Episode 7: Building Complete Training Programs (with Mike Robertson)

In this episode of the Evolving Performance Podcast, Kevin is joined by Mike Robertson, President of Robertson Training Systems and co-owner of Indianapolis Fitness and Sports Training (IFAST), recognized as one of the top ten gyms in America by Men's Health. They delve into the foundational principles of program design, individualizing training, and navigating the complexities of an athlete's career. Mike introduces his "7 Rs" framework for building effective training programs, emphasizing the importance of every component from warm-ups to recovery.

They explore Mike's comprehensive athlete assessment process, which includes identifying limitations and opportunities for improvement through conversation, movement analysis, and objective data. The conversation further addresses the critical balance between driving performance gains and enhancing durability, discussing how risk tolerance in training should evolve over an athlete's career. Finally, they cover strategies for training athletes immediately after an injury, focusing on psychological support and utilizing the recovery period as an opportunity for holistic development. This episode provides actionable insights for coaches and athletes looking to optimize training adaptation and career longevity.

Topics Include:

• The "7 Rs" framework for effective training program design.
• The importance of educating clients on training methods.
• Comprehensive athlete assessment and objective data utilization.
• Balancing performance improvements with durability and longevity strategies.
• Adapting training approaches based on an athlete's career stage and sport schedule.
• Strategies for programming and supporting injured athletes.
• The role of consistency in long-term athletic development.
• Specific exercises for restoring movement capacity.
• Integrating isometrics and eccentrics in early offseason programming.

📲 Connect with Mike: RobertsonTrainingSystems.com | Instagram: @robtrainsystems

⏱️ Timestamps:

00:00 – Welcome and Introduction to Mike Robertson
01:29 – Mike's reflection on his role in inspiring the podcast
03:31 – Discussion on Mike's approach to program design across diverse clients
04:34 – The origin story and evolution of the "7 Rs" training framework
05:21 – Detailed breakdown of the 7 Rs: Release, Reset, Readiness, Reactive, Resistance, Resiliency, Recovery
06:18 – The importance of including every component in a training system
06:55 – Strategies for educating clients on the "why" behind their training
09:28 – The profound positive impact of effective warm-ups on performance
11:14 – Mike's comprehensive intake and assessment process for new clients and athletes
13:12 – Discussion on assessing athletic and general movement foundations
13:46 – Utilizing objective data, including force plates, for athlete assessment and tracking
15:31 – Connecting assessment findings to a clear and confident plan of attack
16:07 – The value of video feedback for both client progress and coach development
19:18 – Integrating follow-up testing to guide program progression and decision-making
22:24 – Balancing addressing movement limitations with driving performance goals
23:36 – The three key "buckets" of training: Mobility, Neurological Outputs, and Metabolic

Contact Kevin:

• Follow me and suggest future guests, topics and questions: @KevinNeeld
• Watch the videos: @NeeldPerformance
• Get access to my FREE newsletter: KevinNeeld.com
• Email me: KN@KevinNeeld.com

Thanks for listening!

Transcript

00:00:03:06 - 00:00:05:19
Unknown
Welcome to the Evolving Performance Podcast.

00:00:05:23 - 00:00:13:14
Unknown
goal of this podcast is to share practical insights to maximize sport performance, durability, training, adaptation, and career longevity.

00:00:13:14 - 00:00:28:07
Unknown
Today. I'm excited to have Mike Robertson on the podcast. Mike is the president of Robertson Training Systems and the co-owner of Indianapolis Fitness and Sports Training, better known as Eye Fast, which was previously recognized as one of the top ten gyms in America by Men's Health.

00:00:28:07 - 00:00:36:22
Unknown
Mike has made a name for himself as one of the premier performance coaches in the world, helping clients and athletes from all walks of life achieve their physique and sports performance goals.

00:00:36:22 - 00:00:47:12
Unknown
He's an accomplished author, having published over 100 articles for a wide variety of online mediums and magazines, including Men's Health, Men's Fitness and Outside Magazine.

00:00:47:12 - 00:01:04:20
Unknown
Mike is an exceptional educator and has produced several products and resources to help trainers and performance coaches improve how they design programs, which is the topic we dive into in this conversation. In this episode, we discuss the key training methods that form the foundation of an effective training program.

00:01:04:22 - 00:01:25:14
Unknown
How to assess athletes to identify limitations and opportunities for improvement. How to balance programing to drive performance improvements with strategies to improve durability and longevity. How risk tolerance and training should evolve over the course of an athlete's career, and how athletes should approach training immediately after they've suffered an injury.

00:01:25:14 - 00:01:28:16
Unknown
Now, please welcome to the show Mike Robertson.

00:01:29:02 - 00:01:48:18
Unknown
Mike, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me, man. Excited to be here. I think before we get into it, I just have to say that this podcast actually wouldn't exist without you. I think it was a conversation we were having, man. I think it was probably around a year ago, maybe a little bit earlier, that, you planted the seed, that maybe I should start a podcast and started looking into it a little bit.

00:01:48:18 - 00:02:13:23
Unknown
And, you know, I think I probably peppered you with more questions. You're probably sorry you opened the door on that one, but not at all. I can't thank you enough for all your help in getting this up and running. Yeah, man, it's funny. You are not the first. And hopefully I'm not. You're not the last. But like yourself, Adam Lucchino, who was with the Phoenix Suns for like five years I feel like I've had this conversation numerous times now and I've I've always been of the belief back in the day was blogs.

00:02:14:01 - 00:02:31:13
Unknown
You know, everybody was writing blogs. So I gave people advice about that. And I was kind of early to the podcast game. Hey man, I'm just glad that there are high level people like you that are curious that have a great network to tap into and, you know, want to just continue to push our field forward. So hey man, I might have given you the carrot, but I appreciate you running with it.

00:02:31:13 - 00:02:48:17
Unknown
And making something out of it. No, I know the Physical Preparation Podcast. Your podcast is one of my favorites. Adam does a great job too. I stumbled upon his several months back, and I've been, digging through the archives there too. But, you know, I think, like I probably mentioned to you back then, part of the inspiration for starting this is selfish.

00:02:48:17 - 00:03:11:09
Unknown
It's just to have an opportunity to to talk to really bright people like yourself and, you know, get some of the questions that I have answered. And, you know, it's another opportunity for me to learn. So appreciate all the help and getting this going and appreciate you being here today. Yeah of course man, I always think of it like this I could pay somebody, you know, whatever their consulting fee is for an hour, or I can tell them I'm a podcast host and get them to come on for free.

00:03:11:09 - 00:03:31:07
Unknown
So I choose, I choose the second option whenever possible. That's it. That's the cheat code. That's right. Well, let's, let's let's jump into it. So, you know, over the course of your career, I know you've had opportunities to work with a wide range of training clients. You've had professional athletes, youth athletes, you know, healthy general population people, people working around injuries, etc..

00:03:31:07 - 00:03:55:22
Unknown
So, you know, with the diversity in the training population and the training goals that you've had an opportunity to work with, I just want to talk to you about your approach to designing programs. And, you know, we'll get into have some questions for you about how you individualize programs that we'll get into a little bit later here. But can you start by talking about just what the key core ingredients are that you use to build a training program, almost regardless of the population?

00:03:55:22 - 00:04:13:18
Unknown
So, you know, what are the big rocks that you start with? Yeah. You know, all this started about 2011, 2012. If you would have come into I fast at that point in time, it was almost exclusively Bill or I writing programs. And if you've ever met Bill, I always describe him. It's kind of like neo from The Matrix.

00:04:13:18 - 00:04:34:16
Unknown
You know, he doesn't even see humans anymore. He just sees ones and zeros coming down, and it's just code. But we're like techie, nerdy guys, and we love the nuance and we love to geek out about, you know, biomechanics and movement. And so when you would have come into our gym at that point in time, you know, some of the terminology we use just wasn't wasn't understandable, wasn't relatable to an end user client.

00:04:34:16 - 00:04:50:20
Unknown
So, you know, at the top of your workouts like soft tissue mobilization, which to me and Bill sounds great. But to again, you know, a 40 year old housewife that just wants to to shed some body fat and look good in a bikini, there's no relevance there. So one of the things that we tried to do was basically sit down.

00:04:50:20 - 00:05:21:01
Unknown
It was myself, Bill Hartman, and then Eric Otter, who is now, I believe, like the medical director for the Grizzlies. But we are sitting in, the purple room one day and we said, okay, what are all the constituent parts of a workout? And we said, okay, well, we, you know, foam roll. We do generally at that point in time, some sort of like breathing exercise or repositioning exercise, we warm them up, we do some speed and power work, we do some strength work, we do some conditioning, and we generally do some sort of recovery to kickstart that recovery process before they walk out of the gym.

00:05:21:01 - 00:05:43:13
Unknown
And so that discussion led to what we now call our set. So the seven hours are release reset readiness, reactive resistance, resiliency and recovery. And so what it basically looks like is a big bell curve right. You walk in the gym and you do your rolling and your resets. And you know these things evolve over time. But the key principles and the constituent parts right can evolve.

00:05:43:13 - 00:06:01:17
Unknown
But they're always kind of the same kind of mindset. Right. You're going to foam roll, get those tissues loose. You're going to reset. Try and optimize body position. You're always going to warm people up depending on where they're at in their training, you know, they are going to do some speed and power, especially if they're an athlete, if they're a gym pop client, maybe they're just going to throw a medicine ball, right?

00:06:01:17 - 00:06:18:17
Unknown
Or do some medicine ball slams or push a prowler. Everybody's going to lift. Everybody's going to condition. And then hopefully before everybody leaves, they're going to do something to kind of kickstart that recovery process. So that is our seven in a nutshell. And I think that's some people get confused by that. And they're like, well, you know that works great for athletes.

00:06:18:17 - 00:06:38:18
Unknown
We use it with everybody. You know, when we were running like big group boot camp style workouts, we would run 15, 20 people through a session that's structured exactly like that. You just modify it and tweak it based on the people that you're working. So I want to I want to talk about, you know, you have you know, obviously everybody that's coming through your doors, they're all coming in for different reasons.

00:06:38:18 - 00:06:55:11
Unknown
And because of that, they're all going to have different, different preconceived notions of what a training session should look like to help them reach their goals. And some of those things that you talked about. You know, some people love sitting on a foam roller and could do that for 30 minutes before a training session. Other people, you know, can't be bothered with it.

00:06:55:11 - 00:07:22:11
Unknown
And they just want to, you know, jump right into the the harder stuff for the lifting, you know, cooldowns fall under that same bucket for a lot of people. So, you know, can you talk about the importance of of every ingredient in the system and, you know, not just kind of, you know, some people just like to cherry pick the things that they like to do, which, you know, may or may not be the the elements that they need to do, the more so can you talk about how everything kind of works together in one system?

00:07:22:11 - 00:07:39:08
Unknown
Yeah, again, kind of the the way I think of this is it's very much a bell curve. Right. So and the joke that I used to always use, I don't know if it still plays as well, but you know, back in the day, unless you just were crushing Red Bulls on your way to the gym listening to Pantera as loud as possible, right?

00:07:39:08 - 00:07:57:13
Unknown
You don't just walk in the gym and start squatting 405 or barring 405, right? Like there's a process to it. You got to prime your body to do that. And so a lot of times I talk about, first off about booking, bookending a session. Most people love hour 4 or 5 an hour. Set the speed, the power, the explosiveness, maybe the conditioning depending on the person.

00:07:57:19 - 00:08:14:16
Unknown
But most people just inherently don't enjoy warming up and they don't enjoy cooling down. And that goes for myself as well. Right? And you just you get older and you realize, I really have to do this now if I want to feel good as I get into my training session. So if that's the case and I've got that person, you know, it's just very clear they're not going to take 20 minutes.

00:08:14:20 - 00:08:32:02
Unknown
I just start chipping away at them over time. Right. Like, hey, can you just foam roll this one muscle group for me? Will you do these for mobility drills? And so I tend to find that over time I can wedge myself in there. And I can make that that gap a little bit wider. And I can get them to do a little bit more.

00:08:32:02 - 00:08:45:23
Unknown
But I'm always trying to educate, and I think that's what a lot of this comes back to. A lot of times people don't like to do certain things because they've not been educated on the importance of it. And so I'm always trying to help them understand, oh, you know, that breathing exercise that they hate doing before the workout?

00:08:46:00 - 00:08:59:22
Unknown
What do you know? Why do we do that? And so then I'll explain to them, hey, you know how you came to me with the shoulder thing, right? And how we're not bench pressing as much as you'd like. Well, hey, you know, if we do this breathing exercise, it's in there to, you know, create space, restore shoulder motion.

00:09:00:04 - 00:09:28:02
Unknown
So then when you go and bench press, you don't hurt. And so this has always been like a key tenant for me. It doesn't matter whether it was fat loss, whether it's rehab, high performance training. People need to understand why they're doing things and they need context. So I've always found if you can help somebody understand the importance of certain aspects of your program or things that they don't necessarily like, if they can understand how it's going to benefit them or how it's going to help them achieve their goals, ultimately, you're more likely to see success and you're more likely to get them to do those things day in and day out.

00:09:28:05 - 00:09:46:07
Unknown
So I think that's a it's a great point. I warming up seems to be one of the ones that's the hardest sell for people. And it's interesting because it also can be the most impactful, you know, not not just in terms of, you know, checking a few boxes that can impact long term durability and and longevity, especially in terms of joint health.

00:09:46:07 - 00:10:12:00
Unknown
But also, you know, I warming up by definition, increase body temperature, increase blood flow. You get increased oxygen delivery. Yeah. Your body's more efficient at utilizing the oxygen. You know better range of motion. But then there's some other things from the nervous system standpoint too. The contraction speed. Yeah. Reaction speed. All those things increase. And you know you look at that and it's warming up can positively impact literally every aspect of performance.

00:10:12:00 - 00:10:29:23
Unknown
And that, you know, we're not even touching on decision making, which similarly benefits from a, you know, an actual sport standpoint. But, you know, that seems to be the lowest hanging fruit of if you just did this, it would have such a profound positive impact on your performance. And, you know, it has its own longer term benefits as well.

00:10:30:04 - 00:10:47:07
Unknown
Yeah. I mean, I can literally tell you because I've got like my little warmup routine and some of the stretches I've done literally for decades now, and I'm at a point now where I'm so locked in and I know, hey, when I do this reverse lunge, I know how my body should feel. And there was one day last week like, first off, I just have the world's, like, most dominant vitals.

00:10:47:13 - 00:11:01:19
Unknown
Like they're just they take over everything. And so I can tell, like, if I haven't foam rolled, I'll be like, I feel that on my knee. Like I never feel that on my knee. And it's like, no, I didn't roll. Like I didn't foam roll that area. So it's like being in tune with those things I think makes a big difference.

00:11:01:19 - 00:11:22:07
Unknown
And then like you kind of alluded to, it's like, hey, if you just do these things regularly for a couple weeks, you will feel a benefit, right? And again, I'm not going to convert somebody that never warms up to maybe like a 20 minute extended warm up. But if I can even split that difference, if I can get them to commit ten minutes, I guarantee that's going to make a huge impact on how they move and feel during their session.

00:11:22:08 - 00:11:42:15
Unknown
Mike, let's circle back to your intake process. So when somebody comes in for the first time, what information are you collecting from them both in terms of the conversations you're having with the new client and then any assessments that you do? Yeah. And I'm going to give you two answers here because, you know, if it's an athlete, the the process looks similar in both respects.

00:11:42:15 - 00:11:58:16
Unknown
Whether it's a gen pop client or like an online client versus an athlete. But in a lot of cases, if it's a gen pop client or somebody that has more like body comp goals, maybe they're a little bit older. They're not playing sports competitively. There's always this Q&A that I start people off with because I'm a big believer in rapport.

00:11:58:16 - 00:12:14:02
Unknown
I'm a big believer in really understanding what is is meaningful or important to this person. It also kind of gives me some ideas as to what levers I need to pull, you know, on those bad days, or maybe when they're struggling a little bit, but there's a there's always a Q&A process where I just try and find out more about them.

00:12:14:02 - 00:12:34:09
Unknown
What are their real goals, what injuries or, you know, potential orthopedic issues. Are we we, you know, looking at or working around. And then I'm always trying to come back to them with like, what do you need to change? Because I think sometimes when people hire a trainer, they think they're outsourcing their results. So if I start working with Mike or I start working with Kevin, my results are guaranteed.

00:12:34:09 - 00:12:49:06
Unknown
And you and I both now know there's a give and take here. Like I can help you with the programing, the accountability and the coaching. But you have to do the work. You have to fuel your body appropriately. You have to get enough sleep. So I'm always trying to figure out, okay, what are the things that I can do to help them?

00:12:49:10 - 00:13:08:08
Unknown
And then what are their red flags for themselves that they need to think about or they need to work on. So I always start there, regardless of client. Now, if it's an athlete, I'm going to do a little bit deeper dive. And we're going to go through a warm up process, and then I'm going to do as many athletic movements as I can within that are, you know, respect respective of their sports.

00:13:08:08 - 00:13:27:04
Unknown
So, you know, for basketball I'm going to watch them accelerate. I'm going to watch them backpedal. I'm going to watch them hip turn. I'm going to watch them lateral shuffle. You know, do all those movements that they're going to do on a court. So there's like this sport specific element and then there's just a movement specific element. And so now this is where I circle back to athlete and pop.

00:13:27:04 - 00:13:46:23
Unknown
Regardless I want to watch you squat, hinge, lunge, push up, touch your toes. Just getting an idea of their basic overall movement foundation. So for me I don't need like a standardized test for this. I just want to watch people move and all these different environments, a specific environment, a general environment. And then with an athlete, kind of the final piece that I would do.

00:13:46:23 - 00:14:05:07
Unknown
And again, circling back to like basketball in this case, I would probably put them on a vertex. Right. Every kid wants to know how high they touch. And then I like kind of the final piece for me now is putting them on force plates, because I think this gives me some really great data, not only to track longitudinally, you know, because I'm getting I don't just have pros anymore.

00:14:05:07 - 00:14:26:17
Unknown
I've got younger kids that I'm trying to develop so I can longitudinally track them, but I can also compare them with normative data to different subsets. Right. So if I've got a, you know, six, 445 pound kid that wants to play Division one basketball, I can say, hey, look, here are your numbers. Now here's where you need to be if you want to be a Division one player.

00:14:26:22 - 00:14:45:17
Unknown
And so that's one of the fun things that I've been doing here lately. Like you, I'm always trying to find ways to keep myself switched on. Engaged. So obviously the sport science is its own rabbit hole, but that's been something fun for me where it keeps me switched on. It helps me kind of continue to evolve and understand, hey, this is what I'm seeing now.

00:14:45:17 - 00:15:03:22
Unknown
What is the objective data? Tell me about this athlete and then the back end. You know, we sit down, we kind of debrief one of the things that that I have espoused for years and I think is arguably the most important is at the start, they told you why they're here, right? Like I'm here to shed body fat, build muscle, improve my vertical jump at the end.

00:15:03:22 - 00:15:31:20
Unknown
You evaluated them. So hopefully you can connect those two dots and give them a plan of attack or give them a vision. Right. So if some kid says I want to jump higher, okay, well here's your jump. Here's what I see. Here's our plan to get you from here to here. And so if you can connect those dots and have a really strong vision and conviction that you can help them achieve those goals, then I think that's, you know, 99% of the selling process is just being really confident that you can help them achieve their goals based on what you found in the assessment.

00:15:31:20 - 00:15:48:21
Unknown
Yeah, I mean, I think the goal is almost the destination and the intake process is the starting point, right? Yes, absolutely. Where you are at that point in time and how far you need to go to achieve the goal that they set or maybe to help reshape more manageable goals. But I think the objective feedback can be really helpful.

00:15:48:21 - 00:16:07:09
Unknown
Or even, you know, some of the patterns that you mentioned. One of the things that I've tried to do more over the years is just take videos of, yes, people moving. And then because I, you know, I've had a few experiences where you're talking to an athlete and they feel frustrated because they're struggling with something that they feel like they've been struggling with for a long time.

00:16:07:09 - 00:16:36:10
Unknown
And when you have videos, you can go back in and it's like, know where you are now and what we're doing and teaching is a totally different conversation than where you were three months ago. And you know how you were moving and the things that we were looking at there, you know, I think that the, the video feedback can be really helpful, but, you know, having some objective numbers I think can be motivational for the the clients or the athletes too, because they can see that they're making progress and taking steps in the right direction.

00:16:36:10 - 00:16:57:21
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. Both super valid points. I've, I've tried to do a better job of longitudinally tracking some of the pictures and the videos, because I think that's one thing, especially I use it the most in return to play, because I think sometimes those winds are smaller, right. Like it's really easy to see, oh my gosh. You know, my vertical jump went up two inches right.

00:16:57:21 - 00:17:14:15
Unknown
Like that's easy. You know less knee pain or more range of motion. Sometimes those things are harder to track or hitting better positions in a split squat. Right. Like it's maybe not super exciting to them, but when we as, as coaches can show them, hey look, this was your lunge before your split squat. Look where you're at now, right?

00:17:14:15 - 00:17:31:13
Unknown
So we're recapturing range. We're strengthening you in these different positions like that's a great rationale for using that. And that's something I'm trying to do a better job of. It's funny Andy McCloy and I talked about this numerous times. I don't know how I would look in them, but I've thought about getting some of those meta glasses just so I'm not tearing my phone around because I don't I hate being that guy.

00:17:31:14 - 00:17:55:13
Unknown
You know, where you're just filming the whole session, you're not actually coaching, but just to be able to film and record more footage and workouts, I think would be valuable because it's something where to like, I talk about this with young coaches. If you're not confident coaching something in real time, okay, don't record it. Then take it home and watch it 5000 times on your own and start to figure out what you're seeing so that the next time they make that mistake, you can coach them more effectively.

00:17:55:13 - 00:18:14:12
Unknown
I think that's great advice. That's something I actually do now. If something doesn't look right in a pattern, particularly you know, with the cases that you reference of people coming back from injuries, you know, watching it in real time, it's like, I don't love the way that that looks. And I don't know exactly why right now, but that skill made and then go back and, you know, was this was this a an aberrant set.

00:18:14:12 - 00:18:32:15
Unknown
Was it just something was a little off, but it's not there set to set. Or is this something that is is happening consistently that we need to dive into a little bit more? Yeah, I think the best permission slip I ever got I mean, I'm sure you know, Lee Taft or you have at least heard of him. Lee, back in the day, I was like, God, Lee, you just see everything at speed.

00:18:32:16 - 00:18:49:18
Unknown
I mean, I came from powerlifting, right? Like you can't pick a slower sport. So, like, the guys I was hanging around, I had this guy Rufus, in my gym who was an Olympic weightlifting coach. I had Lee Taft, who's like a world class speed coach, and all these guys see these things, and it's so fast, right? And so both of them, at different times, Lee especially, was like, just record it.

00:18:49:18 - 00:19:05:20
Unknown
He's like, there's still times I record stuff and here's like arguably the the best multi-directional speed coach on the planet. And he's telling me to record stuff and he still use it. So that was like the best permission slip. And I started doing that. And literally I was putting so many hours in, in the gym and I would take 30 minutes to an hour.

00:19:05:21 - 00:19:30:19
Unknown
When I left, I had everything recorded on an iPad and I just watch it in slo mo. And now, lo and behold, I'm a pretty good speed coach, so that stuff makes a huge difference. Oh, for sure. Do you, do you, or are there elements of testing that you integrate into the training process or, you know, are you doing follow up testing on any of the things that you do at the intake, you know, is does that guide your decision making on future phases?

00:19:30:19 - 00:19:49:11
Unknown
Or if you're going to progress somebody from one, you know, one stimulus to another? Yeah. So with regards to movement options, what I will generally do is start somebody maybe a half step behind where I think they should be. Right. So for example, let's say somebody could probably do a two kettlebells front squat, but I'm going to start with just a goblet squat.

00:19:49:17 - 00:20:06:12
Unknown
And I'm going to do that partly because I want to build that confidence in the gym. I want them to feel comfortable with me, especially if it's a new client. Right. You kind of want to build that relationship in that rapport. And so it's a lot easier if I start them at a spot where I know they're going to be successful, and then it's just like, oh man, you're crushing this.

00:20:06:12 - 00:20:23:20
Unknown
Like, let's keep moving forward. So in that case, absolutely. But also when it comes to some of the objective stuff, where and again, I don't proclaim to be an expert at this, but, you know, going in after an assessment and looking at somebody force trace, right, looking at their numbers, putting them up against that normative data. So here's a great example.

00:20:24:02 - 00:20:45:14
Unknown
I have a kid. He's a junior now. He's going to be a senior next year. He's committed to a D1 school. And so I took all of his junk data and I compared it against all the normative stuff Drake, Burberry from Hawking had. Like it was like 90 or 100 division one players power five schools. So he's got like, hey, what is an average, jump height, all these things and he's got all the metrics.

00:20:45:17 - 00:21:06:12
Unknown
So I plug this kid up against all those, and you can look and you can see very clearly his breaking is off the charts. Right. So it's like a 1718 year old kid going into college. His breaking is like 97, 98 percentile. Okay, check that box. Let's maintain that. He doesn't need to work on that. But then you look at some of his propulsive metrics and it's like 40th percent 42nd percent okay.

00:21:06:17 - 00:21:32:20
Unknown
So this is giving us very clearly something that objectively we can work on. And if we can move this up, I think it's going to prepare you to play at that next level. And so I think that's what's fun about this. And, you know, again, this is why I get kind of nerdy. But I think if we can learn to harness that and we can create good data sets if we understand normative data, ultimately I think that can drive us in the right direction to where we don't have to be as subjective about some of our programing.

00:21:32:20 - 00:21:53:21
Unknown
Right? Oh, I think this guy needs this. Well know based on our data. It'd be really nice if somebody just said, no, he's really good at this. This is what you need to be focusing your time on. So I think that's something that, you know, I'm trying to lean on a little bit more now. Like I'm always going to lean on my intuition because I'm kind of at that age where it's like, you know, I love the technology, but I've also been doing this for a while, so I got to find that balance.

00:21:54:02 - 00:22:24:07
Unknown
But yeah, I'm definitely excited about that and trying to find a way to balance my intuition with data to try and come up with the best possible solution. You know, I you brought up the word balance a couple times and, you know, I, I think when I first connected with you, whatever it was two decades ago, you know, I, I would I learned a lot from you when and how you were breaking down movement and, you know, the importance on restoring range of motion in certain areas and restoring control in certain areas before you just kind of keep pushing the envelope on on how strong somebody gets.

00:22:24:07 - 00:22:53:08
Unknown
For example. And, you know, I think now, you know, with the with I fast with your facility that you share with Bill Hartman, one of the things that I'm curious about, Mike, is just how do you balance movement, limitation and addressing those with people with performance deficits, and particularly in athletic populations? Sometimes, you know, people come in and when you take them through, you know, any form of testing, there might be restrictions in the ankles or the hips or the thoracic spine that that are important to address.

00:22:53:08 - 00:23:14:19
Unknown
And they definitely need to be addressed, but they may also be too slow or too weak or not in good enough shape. And you know, there's, you know, a give and take there where if you're a perfect mover but you're still too slow to win a race, then it doesn't, it doesn't, doesn't matter. So how, how do you go about finding that balance in your programing and in your discussions with your clients?

00:23:14:19 - 00:23:36:18
Unknown
Yeah. And I think this is one of the hardest things, not just as a coach, but as an industry. We struggle with this because I think it pays. It pays the most to be a specialist, right. Like the best overall general coach probably isn't super well known. But the mobility expert on IG, everybody knows them, right? Or the strongest five people on IG, people know those people.

00:23:36:18 - 00:23:57:06
Unknown
So there's value in like specialization and being well known. But I think the best coaches are very diverse in their approach. Right. So the way I think about this is I tend to think of there's really three buckets right now. We can get into the nitty gritty, but I think there's mobility and movement capacity. Right. Like that's one bucket that I think we can all agree.

00:23:57:06 - 00:24:17:12
Unknown
Every athlete needs a certain amount of mobility, movement, capacity, movement options however you want to think about it. Second is our neurological outputs, right. So our speed, our strength, our power, every athlete needs certain levels of those. And then finally is like our metabolic optimization endurance conditioning however you want to think about it. But I think what happens is the same things that happens on the internet.

00:24:17:12 - 00:24:33:03
Unknown
The same thing happens when it comes to coaching, right? You get some people where it's all about just mobility and movement options, and they spend three months trying to create this perfect mover. There's other people where they just look at it through a strength lens. And I live there, right? I live there early on where it's just strength, strength, strength for months on it.

00:24:33:05 - 00:24:50:02
Unknown
And then there's other people where it's all about conditioning. And so I think what you have to understand is you have a finite amount of time in an off season, right? So if I'm going to work with one of your athletes, I'm going to send them back to you. I've got 12 weeks. So I'm going to spend that first block restoring as much of my movement options as I can.

00:24:50:06 - 00:25:07:13
Unknown
Right. Like that is priority one, because, you know, if somebody comes off and how many games do you guys play 80, 90, 82 regular season game. So it's like the NBA hopefully more. Yeah hopefully more. So let's just say you're playing it 8090 games a year right. You're going to lose movement options right. You're going to lose mobility.

00:25:07:13 - 00:25:31:05
Unknown
Your center of gravity is going to get pushed forward okay. So I know in that first block my primary goal is to shift your center of gravity back, restore movement options and start to rebuild like those connective tissues. Right. So that's block one. Now block two I would love to say is just pure strength. But we also know you can't just go back to pure strength exercises without respecting the fact that you just spent a month or more recapturing movement options.

00:25:31:05 - 00:25:49:08
Unknown
So this is where yeah, I'm going to chase force production, but in a little bit more intelligent way. So hey, maybe my my big bang lifts are going to be a front squat versus a traditional back swatter, a safety bar squat, things that allow me to work through a larger range of motion but still maintain some some elements of force production.

00:25:49:10 - 00:26:08:05
Unknown
And then that final block, hey, now we're just layering in those elements of speed, power, explosiveness, conditioning. But I think it's always respecting the fact that you just spent, you know, a certain amount of time developing a physical quality. And so if you deem that important, which you don't want to do, is just move on to the next block and forget what you just did, you're just always kind of layering and building.

00:26:08:05 - 00:26:27:11
Unknown
So, hey, I just spent a month recapturing movement options. Great. I want to maintain those. Now let's build some force production on top of that. All right. Great. Next block. Now let's maintain our force production. Let's maintain those movement options. But let's make sure we've got the speed and the power and the conditioning on the back end to support what this athlete needs to be successful.

00:26:27:16 - 00:26:52:18
Unknown
And then it just comes down to, you know, every athlete is different, right? So the ratios are going to be different. If you've got, you know, this huge, burly, muscular archetype, you're probably going to do things a little bit differently than if you have, you know, this six six human rubber band, right? They're just different people. But I think if you can understand those basic tenets or that kind of progression, then it just comes down to, okay, now what ratio is best for the person standing in front of you?

00:26:52:18 - 00:27:15:15
Unknown
That's a great point. I think I, I think of that idea almost like a, like the producer in a recording studio that you have these, you know, these different dials and you're kind of pushing, pushing up the emphasis on restoring movement capacity early on and maybe dialing down the emphasis on speed work for example. And then, you know, over the course of the offseason, you're just kind of changing, changing the emphasis.

00:27:15:15 - 00:27:34:02
Unknown
But, you know, all of those areas are still present throughout the entire program. Yeah, yeah. Bill talks about interference or secondary consequences. And I think that's a good way to look at things. Right. Because if you're just banging heavy weights, it's really hard to get or at least in the traditional sense, right. Like imagine you're just doing heavy barbell back squats, barbell bench press.

00:27:34:02 - 00:27:55:08
Unknown
And again, I'm not banging on these lifts. But you know, just as an example, it creates interference if you're trying to recapture mobility at the same time. So trying to choose better exercises that reinforce what you just worked on are important. And then just respecting I think this is really important too. And I think sometimes, again, people get caught up in, you know, if you don't have enough mobility, you're going to get hurt, right?

00:27:55:08 - 00:28:12:16
Unknown
Or there's the strong things don't break right, or endurance is, you know, you see where I'm going with this. Like all of those things can be protective. And so when you start to respect the fact, hey, having more movement options to a degree is protective. Having strength to a certain degree is protective. Having enough endurance capacity is protective.

00:28:12:21 - 00:28:45:16
Unknown
It just makes you better understand, like, hey, all of these things are important. So I should probably put at least some emphasis on all of them in my offseason development. Oh, that makes sense. You've mentioned a couple times, Mike, just the idea that, certain exercises, you know, the example you just gave, like the, the traditional, you know, the back squat, the bench press, you know, kind of the big three that if you're in a phase where your goal is to restore movement options, that that may create an obstacle, at least at that time when you're, you know, when you're chasing that goal of restoring movement capacity, can you get you know, I at some

00:28:45:16 - 00:29:12:19
Unknown
point we'll have Bill on and we'll kind of do a deep dive on on the archetypes. And yes, you know how he's looking at that process. But, you know, just from a programing standpoint, are there are there general recommendations for exercises that are less likely to create that interference effect for, you know, for people in general? Yeah. So I got asked this on Joel Smith's podcast a while back, and I keep finding myself choosing a handful of exercises.

00:29:12:19 - 00:29:36:02
Unknown
So I kind of think of those as my go tos, right? Like my early off season, my recapturing motion. Now, this isn't to say that they're the best for force production, but when it comes down to, hey, let's just get this person moving and feeling better, right? Some of the big ones I always use are like a reverse sled drag, some form of heels, elevated anterior loaded squat so it could be goblet two kettlebell Zurcher spin the safety bar around.

00:29:36:02 - 00:29:54:12
Unknown
Tons of options there. Generally when I'm thinking pressing options, I'm not going like a standard barbell press. Generally it's alternating variations, floor pressing variations. And then I'll send you the video if you can drop this in the show notes. But I just call them pulling exercises. And now most people would think like dumbbell rows, chin ups, those sorts of things.

00:29:54:12 - 00:30:22:05
Unknown
And again those are great at a certain time and place. But I'm thinking more exercises like cable variations that allow you to create length. Right. So like one of the things that I'll do is sit on, like a bench or a box dual cable where it's literally pulling me up. Right? I'm creating length through my torso, through my arms, and then I'm working on, like, bending side to side, or I'm working on rotating my thorax side to side because I think those are things that we tend to lose, right.

00:30:22:05 - 00:30:43:03
Unknown
When you think about just progressive loss of range of motion, whether it's to a competitive season over life again, center of gravity gets shifted forward. We lose that ability to turn and rotate. So I'm always thinking about how can I shift back, how can I recapture rotation movement side to side. So those are some of the things that I'm always coming back to because I feel like they're easy wins.

00:30:43:03 - 00:31:12:13
Unknown
And immediately if somebody doesn't feel good, if I incorporate those in their programs, they almost immediately start feeling, yeah, it sounds like and you know, correct me if I, if I summarize this poorly, but exercise is where you're shifting your center of gravity backwards. Yes. And exercises where you're decompressing. Yes. And exercise is that involve unilateral or reciprocal upper body movement where, you know, one arm is working and the other one is either moving in the opposite direction or is static.

00:31:12:14 - 00:31:35:10
Unknown
Yeah, absolutely. Another way to think about it is think of all the exercises you love to do as a kid. Think about the opposite, right. Because all the things that are great in general at like building muscle, they are more compressive, right? So whether it's a squat bar or like a back squat, barbell, bench press, barbell deadlift, chin ups, heavy bent over rows, chest supported rows, all of these things that are like bilateral or symmetrical.

00:31:35:12 - 00:31:56:09
Unknown
They have a place. Right. And so like, you know, we talked about some of the younger athletes. If I'm looking to increase force production, if I'm trying to increase propulsive qualities, those are my go tos. Right. So it all comes back to like right exercise, right time, right client or athlete. And so the second you start to get away from, you know, there's good and bad exercises.

00:31:56:09 - 00:32:15:08
Unknown
No, it's just like using the right exercise at the right time with the right person is really where the magic happens, you know, and that that's actually a appropriate segue. The next thing I want to ask in this is related to the the discussion we just had. But, you know, finding this balance between pushing performance versus enhancing durability or injury prevention.

00:32:15:08 - 00:32:35:11
Unknown
And, you know, I think with every training decision, there's there's an anticipated benefit, there's what you're hoping to get out of it. And then there's a cost to that training. And, you know, striking the right balance there, getting the risk reward and the recovery costs can can play a large role in the short and long term success of a training program.

00:32:35:11 - 00:32:54:01
Unknown
And I think within a similar context, athletes, you know, training can be used to help drive improvements in different areas of performance. Or it can be viewed more to improve their durability and their longevity. And, you know, this is, similar, I guess, to, you know, you have movement and then you have, you know, you have performance goals.

00:32:54:01 - 00:33:14:10
Unknown
But I, I think of the clients that come in that say, you know, I have camp in three weeks, you know, what can we do to get in shape? And, you know, I Mike Boyle has the famous like, you can't speed farm, you know, like, yeah, yeah, I like that. You have to, you know, create the environment and put in enough time to allow the, allow the positive growth to occur.

00:33:14:10 - 00:33:34:15
Unknown
But can you talk a little bit, Mike, about how you find the balance in, in how aggressive you are with some of your, your programing decisions? As far as you know, based on the timeline you have, what's reasonable for a goal, and then, you know, the expected cost of whatever method you're deciding to pursue. And you know how you kind of find that balance.

00:33:34:15 - 00:33:55:23
Unknown
Yeah. Do. This is such a good question. I guess I haven't thought of it exactly like this before. I mean, just respect the fact that if you're if you're going to try and again speed farm your results, you're playing with fire. Right? So the second you take an unprepared body, immediately start to train it hard or try and get it ready for a pre-season, like you're up against the wall and I don't expect a good outcome.

00:33:55:23 - 00:34:15:03
Unknown
Now, it's not to say necessarily something bad is going to happen, but I don't expect good things to happen, right? Because they're not physically prepared. So this actually happened a little bit more with me last year, and it wasn't their fault, but I had a lot of guys that were transitioning from the NBA to overseas or guys that had been overseas and played a lot longer than usual.

00:34:15:06 - 00:34:30:16
Unknown
And so then, you know, it's crazy, like the overseas season in Europe is actually longer than the NBA season, it feels like, because a lot of these guys are showing up in the first or second week in August and they may not get back. I had one guy that did not come back. I saw him for the first day, July 1st.

00:34:30:22 - 00:34:53:09
Unknown
So I mean, that's that's an incredibly long season. And so what ends up happening is you've got all of this time chasing performance goals, right? Outputs, performing, competing, and then your actual time to rebuild the body. Right. All the things that we talked about were important, especially like mobility and movement capacity, restoring movement options, rebuilding connective tissues. It's just not a lot.

00:34:53:10 - 00:35:13:01
Unknown
It's not enough time to achieve some of those or to get them to a desirable enough level. Or even if I can do that now, I haven't had enough time to top off that force production bucket. And so to kind of maybe answer this in a different way, how willing am I am to push with a high level athlete that has already proven themselves to be successful at a professional level?

00:35:13:06 - 00:35:33:21
Unknown
I'm not willing to push that much. Right? Again, I'm thinking about how can I restore as much as possible every offseason? Can I get as much movement back as possible? Can I top their force production buckets off? Can I make sure their endurance and conditioning are where it needs to be, because they've already proven they have the physical tools and characteristics to play at a professional level, and they're making money, right?

00:35:33:21 - 00:36:03:12
Unknown
So every year I can get them healthy, get them back on the court for an entire season. They have the chance to not only play another year, but hopefully get a pay raise. So would that demographic. I'm not willing to push as much. Now on the other side, you know, if I've got a 15 year old kid whose only goal is to play Division one basketball now, within reason, I'm going to push them, but I'm a lot more willing to push that athlete to help them get the desired changes, because again, there's just I don't want to say there's less at stake, but there there are costs associated with it.

00:36:03:15 - 00:36:18:22
Unknown
But I'm willing to take some calculated risks knowing that, hey, we have to do these things if you want to be able to play at that level. There are some kids like, look, I love them. They're amazing kids, but they don't have the physical tools necessary, right? Doesn't matter what training program I give them, doesn't matter how hard they train.

00:36:19:03 - 00:36:36:19
Unknown
You know, whether it's their size, their speed, their strength, body shape, whatever it is, they just don't have the physical tools. So, hey, I'm going to do the best that I can with you. But I also know that there's probably a limit on this versus others where it's like, hey, now we just need really good sound training. You have the tools, but now you have to put in the work.

00:36:36:19 - 00:36:55:00
Unknown
So with that group, I'm willing to push a little bit. But again, never just like throwing everything to hell in a handbasket, right? I'm still going to make great exercise decisions. I'm still going to work within their boundaries and what they can do. But with those athletes, I feel like you have to push the needle. I feel like Eric talked about this like when he was first coming on with baseball players too.

00:36:55:05 - 00:37:13:04
Unknown
You know, he would talk about, hey, if I already got somebody who's playing MLB, dude, like, what else do I need to do? Get him healthy, put him back out there? Versus if somebody is just grinding at a and they need a couple extra miles per hour, hey man, we might have to dig a little bit deeper and we might have to be a little bit more aggressive for you to cross that threshold and get to that next level.

00:37:13:04 - 00:37:30:12
Unknown
Yeah. I think you brought up a couple good points. I mean, with the younger athletes, there's also the element of, you know, their their bodies don't have as much wear and tear as an athlete that's playing professionally and presumably has, you know, not just that many more years of, of competition experience playing in the sport, but also of training experience.

00:37:30:12 - 00:37:53:04
Unknown
You know, we've had opportunities to work with professional athletes in season that are across the the 40 year old barrier. And, you know, those guys have been training for longer than some of the younger players have been alive. So yeah, absolutely. You know, there's a little less tread on the tires and probably a little bit larger of a buffer zone that, you know, if there is a little bit more stress, it's not going to have as catastrophic of consequences.

00:37:53:04 - 00:38:21:08
Unknown
But you also brought up the I, the idea that, you know, where a player is in their professional career can matter a lot to that. You know, if a player is competing at a really high level and seems to have a established themselves within a specific role or performance category, and, you know, maybe the way that you handle their off season is a little different than a player that, you know, the coaches are mad at because they're a step slow or, you know, playing time is hard to come by because they're inconsistent on a night to night basis.

00:38:21:08 - 00:38:45:14
Unknown
And, you know, they, they may need even within the professional ranks to continue to take a step in a positive direction to stay there. Dude, this is such a great point. This brings me back because when I was in the team environment, you know, probably like 15 years ago now, I worked a lot in soccer. And one of the interesting things was not only did I have guys from the MLS in the offseason that would come in and train, but I had, you know, all my guys that were NASL, USL level players.

00:38:45:18 - 00:39:05:06
Unknown
And so it's very clear, like when I'm working with Chad Marshall, who's like a defensive player of the year, right. Best 11 MLS player. He just has to show up healthy to camp right. Get him there. Get him healthy enough so he gets through pre-season. He's playing as many games as he can and he's a lock down defender versus the guy that's like just trying to get on the team.

00:39:05:10 - 00:39:23:04
Unknown
Dude, that offseason is a lot different, right? And so like not just in my thought process but in my time management. So like with the guy that's established and you just need him ready to play whatever in the mix 40 games. Hey, I just need you ready to go on day one versus the guy that's like, hey man, I'm grinding.

00:39:23:04 - 00:39:42:18
Unknown
I'm just trying to get a spot, not get cut. That guy's got to be ready on the first day of preseason, right? He's got to be outworking everybody for those six weeks just to make sure he's on the team. So like the timeline and the decision making is totally different. So that's just such a great point that you bring up because yeah, I don't think about it as much because I'm not in that team environment and most of my guys are a little bit more established.

00:39:42:20 - 00:40:03:18
Unknown
But yeah, if you're in that environment, the timelines are totally different depending on who you're talking about and their level of establishment with that team. Yeah. When you were talking about the basketball schedule, I thought of the MLS schedule right away. You know, it's crazy. It's just interesting how different all the the sports are with the schedules. You know, baseball you're playing a game basically every day for six straight months.

00:40:03:20 - 00:40:23:03
Unknown
Hockey and basketball obviously pretty similar with about three and a half games a week. And but the MLS, you know, you're one game on the weekend. You have all those opportunities with the Open Cup two games a week. Yeah. But you have all those opportunities to you know they I say practice, they say train. Yeah. On the pitch.

00:40:23:03 - 00:40:53:18
Unknown
And then also you know it's a little easier to find some time in the gym with just schedule as well. It's just such a long season. And so I learned a lot from that because you know, other than last year where again, I did have some anomalies where guys had like 6 or 8 week offseasons, like a 6 to 8 week offseason is the norm for the MLS and most of professional soccer, if we're being honest, you know, those guys are going to finish up generally, you know, October, November depending on how long they play, but they reporting second or third week in January, six week preseason, first week in March.

00:40:53:18 - 00:41:15:20
Unknown
You're rolling. I mean, it's an incredibly long season, 9 or 10 months. I mean that's really hard. And so that's where again, the decision making is different because let's say football I would imagine. And I've not worked in professional football, American football. But I would imagine week one it's fucking go. Sorry. It's go time. Right. Like it's go time because you only have 16 games, right.

00:41:15:20 - 00:41:33:03
Unknown
So you got to be ready for every one of those games. Whereas across 82 games in the NBA human, everybody's going to have 1 or 2 bad ones. Right. So again, that's what's interesting about what we do. Like that's what's fun about it though. It's like every league, you know, the amount of games that they play, the cadence and the rhythm of the games and the competitions.

00:41:33:03 - 00:41:49:18
Unknown
Like that's what makes this fun. And like I think when you just take a step back and you try and talk to everybody and learn from everybody, you start to get some perspective like, well, that's why Joe Ken would do that when he's with the Panthers. That's why you do that when you're with the Bruins. That's why Eric does that when he's with the Yankees, because the context and the environment really do matter.

00:41:49:19 - 00:42:10:16
Unknown
Sure. Yeah. And I think even within a sport, obviously, if you know, the schedule and at the professional level is very different from college, which ironically, at least in hockey is is very different from youth, in that youth sports teams play more professional like seasons than college teams do, which practice more and play a lot less games. But yeah, even within the sport level, two level, it's very different.

00:42:10:18 - 00:42:29:10
Unknown
Yeah for sure. Mike, I wanted to transition into talking about how you how you work with and how you program for injured athletes. So, you know, I think we still hear situations where somebody suffers an injury. They go to the doctor. The doctor, you know, hyper focused on the injury itself says, you know, this is a 6 to 8 week recovery process.

00:42:29:12 - 00:42:49:17
Unknown
You know, we just want you to rest. And, you know, I think that that feedback is typically given within the context of the specific segment of the injury itself. But then there's no follow up to say, you know, you still are able to do these other things. So, you know, I think that you're you're as good as anybody in the world at finding that balance.

00:42:49:17 - 00:43:09:11
Unknown
So I'm curious, you know, how do you somebody comes in with an injury, you know, how do you design a program for that person? And then also, you know, what's your your messaging to them about how they can stay, stay on course throughout the healing process? Yeah. So this was forged by Eric Cressey. So I forget when it was it had to be 20 years ago probably at this point.

00:43:09:11 - 00:43:24:22
Unknown
But I just remember Eric talking about when they opened the gym and this kid comes in and like a cast, oh, you know, did my ACL. I can't do anything for like nine months. And Eric says something to the effect of, oh, that's interesting because you have two healthy shoulders, a core, another leg, all of which can be trained.

00:43:25:02 - 00:43:52:05
Unknown
And I just love that that thought process. And and I've, I've dealt with some pretty gnarly return to place over the years. Right. Like an Achilles basically start to finish ACL micro fracture combo is like some pretty gnarly long term rehab things. And so for me, it may sound counterintuitive, but I'm actually starting with the psychology of it first, because, I mean, you know, you're around athletes all the time, like you take away their athleticism and their health and they sometimes they don't know who they are.

00:43:52:08 - 00:44:05:04
Unknown
Right? Like the thing that they were built to do, they can no longer do. So I'll generally start with like a, hey, let's just stay in the gym, man. You know, I would like to thank all of my guys and girls that work with me, enjoy coming into the gym. They enjoy seeing me. Hey, man, let's just come in.

00:44:05:04 - 00:44:21:10
Unknown
Let's just, you know, let's do what we can for a while. So we start with, hey, the psychological side. Let's keep things as normal as possible, keep doing stuff. And then I'm always looking at, hey, this is just an opportunity to work on other stuff, right? So perfect example one of my guys tore finger tendon and so he had surgery.

00:44:21:10 - 00:44:41:14
Unknown
So he's in this like crazy cast for like six weeks. He trained that entire time. We found ways around it. Right. So hey we're going to find safety bar variations. We're going to do zurcher hold variations of every exercise known to man. We're going to train your left arm. You know, we can still do step ups and split squats and all these other exercises and it's still targeted, right?

00:44:41:14 - 00:44:59:19
Unknown
Because like every athlete, he's got movement stuff that we're working on. So hey, if I find the right exercise, the right position, we're this is like free time for me, like time when I normally wouldn't get to have because this guy actually got to leave early to get the surgery done. Hey, man, we just bought ourselves an extra month of offseason training where I can get your body feeling good.

00:44:59:19 - 00:45:26:06
Unknown
We can work on some of these deficits, and now we can make sure, hey, when you go out next year, you're even healthier or more resilient. So I look at it as like I always try and spin it to them. It's like, hey, this is maybe this is a good thing, right? And I think Adam Locke and I actually, I talked about this at one point, either on a podcast or something, but sometimes this is the first time in a very long time where this person has been allowed to train uninterrupted and just build and take care of their body.

00:45:26:10 - 00:45:40:00
Unknown
And so I think if you can come at it with that lens and that approach, a lot of times athletes are really responsive to that because most of them intuitively know, like, hey, you need to take care of your body. But now it's like, hey, this is like some bonus time where we can really get you feeling right.

00:45:40:05 - 00:45:59:00
Unknown
And depending on where they're at in their career, because again, a lot of the the guys and girls that I work with and that I've had for a long time, you know, they're probably towards, you know, the top or they're going to be on the back end here soon. So like, hey, let's really set you up for that, that second half of your career and make sure you're feeling is good and you're as fresh as possible going into that.

00:45:59:00 - 00:46:20:02
Unknown
So that's kind of the approach that I take. And I don't know, it seemed to work really well for me. Yeah. I don't I haven't found a lot of resistance from athletes in asking them to train early on in that process. I think, you know, it's it's more and it's interesting. You said you start with the psychology because I feel like that's largely overlooked in a lot of the cases that, you know, athletes are used to moving.

00:46:20:02 - 00:46:46:13
Unknown
They're used to being competitive, they're used to routine. And, you know, there's a really significant challenge that's presented to them when they're in the team setting, in particular when they're removed from the team and the camaraderie and everything else that they're used to, that they're used to having, that creates its own challenge. So, you know, training can almost be an outlet where they can start to put their energy and their focus into something that still is physical.

00:46:46:13 - 00:47:12:16
Unknown
And, you know, there's all sorts of reasons, hormonal responses to exercise. And, you know, there's a long list of reasons why training the rest of the body may actually benefit the healing process itself. But, you know, I also think in, you know, this is an area that's important in the team setting, too, especially when injuries occur during the season, is that, you know, the second you stop stressing the body, it's training, it's adapting to doing less.

00:47:12:16 - 00:47:43:08
Unknown
And when a player has to transition back into their sport is, you know, you know, they're accustomed to a certain workload. And keeping training present throughout that recovery process can help minimize the training so that there ramp up and transition back into the sport is faster, too. And, you know, I think every now and then there's a story about an athlete that, you know, suffers some injury and then they have this recovery, this return timeline that is significantly outpaces what, you know, the general population is told is a normal timeline for that.

00:47:43:08 - 00:48:04:03
Unknown
And, you know, I think what what people don't see behind the curtain is that they are starting to train almost immediately. There's medical check ups on a daily basis, multiple times a day to see how they're responding to that stress. And, you know, obviously in your environment, like between you and Bill, you have a really tight feedback loop on this was our input.

00:48:04:03 - 00:48:23:05
Unknown
How was the response? Do we scale up? Do we scale down? Do we scale different. You know, are we, you know, creating different stressors. And when it when the path is guided that tightly, you can you can accelerate the timeline of return because you're, you know, you're pushing as hard as is safe at every single step along the journey.

00:48:23:05 - 00:48:39:11
Unknown
Yeah. And this is something that I try and I really try and push as well. Is that the more often I see you, the better. This is going to go. And again, it's just like you alluded to, it's those feedback loops, right? If I'm seeing you every day, I'm getting this constant feedback loop up. Okay, we did this.

00:48:39:11 - 00:48:58:15
Unknown
How do they move? How are they looking today versus if I only see like twice a week, it's really hard for me to tell. Like you know, was it the training session? Was it the 100 golf balls you hit yesterday? Was your kid keeping you up last night? You know, like those tight feedback loops? And I think that makes such a huge difference when you're in a return to play environment.

00:48:58:20 - 00:49:14:09
Unknown
Right. The more often you can see somebody, the more often you can get hands on them, eyes on them, work with them. I just think it speeds everything up. And I think there's probably an analogy there for young, healthy athletes to that. You know, maybe sign up to train twice a week and then miss two weeks for a few tournaments.

00:49:14:11 - 00:49:37:03
Unknown
Yes. You know, in my case, summer league hockey showcases and all these other things. When you know the consistency is probably the the not so secret ingredient to success there. Well, look, this is something where really until this year, I only took 1 or 2 high school kids and they were they were high level, right. Like one was a senior McDonald's All-American, went on to play Kansas.

00:49:37:03 - 00:49:52:23
Unknown
There was another kid who's a junior. He's going, you know, committed to a D1 school. Now I'm taking a few more high school players because again, like there is fun right in that age group in that environment. Because with pros a lot of it's just management. Right. Like we talked about just top those buckets off versus these kids.

00:49:52:23 - 00:50:09:03
Unknown
They're more malleable. There's more real training and development that goes on. But I've also had to have the discussion and maybe it's just my age at this point. But it's like I'm very okay with saying, look, man, if you're not going to get in here at least twice and preferentially 3 to 4 times a week, like we're all wasting our time here.

00:50:09:08 - 00:50:29:01
Unknown
Like, in fact, when when I fast was running where we had like, you know, true coaches versus independent contractors, we even had it basically language as like in-season training was 1 to 2 times a week. Offseason training was 2 to 3 times a week. And that was geared towards high school kids. But it kind of puts that mindset in, you know, in their brain.

00:50:29:01 - 00:50:49:00
Unknown
It makes it top of mind because Damian, you don't go in-season and I don't see you for three months because then we're back to square one, if not worse. So just trying to set that expectation in that standard, I think is really important as a coach. Mike, I know we're up against the clock here. So I got a handful of questions that came through in Instagram yesterday for you, but, we'll just stick with two.

00:50:49:01 - 00:51:06:06
Unknown
The first one is what are your go to exercises for improving hip internal rotation. And you know, that may be a tough one to talk through. So if there's any, you know, any videos or resources that are better for you to reference, feel free to shout those out. Yeah. So I would say I've got actually a pretty popular YouTube video.

00:51:06:06 - 00:51:20:16
Unknown
It's just like called Hip Mobility. That's like what it says on the title, but it got quite a bit of traction. So there's some really good exercises in there. 1 or 2 that I really like, like an inverted lazy bear. If you've ever seen that. So elbows on the ground, your knees are up on like an air pad.

00:51:20:16 - 00:51:40:09
Unknown
So kind of breathing back, working on some you can even after you've got a couple of breaths in, working on some internal rotation from that position tends to work really well. And then, you know, I know PR, I called it something. I just think of it like a sideline hip scissor. So feet are on the wall. Roller or ball in between your knees and just working on shifting the hips forward.

00:51:40:09 - 00:51:58:09
Unknown
But again you got to have the feet contacts right. So think tripod foot on the wall shifting those knees forward and back. And a lot of times I'll do a breath cycle in each position. Right. So like knee forward inhale exhale shift back inhale exhale. So just working on trying to get those hips to like scissor and move independent of each other.

00:51:58:14 - 00:52:16:23
Unknown
Those are two of my favorites that I'm using quite a bit with my people right now. Those are great ones. We've actually started to do, almost a combination of the two that you just described, as far as you know, small ball between the knees in a quadruped position and just, you know, I think of it almost like you're pulling your, your foot after you step on, you know, you're just kind of.

00:52:17:00 - 00:52:36:11
Unknown
Yeah, lighting your knee off the ground, pausing and then coming back down, but, similar feel to the sideline one. Yeah, I love it, I love it. Question two how do you approach programing for the early off season. So you know we we touched on this a little bit already. But he was asking specifically you know integration of isometric exercises essentially contraction focus.

00:52:36:13 - 00:52:55:00
Unknown
Any comments there. Yeah. So this is good. And this is a little bit more nuanced. So I kind of gave you the big picture approach of like ships and or of gravity back rebuild connective tissues. So I will absolutely do some longer duration ISOs. So again, my basketball specific clients, there's a lot of, patellar tendinopathy jumpers.

00:52:55:00 - 00:53:11:14
Unknown
Knee however will want to think about it. So a lot of cases there is some longer duration ISO holds Spanish squats, that sort of thing. To try and relieve that or just the analgesic effect. And I got a couple guys in particular, like if you look at them like if you could make a human looking rubber band, that's who they are, right?

00:53:11:14 - 00:53:32:16
Unknown
And they can jump out of the gym. So a lot of elastic just energy storage there. So we'll generally start with some isometrics there. But yeah this is absolutely a time where I will buy us some centric stuff. And again just trying to rebuild that muscle architecture. Right. And let's just even take it back a step from that instead of just thinking muscle architecture, just think about contraction types on a court.

00:53:32:20 - 00:53:54:07
Unknown
Everything is fast, elastic, stiff. Right. Versus here I want longer time under tension, fuller range of motion, slower and more controlled eccentric. So again we're overloading muscle versus connective tissue. Like those are the things that I'm really focused on. So of all of the training blocks, that's the one where I'll generally harp on especially asymmetric time under tension a lot more.

00:53:54:08 - 00:54:23:17
Unknown
So maybe it's a three second or a four setter, 3 or 4 second eccentric, and a contraction muscle action however you want to think about it in case you want to get nerdy on the nuance there. But I really will emphasize the asymmetric there a lot of times, whether it's a squat, even like a leg extension, split squat, things of that nature, if somebody is really like gummed up because some people, you know, we know that split stance is valuable to them, but sometimes you put them in that position, you have them come in and out and they've got me issues or they've got hip issues.

00:54:23:22 - 00:54:48:00
Unknown
That's where I may use Isometrics as well. And I'll just put them in whatever position or depth is pain free, and I'll make them camp out there, and that'll just kind of mold them to the position in the shape that I want. And the thought process is over time, we can get those muscles in those connective tissues to yield a little bit, increase some compliance, and then over time, maybe in the next training block, then we can do the same exercise, but now make it dynamic where they're coming in and out of that position.

00:54:48:00 - 00:55:04:12
Unknown
Well that's awesome. Well, Mike, as I expected, this has been awesome. I appreciate, appreciate all the time and the information that you shared. Where, where can people find you? I know, you just dropped a new basketball program, too, so make sure make sure you shop that it. I'll give you three, and I'll make them all quick.

00:55:04:12 - 00:55:23:08
Unknown
Number one, if you've never heard of me, you just want to check out free stuff, articles, newsletters, podcast, go to Robertson Training systems.com. If you're into basketball, you're a basketball strength coach. You want to learn more about that, go to IFAs Basketball insiders.com. It's a membership site where I'm creating monthly content, monthly Q and A's, all that good stuff.

00:55:23:09 - 00:55:43:02
Unknown
And then last but not least, if you're a trainer coach, maybe not getting the results you want or just like want an overview of my system from assessments to program designed to coaching and cueing, go to complete coach certification.com because that's basically all of the things in one place. Yeah I think everybody could benefit from a deep dive on program design with you.

00:55:43:02 - 00:55:57:01
Unknown
I know, you know, we've certainly touched on a lot of those things today in this conversation. So, you know, having an opportunity to go step by step through the course would be amazing. Yeah. Thanks. So much, Kevin. Man, I appreciate your time and I just appreciate everything you're doing man I know you're busy. So thanks for having me on do.

00:55:57:01 - 00:56:00:15
Unknown
This is great.