Today, I’m excited to have one of my athletes, John Luke Taylor, on the Podcast. I’ve had the pleasure to work with John Luke for almost 2 years now and am extremely proud to be a part of his journey. When he first walked in having just finished his Junior football season, he was discouraged with a lack of playing time. As a defensive lineman, he was undersized and not nearly strong enough to compete for a starting spot. 

We talked about what the journey would look like - from training, to sleep, to hydration and nutrition. He said, “I’ll do whatever you tell me to do” - we got to work that day….by the time fall camp started, he had gained nearly 30lbs of muscle and dropped his body fat significantly. He not only became a day 1 starter, but was a leader on the defensive side anchoring the nose guard position. 

We continued to work throughout the season, through an injury which you’ll hear about, and into a Conference Championship for the first time in school history. Not only did he have a successful season, but because of the work that he put and his performance on the field, he was now fielding college offers from several different schools at all different levels. Eventually, he was offered a preferred walk-on spot at Div. 1 Wofford college, which he accepted.

Throughout this podcast, you’ll get to hear about his journey and what it took to get him to where he is now, how he fought through injury and some advice for younger athletes who want to play in college. 

John Luke is an awesome picture of what hard work and being coachable can do for you. He’s become a really good athlete, but more importantly, he’s a great person and someone that all of our younger athletes should look up to as the example of what our Athlete Academy is all about.

Welcome to the “Unlocking Athletes” podcast - My name is Nate Woodruff. I’ll be hosting this podcast and interviewing athletes, coaches, parents and friends about different aspects of what it means to be an athlete in today’s world. 

This podcast is designed to help athletes, parents and coaches navigate this crazy sports climate we are in. Regardless of what sport you are involved in, there is a mountain of information out there - some of it good, but a lot of it is bad and even debilitating for families who simply want what’s best for their athletes. We’ll dive into subjects like

I want to give you an opportunity to hear from nutritionists, college coaches, HS coaches, HS/College players, parents, scouts, former players, sleep coaches and performance coaches who have lived it or are living it now to help give you quality information that can help you, your athlete or your team achieve their potential.

A little background on me - I was a multi-sport athlete growing up in the Atlanta area and ended up playing Division 3 Football from 2005-2008. In 2009, I graduated and began coaching football, girls basketball and baseball at the HS level. I did that from 2009-2017 becoming a Private School Athletic Director for those last 2 ½ years. During my time as a coach, I began doing performance training with all of my teams. 

In 2017, I took a job as a Recruiting Specialist with the largest Athletic Recruiting Company in the world. I was also training athletes on the side until 2020 when I had built up enough clients to make performance training my full time job. I am now the Manager of a large performance gym near Pinehurst, NC and have the opportunity to coach athletes of all ages and skill levels. From 4th graders just learning how to move to high level HS athletes looking to play in college, to adult athletes training for specific tactical or sport events - I feel truly blessed to be where I am and am excited about the future

I hope this is a resource for you going forward - If you like it, please share it with other people. If you don’t like it - be a good human and keep it to yourself.

Let’s get into episode 1 of  “Unlocking Athletes”

Today, I am really excited to talk to my friend, Dr. Aston Dommel. Aston is a Dietician for the United States military as well as a competitive crossfit athlete. Recently, Aston competed at the East Regionals for a fitness competition called Battle Bunker where he took home the title and qualified for the Hybricon Games in October.

In this episode, we dive into what nutrition should look like for our MS/HS/College athletes out there trying to improve their performance on the field or court. What to eat, how much, when to eat and really just give you some simple strategies as an athlete, parent or coach that can have a huge impact on your ability to perform at your best when it matters. 

𝕀𝕗 𝕪𝕠𝕦’𝕧𝕖 𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕣 𝕥𝕣𝕒𝕚𝕟𝕖𝕕 𝕤𝕖𝕣𝕚𝕠𝕦𝕤𝕝𝕪 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝕤𝕠𝕞𝕖𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘, 𝕪𝕠𝕦’𝕧𝕖 𝕖𝕩𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕚𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖𝕕 𝕡𝕒𝕚𝕟. 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕢𝕦𝕖𝕤𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟 𝕚𝕤, 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕕𝕠 𝕨𝕖 𝕕𝕠 𝕒𝕓𝕠𝕦𝕥 𝕚𝕥?

In this episode of the EAX Performance Podcast, Jeremy Kane and Chris McNamara will discuss pain and how it relates to the way that we program for our athletes to train around pain.

Key talking points in this episode were:

Define pain in athlete terms.

Pain is the #1 limiter of performance

Discuss the subtle differences on how pain is NOT Discomfort & NOT “the burn.”

Pain does not guarantee progress.

Local / regional / global pain presentation patterns.

Structure vs tissue pain. When

Neural & hormonal responses to pain.

Pain is a signal for Change.

Nutritional support for acute / chronic pain.

Training strategies for someone with acute pain.

Training strategies for someone with chronic pain.

The gift of injury. How to use pain to teach you to move better.

In this episode, Jeremy and I  switch things up some and have a friendly debate on Group vs Individual coaching and programming..

Some of the things we discussed are:

•Power of Each.

•Pitfalls of Each

•Pros & Cons for health & longevity

•Pros & Cons of performance / competing

•Pros & Cons for group coaching

•Pros & Cons for Indy coaching

•Programming considerations for both

•Which we are doing now.

•And more!

Don’t get us wrong. Like we state in the beginning of this episode, we believe there is a time and a place for both.  Everything has a time and place. The key is knowing WHEN, WHY, and WHICH athlete to use these tools with.

In this episode, Jeremey and I switch things up some and have a friendly debate on pacing.

Some of the things we discussed are:

•Power of pacing.

•Pitfalls of pacing

•Pros & Cons of Pacing in training.

•Pros & Cons of Pacing in competition.

•Pros & Cons of coach prescribed pacing.

•Pros & Cons of athlete regulated pacing.

•Positive Adaptations from Pacing

•Negative Adaptations from Pacing

•Pacing considerations for each type of athlete. (Sport / Tactical / Fitness)

•And more!

Don’t get us wrong. Like we state in the beginning of this episode, we BOTH believe in & use pacing (in some variation) with every single one of our athletes.

Just like we’ve discussed with things like linear periodization, percentage-based training, or even non-traditional methods, everything has a time and place.

The key is knowing WHEN, WHY, and WHICH athletes to use these tools with.

We even did a rapid-fire at the end with these questions:

-What do you like to hear from your athletes each day?

-What athlete is easier to build from a tension limited or delivery limited athlete?

-Moxy / Humon monitors - how do they work and do we have them at EAX?

-Is there a fighting weight preference for tactical athletes?

A beginner athlete is like a baby snake, they're more dangerous because they don't know to control anything.  They also don't know any better and assume they have it all figured out! 

This whole episode is dedicated to the concept of training age.

Chronological age is simply how long you've been alive.  

Biological age is a measure of how the biological aging process has impacted your body. It can be defined in terms of what researchers call frailty indices – in what areas does your body work less well today than it did last year, or a decade ago?

Training age is the cumulative amount of time you've spent training for a particular sport. It refers to a cumulative workload (and skill level) built over the years and years of consistent training.

Dive in and take a listen!

In Episode 12 we go over the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT PERFORMANCE ENHANCING TOOL at your disposal - SLEEP!

We cover the following questions:

How important is sleep for adequate recovery?

What do you recommend, device wise, for tracking sleep?

How many hours are recommended per night?

If the athlete didn’t get adequate sleep, should they train?

Any supplements that are evidenced-based to promote sleep?

Best sleeping conditions?

What considerations should be made for traveling?

We share the athletes we personally use as well as the tools we use with our athletes.

Regardless of your diet, your training style, or your other recovery methods, all of us need sleep!

Check out this episode and let us know what you think!