Just Fly Performance Podcast

Today’s podcast is a special roundtable episode on sport movement, featuring an expert panel of Shawn Myszka, Scott Salwasser and Michael Zweifel. Each of these coaches has a unique area of application and insight into making athletes better at reacting to actual sport stimuli, making plays, and ultimately winning games.

Shawn Myszka is a movement specialist working with many NFL athletes, and has a large background in physical preparation.

Scott Salwasser is the director of speed and power at Texas Tech university and is making his third appearance on the Just Fly Performance Podcast. Scott is not only a great linear speed coach, as we’ve seen through his talks and writing on the topic, but also is constantly pioneering sport-applicable movement training through his own athletes and interaction with other movement specialists in the field.

Michael Zweifel, who has written some tremendous articles for Just Fly Sports in the past, is the owner of Building Better Athletes Performance, is an NCAA record holding wide receiver. Michael is an industry leader in reactive training for athletes, particularly in the scholastic population, and where specialization is not possible.

“Agility” is a word likely most used in marketing, and getting parents to buy in that a particular sports performance institution will make their child better at reacting in their sport, but this is rarely, if ever the case in the manner that the majority of these training interventions are implemented.

For today’s podcast, we simply cover the ideas of what “agility” training really is, and best practices in creating training to allow athletes to become more reactive movers on the field of play.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster.com, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

View more show notes at Just-fly-sports.com/podcast-76-myszka-salwasser-zweifel

Today’s guest is Nick Davis, head women’s track and field coach at the University of Wisconsin, LaCrosse. Nick Davis has been a successful track and field coach with multiple stops on the NCAA Division I and III levels, has experience in research, lecturing and course instruction, and has also published 5 original research papers.

I share an affinity with Nick, as we were both competitors in very similar event classifications (track and field jumps and javelin) and are both from the great state of Wisconsin. About a year ago, I ran across Nick’s USTFCCCA presentation on mental skills training for athletes and was blown away by the depth and content (http://www.ustfccca.org/assets/symposiums/2016/Davis-Nick-2016.pdf)

Coach Davis’s coaching resume includes work at MIT and Marquette University. He was named the 2015 USTFCCCA New England Region Men's Assistant Coach of the Year in 2015 and 2016. Nick competed as an athlete at UW-Milwaukee, where he was a 10-time Horizon League individual champion in the high jump and javelin. At UW-Milwaukee, Davis was named the 2004 Horizon League Athlete of the Year. He was a four-time NCAA Division I Midwest Regional Qualifier in the high jump and javelin for the Panthers while setting the school record in the high jump (indoor and outdoor) and javelin.

The more time I spend with great coaches, the more I realize that one of the biggest separation points that they have is their ability to understand what makes athletes tick from a mental perspective, and how to motivate and prepare an athlete accordingly. The mind drives the body, and I feel that not enough podcasts have episodes that are dedicated to mental skills, when we know through research of its effectiveness.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster.com, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

View more show notes at Just-fly-sports.com/podcast-75-nick-davis

Today’s guest is Joseph Coyne, exercise physiologist and sport scientist from Gold Coast, Australia.  Joseph is a well-rounded performance coach who has spent a lot of time recently in the realm of training world-class track and field sprinters and jumpers in China.

I don’t remember exactly how I came across Joseph’s work, but the quality of his training videos are first class and I know he has also had tremendous mentors in the field, such as working with Randy Huntington.  From altering the paradigm on jump mats and testing, to resisted and assisted training, as well as special strength work in the gym, I’d been really looking forward to having Joseph on this podcast for some time.

Joseph is currently the Physical Preparation Coach for the Chinese Athletics Association's jump & sprints section; where he handles the rehabilitation and strength & power training for China’s best track & field athletes.  Many of those he worked with had world top-20 marks.  Previously, he was the Performance Manager at the Chinese Olympic Committee’s National Sports Training Centre in Beijing in the lead up to the Rio Olympics.  He also spent time as a performance manager with the Chinese Olympic committee through EXOS, and had a long-running performance clinic in Queensland.

Topics we’ll cover today are numerous, and will include sand sprinting, special strength for sprinters and jumpers, ideas on maximal strength for sprint athletes, complex training, ideas on jump training and the “maximal displacement” theory, hamstring training, and Joeseph’s work with the 1080 sprint and kBox.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

View more show notes at Just-fly-sports.com/podcast-74-joseph-coyne

Today’s guest is Dr. Donald Chu, performance coach and physical therapist, as well as legendary track and field coach at UC Hayward in the 1980’s.  Dr. Chu wrote the landmark book “Jumping Into Plyometrics”, which was one of the first in my own bookshelf that I had even in high school.  The special exercise of doing a depth jump into a basketball dunk was one that inspired many creative variations of my own doing and with my athletes.

Dr. Chu has developed an extensive reputation in the field of sports rehabilitation and in the areas of fitness and conditioning. He has been credited with bringing "Plyometric Training" to the attention of the athletic world through his application of theoretical knowledge into practical demonstrations.  

I’ve heard from more than one experienced track coach in the last few years just how successful Dr. Chu’s jumpers were at UC Hayward, and I was very excited to ask him questions regarding his training methods.  If I’ve learned anything over the years, it is that “if a method works, it works”, and the science will eventually catch up with it.  I think there is a lot of gold that came out of the 1980’s in training and coaching that we are missing out on today.  If you just look at some of the national and state record books, you can see so many outstanding performances from this era, despite all the “training advances” we have gone through. 

On the show today, Dr. Chu and I talk about quantifying and implementing plyometrics, jump training, Russian training methods, keystone workouts, and much more.  For anyone interested in defying gravity, as well as paying respect to the prime training methods of decades past, this is an amazing show.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster.com, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more. 

View more show notes at Just-fly-sports.com

Today’s guest is Joe DeFranco, owner of DeFranco’s gym.  Joe was one of the first coaches I remember reading and learning from in the world of performace training, and his adaptations of the Westside system to athletes make up some of my earliest memories of performance training.  Joe, and DeFranco’s gym has become wildly successful, training many top combine performers and draft picks, as well as branching out into MMA and professional wrestling.

Many know Joe, but not many know of his beginnings in the industry, and what made his original 500 square foot storage unit gym stand out against the big speed training players in the area.  How Joe took this gym to such a level of success carries with it lessons that any coach, or athlete can find useful.

I love talking to coaches like Joe DeFranco, because they have an “in-the-trenches” mentality, are straightforward, genuine, and are fantastic at finding their answers “In the gym”.  Today’s coaching field is utterly dominated by the era of the internet which means that coaches are always looking over their shoulder at what others are doing, continually measuring themselves against peers, or scrambling to read that latest article on training.

It is unfortunate that there is a large number of coaches fail to truly be present in the gym and in their training sessions to the point of continual growth.  There are also a large number of coaches who are present, but fail to adapt and evolve their system over time as Joe has.  In speaking with Joe, you realize what has allowed him the success he has achieved with his athletes and his business, and this was a truly enjoyable interview.   In today’s chat, Joe shares this mentality, as well as the story of his early gym setup and training techniques, as well as other topics of training, such as upper body training for athletes, foot training, and even 50 rep rhythm squats.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster.com, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

View more show notes at Just_fly-sports.com

Today’s episode is yet another question and answer episode, which is the fulfillment of a call for questions I put out on Instagram. The themes of this question and answer series revolve around the feet and fascia, speed and vertical jump training, as well as general coaching questions of the strength and conditioning/human performance/track and field arenas. As the host of the show, it’s always fun to offer my thoughts on important questions in the industry.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster.com, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

View more show notes at Just-fly-sports.com

Today’s guest is Mike Robertson, President of Robertson Training Systems and co-owner of IFAST in Indianapolis, Indiana. Mike currently coaches a handful of professional athletes during their off-season, and is the physical preparation coach for the Indy Eleven professional soccer team. He is the creator of “Complete Single Leg Training” (completesinglelegtraining.com), “Physical Preparation 101” (physicalpreparation101.com), “Bulletproof Athlete” (bulletproofathlete.com), and many others.

One of the first websites I started looking through way back when, in my own journey as a performance coach, was T-Nation, and one of the first authors I remember reading was Mike Robertson. Fast forward a decade, and I’m an avid listener of Mike’s “Physical Preparation Podcast”. (robertsontrainingsystems.com/blog/category/podcast). Mike has delivered a vast amount of knowledge to the S&C community in his years as a coach.

In the past few years, I’ve started to attend some Postural Restoration Institute Seminars, and the ideas in the aftermath led to some researching that led me right to Mike’s articles on topics, such as “addressing the sagittal plane first”, and based on my questions I’ve had relating postural work to athletic performance, both in a linear and team based setting, I knew I had to get Mike on the show to learn more about the integration of these ideals with athletes.

Ever since my podcast with Mike Boyle, I’ve also had ideas and questions on the utilization of single leg training with athletes on the levels of progressions, as well as when and why to really emphasize it. On today’s podcast, in addition to performance posture training and single leg elements, Mike also talks about his departure from powerlift based training for athletes and ideas on maximal strength training.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster.com, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

View more show notes at Just-fly-sports.com/podcast-70-mike-robertson/

Today’s guest is Scott Salwasser, director of speed and power development at Texas Tech University. Scott was the first guest on the podcast over a year ago, and has written some fantastic pieces on linear-lateral training just-fly-sports.com/scott-salwasser-interview, as well as force-velocity profiling in the preparation of NFL pro-day athletes just-fly-sports.com/training-based-individual-force-velocity.

Scott is one of the most driven, dedicated, and genuine guys I know in the industry, and I’m thrilled to have him back on the show. He has been getting athletes fast as a private and NCAA strength coach for well over a decade. His knowledge of speed training, both in general and in context of football is second to none, and his network includes some of the best in the field in arenas of motor learning, biomechanics, data-screening, and practical program design.

Scott has worked with a number of force testing applications over the years, and the most recent is his work with the MySprint app, along with the associated heavy sled training. Scott put together some great results out of his NFL pro-day group last year, and talks about the how and why of this type of work in today’s episode.

For today’s podcast, we are going to talk about Scott’s reflections on speed training in college football over the past few years, as well as his utilization of heavy sled training, force-velocity profiling as well as creating training that yields better transfer to the field of play versus canned drills. You could say that the theme of this episode is really “force”, what it means to football athletes, and how we best train it. This is an excellent episode for football, S&C, and track enthusiasts alike.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster.com, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

View more show notes at Just-fly-sports.com

Today’s guest is Robbie Bourke, host of the “All Things Strength and Wellness” podcast. Robbie is a Strength and Conditioning Coach, Neuromuscular and Physical Therapist, Functional Diagnostic Nutritionist, and Holistic Health and Wellness Practitioner based in Glasnevin, Dublin.

In listening to Robbie’s podcast over the last year, I’m really amazed by the amount, and diversity of knowledge that he has in realms of not only sports performance, but also nutrition, physiology, psychology and more. It’s always been my own quest to be well rounded, so seeing another podcast host younger than myself with the knowledge that Robbie has is inspiring.

In talking to Robbie recently, we both realized that we were both excited about learning more about the same training modality: isometrics. Although a method as old as time, Robbie and I both think that many coaches and athletes are missing out by not considering this method in their regimes. Additionally, in this podcast, Robbie covers ideas on high-low, or the “barbell method” of training (Taleb), individualizing factors in training, training the nervous system, and periodization and training residuals.

It’s always great talking with Robbie, and this was a wonderful conversation on many training topics of interest that are often hot with debate.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster.com, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

View more show notes at Just-fly-sports.com

Today’s guest is Chong Xie, founder of “Secret of Athleticism” (Secret-of-athleticism.com) and foot training expert. The Secret of Athleticism is a website and discussion group founded to understand more about the foot, and its relationship to athleticism, as well as best training practices. Chong has a computer science degree and has been working as a technical analyst in the software industry for the last 10 years. His interest in the foot was piqued by seeing the large discrepancy in athletic performance, and Chong has spent many years on a quest to unlock the “secret” of athletic performance that is hiding beneath our shoes.

As I’ve found in the last few months, what Chong Xie is doing might be the next big thing in sports performance training., but it’s funny, since it’s something all amazing athletes do naturally and without thinking about it.

That “thing” is the action and morphing of the foot over time, to maximize ground contact stiffness, fascial tensioning, and upstream muscle activation. Many strength coaches don’t get farther than “your ankles are immobile in your squat, so let’s do some banded distraction work”, let alone looking at foot instrinsics. This is a shame, because even low level foot training, such as big toe crunches, have been shown to significantly improve jump height! How much more can we do with knowledge of a full, integral model?

To this end, Chong Xie, even though he is not a full-time sport coach, is one of the most intriguing guests I’ve had on the podcast. Not only because he has poured in tons of research and case study in training on the foot, but also because he comes from a non-biased background, of which his is martial arts. Everything modern strength and performance coaches are taught is generally above the ankle, so the foot doesn’t fit into our holistic athletic assessments and training processes.

Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster.com, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.

View more show notes at Just-fly-sports.com.