Just Fly Performance Podcast

Today’s guest is Jeff Moyer. Jeff returns for his second appearance on the show, and talks in depth on training approaches for building speed in athletes. In today’s industry, there are a lot of theories thrown around, and a lot of “smart” sounding terminology used to describe those theories. In the end, however, the only thing that matters is what works.

In that vein, Jeff is a fantastic guy to talk to, since he has three things that stand out in this arena.

1. He gets great results in speed improvement in his athletes

2. He has an immense thirst for knowledge and frequently talks with some of the best coaches in the industry

3. He has a significantly active B.S. meter

Ever since our first episode together I’ve had numerous chats with Jeff about all arenas of sport and athletic performance, and I’m always amazed at the people he is learning from and the concepts he is working with. When it comes to training athletes, Jeff gets it.

Today, we cover just a few key arenas of training speed, but in great detail. Particular points of interest for this episode are the relationship of sprint mechanics to injury, special strength training, and training dosages. Mastering these ideals is what gives Jeff the results he has, and any coach can benefit immensely from listening.

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 Perry Nickelston. Perry is a chiropractic physician with primary focus on performance enhancement, corrective exercise, and metabolic fitness nutrition. He is certified and trained as a Functional Movement Specialist (FMS) and Selective Functional Movement Assessment Specialist (SFMA). Perry is a master fitness trainer with over 25 years of experience in the industry, and runs the “Stop Chasing Pain” podcast.

I’ve personally been on a journey for some time in the realms of corrective exercise and “activation/reset” based therapeutic means for helping the body achieve its original, or optimal, patterning. At a Neurokinetic Therapy seminar (I completed level 1 and 2), which was a really great course, a name that frequently came up at the seminar was Perry Nickelston. Ever since, I’ve been looking into Dr. Perry’s work, how I can better integrate concepts of corrective exercise into my own work, and also how these concepts tie into sport performance.

This show has great ideas for any strength coach engaging in the host of modern corrective and activation based performance paradigms. It also has important implications that originate in therapy, but stretch out into every aspect of full blown athletic performance programming. On the show today, we’ll discuss ideas of “the core”, pain science, the minimal dose in treatment and corrective exercise, making corrective exercise more “sticky”, and more.

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 episode is the fulfillment of the last call for questions I put out on social media. In episode, I’ll be covering topics ranging from speed training biomechanics to trunk and core training, to periodization, so this is somewhat of an eclectic episode, which is great, as it managed to tie into many of my thoughts and beliefs that I’ve done a lot of critical work on in the last few years. There are at least a half-dozen questions revolving around vertical jumping in some form as well.

As always, the theme revolves around current trends in speed and power development, so if you want to hear my 2-cents with trends in modern sports performance, then I hope this proves an interesting listen. I’m glad somebody “set me up” because I finally get to offer some of my thoughts on the single leg Olympic lift trend that everyone was discussing on social media a while ago. Feedback on these question and answer episodes is always welcome, and I enjoy hearing what you have to say.

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 Aaron Davis, sports performance and health coach at Train Adapt Evolve. I first discovered Aaron’s work after reading his piece on arterial occlusion and tempo vs. circuit training prescriptions which sparked a huge interest in the topic on my own end. Aaron’s work is first class, and his knowledge of physiology and athlete adaptations is second to none in a field where coaches are quick to copy and paste the trendy workout template, but less willing to dig into why one athlete might respond well to longer sprint work, while others flounder with this workload.

Aaron has been a head collegiate track and field coach, and switched over the private industry afterwards, where he now uses technology to optimize training adaptations for athletic populations. He also has a deep interest in human health and function.

Today on the podcast, Aaron and I cover topics ranging from muscle length-tension relationships, to muscle occlusion trends in sprinting and strength, to muscle hypertrophy ideals and training cycle planning.

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 Bas Van Hooren, applied sport scientist and strength and conditioning specialist from the Netherlands. Bas has a wealth of knowledge on many facets of speed and sports performance, including muscle slack, muscle action, and biarticular muscle action, and how these concepts apply to training.

Bas Van Hooren is an athlete, applied sport scientist and strength and conditioning specialist from Gronsveld, The Netherlands. He is currently lecturing at Fontys University of Applied Sports Sciences. As an athlete, Bas has won multiple medals at the national championships, including a gold medal at the national championship 3000m indoor in 2017.

As an applied sport scientist, Bas has written multiple peer-reviewed scientific publications about a variety of sport science topics, and has a special interest in the transfer effects of training on sports performance and injury prevention.

It seems to happen regularly that we are reframing the context by which we are seeing and using traditional lifting with traditional up and down tempos. The more we know about the exact physiological and neurological mechanisms that drive movement, the more we can understand which aspects of lifting, plyometrics and special strength are helpful, and which might have a “reverse transfer”.

In my interview today with Bas, we go into detail on concepts of muscle slack, gearing, and phasic considerations, all with clear applications to how and what we are programming for our athlete populations.

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 Chris Korfist, owner of Slow Guy Speed School and track coach at Montini High School in Lombard, Ill.

I’m happy to have Chris back a third time on this podcast series. Chris is the epitome of a lifelong learner, and is continually honing his craft in developing athletic speed. I’ve learned a lot from Chris, and the podcast you’ll be listening to was no exception for me.

For today’s podcast, we recap Chris’s season (where he sent 2 boys to state in the 100m dash and finished 2nd in the 4x100m), and go into a variety of speed related topics with questions ranging from resisted sprinting and special strength work, to overspeed training, to reducing crossover gait.

This episode has numerous gems for speed and power training, where Chris dissects his season of training, and provides insight into his training, technical assessment and thought process.

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 Kevin Carr. Kevin is a strength coach at Mike Boyle’s Strength and Conditioning, and is the co-owner of “Movement as Medicine”, the official massage therapists of Mike Boyle’s.

Kevin has already amassed a wealth of experience in the field of sports performance and personal training at MBSC, working with everyone from US Olympians looking for a competitive edge down to general population clientele. Kevin has a huge wealth of knowledge in the physical preparation, and human function sectors, with certifications including FMS, SFMA, NKT Level 1 and 2, FRC, FAPP, Pn1, and PRI.

On the podcast today, Kevin goes into great detail on some of the principles of MBSC in terms of modifying the powerlifts, as well as thoughts on single leg training. In my own circle, I’ve felt like people tend to look at progressive training programs like Boyle’s and say “All they do is one leg work” and “They never squat!”, but this couldn’t be further from the truth, and there is a critically important rationale behind their exercise selection.

Although it might not be truly sexy to talk about exercise selection, not back squatting, etc. in terms of injury prevention, there are performance upsides to this mentality as well, especially in the long term. Kevin goes into breaking down the functional capacities of the human body, and how we can optimize our machinery for it’s highest performance. This was an enjoyable episode to put together, that coaches from all arenas can enjoy.

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 in Andreas Behm, sprints and hurdles coach and education director at ALTIS. He is the coach of Aries Merritt, the London 2012 Olympic Champion at 110mH, the 2012 Diamond League winner, and now the World Record holder with his 12.80 at the Brussels Diamond League.

Andreas’ upbringing and mentorship in the field has been highlighted by some of the biggest names in the sport with the likes of Dan Pfaff and Vince Anderson. He also works alongside standouts in the coaching field such as Stuart McMillan at ALTIS.

Today’s episode touches on Andreas’ specialty of hurdles, but we largely discuss practical, general concepts for all athletes seeking speed through better training design and management. This is one of the best “nuts and bolts” episodes we’ve done on the podcast thus far, and Andreas’ willingness to share his insight to the training process is really amazing.

Between listening to Stuart McMillan speak at TFC-4 in Chicago, and then talking with Andreas for the show today, I feel like I’ve literally jumped several levels in my knowledge of not only speed coaching, but athletics coaching in general. Many of the concepts that Andreas has mentioned are also highly relevant to me in my training of swimmers.

Topics on the podcast that Andreas gets into are: Thoughts on weekly training setups, individualizing potentiation sessions, relationship of the hurdles to other events and athletic arenas, addressing and instilling rhythm in athletics, ideas on special strength work for sprinting, and much more.

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.

Our guest for today’s episode is Dr. Daniel Chao, CEO at Halo Neuroscience. Daniel Chao is a medtech entrepreneur, specializing devices that improve brain performance, and currently is the co-founder and CEO of Halo Neuroscience based in San Francisco developing neuroscience-based technology that accelerates performance gains for elite athletes.

Today’s podcast is all about the brain, learning, skill acquisition and achieving better performance. Topics include neuroplasticity, neural drive, chemical vs. electrical stimulation to the brain, and more.

As we move through decades of training and sports science, it’s interesting to see what becomes common in popular culture. Pre-workouts have become a cultural, and even meme phenomenon, but are they really helping drive better performance in competition? Are the benefits outweighed by the cost, and is there a better way to stimulate the brain for optimal learning?

Dr. Chao goes in depth on skill learning, and the future of enhancing the brain for performance gains.

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.

For this week’s podcast, I’ll be hosting the show, and answering questions on a variety of topics. It’s always enjoyable to see what viewers and listeners are interested in. Points covered range from topics on matters of strength and vertical jump, bounding and vertical jump transfer, training philosophies of various gurus, the biggest gap in the educational process of our sports performance professionals, and much more.

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.