Just Fly Performance Podcast

More show notes at https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-316/

Today’s episode features sports psychologist, Simon Capon.  Simon is a hypnotherapist, Master NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) practitioner, as well as the author of the book “It’s Time to Start Winning.” Since 2006 Simon has worked with professional athletes, using variety of techniques including skills from NLP and hypnotherapy.  He has inspired athletes, footballers and numerous others to achieve national, international and world titles. Simon’s philosophy is simple, create self-belief and your behaviors and actions will change and so will your results.  Simon previously appeared on episode #198 of the podcast, speaking particularly on the link between body language and mental state in athletics, as well as managing the emotional brain for performance.

As Logan Christopher puts it, we are always “mentally training” whether we think we are or not.  If we do nothing dedicated to improving the processes and habits related to managing the mind well, we will simply revert to the default programming.  By focusing on the role of the mind, we can improve our motivation, consistency, clutch performance, physical abilities, as well as find a greater sense of purpose and enjoyment in each training session.

In today’s podcast with Simon, we finished with a small bit on how to stay “in the present” in the course of training.  In this show, Simon speaks at length on methods to stay in the present moment, how to use particular strategies to engage the sensory systems of the body, turn of the judging mind, and get into FLOW states.  He discusses the role of visual focus (peripheral vs. narrow) in sport, linking higher purposes and emotions into our movement/training, as well as a “process oriented” approach to goal setting.

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-314/

Today’s episode brings back Rick Franzblau, assistant AD for Olympic Sports Performance at Clemson University.  In his two decades in athletic performance, Rick has worked with a wide variety of sports, as well as gained an incredible amount of knowledge in both the technology, and biomechanics ends of the coaching spectrum.  Rick, as with many other biomechanics topic guests on this podcast, has been a mentee of Bill Hartman, and has appeared previously on episode 94, talking about force/velocity metrics in sprinting and lifting.

There is a lot of time spent, talking about an “optimal technique” for various sport skills (such as sprinting).  We also tend to look for “optimal lifts” or exercises for athletes, as well as optimal drills athletes are supposed to perform with “perfect form” to attain an ideal technique.

What the mentality described in the above paragraph doesn’t consider is that athletes come in different shapes and structures, which cause what is optimal to differ.  Wide ISA athletes, for example, are fantastic at short bursts of compression, have lower centers of mass, and can manage frontside sprint mechanics relatively easily.  On the other hand, narrow ISA individuals use longer ranges of motion to distribute force, have a higher center of mass, rotate more easily, and can use backside running mechanics better than wide-ISA’s.  Additionally, there is a spectrum of these athletic structures, and not simply 2 solid types.

On today’s show, Rick goes into detail on the impact and role of compression in human movement and performance training, the strengths and weaknesses of the narrow vs. wide ISA archetypes, what differences show up in locomotion and sprint training, as well as how he approaches strength training for the spectrum of wide to narrow individuals.  Today’s show reminds us (thankfully) that there is no magic-bullet for all athletes, and helps us with the over-arching principles that can guide training for different populations to reach their highest potential.

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

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-314/

Today’s episode brings back Alex Effer.  Alex is the owner of Resilient Training, and has extensive experience in strength & conditioning, exercise physiology and the biomechanical function of the body.  He also runs educational mentorships teaching biomechanics to therapists, trainers and coaches.  Alex was recently on the show talking about the mechanics of the early to late stance spectrum and it’s implications for performance training.

Something that has been dramatically under-studied in running, jumping, cutting and locomotion in general is the role of the upper body.  Since the arms don’t directly “put force into the ground” and the world of sports performance and running is mostly concerned with vertical force concepts; the role of the arms gets relatively little attention in movement.

This is unfortunate for a few reasons.  One is that sport movement has strong horizontal and rotational components that demand an understanding of how the upper body matches and assists with the forces that are “coming up from below”.  Two is that the joints of the upper body tend to have a lot in common with the alignment and actions of corresponding joints in the lower body.  When we understand how the upper body aligns and operates, we can optimize our training for it in the gym, as well as better understand cueing and motor learning constraints in dynamic motion.

Today’s topics progress in a trend of “expansion to compression”, starting with a chat on the expansive effect of aerobic training (as well as the trendy thera-gun) and Alex’s favorite restorative and re-positioning aerobic methods.  We then get into rotational dynamics in squatting, focusing on the actions of the lower leg, and finish the chat with a comprehensive discussion on the role of the upper body in sprinting, how to train propulsive IR for the upper body in the gym, as well as touching on improving hip extension quality for athletic power.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster.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-313/

Today’s episode features a question and answer session with Joel Smith. On the show today, I answer questions related to “are there any bad exercises?”, sport speed concepts, jump training, “switching” sprint drills, and much more.  I love being able to highlight and integrate information from so many of the past guests on this podcast into my own training, coaching, and ultimately, the answers I provide on this show.  In many senses of the word, this is truly an “integration” episode of the podcast series.

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-312/

Today’s episode welcomes back to the show, Rob Gray, professor at Arizona State University and host of the Perception & Action Podcast.  Rob Gray has been conducting research on, and teaching courses related to perceptual-motor skill for over 25 years.  He focuses heavily on the application of basic theory to address real-world challenges, having consulted with numerous professional and governmental entities, and has developed a VR baseball training system that has been used in over 25 published studies.  Rob is the author of the book “How We Learn to Move: A Revolution in the Way We Coach and Practice Sports Skills”.

You cannot separate the world of athletic development, even pure “power” training, from concepts on motor learning.  If we look at interest in athletic performance topics by “need”, speed training will typically be first on the list.  At its core, sprinting, lifting (and every other athletic skill) has its roots in how we learn.

The great thing about motor learning knowledge, is that it can both allow you to have a better training session on the day, as well as month to month, and year over year.  Training done only on the level of raw “power” as a general quality, and explicit instruction will create early ceilings for athletes in their career.  Understanding motor learning allows for more involved daily training sessions, and better flourishing of skills that grow like a tree, over time.  Whether you work in sport, in the gym, or as a parent/athlete, understanding how we learn goes a massively long way in becoming the best version of one’s self athletically and from a movement perspective.

In episode 293, Rob got into the constraints-led approach to movement vs. “teaching fundamentals”, and in this episode, he goes into CLA’s counter-part: differential learning.  Rob will get into the nuances of differential learning on the novice and advanced level.  In the back end of the show, we’ll talk about “stacking constraints”, games, exploration, using the “velocity dial” as a constraint, and finally, the promising results of Rob’s research showing the effectiveness of a variable practice model.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster.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-311/

Today’s episode features Kyle Dobbs.  Kyle is the owner and founder of Compound Performance which offers online training, facility consulting and a personal trainer mentorship.  He has an extensive biomechanics and human movement background (having trained 15,000+ sessions), and has been a two time previous guest on this podcast.

In the world of training and performance, it’s easy to get caught up in prescribing a lot of exercises that offer a relatively low training effect in the grand scheme of things.  Healthy and capable athletes are often assigned a substantial load of low-level “prehab” style and corrective exercises that they often do not need.  In doing so, both a level of boredom, fatigue and just simply wasting time, happens in the scope of a program.

For my own training journey, I’ve seen my own pendulum swing from a relatively minimal approach to the number of movements, to having a great deal of training exercises, back down to a smaller and more manageable core of training movements in a session.  As I’ve learned to tweak and adjust the big lifts, and even plyometric and sprint variations, I realize that I can often check off a lot of training boxes with these movements, without needing to regress things too far.

On the show today, Kyle will speak on where and when we tend to get overly complex, or overly regressive in our training and programming.  He’ll talk about what he prioritizes when it comes to assigning training for clients, as well as a “macro-to-micro” way of thinking in looking at the entirety of training.  Kyle will get into specifics on what this style of thinking and prioritization means for things like the big lifts, speed training, and core work, as well as touch how on biomechanical differences such as infra-sternal angle play a role in his programming.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster.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-310/

Today’s episode features swim coach Andrew Sheaff.  Andrew is an assistant swimming coach at the University of Virginia, winners of the last two NCAA women’s championships.  In addition to swim coaching, Sheaff has an extensive background in strength and conditioning, including an internship under Buddy Morris.  A collegiate swimmer at Pittsburgh, Sheaff was named the Senior Athlete of Distinction. He was a four-time Big East Academic All-Star and a four-time University Scholar Athlete.  He writes on numerous aspects of coaching education at his website, coachandrewsheaff.com .

A quote on Andrew’s blog that made a lot of sense to me was a quote by former cricket player and ESPN writer, Ed Smith, that “Because the important things are hard to coach, it is tempting to take refuge in the small, irrelevant things because they are easy.”  I find this to be extremely relevant to many approaches to athletic development where drills are often over-emphasized and over-controlled, while the actual sporting skill is often left relatively un-changed from season to season.

I have found it a common theme, in modern coaching, to attempt to overly “control” an athlete’s technique through the over-use of drills, exact positions, and discrete instructions.  This can range from cues in the weight room (butt back, chest out, through the heels!) to the track (heel up, knee up, toe up!) to exact arm positions for swimming movements.

On the show today, Andrew speaks on elements of control vs. athlete empowerment in coaching.  He talks on training methods that lead to lasting change in technique and performance, with an emphasis on the constraints-led approach.  This podcast was a fun cross-pollination of ideas between the worlds of swimming, track and physical preparation, with important concepts for any coach or athlete.  Whether you are interested in speed training, technical development, or just overall coaching practice, you are sure to find this a really informative conversation.

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

More show notes at https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-309/

Today’s episode features Rob Assise.  Rob has 19 years of experience teaching mathematics and coaching track and field at Homewood-Flossmoor High School. He also has coached football and cross country, and is also the owner of the private training business, Re-evolution athletics.  Rob has appeared on multiple prior episodes of the podcast, speaking on his unique approach to jumps training that combines the practice with many sport-like elements.

Track and field offers us a great insight as to the effectiveness of a variety of training methods, because each method will be ultimately judged by how fast an athlete ended up running, how far or high they jumped, or how far they threw.  In track and field, we combine power alongside technical development in the process of achieving event mastery.

Rob has a creative and integrative process to his own training methods, and on today’s show, he speaks largely on some “crescendo style” adjustments to common plyometric and sprint drills that he uses to help athletes improve their technique and rhythmic ability over a period of time. 

On the show Rob talks about his recent sprint-jump complexes, use of asymmetrical plyometrics, and where he has gone with the “minimal effective dose” style of training.  He also shares his thoughts on tempo sprints in the role of jump training, and as we have spoken on in other podcasts, manipulating velocity in a movement in order to improve not only one’s speed, to help them clear up technical issues.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster.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-308/

Today’s episode features Will Ratelle.  Will is a strength coach, at the University of North Dakota, working with football, basketball, volleyball and tennis athletes. He is also the owner of “W2 Performance”.  Prior to working in the performance field, he spent time as a professional football player, spending time with the Atlanta Falcons, Kansas City Chiefs, and Saskatchewan Roughriders (CFL).

In the supportive role of physical preparation/S&C, it is very easy to partition the process of weightlifting away from the actual needs and demand of explosive, chaotic sports.  It’s also easy to get carried away with excessive auxiliary work, or “atomizing” facets of power work/RFD that don’t end up transferring to actual explosive sport skills.  In this sense, it’s helpful to personally spend time in sport, in skill acquisition, and in strength development one’s self, to intuitively understand the balance, and synergy, between athletic components.

Will’s athletic background, love for sport and play, and raw “horsepower” is a unique combination.  He was a semi-pro athlete, can clean and jerk 198kg, dunks a basketball with ease, and also loves to play a variety of games and sports.  Will has an analytical process to his performance programming, and asks important questions that have use really dig into the why of what we are doing in the gym (and beyond).

On the show today, Will talks about his athletic, game-play and strength background, and how despite being more than physically capable, did not make the pro level of football.  Will then goes into ideas on what we should actually be looking to improve/intensity in the gym setting.  He chats on how to avoid training things that really don’t matter in the grand scheme of everything an athlete is asked to do.  Will finishes with his thoughts on the specificity of potentiation, jump and sprint variability training, and then a great take on the “Olympic lifts vs. loaded jumps” debate.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster.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-307/

Today’s episode features strength coach, track coach and writer, Dan John.  Dan is a legendary contributor to the world of human performance, having written numerous top-selling books in strength development, such as “Easy Strength”, as well as having coached and taught athletes for decades.  He has been a multi-time guest on this podcast, and is one of the greatest influences on the way I see the process of sport performance today.

In the world of athletics, it becomes very easy to dissect elements of performance or biomechanics down to a level of minutia where things can actually lose effectiveness, efficiency, or both.  In large, fast, multi-joint movements, for example, we reap value that is often times “greater than the sum of its parts” when we are talking about the best way to achieve functional lower body development (such as using a squat or deadlift, rather than several machine based exercises to train the same muscles).  Fast sprinting is a more effective way to train the hamstrings than breaking hamstring training down into a series of strength exercises (although you can certainly do both).  In a similar vein, a game like volleyball or basketball is often times better than the sum of its parts in terms of agility and plyometric training.  Within the scope of complexity and velocity, the human body is forced to adapt to a higher level than a “broken down” versions.

In his vast experience, Dan John has been able to see what “big things” in training are truly important, and how we can close the gap that so often appears between common training practices and competition.  He knows how to combine key elements in training and one’s life outside of training to create synergistic effects.

On the podcast today, Dan speaks whole-part-whole teaching, and how training get actually get dissected to the point where we are creating gaps in actual competitive performance.  He will talk about the role of games (not specific to one’s primary sport) in athletic performance, in the off-season, in-season, and as a form of conditioning.  From there Dan goes into motor learning wisdom in coaching, and how he uses elements of velocity, complexity, rhythm and relaxation to help athletes adapt to better technical proficiency, as well as dealing with over-analytical athletes in this process.  Finally, Dan finishes the show with some practical wisdom on sets and reps in the grand scheme of program design, as well as some thoughts on periodization.  It’s always an honor to have Dan on, and listen to his coaching wisdom from decades in his craft.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster.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