Just Fly Performance Podcast

Today’s guest is former professional cricket and rugby player, and sports performance coach, Steffan Jones. Steffan is a master, integrative trainer for fast-bowlers (“pitching” at up to 100mph in cricket, not rolling a 16lb ball at 10 pins), and has incorporated knowledge from the world’s top coaches to form a cutting edge system that yields massive improvements, and has applications for technical or strength coaches in any sport. He is the owner of the website CricketStrength.com.

Steffan is the former Somerset, Northamptonshire, Kent and Derbyshire fast bowler who forged a career out of getting the best out of himself physically. He is an ex-pro cricketer of 20yrs, and is the last dual pro between rugby & cricket. He is the leading coach in England on teaching and using heavy ball contrast training for fast bowler development. When it comes to exercises for fast bowlers, Steffan is the go to coach.

For those Americans listening to this show who don’t know much about Cricket, it is the 2nd to 3rd most popular sport in the world, depending on which stats you look at. I love learning about new sports, how they are trained, and how we can integrate these ideas into our own training and coaching. Fast-bowling is a complex skill that has facets of sprinting, javelin throw and baseball pitching, all rolled into one. How Steffan coaches these athletes can be described as nothing short of a masterpiece.

In the show today, Steffan discusses ideas on isometric strength training for potentiation and skill development, integrating all forms of training into a singular model, general vs. specific strength, the role of ankle stiffness in fast bowling (and as a universal model), cueing, and more.

For those track coaches listening to this, there are tons of implications for the javein throw event.

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.

Find more show notes at Just-Fly-Sports.com

Today’s guest is strength and conditioning coach, Mike Boyle. Mike Boyle has the trifecta of being one of the most well-known, well-loved, and most-hated strength coaches, all at the same time. He is one of the foremost experts in the fields of Strength and Conditioning, Functional Training and general fitness. In 1996 Michael co-founded Mike Boyle Strength and Conditioning, one of the first for-profit strength and conditioning companies in the world. He is the author of “Functional Training for Sports”, “Advances in Functional Training for Sports”, and “New Functional Training for Sports”.

Mike Boyle is incredibly popular for his work in training revolving around the needs of the athlete, but has become incredibly unpopular due to his dis-use of the bilateral barbell squat exercise. Many people are familiar with the fact that Mike doesn’t bilateral barbell squat his athletes, but most people will make a decision right there as to not look into how and why Mike got to this point, and continue doing everything they have been doing, as normal. Additionally, they don’t look at the results that Mike can get in athletes in markers such as vertical jump, without utilizing heavy compressive barbell work.

Even if you are the vast majority of coaches who bilateral barbell squat your athletes (myself included), there is a lot of great thought processes and stories in this podcast with a legend in our field that will make you really, truly think about every piece you have in your training system, and if you might be able to get the same, or better results without it.

For today’s episode, Mike covers his mentors and influencers in the field, the long-term process by which he stopped utilizing barbell squatting, performance advantages of deadlifts vs. squats, the results Mike can get in performance markers without squatting, and even Mike’s current personal workouts.

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.

Additional show notes at Just-fly-sports.com

Today’s guest is track and field coach, and inventor, Adarian Barr. Adarian Barr is based out of Woodland, California. His collegiate track and field coaching stops have included UW-Superior, Indiana State and UNC Pembrooke. He has written a number of sprint articles for Speedendurance.com

Adarian has invented 9 devices from footwear to sleds to exercise devices. He is a USATF Level II coach in the sprints, jumps, hurdles and relays. Adarian’s unique coaching style gets results, and his work on speed and biomechanics is being adapted by many coaches who want a deeper understanding into the innate function of the body.

I’ve spent the last year talking to Adarian, as well as learning from him in person, so I’m excited to have him as a guest on the podcast for today. His perspective on human movement is extremely unique, insightful and intelligent. I haven’t met any coach like him in my 12 years in the field, and I can say that, when watching elite athletes in action, what he says makes perfect sense. His work has changed my coaching for the better, and I’m excited to share some of that with you for the podcast today.

Topics for this chat will include Adarian’s background, his ideas on sprinting and timing, why a variety of modern coaching cues and ideas on sprinting don’t work (and how athletes often revert to their innate form when going 100%), sprint posture and breathing, foot strike, and more. This is a great chat for the coach with the hungry mind, and since it goes against the grain, it also promotes good thinking and questions.

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.

Today’s guest is Cameron Josse, back for his second appearance on the Just Fly Performance podcast, and this time we’re talking about his results, experiences and lessons learned from heavy sled training, as well as a multitude of other topics on speed training for football players, or anyone else whose sport demands fast accelerative abilities.

In our first show together, Cameron highlighted use of the 1080 sprint to create a very specific force based overload to an athletes acceleration ability (as well as general protocols for the speed and velocity range a heavy sled should land an athlete). This show tied together many facets of Cameron’s speed building ideology, along with some of the directions that he has taken Joe DeFranco’s legendary training templates. This is a fantastic episode for anyone interested in speed, or who trains team sport competitors.

In this episode, we’ll be covering Cameron’s lessons from his heavy-resisted sled training cycles, special strength for speed, top exercises for speed specific to acceleration with technical considerations of common football sprint patterning, lifting progressions from high school to college and the pro’s, and more.

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.

Today’s guest is Dr. Emily Splichal, Podiatrist and human movement specialist. When it comes to sprinting fast, and jumping high, the feet are a critical link. We’ve heard it often on this podcast, sprint coaches referencing the feet as a key component of fast athletes. To that end, I’m delighted to have Dr. Emily on the podcast today.

Dr. Emily is a true expert on the performance driven foot. Along with being a doctor of Podiatric medicine, she is the Founder of the Evidence Based Fitness Academy, is the creator of multiple barefoot training courses and inventor of Naboso Barefoot Technology. She has over 16 years in the fitness industry and has dedicated her medical career towards studying postural alignment and human movement as it relates to barefoot science, foot to core integration and training from the ground up. Dr. Emily is actively involved in barefoot training research and barefoot education as it relates to athletic performance, injury prevention and movement longevity. She also serves as a consultant for many prominent fitness and training organizations.

For today’s episode, we’ll be discussing the feet on many levels in regards to their impact on performance, as well as how we coach and cue the feet in training and lifting movements. We’ll also go into the critical muscles that support the arch and stiffness of the foot, and how to optimally train them. This is a really in depth episode, and one I learned a lot putting together.

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.

Today’s guest is Tony Holler, Head track coach at Plainfield North High School, Illinois and Co-founder of the Track-Football Consortium in the Chicago area.

I’ve known Tony for about 3 years now after meeting for him the first time at the original “Track-Football Consortium”. Listening to Tony talk about team culture and building sprinters was one of the most memorable aspects of my experiences there, and really keyed me into a different mentality when it came to track practice.

Tony has had great success at Plainfield North, including this last year where freshman Marcellus Moore ran 10.40 at the Illinois state track meet, one of the best freshman performances in high school track history. He is also a chemistry teacher, and has many years of football coaching experience in his belt. Tony has written some amazing articles over the years on Simplifaster, and formerly, FreelapUSA, on sprint culture, training, and coaching.

Tony knows how to make track fun. When most people think of track, they think of intense speed-endurance and tempo workouts, throwing up after practice, and shin-splints. Tony’s practices look nothing like this, and they are the antithesis of the long-slow running model, and he gets great results. His model towards speed training co-incides heavily with former podcast guest Jeff Moyer’s attitude towards training athletes, as we have spoken at length about in the form of strength training.

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

Today’s guests are Matt Van Dyke and Max Schmarzo, and we’ll be chatting in depth on the concepts of building athletic power, specifically on controversial topics, such as:

• The utilization of isometrics in power development

• Ranges of motion in basic lifts

• Period of the training year devoted to power and complex training

• Maximal intent and velocity based training

• And more

Matt Van Dyke has appeared before on the podcast https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-22-matt-van-dyke/ with an amazing segment on his glute layering protocols and multi-planar training ideals. He also has written a great article on autoregulated in-season training https://www.just-fly-sports.com/autoregulated-in-season-training-hybrid-method/ and is one of the brightest young coaches in the field. Max Schmarzo is the owner of http://strongbyscience.net, where he is an active contributor to the field through systems like the force-velocity profile builder, as well as his regular science backed contributions to the often-muddy world of social media.

Matt and Max have a new book on training athletic power called “Applied Principles of Optimal Power Development” http://strongbyscience.net/product/applied-principles-optimal-power-development/ which is a practical, research backed manual on developing power in athletes. The book was a great read, and the ideas and research within spurred several thought processes on my own end, and methods to utilize this upcoming year with my own teams.

I wanted to get these two on the show to take a deep dive into some of the common ideas and concepts with power that are often debated or misunderstood in our field, as well as create a gateway for the explanation of some practical methods and ideals for the use of power building methods, particularly in a large group setting.

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.

Today’s guests are the team at Elite Level Performance in Colliersville, TN, owner John Nelson and trainer/natural health practitioner, Mandy Macri. I originally met John at the first Track/Football Consortium in Lombard, Ill, and have since had some great conversations with him on holistic health, Be Activated/RPR, Jay Schroeder training ideas, and more.

John Nelson brings over a decade of experience and expertise to all clients. He has a Masters Degree in Health & Sport Science, and is also a National Academy of Sports Medicine Certified Corrective Exercise Specialist & Personal Trainer.

Mandy Macri joined Elite Level Performance in 2012 after 20 years in the health & fitness industry. Mandy has a degree in Computer Engineering from Georgia Tech, and is a National Academy of Sports Medicine Certified Personal Trainer and Corrective Exercise Specialist. Mandy has her Natural Health Practitioner Certification from Trinity School of Natural Health, and is currently completing her dissertation to receive her Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine degree from Trinity School and Natural Health.

One of the most interesting things that piqued my interest in what John, and Mandy were doing at ELP was John talking about the relationship of muscle testing to the holistic (nutritional, psychological) aspects of the athlete in getting longer lasting results of muscle activation and strength in things like hip extension, flexion, etc. Much of the muscle testing and related corrective systems we see today will deliver fairly temporary changes. The modalities and total integrative approach at ELP really sets what John and Mandy are doing apart, and as we learn more about the connections of the human body, we can become more effective coaches and athletes. Today’s episode is all about the relationship between nutrition to athletic function, with many facets of both also discussed individually.

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.

Today’s guest is Dave Kerin, USATF development, men’s and women’s high jump chair. Dave has been a contributor to Just Fly Sports in the past in the popular squat depth roundtable. Dave has worked with athletes of many levels, and has great results to his name, including a NCAA DIII championship record holder in high jump.

Dave has been a strong influence in my knowledge of high jump, particularly on what it takes to be good on an elite level, and what guys jumping over 2.40m are doing versus guys who are jumping less. Aside from this, Dave has been a fantastic contributor to generally applicable sport science concepts, such as his work : What is the most direct means to achieve strength gains specific to the demands of jumping events . Dave is a regular contributor to expert roundtables on the jumping events, and his knowledge of the biomechanics and training concepts for the track and field jumps can be useful for any coach.

On today’s podcast, we’ll get into many aspects of track jumps and related training, and ideas that can be universally applied.

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.

Today’s guest is nutritionist Rick Brunner. Rick is the author of “Explosive Ergogenics for Athletes”, an Alpha GPC based power enhancer for athletes.

I first saw Rick speak at the CVASP Seminar back in 2014, where he unloaded a barrage of great information on a variety of nutrition topics. Shortly after the presentation, I started using Alpha GPC as Rick had recommended and saw some great results in my training, as well as even having enhanced mental cognition while under its effects.

Rick is a nutritionist who came up through the dawn of the sport supplement era, and has a wealth of knowledge, not only of human physiology, performance, and related supplementation, but also of how modern marketing trends and consumerism has affected the nature of how modern supplements effect the athlete (which is not always for the better). Rick spent extensive time learning from Soviet scientists in his quest for optimal supplementation back in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, and was active in creatine’s early appearance on the US shelves.

In the past 31 years, Rick Brunner has helped over 1,500 explosive athletes and their strength and conditioning coaches in football, baseball, hockey, basketball, track and field sprints, throws, and jumps, Olympic weightlifting, and many others achieve breakaway gains in reaction, starting power, maximal speed, striking force, and power-endurance.

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.