Art of Prevention
Our mission is to decrease the prevalence of preventable injuries and athletes therein optimizing performance by decreasing the time that our athletes spend benched due to injury. We are going to distill information and practices from experts in the field of injury prevention. High level coaches and top performing athletes. We believe this information should be accessible to everyone so that we can reduce the rates of preventable injuries.
Art of Prevention
Athletic Excellence: Coach Nick Aguila MS on Tailored Training and Injury Prevention
Unlock the secrets to athletic prowess with Coach Nick Aguila from AguilaPerformance.com, my old training companion from our Adam State days. This episode is a goldmine for athletes and coaches alike, offering a rare glimpse into Nick's philosophy of consistent training that far outstrips the typical focus on volume and intensity. We take a deep dive into the success story of Callum Elson's transformation from soccer player to elite miler, highlighting the meticulous approach that balances pushing limits with nurturing raw talent, all while dodging the hazards of injuries and overtraining.
Coaching is an art as much as it is a science, and this conversation paints a vivid picture of individualized training plans that no two athletes share. We explore the critical role of recovery in an athlete's regimen, debunking the myth that more intensity always translates to better performance. For runners juggling life's demands, we stress the importance of stress-relief activities and how to weave them into a hectic schedule. The episode also spotlights how weight training, often overlooked for runners, is instrumental in promoting hormonal balance and bone health, offering practical advice to incorporate full-body workouts seamlessly into your routine.
Wrapping up this treasure trove of knowledge, we lay out a roadmap for those keen to tap into Nick's expertise. AguilaPerformance.com stands as a beacon for athletes aspiring to reach new heights, offering free initial consultations for those ready to embark on their journey. Whether you're an Olympian in the making or a weekend warrior, there's wisdom to be found here that transcends the track and field, guiding listeners towards their personal bests in sport and life.
https://www.aguilaperformance.com/
If you have listened to this podcast for any length of time you know that strength training is crucial for runners. However a major obstacle for many runners is not know what to do once they get to the weight room. This PDF seeks to change that. It will arm you with the tools you need to effectively strength train to get the most out of your runs.
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Hello everyone and welcome again to the Art of Prevention podcast and yet another special guest today. Coming back all the way from my undergrad is where we met and I'm on today with coach Nick Aguila of AguilaPerformancecom, and I've known Nick since I was an undergrad. He was a graduate assistant at Adam State and we were both training together. We were working out together, we were slim and beetroot juice for the dietary nitrates back then in order to try and get some performance benefits, which I think did help out. And now Nick has been a coach at a couple of different universities. Today we're going to be talking about how we can improve our performances and increase our training load, training volume, etc. Without getting injured. So I'm really excited for this podcast. Nick, why don't you give us a little bit more about your background, some of your coaching experience and now what you do with really a wide variety of athletes, ranging from the weekend warrior trying to break four hours in the marathon to, you know, some Olympic hopefuls and people like that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah for sure. Thanks for having me, nick. It's been a while, so it's good to good to chat again and have me on here. But but yeah, you know, I got kind of infused into this, this coaching, coaching route in my undergrad when I was at UConn. Just the idea of human performance and pushing your kind of self to the limit was like really motivating for me, which kind of led me to Adam State where we met and yeah, I mean after that I was a few colleges, as you said Central Connecticut State University, southern New Hampshire University and American International College. So yeah, now I do not coach in the college ranks anymore. You know, I decided to start my own coaching business or it's been great, you know working. You know I get to work with a whole diverse set of individuals. You know, as you said, those who are trying to get their, you know, get, get themselves out the door running X amount of volume just staying consistent to an athlete who's one of the top milers in the UK.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so obviously you've had a lot of success with the weekend warriors and those high level athletes Tell us about. Are you able to speak to like talking about Callum at all?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So. So Callum Elson, he's the distance project on on social media. He's done a great job at kind of promoting himself and his brand. You know he came from. He was a football player out in out in the UK and University and got a scholarship for grad school here in the States and you know he was a very well-known American soccer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So American soccer yeah, yeah, yeah. So he, yeah. So he came out and yeah, I mean, I mean he was like a 15 minute 5k guy, trained himself through COVID before coming to the States, ended up running pretty well, he was about 155k and which is about, like you know, for 435 per mile, you know, and yeah, and then I kind of inherited him when I went to AIC, saw some good, good turnover, good, good ability in the mile and the shorter distances, so we decided to focus on that and yeah, now he's trying to trying to improve his his mile time and, and you know, see if he can get on the on the British Olympic team this year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you really took him from that kind of just raw talent to progressing all the way to becoming an Olympic hopeful and doing really well in the mile, which is an event that he didn't even see himself doing, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, he always said I thought he was going to be like a 10k half marathon guy, which you know there. There's still time for that. He's got plenty years ahead of him for those events.
Speaker 1:I feel like that's the kind of opposite story from most people. I feel like a lot of people come in and they're like, oh, yeah, man, I'm going to be a mylar that you know, middle distance runner. And it's like, yeah, sorry, you just don't have the turnover for it, so you got to move up to that 5k 10k pretty fast you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, typically, I mean, I think he'd run like when he was playing, you know, soccer out there in the UK. He had always kind of like participated in some local runs and road races, but never like seriously.
Speaker 1:So Now what did that process look like when you put on quote inherited him when you're at American International College? I mean, you had this kid who trained themselves during COVID. They ran low 14s in the 5k, which is like that's pretty solid and you know, doing that on the ground is is a real testament to his own like intellectual and coaching capacity. But how do you take somebody and over you know, five years or so, develop them from this raw like piece of talent to being one of the top 1500 meter runners in the UK?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's a lot of patience. I think it could have been really easy for me to kind of overload him with. You know, oh, you need to do X amount of mileage, you need to do X amount of workouts at X intensity. You know you need to be able to hit these times because you can do it.
Speaker 2:You know I took the I always take the long term approach and that approach is consistency first and foremost. You know, if you're consistent over a long period of time, then you know good things are going to happen. You just compound that fitness, week after week, month after month, year after year, and you just you know, ultimately you don't really know where you're going to be. You know, all you know is that if you compound that fitness week, you're going to be better from where you started, and that that was kind of the biggest, the biggest point that I, that I kind of like drive into most of the athletes that I work with. You know, consistency over volume, over intensity. You know that's kind of like the three, the three tiers or pillars of success.
Speaker 1:So doing a decent job over a long period of time is always going to be better than doing a really great job for a week.
Speaker 2:Exactly exactly. I think you know anyone can run like a really awesome workout week after week. You know, have you know 100 mile week, 120 mile week in them and boom, you know you're on top of the world. But there's a lot of negative that can come from that in terms of like injury setting you back. You know, in the end it's not worth it. So you kind of take, take the athlete with where they're at at that point in time. You know you want to consider like their training age. You know Callum was not. You know he had only been really running for like not even a year at that point before he like broke four minutes in the mile. You know he had run but like in terms of like training at like a certain level, like he hadn't really been training for all that long, like he was fit. But translating that to racing is a lot harder and like a lot of props to him, like he's just a really good racer and that's something that, as a coach, is a lot harder to teach.
Speaker 1:So he had a lot. I didn't even know that he had only been really focused on running for a year and then went sub four in the mile. That's pretty wild, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so how did that alter some of your training strategies when you have somebody with this incredible engine, this incredible you know natural gift, but maybe not the highest training age? I mean, was he working out with, like you know, your second or third groups or anything like that? Or, you know, how did that change your thinking when it came to loading him in terms of intensity and volume with workouts?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it was kind of like somewhat of a hybrid approach with him. I mean, aic had a, had a good, fair, like a fair amount of talent on the team. You know, when I got there Also worked with Clemente by young, who was a 800 meter runner, from France, you know, and we managed him to get down to like 148 and 800. And then Ezra Moutai, who was a 1340s 5k runner. You know by the time that that we had left.
Speaker 2:So there was a, there was a good mix of work that he could, that he you know of athletes that he could train with and work out with and ultimately it was like teaching him how to be patient, how to contain his excitement for like certain sessions. Not trying to beat the workout which is a mindset that I think a lot of athletes, especially like very competitive athletes, have is like trying to beat the workout. And then it's like, oh, coach says you know I have to run 330 k's. And then it's like, oh, but I'm going to run 325 k's and then you know that's just compounding fatigue and kind of in the same way where you compound fitness and weeks over time and you know, if you're compounding that fatigue and that kind of way, then you're going to go. You're just digging yourself a hole for for the future.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're getting rid of your competitive drive and can just like letting it all go during the training cycle as opposed to on race day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1:So when's the what is the sign to really hold those athletes back? You know, and at what point do you maybe change up and increase some of that intensity and some of that volume with those athletes? Like, let's say, they're saying, you know, was he saying that the workout was really easy, or was he just able to get into that really competitive mode and then try to beat the workout?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean there's certain mindsets that you can move forward with as a coach.
Speaker 2:I mean, first and foremost, each session kind of has a general underlying theme to it of what you're trying to get out, whether you're working on a certain type of system, or the athlete's mindset.
Speaker 2:With Calum and a lot of athletes that I do work with, I like working with rate of perceived exertion, so on a scale of 1 to 10 RPE, how you should feel relative to that reps distance, and I think that's really important for newer, beginner athletes so that they can understand themselves and their bodies and not be too ingrained with the watch and what the splits are telling them or what the 400 meter reps that they're running, and being too ingrained in that. I think that can also lead to just poor workouts and poor consistency over time. So, yeah, kind of mixing and blending the intensities over time as the athlete grows older and understands themselves at a training age standpoint, then you kind of have that trust with them to be able to handle certain workloads appropriately without having to kind of like be on their back all the time of like you know this is what, how it should have been run ultimately.
Speaker 1:And I really like that utilization of mindsets and having specific goals with training sessions. Is that something that you really incorporate a lot, as far as, like, at the beginning of a workout, you might explain to them okay, these are the times that you need to hit, but this is the overall focus and mindset that I want you to have during this workout.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%. I mean, you know, especially with a lot of the remote clients I work with, it's important to, like you know, because I'm not there with them, I don't know how they slept the night before, I don't know how they're eating habits are, you know, some have families stressful, you know, stressful jobs. So I have a general sense of like the intensities and percentages of like what their effort should be. But there's so many factors that go into that.
Speaker 2:It's not, it's not just a math equation where you just you know, drag and drop, plug in, boom it's done. It's important to kind of let the athletes know what it should feel like, how it should feel like, and use the metrics to analyze after the fact. So only using subjective like feeling can also be like a little, a little wonky because you know, at the end of the day, like you know, we're humans and we don't really like pain. So, like you know, you might not be pushing yourself as much. That's why I like kind of inputting in the notes how things should feel, follow ups to like how it felt and kind of better understanding you know how the athlete handled that session.
Speaker 1:Yeah so and then I bet with you, when you develop that trust and that relationship with that athlete over time, you can figure out and tease out which of those athletes you kind of need to push and say I want you to be able to get a little bit of a higher RPE. And then there are also the people like Callum, where I'm sure that you were more like I actually want you to ease off the gas pedal a little bit here. Yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:I mean, there's definitely athletes that I kind of have to nudge a little bit. You know, and you know the air RPE scale is a little skewed, you know. So I have to kind of, you know, turn it up a notch a little bit. You know. So maybe in their mind it's a one out of 10, but in my mind it's like a one out of I don't know 11 or something, or nine, whatever the case might be, and adjust accordingly.
Speaker 1:So we're trying to turn the dial up to 11 every workout, huh.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Spinal tap reference right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:You mentioned some of the intangibles, some of the things that you can't necessarily fit on a spreadsheet. What are some variables that you look at with your clients, whether they be the weekend warrior or the Olympic hopeful, as far as like things that can modify the training intensity and volume?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean a lot of that's like lifestyle.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know, I really take into consideration the athletes, ultimately, what they have going on, because at the end of the day, like, as you know, like stress is stress.
Speaker 2:You know whether it's running stress, family stress, relationship stress, work stress.
Speaker 2:So it's really important to kind of understand where the athlete's coming from. You know, you know you can be working with nurses who have, you know, 12 hour shifts and they're working from six to six, seven to seven, whatever it may be, and you know that's not really a day to get like a really hard workout or intensity session in. You know, maybe even the day after, if they have the day off, it might not be the day to do that either. So, understanding the athlete and where they're coming from is, like, really, really important and that's where, like, the conversations come in and making those adjustments accordingly. If someone's like hey, you know I've been traveling for work flight got delayed, I didn't get in until 1am, you know maybe they have a workout the next day, then it's like all right, just, you know we'll adjust things around. Take the day off, cross train, go for an easy jog, do what you need to do to feel good, whether that's day off or doing something, and then we can always adjust the schedule accordingly.
Speaker 1:Nice. Now on the flip side of that, we also have, like the spreadsheet right, the hopefully linear progress that we're trying to accomplish with our athletes to meet that goal. And now we know I'm sure you know very much more than me because you're the one in the coaching realm that physiology doesn't work on that linear timescale right, it's more of that undulating. You know weird stuff. And then the aggregate and the average line might be that nice average linear progression. But what are some of the things that you use metric wise to increase somebody's training volume or intensity? I know that there are things like the 10% rule, where you don't increase by more than 10% in your volume or intensity over a given week or period of training, etc. What kind of things do you use with your athletes to increase the volume and intensity without making them more susceptible to something like an injury?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good question. So, like I don't really use that 10% rule, it's like it really depends on the athlete at the end of the day, you know. So the reason I don't is you take an athlete, let's say they're coming in, they're new to running, they've been doing like 15, 20 miles a week, like for the last four months. They're super excited All right. Now, if you apply that, you know kind of like that those types of rules that are out there, you know then they're going 22 miles, then 24 miles and then 26, 27 miles, you know. So that's just. In a sense it takes away from other stuff that they could be doing. So what I like to see is first a block of consistency, like if they're able to handle a certain training volume, then from there we can add certain intensities. Or if they're super low on the mileage spectrum and they have time to do more than a pretty standard good progression is okay. Let's bump you up. Let's add a few miles here and there. Maybe let's bump the long run up if they're even doing a long run at that point, because maybe they're not, and then stay there for a little bit, maybe add, sprinkle in some intensity and see what they can handle.
Speaker 2:At the end of the day, it's like for each athlete, they have their own story, their own history, so it's important to kind of take all of that into consideration. I mean, I had there's some coaches I've actually talked to who just think like running and fitness and progression is math, and there it is to a point, but not really. I was listening to someone talk the other day and I think it was like a triathlon podcast or something, and one of the speakers there referred to coaches as like modern day Picasso's. You have to think of yourself as that and like the canvas is the athlete and you have like all these different things right? Like different paints, like what kind of paint? Like what kind of art and no painting is going to be the exact same, regardless of how you try to replicate that and like ultimately, that's like the art of coaching and making sure that athletes stay healthy and are consistent over a long period of time.
Speaker 1:I love that. And there's a reason I didn't call this podcast the science of injury prevention. Yeah, you know, because you do have to take that athlete where they're at and you have to look at all of the variables that don't fit on the spreadsheet, if you will. And I bring that up because when I was going through school, obviously you know I'm a sports or rehabilitation type of chiropractor, so I work with a lot of runners and I take a lot of continuing education about gate and running et cetera, and that's just a term that's like thrown around a lot, because you know, oftentimes like athletes won't have a coach and maybe that is, or maybe that isn't, the reason that they got injured is because they're messing around with those variables a little bit too much, or they've got all these life things going on and maybe their outlet is running.
Speaker 1:And sometimes you know they have a bunch of life stress and then they're like I'm going to just take out all of my stress on the run and then they're going to go and massacre themselves on a massive run even though they've had all this lifestyle stress. And then you know instructors will get asked like, well, what should runners do? And then they go well, they shouldn't increase their volume by more than 10% a week or they should only do 10% a week. But there are all these other variables that we have to take into account in terms of intensity, lifestyle stresses, and I like what you mentioned about just having a consistent block. You know, it's like maybe they should just stick at this number of miles per week for three weeks and then mess around with doing some higher intensity strides or some higher intensity intervals or just staying there and just having a good consistent block of training and say look, you will get more fit, your body will respond and adapt to this, even though you're not upping your numbers, would you say. That's a pretty accurate thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, 100%. It's also funny being like a mostly remote type coach because, like you know, as an athlete, when you hire someone to help you, you know hopefully achieve your goal. You know, sometimes, as coaches, the you want the athlete to feel like they're getting their their, their money's worth, ultimately right. So, like as a coach, you could be inclined to just always kind of hammer them, hammer them, hammer them, like, oh, yeah, yeah, like they, that athlete feels like they're going to be getting their money's worth. Or you know they're going to think that, like, this is a good program. Because you know they're on their hands and knees every week. You know they feel like they got a good workout in.
Speaker 2:And it's funny because, like, I take this approach of like, okay, you did this marathon or you did this race or whatever, all right, we're going to do just easy runs this week, like, or we're going to take the week off, and it's just like you know, like it's a kind of it's just funny like mindset where it's like, a lot of times in reality, athletes do need that person to tell them hey, back off, relax, don't push yourself. You know you need a recover, you need a rest, you need a recoup. You know what you gain from this block, rather than you know pushing forward and plowing forward with whatever plan has been set.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's also difficult to wrap the head around the fact that once you do a really hard workout or you do a marathon race, for the next 24 to 48 hours, or even a longer period of time, depending on the intensity of that workout or race you are literally less fit than when you started that race or workout. Like and you can think of it in this context if I raced a marathon today, one I wouldn't be able to walk tomorrow, like just because of my training status right now.
Speaker 1:But I am literally there'd be some walking in there, you know for sure. You know there aren't enough goo packs in the world for me to go three hours marathon right now, you know. But if I raced that marathon today, then over the next week my fitness is literally down like much less than my fitness is right now, and that's because I've given my body this massive stressor and now my body needs to adapt and compensate, hopefully in a manner of super compensation, so that I'm then more fit in the next week or two weeks later. But because of that workout, I don't get fit tomorrow. I get fit a week from now, and because of this training block, I don't get fit the week after that training block, I get fit another training block away. So we have to really take a step back and not lose the force through the trees, which I think is something that you've been talking about this entire podcast, and it really relates to your process as a coach, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, 100%. I mean, as I kind of stated earlier, real briefly, it's just those three pillars is like the foundation, like the consistency that needs to be first and foremost. And then volume, the second tier, and then the intensity third tier, and once you have able, you have been able to handle that on a consistent basis, you know those three, week after week, and then ultimately, with performance, you know, at the highest level, like then you can start playing with all right. Now I'm going to start adding more to that when you can, right. So it's gonna be adding that and recovering from that. That's the key. You don't wanna add to that if you're not able to recover from certain sessions. So the recovery, as we have been stating here, is like the big key to that. Now it's not to say like you should just like recover, recover, recover, recover, recover, like I've been recovering for the last year and a half, right, so that doesn't mean I'm gonna run a PR in a mile tomorrow.
Speaker 1:So Covering for a long time man.
Speaker 2:The long taper here.
Speaker 1:so yeah, that compensation's coming dude. Now with this, and with consistently also comes modification of training. So I'm sure that you've had those times and you craft this beautiful training block for an athlete and then they get one or two or maybe three weeks down that training block and then they go oh, my hamstring is pretty sore, oh, my Achilles is kind of flaring up. I know me and you can definitely relate to that kind of issue. How do you modify the load for those athletes? Maybe you could say, you know, speak to a more generic injury or something like that. Like what do you do when you get that notice, that call from the athlete? Like, hey, I did the workout today, I felt pretty good, but I've also got this thing going on. Like, how do you take that in? And then how do you change that athlete's programming?
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure. So I guess, oh man, the amount of times more so in the college ranks where I've outlined this beautiful plan there, where everyone's gonna be a national champion, you know, and it's gonna be, it's gonna work out smoothly, it just like never happens. So it's yeah. So it's a lot of learning and experience has kind of come along over the last years, but yeah, that's, it happens, it happens. And when that happens, my biggest thing that I try to kind of hone with the athlete and understand is like what is the level of pain? Is it something that is truly hurting or is it sore? I think sometimes that gets misinterpreted. Ultimately, like I have a pretty big rule of thumb and that is, if you're doing the exercise and it's not getting worse during the run and doesn't get worse after the run, then we can kind of stabilize and see how and then work with prehab. Try to.
Speaker 2:You always have the athletes who just don't do any prehab or lifting or any work, and then all of a sudden they get the smallest thing and it's like okay, like three hours a day, I'm gonna start doing stuff, you know so. But yeah, so that's pretty common. And then, if typically over time and you have that consistent base the athletes kind of working on themselves, working on various band work, getting in the weight room, whatever they need to be doing. Maybe it's physiotherapy, who knows. Sometimes that just goes away, other times it's like mm, it's definitely not feeling better. So what we need to do is we need to really back off. Either take a couple of days, like where you're just cross training, or we're going on a walk, like I'm a big advocate and fan of just keeping blood flow to the body, through the body, to the area.
Speaker 2:That's like the most important thing, as you know, like with recovery and injuries. So not just kind of being a couch potato and moping. That's you wanna be active and you wanna be doing something to help you get back to doing what you love to do. So, yeah, every person's different when it comes to that. Some people have the time to get to a gym, some people have the bands. Typically, most people that I work with are willing to get certain things that they need to be, that they shouldn't be getting to help with certain injuries. So, yeah, it's just adjusting the volume and making sure that's not getting worse. As long If they can do the activity, do the activity. If it's getting worse, then cross train and do what you need to do in terms of rehab. So I'm not a doctor, so I'll push them to whoever I need to push.
Speaker 1:I'm not a doctor either, so that's fine. So I really like what you described about is it getting worse during the activity? But also you need to check in with yourself after that activity, especially when we talk about stuff like tendon injuries, whether that be to the iliotibial band, to the patellar tendon or the achilles tendon all pretty common runner complaints, oftentimes with tendon injuries. We'll even have this warm-up effect where you start the run and you're like God, I can barely get a couple of steps in here and I'm like limping through the first five minutes. But then between that five and 10 minute mark my gait starts to get a little bit more normal and then after 10 to 15 minutes it actually feels pretty warmed up and then I can go and massacre a workout and then, guess what, my first step out of bed the next morning. I can barely walk.
Speaker 1:So that looking at not only, like you described, not only how do you feel during that run, but then checking in with yourself after that run to see how do I feel now. Did I worsen my symptoms and did I worsen my function in that joint or tissue tendon, et cetera. Afterwards I know I've done my fair share of cross training. What are some of your thoughts surrounding cross training. Have they changed since you and I were spending hours together in the training room or in sitting on the bike at Adams?
Speaker 2:I mean I've always been, I like biking, so I mean I love when people are out on bikes. So if someone has a bike and they're willing to get out on a bike and let's say it's like I don't know, not an Achilles tendonitis, and they can do that activity, then that's great. How about it Ultimately? I know I have a lot of runners who love the elliptical, which is great. I mean it kind of mimics your. It's a little more specific to running. But sometimes, depending on the cross training like activity that you decide to do, sometimes it can actually worsen what's going on, even if they're not really weight-bearing activities. So if that's the case, if they have access to a pool, then you're gonna be a triathlete next year. So but it's yeah, ultimately the cross training activity is up to the athlete, because I want them to enjoy it.
Speaker 2:At this stage, I work with a lot of folks who are just like have families or have full-time, stressful jobs. If they're not able to run, then that's almost more of a stressor for them because they just really love to run. So just making sure that they're able to do that, so just making sure that they're able to do something that they can enjoy and help guide them through. That is all part of the process. Ultimately, I've been fortunate enough to not have like too many big injuries with anyone that I have worked with, so that's, I guess that's, a good thing.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll knock on wood for you and I think what you said about going for a walk is actually really powerful too, because when we're running, like one of the best parts about running is going out into, hopefully, some nature or going out and like literally moving our brain and body through this three-dimensional space that we call Earth, right, and that's a huge stress reliever.
Speaker 1:And when you don't have that stress reliever, then you can have just all the stress from those stressful jobs, from family, from kids, et cetera, just compound and you don't have that outlet. So there are gonna be physiological benefits as far as like improving blood flow to an injured area, et cetera, but that is really like the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the physiological benefits of just going for a walk and being in nature. So I mean that's been shown to reduce cortisol levels, it's been shown to reduce blood pressure, it's been shown to improve symptoms of anxiety and depression, especially if it's out in nature. So just that simple like going for a walk, we can't underscore the value in going out and just walking. So I think that's great that you mentioned that Now in your athletes that are able, where they have one access but also number two time. What kind of stuff are they doing in the weight room?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So some athletes decide to kind of like, do their own program which is 100% for like. Go for it. You know what you're doing, have at it.
Speaker 2:I definitely like to do, personally, if athletes want me to write them a program, full body lifts, not too long in the weight room and just foundational work. You know learning how to squat, learning how to do deadlifts A big fan of the trap bar deadlift and you know varying the squats. You're not maybe starting If I have an athlete who's never squatted a bar before you know you got to start just body weight squats. See what your flexibility is. Maybe move to a goblet squat, you know. And then you know maybe an overhead squat with you know some light, you know milk jug or something I don't know, like anything, just to get in your body in those positions and build that network, you know, and appropriate firing pattern. So that's really important. And then ultimately, you know, when athletes get to that point of doing, being able to handle back squats, front squats, trap bar, you know. Even you know I'll have athletes lift heavy doing bench also. You know might seem counterintuitive but you know there's high level athletes.
Speaker 2:You know testosterone is, you know weight room is good for your testosterone and endocrine system. So if you don't want to beat your legs up too much, you know, doing a, doing a couple heavy bench press movements, is good to help with that. So, and then doing obviously like single leg work, whether that's you know the, you know lunging, lunging variations and power exercises so yeah, I mean single leg work. Snatching with a dumbbell is like a really really good, good exercise for, for most people, coordination and power production. So yeah, I think that that's all really really good stuff.
Speaker 2:If they have the time, you know we'll try to write something that's 45 minutes. You're in the weight room in and out. If you don't know what you're doing in the weight room, then it might be a little longer at first. Or if you're constrained to time, then it's like, hey, we're literally just going to work on one or two exercises until you're down, until you're like comfortable with that, then we'll advance forward and start adding, but ultimately, like it's form, getting the form down and understanding how you're supposed to move.
Speaker 1:Beautiful and I think weight training for runners is something that's definitely undervalued and I think even what you talked about with the bench press for runners is is super crucial, because we're working with human beings here, like if you're someone who has a family, has kids and all that stuff, like you're not just a runner, like you are a human being and thus you are susceptible to many of the pathological pitfalls of human beings. So even people who are very active in endurance sports like we can still have, like low bone mineral quality in the late stages of life, like osteopenia and osteoporosis, are huge detractors from someone's health span as they move along in life. So I think, like, especially for like our, you know, female sporting populations, going into the weight room and literally like doing some bench press can be amazing and incredible for those that endocrine system where we're trying to promote hormonal factors associated with the laying down of bone and bone matrix, I mean the most common you know, one of the most common areas for an osteoporotic fracture is the distal radius, so it's called a Collie's fracture. So, yes, if you are a runner and you're not going in and working your upper extremities and telling your body to lay down and giving it the impetus to lay down bone mineral in your upper extremities, in your spine, in your lower extremities.
Speaker 1:Because I mean, I hate to say it, but running is not the best way to build bone, like people think, oh, I go for jogs, I go for walks and that's what I need to do in order to build bone.
Speaker 1:And it's like that's not true, like that is not the level of stimulus necessary to build up bone. Typically, you know, our osteoblasts and our bone sensing cells are receptive to those stimuli for about 10 to 15 minutes literally, and then we have a drop-off in how sensitive those cells are to that stimulus. So if you're going out for you know 15, 20 mile run, then you're getting you know stimulus to those bones for 15 to 20 minutes, maybe one or two or maybe even three miles, but then after that that sensitivity really drops. So I love that weight training is one of the priorities for you and your athletes and I love that you start them out where they're at and then slowly try to build them up and then even giving them something like a bench press I think is like something that some people might think of as out there and unnecessary. But I totally agree with what you're saying, where this can be a great thing, not only for their running but for them as a person you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, for sure. I mean just like building the. You know I don't like to view runners as runners. You know I don't like to really, you know, segment people, put them into little boxes, right it's. You know you're an athlete at the end of the day and athletes, you know you need to be coordinated, you need to be strong, you need to have endurance, you need to have speed right. So kind of mixing that all together is really important to you know, to build the body up and create, you know, who you want to be in the future.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and I feel like there's this somewhat pervasive myth in running, which I'm like on a crusade against, where runners should be doing low weight and then high repetitions, right. So this is like the runner that you see with you know, literally like five pound dumbbells doing like bicep curls or like doing a lunge with an eight pound medicine ball. Like that might be effective for like some coordination aspects, but as far as like the coordination in terms of muscular strength and motor unit recruitment, like that eight pound medicine ball really is not doing you too much good. So what kind of things will you give people? I know you mentioned full body exercises like front squats, back squats, the trap bar deadlift also a really great personal favorite of mine. What do you give people in terms of like set and rep schemes, because I know that you were into lifting for running and injury prevention back when we were running together at Adams.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So I really like to stay in the low rep range, you know, anywhere from like three to six. Ultimately, if I'm starting someone out and trying to get someone to just understand the certain pattern, you know, I will go to eight or ten, but that won't be very heavy. But then as we progress and their form's fine, I'll really cut the reps down and maybe I'll just increase the sets and ultimately like, if I can get an athlete to almost like a what would be termed as like a five by five program or some iteration of that. You know, five by five, five by four, five by three, whatever it may be, I think that's kind of your sweet spot with lifting. And then, in terms of what you can accomplish with the lifts is going to be you know, you kind of have this whole toolbox of goodies that you can kind of choose and pick from.
Speaker 2:But yeah, even like explosive lifts, like you know, I'll have some athletes and marathoners who you know are trying to run you know, 340 in the marathon, you know and hey, let's go to the weight room and let's learn how to snatch. You know, let's grab a 10 pound dumbbell and let's like just get that motion down and then let's build that weight up, let's do, you know, let's get up to six sets. Maybe we're doing two or three on each side and you know that's just a really good workout coordination, quick movement. And compound that with maybe some sort of you know just heavier lifts. You know that's more focused on the muscle recruitment. You know the motor unit recruitment. You know recruiting those big muscle fibers.
Speaker 1:So yeah, there's a really famous physical therapist named Greg Hook who developed and sort of founded the selective functional movement assessment and he has this really famous quote move well and then move often. And I think that keys into what you're talking about. If you have somebody who has a training age of zero for the weight room, then we do need to take a couple of steps back and just work on the movements themselves. We don't want to load somebody up with a really, really heavy back squat if they've never back squatted before, but I think that is a really crucial piece. So will you like look at videos of your clients like trying to do a squat and stuff like that and let them know if they're ready or how do you kind of navigate those waters?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So I'll send like training videos and like I try to get the athlete in a mindset of like, okay, envision that you're doing this, you know, and, like everyone, you think you're doing it perfectly, and then you get the video and it's like you know, you're all crooked. So it's happened to me. Even you know I do it all the time I'm like, oh yeah, I'm crushing this lift and then, sure enough, I look at myself and it's like, oh gosh, that was terrible. But yeah, I'll have athletes send videos when they can. If you know, I tell them to. You know, like, listen, like, if you can get a chance, send me a video before we can, kind of before I feel comfortable enough giving them certain, certain weights for them to try to get after.
Speaker 1:I know this is a little bit off topic to our current conversation, but let's say I'm an athlete and I'm training myself and I'm trying to teach myself how to do like a back squat. What are some things that you look out for in that video, in that you know back squat or something like that that lets you know that somebody is moving decently well, decently enough.
Speaker 2:Um l l. You want to make sure that their bodies in line. That's not to say, like you know, you can have a little movement and angle adjustments here and there. That's perfectly fine. I mean, I think at the end of the day, like you know, there isn't the perfect squat. You know some athletes are just limited with what they can do. So understanding what those limitations are is crucial and then from there, seeing how? You know, okay, can you get down a little lower? What's the? You know what's your flexibility with your ankle?
Speaker 2:I'm not a big fan, you know, of, you know, lifting your, lifting your heels up, you know from, you know, having a platform under there for too long. Maybe that's like a good introductory, like, okay, this is how it should feel and this is how it should be, but you know, that's it. Maybe just one rep, see how it feels, looks, whatever, and then make those adjustments from there. But ultimately, you know you don't want, you know you want to as clean of a line as possible from your shoulders, hips, feet and just trying to make those adjustments, get into athletes to visualize themselves. You know any cues you might have.
Speaker 2:I have our, you know, try not to be slouched over or looking down. You really want to keep your chest up, your head up, and I mean, for example, like a squat. You know I really like the I forgot where I heard this from, but you know if you have your feet planted, you know your full foot should be on the ground and as you're going down you kind of want to like almost feel like you're corkscrewing your, your heels, into the ground while your knees are coming out. So it's a lot easier to be in person to try to explain that to someone. But once the athlete starts to get a feel for what that is and looks like, then you can definitely progress from there. And then there's variations of the squat. You know there's high bar, low bar, but that's probably for some more advanced individuals.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or modifications for other individuals too. You know, yeah, I always love getting like really good cues, because sometimes that one little cue can be like can create that light bulb moment for individuals who are like, oh, I do need to somewhat feel like I'm twisting my feet into the ground which is going to activate your external rotators, and then there's actually like a fascial, like continuum between those external rotators and your glutes and your feet, so like they're obviously massive connections between the feet and areas like the hip, pelvis, low back, etc. And that's something that you know I work with. A lot of my crossfitters that come in to see me in my office is because they don't necessarily have those cues correct. But you know being careful with these things and like slowly building up and then it's okay to get help from a trainer or a physio etc.
Speaker 1:What's usually your threshold for? Like an athlete that's dealing with an injury or dealing with one of those little aches and pains, and let's say it's a remote client there in the middle of a training block, and they're like, yeah, coach Nick, I've been, you know, doing some of the resting, I've been doing some cross training, but I'm still having this discomfort, like what leads you to saying, hey, I think you need to go get this evaluated by a healthcare professional, because that's a tough, tough waters to navigate, sometimes, where it's like oh you know, I think it's going to go away, and then, like six weeks down the line, it's like I guess it's not going away, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean that's, yeah, six weeks, definitely, you know. If it hasn't, you know if you haven't seen anyone by then, definitely go go see someone. I think it really depends on like what type of injury your thing they're feeling. Ultimately, you know, the biggest things with running are like, as you kind of stated earlier, we are like an IT band or or maybe a pair of formists or or Achilles tendonitis or post tib, you know. So if something like that, you know, doesn't go away within like a week, ultimately it's like you know, you should probably maybe go get something done on it. You know, get some active treatment, whether it's going to a PT or, you know, doing some sort of like dry needling or whatever it may be.
Speaker 2:Like, you know, I can only, I can only say as much, and the athletes and the clients have to be the one to actually do it, you know, and, and if they're willing to, you know, spend those resources, you know, their resources on that, ultimately, I think it's important to have a team that surrounds you at the end of the day, like it's not just me and the client. Like you know, if they have, you know, a nutritionist, that they, that they want to talk to great. By all means, go go at it. You know I'm not a nutrition. You know I don't have.
Speaker 2:You know the, the licensure of like a sports nutritionist. You know or or or a dbt or whatever it may be. So it's like you know, go and see who you need to see. You know I can offer, I can offer advice and how to navigate that. So like yeah, I mean, if the limit is like okay, I can't even let's say I can't even walk, or it's hard to walk, I'm limping for like three days and go see someone, like that's kind of a no brainer, right.
Speaker 1:But if you think like, one would think that's a no brainer. But trust me, you know like it's not always the case.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, for sure so.
Speaker 1:I mean, I've definitely seen people where it's like yeah, I've had this discomfort. I haven't been able to really like run, I've been running through it but been happening for like I don't know six months, and it's like six months, you know, and and as far as like like some of the processes that occur when you exchange from an acute pain syndrome to a chronic pain syndrome, that's not just something that's in the tissue, like that's not tissue, that's not just tissue damage. There are literally neuro physiological processes, so processes that occur within your brain, your spinal cord, within the nerve, that go to that tissue that will facilitate what we call the chronification of pain. So it's really important for us, as like coaches or clients or practitioners, etc. To really like figure out, like okay, when do I really need to like get this checked out? Because once you go from an acute pain to a chronic pain, it's not just that tissue that's involved. There you're involving the entire sensory system and the even the emotional system, because pain is a subjective and emotional experience. So I would say, like, for people that are dealing with these pains and things that are limiting their performance or limiting their workouts, like it is something that it might be worth getting an evaluation, might be worth getting some active treatments and therapies that can help get them out of there.
Speaker 1:Because I mean just from my experiences with, like Achilles tendinopathy, you know if I go out and I try and increase my volume or my intensity too quickly with running, I will off. Like you know, this happened to me a couple of years ago when I actually first moved out to Colorado and I was running on a lot of hills, I was trying to increase my volume because I had more time, because I wasn't, you know, in class as much and things like that, and you know I felt my Achilles flare up on me a couple of times. And it wasn't just the Achilles that flared up, but a lot of the previous like emotional things that came about as a result of me being an undergrad and not being able to do training and do runs with my team and have that like social aspect. All those emotions came flooding back and I was like weirdly depressed and like having all these negative emotional experiences.
Speaker 1:And then I just realized that like, oh, this is like coming about because of my Achilles, like our emotional states and these like tissue states, they care, they're very much interrelated with our human experience. So you know, I love that you're, you're kind of on top of that with all of your athletes, and I think that's a big thing is knowing when to go to the physio or when to adjust training so that we don't chronific. We don't allow the chronification of these pain syndromes. I'm sure you've felt that too. I mean, I know the Achilles stuff was kind of a battle for you back in the day as well, right, yeah, yeah that was, that was big.
Speaker 2:So yeah, knock on wood. I haven't had too much Achilles stuff since then, so nice. Maybe I learned a lot, who knows, or I'm not running as much.
Speaker 1:One can only hope that we learn from our previous experiences, right, Exactly so. Wrapping up here a little bit, Nick. Thank you so much for your time so far. But at the end of each one of these episodes, I like to bring up Benjamin Franklin and this really like nerdy anecdote about how, when Benjamin Franklin began or started or founded the Philadelphia Volunteer Fire Department, has this infamous not infamous, but this famous quote an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So we've been speaking for almost an hour now about a wide range of topics, from programming to weight training, to coaches, as Picasso's. Now, if we could condense all of that information into a couple minutes, what would you say that your ounce of prevention would be to athletes or coaches or clinicians that are listening to this podcast?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, get your sleep and enjoy what you do. That's kind of the basis of it all. If you're not enjoying it, a lot of negativity and bad outcomes can come from that. So just embrace your journey and sleep is like the number one drug that you can give yourself to give yourself that advantage and keep progressing.
Speaker 1:Gosh, what a perfect way to sum up. Sleep is so incredibly important. And then, yeah, I'm not even going to expand on that stuff, because I think that you put it down so succinctly Sleep and enjoy what you do. So, nick, if someone's interested in working with you or learning more about what you do, where can they find you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they can go to AguilaPerformancecom that's A-G-U-I-L-A-Performancecom, and there they can just navigate the page. They can see what we have to offer and if they're interested they can fill out the contact form or reach me at nick at aguilapreformancecom. And yeah, I mean all consultations are free. So you know, if you want to get started with coaching or interested in it and whatnot, just reach out.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, thanks so much, nick, and we'll talk again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, appreciate it.
Speaker 1:And now he's doing freelance coaching, so you can get all of the awesome coaching that you can from Coach Nick and his other highly qualified and experienced coaches at aguilapreformancecom.