don’t tend to have much interaction with each other beyond a conversation.  The fact of the matter is, that when an athlete hits the field (or court) of play, they are operating within all facets of their humanity.  Their physical, tactical, technical, emotional, social and deep psychology all impacts their performance on the field.  The ”sport-warmup” may be the one place, in all of an athlete’s training, where the maximal amount of silos can be integrated.  Athletes can use strength, physio, games and sport-constraint oriented methods to not only prepare them for practice in an enjoyable way, but also form a “melting pot” of all aspects that make an athlete.

On the show today, Rett Larson takes us through his evolution as a coach, and how his warmups and training has evolved over time.  He covers the highest transferring abilities he sees from the gym and warmup sessions, that are embodied by the best players on the team.  Rett also covers the important interaction that must take place between the physical preparation coach and sport coach, to create buy-in, and move the warmup process forward.  After listening to Rett speak on his approach to training athletes, it’s hard to think differently about our own process towards the evolution of our athletes and training programs.

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

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

More show notes at https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-329/

Today’s episode features John Kiely.  John is a senior lecturer in Performance and Innovation at the University of Limerick.   In addition to his current work with doctoral and Ph.D. candidates, John is a frequent keynote speaker, and has extensive athletic performance training and consultation experience.  His coaching, consulting and advisory work includes numerous sports such as rugby, soccer/football, track and Paralympics.  In his time as an athlete, John won multiple titles in kickboxing and boxing.  John appeared years ago on episode 113 of the podcast.

Training is much more than simply putting together a series of sets, reps and exercises, but invokes the “totality” of a human being.  This totality includes not only the body and mechanical forces, but also the mind and one’s environmental influence.  In other words, your training results are a factor of both your program, perceptions and environment, and the roles of the latter must not be minimized.

On today’s show, John will cover training on the level of placebo and nocebo effects, the impact of an athlete’s beliefs and perception of the training session, coaching practice to engage the mind, as well as the idea of a “screen for beliefs” when starting a period of training with an athlete.  This is an awesome episode that really helps us understand the fullness of the processes involved within adapting to a training stimulus or program.

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-328/

Today’s episode features Jamie Smith, founder and head sport preparation coach of The U of Strength.  Jamie is a passionate coach and learner, who strives to help athletes incorporate the fullness of perceptual, social and emotional, elements in the course of training.  Jamie has been a multi-time guest on this show, speaking on his approach to training that meets the demands of the game, and settling for nothing less.

The further I get into my coaching journey, the more I understand and appreciate the massive importance of stimulating an athlete on the levels of their physiology, their emotions and social interactions, and their perception of their external environment.  Coach Jay Schroeder had his term called the “PIPES”, referring to the importance of a training session being stimulating Physiologically, Intellectually, Psychologically, Emotionally and Spiritually”.  I certainly agree with those terms, but they could also be re-ordered, as per today’s conversation “Physiologically, Individually, Perceptually, Emotionally, and Socially”.  (Individual referring to individual autonomy).

On the show today, Jamie goes into how he “stacks” games, play, perception & reaction type work onto more traditional training methods, for greater “sticky-ness” to sport itself.  Through today’s conversation, he’ll get into concepts of variability in training as it relates to sport, driving intention and learning through a training program, older vs. younger athlete response to game play with potentiation, and much more.

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 https://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-327/

Today’s episode features sports performance coach and sport scientist, Joel Reinhardt.  Joel joined Stanford Football’s staff as the assistant sports performance coach and applied sports science coordinator in 2022.  Prior to Stanford, has spent time at UMass and Nicholls State working in sports performance and sports science roles.

One of the great things about the sports performance/strength & conditioning field is that it is interdisciplinary in nature.  Within the field itself, we have the elements of anatomy/physiology, biomechanics, pedagogy, team culture & coaching, training arrangement, and long-term development.

We also have the integration of sport science, which quantifies the complex nature of the ways players are loaded in their sport.  When the nature of this load is understood; many relationships can be noticed between a football practice week, for example, and the way a track sprints or jumps coach may set up their training week.  The more areas we see training loads and adaptive trends, the more we can understand the dynamics of the human organism, and how to facilitate the training environment.

On today’s show, Joel Reinhardt goes into his role in helping to build out the work-loads of football players at Stanford through his sports science role.  He’ll talk about what specific training weeks look like, how the strength training complements those weekly micro-cycles, and then primary pitfalls that can happen in loading athletes throughout a training week.  Without good integration of sport volume, and weight-room volumes, athletes are almost always going to end up doing more total work than what they need, and that’s why conversations like these are so valuable.

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