Krush Performance

This week on Krush Performance, we wrap up our 2017 War on Sugar with Krush favorite Dr. Ann de Wees Allen, the Chief of Biomedical Research at the Glycemic Research Institute and the Director of Clinical Research for Glycemic Research Laboratories. We look back on some of the statistics, the Glycemic Index and why it may be one of the most important concepts when it comes to battling diet related health issues, new research available for athletes, and what you really need to know about sport and energy drinks.

Join us as we wrap up the 2017 Krush War on Sugar and, let us know if you have question or a topic you would like us to investigate. If we like your idea we may dedicate a segment or entire show to your topic. E-Mail Jeff with your questions and comments!

If you get a chance, share this with your fellow coaches, teammates and family members.

As always, thanks for listening!

Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, and now on Google Play! Don’t forget to rate and review the show!

Follow Jeff Krushell on Twitter and Facebook!

E-Mail Jeff with your questions and comments for the show and don’t forget to visit KrushPerformance.com for live streaming, blogs, links, and so much more.

This week, Jeff Krushell is joined by Dr. Jackie Whittaker, Assistant Professor and Adjunct Professor of Kinesiology at the University of Alberta and the Research Director at the Glen Sather Sport Medicine Clinic, to discuss their research project on injury prevention. Many of the injuries we are seeing are avoidable through proper preparation for sport and we are working to get a better understanding of how injuries are happening, who is at risk, and what injury prevention strategies are most effective.

How can we keep you healthy? Can we save your knees? Are you at high risk for osteoarthritis? Young athletes who experience a knee injury are at four times greater risk of developing osteoarthritis than youth who do not have a knee injury.

What is the financial impact of injuries in sport? Billions. TENS of billions.

Krusher and Dr. Whittaker discuss it all.

Later in the show, we will be answering some e-mails & text questions that have come in over the last few weeks:

• “Krusher, hey is there a better way to find the right skate? I can never get the right fit and are there better skates for different types of games?”

• “Krush Piece – love the show, hey is there a right way or wrong way to sharpen skates?”

To get the right answer we go to the expert, Kelly Hodgson, Brand & Event Manager at United Cycle, joins us to make sure we are getting it right.

Let us know if you have any questions, comments, smart remarks, or a topic you would like us to investigate. We may dedicate a segment or even an entire show to your topic. E-Mail Jeff with your questions and comments!

Thanks for listening as we work to prevent injuries and keep you healthy. If you get a chance, share this with your fellow coaches, team-mates and family members.

As always, thanks for listening!

Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, and now on Google Play! Don’t forget to rate and review the show!

Follow Jeff Krushell on Twitter and Facebook!

E-Mail Jeff with your questions and comments for the show and don’t forget to visit KrushPerformance.com for live streaming, blogs, links, and so much more.

This week on Krush Performance, I remember a great friend and teammate lost this week. Two time Cy Young Award winner Roy Halladay was a true inspiration to all who knew him and for all who had the opportunity to see him perform. I spent a good number of years in the Blue Jay organization and Roy Halladay was there for every one of them. I’d like to go back and share with you some of my stories and experiences from my time with Roy.

He was a player who became an inspiration and there is a lot to learn from the great Roy Halladay. He was a family man, a baseball player, pitcher, and a fierce competitor. He was humble, deliberate, determined, and a player who’s approach and love for the game of baseball will transcend the test of time.

Also, Remembrance Day in Canada and Veterans Day in the United States is a very special time. In this episode of Krush Performance, we also pay tribute to the great men and women who serve their countries in the name of freedom and democracy.

We are going to talk with David Cooper, former Navy Seal, Command Master Chief of the Naval Special Warfare Development Group and member of Seal Team Six, one of the most successful tactical military forces in history. We will talk with Dave about leadership, teamwork, and performance mindset and what goes into preparing the brave man and women for service in the military.

A very important episode of remembrance and respect.

Let us know if you have any questions, comments, smart remarks, or a topic you would like us to investigate. We may dedicate a segment or even an entire show to your topic.E-Mail Jeff with your questions and comments!

As always, thanks for listening!

Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, and now on Google Play! Don’t forget to rate and review the show!

Follow Jeff Krushell on Twitter and Facebook!

E-Mail Jeff with your questions and comments for the show and don’t forget to visit KrushPerformance.com for live streaming, blogs, links, and so much more.

*In honor of everyone who ran, volunteered, watched, and organized the New York City Marathon*

On the Krush Performance Must Read List, “Born To Run” is one of the best books I have had the pleasure to read.

A brilliant mix of epic story telling and facilitating science that, in the end, makes you think twice about what you think you know about running and human performance.

Chris McDougall joins us to, not only talk about the book, but his quest for answers and the incredible adventure that ensued as he set out to find a tribe of the world’s greatest distance runners, the reclusive Tarahumara Indians in Mexico’s deadly Copper Canyons.

For centuries, they have honed and practiced techniques that not only have given them the superhuman talent to run hundreds of miles without rest but they have also developed an uncanny health and serenity which leaves them immune to the disease and illness that plagues modern society.

Download and hear the story from Chris as he travels from the super modern labs and technology of places like Harvard to some of the most treacherous terrain in the world to find these very special people and learn their secrets.

Enjoy.

Let us know if you have any questions, comments, smart remarks, or a topic you would like us to investigate. We may dedicate a segment or even an entire show to your topic.E-Mail Jeff with your questions and comments!

As always, thanks for listening!

Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, and now on Google Play! Don’t forget to rate and review the show!

Follow Jeff Krushell on Twitter and Facebook!

E-Mail Jeff with your questions and comments for the show and don’t forget to visit KrushPerformance.com for live streaming, blogs, links, and so much more.

If we look at the amount of resources invested in professional sport, I can’t help buy wonder why we are not seeing more success. Then, it got me thinking – why indeed. Maybe it’s time to go back to the basics of human development.

An organization is a sum of its parts and the success of an organization depends on the ability of its parts to perform at a level that leads to success. No matter if you are a team athlete or an individual athlete (Tennis or Golf or Swimming…), a school or a business success depends on the ability of the people within your organization to perform.

Could it be that organizations at the very top of athletic performance (MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, MLS, Tennis, Golf….you name it) are missing some of the most basic fundamental building blocks of human development and ultimately human performance?

I think…yes. So, what are these building blocks?

We talk with Dr. Martin Mrazik, Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Alberta, about these very building blocks and how organizations may be missing this all important aspect of human performance.

Let us know if you have any questions, comments, smart remarks, or a topic you would like us to investigate. We may dedicate a segment or even an entire show to your topic.E-Mail Jeff with your questions and comments!

As always, thanks for listening!

Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, and now on Google Play! Don’t forget to rate and review the show!

Follow Jeff Krushell on Twitter and Facebook!

E-Mail Jeff with your questions and comments for the show and don’t forget to visit KrushPerformance.com for live streaming, blogs, links, and so much more.

Do you have a plan? I ask because nothing great happens without a plan. I have found that too many of us either don’t have a plan or we fail to plan or…we simply don’t know how to put a good plan together.

This week, we talk with our good friend, the Coach of Champions, Jim Fannin to discuss his new book, “Blue Print: A Proven Plan for Successful Living,” which you can pre-order now from Amazon.

We will discuss how the great organizations plan for success and the not so great ones do not, the importance of quality leadership and what a real top performing leader looks/acts like, and we will discuss how success comes from the top down.

We’ll also outline one of the most critical key components you need to understand if you truly want to plan for success. Most of us are going about it all wrong!

For more of Jim’s brilliance, make sure to subscribe to his podcast, “The Jim Fannin Show.”

Plus…… we have a Krush Performance tribute……

Earlier this week, the world lost a true top performer in Gord Downie, the lead man for The Tragically Hip.

It’s incredible how music and the people who create it impact our lives. The Hip have been with me for as long as I can remember, through the good and bad, the ups and the downs, they have been with so many others who grew up with Gord & The Hip. In fact, it feels like I have lost one of my good friends this week even though I never had the pleasure to meet Gord.

That is the incredible power of music.

This week, the show will be laced with the great sound of The Tragically Hip as we remember our good friend, Gord Downie.

Thanks For the Music.

Let us know if you have any questions, comments, smart remarks, or a topic you would like us to investigate. We may dedicate a segment or even an entire show to your topic.E-Mail Jeff with your questions and comments!

As always, thanks for listening!

Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, and now on Google Play! Don’t forget to rate and review the show!

Follow Jeff Krushell on Twitter and Facebook!

E-Mail Jeff with your questions and comments for the show and don’t forget to visit KrushPerformance.com for live streaming, blogs, links, and so much more.

Injury prevention is priority number ONE in professional sport. There are hundreds of millions, even BILLIONS of dollars being spent on players that cannot contribute to their team’s efforts.

Today, we find out just how much injuries are costing professional teams and the numbers are staggering! However, most injuries start well before professional careers begin and we must do more at the developmental levels.

It’s estimated that the cost of injuries coming out of high school contact sports alone may exceed $20 Billion with over 600,000 annual injuries. We need to attack this issue and one of the best ways to prevent injuries is to prepare properly.

In this episode, we talk with the Toronto Blue Jays’ head strength and conditioning coach Donovan Santas about how their high performance program is addressing injuries and player performance.

As we head into the all important baseball off-season, we discuss what players, coaches, and parents should be thinking about and how can you capitalize on your time away from the game. It’s the most important developmental opportunity an athlete can have and to take full advantage of it you simply need to know what you need to be doing. You need to plan properly.

Also, we’ll look back at our MLB pre-season predictions to see how we made out and which team got the biggest bang for their buck – do big pay-rolls equal good results?

We find out on this episode of Krush Performance.

Let us know and if you have any questions, comments, smart remarks, or a topic you would like us to investigate let us know we may dedicate a segment or even an entire show to your topic.

As always, thanks for listening!

Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, and now on Google Play! Don’t forget to rate and review the show!

Follow Jeff Krushell on Twitter and Facebook!

E-Mail Jeff with your questions and comments for the show and don’t forget to visit KrushPerformance.com for live streaming, blogs, links, and so much more.

This week, Jeff Krushell is joined by Will Fraser of the Nielson and Fraser show on TSN 1260 Sports Radio in Edmonton as we go from the North to the South and East to the West to breakdown the league and discuss the top players, teams, and story lines in the NHL this year.

I always say, “If you want to know what to do, look to the pro’s. Sometimes though, you’ll also discover what not to do.” There is a lot to learn if you break down professional sport the proper way and this NHL season is stacked with players, teams, and story lines worthy of conversation.

This is a no BS breakdown of NHL Hockey and whether or not you are a fan of the NHL, this is a compelling conversation that will get you thinking about the challenges of achieving top performance in today’s sporting landscape.

Let us know and if you have any questions, comments, smart remarks, or a topic you would like us to investigate let us know we may dedicate a segment or even an entire show to your topic.

As always, thanks for listening!

Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, and now on Google Play! Don’t forget to rate and review the show!

Follow Jeff Krushell on Twitter and Facebook!

E-Mail Jeff with your questions and comments for the show and don’t forget to visit KrushPerformance.com for live streaming, blogs, links, and so much more.

Sleep Science – Cheri Mah

Are you getting enough sleep?

The reason I ask is because most of us aren’t. This Week on Krush Performance, we go deep into the current sleep science with renown sleep researcher Cheri Mah at the University of California San Francisco

Can extra sleep boost your performance? What exactly is sleep debt and how can you pay it back? How do pro teams deal with the lack of recovery and sleep due to the brutal competitive schedules?

Can we predict when tired teams are going to lose? You bet we can and with incredible accuracy. Vegas, here we come!!!

It’s a must listen episode of Krush Performance as we look at our number one performance factor….SLEEP!

Let us know and if you have any questions, comments, smart remarks, or a topic you would like us to investigate let us know we may dedicate a segment or even an entire show to your topic.

As always, thanks for listening!

Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, and now on Google Play! Don’t forget to rate and review the show!

Follow Jeff Krushell on Twitter and Facebook!

E-Mail Jeff with your questions and comments for the show and don’t forget to visit KrushPerformance.com for live streaming, blogs, links, and so much more.

Football Under Fire!

Can we save football?

As the Canadian Football League receives international attention for their bold mid-season move to ban in-season full contact practice – all in the name of player safety…

The NFL is front and center once again faced with the lawsuit stemming from the tragic loss of former New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez who took his own life at the age of 23.

Brain researchers at Center at Boston University found that Aaron had a severe case of the degenerative brain disease, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. Dr. Ann McKee, director at the CTE center, said Hernandez had Stage 3 (out of 4) of the disease which has been associated with violent moods swings, depression among other cognitive disorders.

In the very same week, a powerful long term study published in the Journal of Transitional Psychiatry found that athletes playing football prior to the age of 12 were twice as likely to have problems with behavior, apathy, and executive functioning including problem solving, planning, initiating activities and organizational skills.

These younger players were also three times more likely than those who started the sport after the age of 12 to experience symptoms of depression.

How do you react to this type of information.

In a Twitter poll, we asked:

Is Tackle Football Safe for Children under the age of 12 years?

The results:

19% YES

81% NO

To top it all off recent data shows that participation in tackle football among 6-12 year old boys has dropped nearly 20% since 2009!

Are we losing football? In my opinion, the game provides too many benefits to let it slip away but are we doing enough? Are we doing it fast enough to save this great game?

I wanted to go back inside the game and get the viewpoint from people who not only played the game but made / make their living in the game.

Today, we talk with Jason Lafferty, former college player who is now in his 10th year of coaching as the receiver coach at the University of Alberta, and Dan Comiskey, CFL All-Star and 13 year veteran of the offensive line. Dan not only played the game he talks openly about how he dealt with concussions over the course of his career and how a CFL trainer convinced him to retire and saved his life!

Can we save Football?

This week, it’s a very powerful episode of Krush Performance.

Let us know and if you have any questions, comments, smart remarks, or a topic you would like us to investigate let us know we may dedicate a segment or even an entire show to your topic.

As always, thanks for listening!

Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, and now on Google Play! Don’t forget to rate and review the show!

Follow Jeff Krushell on Twitter and Facebook!

E-Mail Jeff with your questions and comments for the show and don’t forget to visit