Mike G is most commonly known as Jrue Holiday's performance coach, aside from that Mike is an incredible person. Having the honor of meeting him two times now and speaking with him both times, he has an energy about him that's truly unmatched. He makes everyone around him better.

He's extremely passionate about his craft and his job, this episode is great because we talk a good amount of training but also Mike talks about the intangible things that aren't necessarily talked about enough in my opinion, things like: emotional intelligence, the importance of being adaptable as a coach, doing and not just consuming and so much more.

I really hope you guys are locked in for this one because Mike brought a lot of great value!

Follow Mike!!
https://www.instagram.com/mrdoitmoving/

GBG Hoops:
IG - https://www.instagram.com/gbg.hoops/
App - https://train.gbghoops.com/users/sign_up.html/?checkout=true

See Mike speak in-person (TripleThreatU) - LA, Dallas or Miami 
https://linktr.ee/triplethreatu

Atencio Martin (first ever guest of the show) and my good friend Matt Kenna join me for today's episode

Tence and Matt ask me a little about training, dealing with social media hate and we dive into the nba playoffs with predictions, rankings and more!

Ben Teer is the biggest basketball trainer in the state of Maine, and not only Maine but he's also recognized as one of the best in America. It was great to chop it up with Ben especially seeing that I'm also a trainer out of Maine.

We talk about the development that Maine has seen since he started (2015) and what's helped get the state where we are now, we talk about how powerful your perspective can be, how important it is to not be someone else and to really step into your own legacy, he gave some insight on what it's been like building his social media as well as running a very thriving business essentially all by himself (hint - it's pretty hard).

Ben is really good dude and I'm glad I was able to connect with him, he does a lot for the state Maine and basketball within the state.

Ben Teer's IG: https://www.instagram.com/coachbenteer/ 

Gabe Macias is a basketball skills trainer and gym owner in San Diego, California. He's the owner of Gametimeelitetraining, and he brought so much value to the show and for you guys.

Gabe gives such great insight on how he built up his clientele by training a couple kids at the park and starting as an AAU coach, then leveraging being a coach to his advantage. He goes into some methods of utilizing AAU programs to build your clientele as well as utilizing referral programs in order to grow your clientele.

We talk about how Gabe found his gym and then the best part of the podcast in my opinion is how he's built the culture in his gym, and he goes into a lot of detail. He mentions something he gives his athletes called an accountability journal which he has his athletes reflect in, do homework in and so much more

Make sure to tune in to the whole episode, you don't wanna miss any of it.

Gabe's social media:
IG - https://www.instagram.com/gametimeelitetraining/
Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfyk9fwHemsNq3d_C6pG8tg
Website for links - https://gametimeelitebasketballtraining.com/links

I heard Joerik speak at the Mastery Hoops Player Development Conference this month and was taken away by his expertise and approach to player development, I'm ecstatic to get him on.

He and I talk about his gym in Belgium and his story to get where he is now, he's a trailblazer in Europe and continuously improving the culture where he is. He brings a unique philosophy by utilizing small-sided games to train one of the most important qualities in basketball: decision-making. 

Joerik takes his role extremely seriously as a role model to the athletes he works with, he provides an experience at his gym that helps teach life habits as well as basketball skills. Not every athlete will go play pro and make millions of dollars, but even so they shouldn't feel like they're stuck now or unprepared because all they've done is play basketball - Joerik's philosophy is to train both life skills and basketball skills at the same time. 

Make sure to check out Joerik's instagram and his online coaching platform below:

IG: https://www.instagram.com/joerik/

Platform: https://eliteathletes.be/events/elite-athletes-coaches-development-weekend/ 

Early off-season training needs to be as general as possible, stay away from any sport specific movement patterns. We just got through with a vigorous 7 month competitive season where all our body did was sport specific movements, a lot of players experienced other injuries throughout the season as well - jumper's knee, sprained ankle, pulled groined, and so much more

This is our opportunity to rebuild our foundation from the ground up and focus on individual weaknesses, movement quality, and recover from the season. If we stay specific to our sport we'll only burn out and inevitably get injured

Contrary to common belief and what actual real doctors say, "rest and ice" doesn't help patellar tendinopathy. It's actually making it worse which I dive into in this weeks episode, in order to actually get better we have to load the tendon. 

Few big concepts in the episode:
1. LOAD the tendon
2. Manage your workload - spikes in your workload aggravate tendons immensely 
3. Train the feet and soleus to help protect the knee and hip 
4. Take a look at your nutrition - the saying "you are what you eat" rings true, we can't recover a degenerated tendon if you're putting McDonalds and sprite into your system
5. Practice proper mechanics - we land in precarious and often harmful positions post jump, so who's to say how much value snap downs actually have? I do think there may be at least a little value in training proper mechanics through the kinetic chain (ankle, knee, hip) and to try and properly distribute the force we absorb through all three joints. Altitude drops and a plethora of other deceleration type work has their place and prove to be extremely important 

Some notable names and people you should look up if you wanna learn more:
Jill Cook 
Keith Barr
Jake Tuura: YT - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGi0IxcAiCyOGmvTjVqAHiw 
Podcast - https://jackedathlete.libsyn.com/
Paul Fabritz
Mike G

This past weekend I traveled to LA for the second Mastery Hoops Player Development Conference, and it was absolutely incredible. I wanted to use it as leverage to talk about why going to these types of events is so important.

Here's what I think going to these events do:
1. Build meaningful relationships
2. Travel and see new cultures, try new cuisine, site see, get new perspective which all help you become a better HUMAN
3. Gain invaluable knowledge and experience 
4. Incredible for business (immediate & for the future)
5. Improve your own craft and every around you

Listen to the whole thing to hear me digress some more on all those topics.

Season 2 episode 1 was a great one!! Cristian is an awesome human being, everything about him just screams genuine. He puts so much into his craft and it's so easy to see that even just through his words alone. 

I'm a big believer that you can learn so much from others stories and others journeys, we spend a good amount of time going over Cristians background and then the importance of experience in this field and in general. Which brings us into the topic of his pro academy down in Austin, Texas. 

I ask Cristian if he uses a formal screening/assessment process, which he later talks about how it's not necessarily just about one assessment but how everyday he and his colleagues are reassessing their athletes. 

We talk about static stretching and if it really makes sense and Cristian has an interesting perspective on "static" stretching - not the traditional take. Mobility and flexibility aren't exactly the same, then once we gain adequate mobility do we keep driving for more?

Lastly Cristian touches upon the foot & ankle complex and the importance of training it especially for hoopers.

Cristians info:
IG - https://www.instagram.com/cristiangplascencia/
Durable Athlete - https://durableathlete.com/
Texas Pro Academy - https://texasproacademy.com/

Preface: If you like static stretching and it works for you, keep doing it. 

This episode I breakdown if static stretching is really helping us, in my opinion as well as a lot of research says, it doesn't.  It doesn't improve performance, warm us up, reduce injury, improve/increase range of motion, etc

It's really good for cramps, but that's about it. I talk about why that is and use this article for reference:
https://www.painscience.com/articles/stretching.php#sec_flexibility