COACH'D
Join us on COACH’D, a podcast where the some of the world's top athletes, coaches, and performance experts come together to share their stories, insights and secrets to what has made them successful in their own right.
Think of it as a "locker room" chat — unfiltered, raw, and real. We dive deep into all things athletic performance, wellness, science and culture.
COACH'D
Nik Popovic - "Behind Josh Giddey's Olympic Training Prep & Building Basketball Athletes"
Ever wondered how NBA stars like Josh Giddey train to stay at the top of their game?
In this episode of COACH'D, we sit down with veteran Strength & Conditioning coach Nik Popovic to uncover some of the training that prepared him for the Olympics. Nik breaks down their rigorous schedule, from on-court drills to weightlifting sessions, and dispels the myth that basketball players avoid the gym.
Gain insights into the critical role of strength in athletic performance and how focused, resilient preparation can lead to remarkable progress, all illustrated through Josh’s journey.
Off-season training often gets overlooked, but Nik explains why it’s a game-changer for athletes. Discover how even short, consistent sessions can make a huge difference, and learn about the importance of seamless communication between the athlete, off-season trainer, and team performance staff.
With Nik’s vast experience from team structures to his work at Gravity Performance Solutions, you’ll see how a comprehensive, collaborative approach can ensure athletes like Josh Giddey excel not just during the season but all year round. Plus, hear some fascinating anecdotes about the unique challenges of working with high-profile athletes like Lamello Ball.
Finally, we delve into the tailored training programs essential for optimal athletic performance. From managing the wear and tear on veteran players to the intricacies of remote coaching, Nik shares his expertise on achieving a balance between physical preparedness and skill development. Understand how individualised training can cater to diverse physiques and backgrounds, ensuring each athlete reaches their peak condition.
Tune in for an episode packed with expert advice and behind-the-scenes stories and valuable insights for coaches and athletes alike.
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https://open.spotify.com/show/1YJMztpYSgnPusEXB3fWcc?si=FJsWITv7QdSCSgCt3lkElw
Join us on Coached, a podcast where some of the world's top athletes, coaches and performance experts come together to share their stories, insights and secrets to what has made them successful in their own right. Think of this as a locker room chat unfiltered, raw and real. We dive deep into all things athletic performance, wellness, science and sporting culture and sporting culture. Hear from those who have played, coached and built their way to the top with athletes from the field, coaches and medical in the performance setting, or owners, managers and brands in the front office, while also getting an insider's view on my own personal experiences in this high-performance world. If you're passionate about sports, curious about the minds of champion athletes or looking for information and inspiration on your own journey, coach is the place for you. Nick Popovich, welcome to Coached.
Nik Popovic:Thank you very much, mate, great to be here.
Jordi Taylor:Mate, I'm very honoured to spend this one with you, so I appreciate you giving up the time. It was very, I guess, last minute, last notice, and you come through, so I appreciate it.
Nik Popovic:Yeah, more than happy to. I saw the text come through, so I appreciate it. Yeah, more than happy to.
Jordi Taylor:I saw the text come through and, like I said, the stars aligned, so why not? It worked out really good. You spent a pretty significant amount of time with Josh Giddey this off-season, I guess in prep for the Boomers, which I think they went pretty good all in all. What was that experience like, with you working with him in prep for the Olympics, from your perspective?
Nik Popovic:Look, josh and I have been working since before he got drafted back in 21. Ironically, I worked against his dad, so that shows you how old I am. But yeah, he and I worked together. I've known his agent Daniel for a long, long time and when he was in the NBL, we started that process before the NBA draft and then every year from then, whether I was here in Australia or in the US, we've always connected.
Nik Popovic:That was one of the longest periods we spent together, about seven weeks in the lead up to the Olympics, and he was determined to have a great Olympics individually as well as a team, determined to have a great olympics individually as well as a team. So we put in a program and a setup and schedule and the first week after we finished, I think we did a total of 18 sessions, which was on court, in the weight room, in recovery, uh, skill work, whatever it was, and I said, look, josh, this is a little bit too much, we're going to pull back a bit. But he was, he was great, he listened to everything, he was, uh, disciplined, he was determined and it was awesome and I was happy for him. I was happy for the team. Obviously, the team would have liked to go a little bit further, but Josh had a really, really good Olympic uh campaign and I feel that that was attributed to his determination and discipline to get the work in.
Jordi Taylor:I just talk about resilience on another podcast, like that's one thing like a lot of the key athletes and coaches have yeah he had a pretty tumultuous sort of year.
Jordi Taylor:Um, but push through. But you would say that's probably the the key thing, the contributing factor, like that resilience to park that behind, focus on. The next thing, which you said was the olympics. You want to have a really big, big olympic campaign. Do you feel like that? That's what the best athletes do. No matter what happens in their lives, they can park it, move straight on 100.
Nik Popovic:I mean, nothing's ever going to smoothly, it's not going to go the way you'd like it to and obviously it was well documented. You know the difficult year that he had but we all have difficult years and, to his credit, he kept pushing through, pushing through the season. When he finished that NBA season, his goal was set specifically on the Olympic Games and resilience is something that I guess people throw around and you know, stay strong, let's go and come on. You can do it, but it's freaking hard to do. You know you've got emotional things and personal things that happen and if you can stay focused, laser focused, in your goal, it doesn't matter what happens. If you can push through those challenges over it, around it, through it, you're going to get there.
Nik Popovic:And he was resilient. I felt watching him from afar during the season and going through everything that he had to go through. But also, now that that's finished, how do you prepare for the biggest stage in the world, the Olympic Games? You know we want to look at those things and use those trials and tribulations to benefit where you're trying to go. And he was amazing. He was amazing with that and kept calling me and saying can we get another session in or do a recovery, and you know, pull session, stretch, whatever it was, and so I find that motivating.
Jordi Taylor:Yeah, look, there's a little bit of saying out there like nba players or basketball players in general don't like lifting. The old alan ivison is probably the best example of that. You obviously probably disagree with josh in that example there around like 18 sessions, not just in the gym but including his overall training sort of volume there. Also in the little video that I saw he was incline pressing 37 and a half like he's not like he's doing little weights either. Like that's pretty decent for a basketball Like. Where do you sort of stand on that? Is that a bit of a myth or what's your thoughts?
Nik Popovic:That's a good question. He got up to 45.
Jordi Taylor:Well there you go. I got him on a bad day.
Nik Popovic:I don't want to give away your secrets. Look to me. Perhaps historically that was the case. I don't want to lift. It's going to wreck my jump shot or my three-point shot or whatever it is.
Nik Popovic:But, as you and I both know, strength underpins everything, and I'm not saying the absolute strength of how much you can lift. You think about sayings. In life, shit goes sideways. Stay strong. We're building this house and that corner needs to be strong because it's got to support whatever. So strength underpins everything and irrespective of whether you're looking at muscle strength, joint integrity, ligament, tendon strength, whatever it is, you have to have a strong base.
Nik Popovic:Basketball is a typically long lever, longer arms, longer legs. So your mechanics are different, your lever arms are different. But it doesn't mean that you can't gradually get better, the way everyone in life, in any sport, in any industry, gets better or improves as you go through the process. And so what I found with Josh was when we first started look as a young kid. He's 17,. He's in the NBL with Adelaide. He's finished up a few games early to prepare for the NBA.
Nik Popovic:You start somewhere. We're not talking about can you deadlift 1,000 kilos. It's not about that. It's what's optimal for your sport, for your age, for your lifting age, and then you build from there and so, like I said at the top, we started year one, 21, and then each year we progressed it and now, I mean, the guy's not short, he's 6'8", so it's like 203 centimetres.
Nik Popovic:He weighs about 103 kilos, which is deceiving when you look at him, right, yes, yeah, and he became stronger throughout the course of not only this past seven-week period, but also the past three, four years. He's maturing, his body's growing. So there's nothing to say, whether you're a basketball athlete, that you can't be better and, yes, I've come across that situation before, but you show people that this actually will help you. Ironically, talking about that, one of our athletes now at the LA 36ers, kendrick Davis, spent some time at the Golden State Warriors and he's told me some things about Steph Curry before games lifting, after games lifting the amount that he's lifting. Now, okay, that's conversation. I don't have proof of it. Why would the guy tell me anything? Otherwise, you can adapt your body to anything with time and patience. And with Josh I mean, he got really strong to the point where we'll do some partner resistance work and I couldn't hold him back anymore.
Jordi Taylor:I was like I need to recruit someone else so yeah, it actually worked really well for him I think there's been some uh some coaches that's gone in the nba in particular, because we talked about nba being that, I guess, the tippy top and that's where a lot of the stuff trickles down right, especially those, I guess, journeymen that have been in the nba. They might end up in europe or in the NBL. You know the back end of their career. They are starting to really adapt that micro-dosing approach. So whether they are sneaking a little lift in pre-game or post-game, they're keeping their high days high, their low days low, because the big thing with the NBA is obviously the travel schedule. Nbl is still pretty hectic at times. How have you managed to, I guess, hold that approach of just keeping those high days high, low days low. Is that how you do it? Do you micro-dose in the sessions around the athletes? As an individual? What's your general philosophy with the team this year?
Nik Popovic:Everything I do is individual but it comes within the umbrella of the team program. So a particular coach might want to work in a certain way or play in a certain way, up and fast and quick and get up in the court. Or someone else might like a half court set, slow it down, grind it. Irrespective of what that approach is, everyone's anatomy is different Strengths and weaknesses, likes, dislikes, what it may be that gets that person moving forward. Microdosing any opportunity you can get to get some work in not only work, but recovery is crucial. So within my programs that I've worked with over the past however many years, you look at a group of 10, 12, 15 athletes and, with that in mind, you try and have at least an individualisation for that person. You might have 10 programs within 15 athletes. That's a lot harder to manage, but there's overlap A squat or a goblet squat or a barbell squat or a trap bar deadlift essentially the same movements, depending on how you're accentuating what that person needs, off blocks, off the ground, whatever it might be. So my philosophy has always been find out what helps that person, find out where their weaknesses are, what they need the most, make sure they can buy in whether it's something that they like or they don't like. And that's not to say that you cater for everyone and chop and change everything. But you need that buy-in for them to to have that adherence to keep pushing through.
Nik Popovic:And then you, you have to keep pushing and challenge yourself through the season. We all you know when we went through our uni days we'll go through our maintenance programs, the seasons, and what are you trying to maintain? You're only lifting once or twice a week. You're going to have a detraining effect. What are you maintaining? A decrease. So you've got to push and challenge, but you can't obviously work in the same volume. So that has been always my philosophy, geordie. I think that you will only improve as much as you challenge yourself. And as S&C coaches, we both know the most powerful motivation is intrinsic. If we have to push someone to work, that's going to be an uphill battle, but if they're willing to do that and they understand the importance of strength conditioning work, like I said, you know you don't have to do a lot. You can micro dose, you can just pop things here and there. You can do body weight work. You know core work, hold isometric, whatever it is, so that you continue continually getting better.
Jordi Taylor:Do you find that your ability to communicate the language to the athlete is paramount. Number one, to get that buy-in that you're sort of talking about there. And then number two like you look at the way certain players play, they've usually got like one superpower right, like so we're talking about, like luka donchic. He's actually his deceleration. That's what creates the space on his shot. He look at him. He's pretty average sort of looking athlete, but his ability to maneuver on the court and create space in shots is what separates him from someone else. Do you lean into their athlete superpowers or do you try to build up their weaknesses? What's your sort of approach? Both?
Nik Popovic:both. You have to, because if your weaknesses are exposed let's say you're not that that great at lateral movements and your explosive movement lateral. You've got to work on that. But you are an exceptional leaper, okay, well, essentially, the more jumps you do, the more load that's going to go through the whole chain and not only the system but the joints itself, and so you've got to maintain integrity of strength and ligaments and tendons, like I mentioned before, throughout that chain. So you've got to work on both, but you lean into what their superpower is so that it can get better, improve, but you've also got to make sure those weaknesses are better are improved Otherwise those weaknesses will come back to bite you in the butt.
Nik Popovic:Let's say lower back. Someone's got a lower back issue. You've got to get that better and I think if you step back as a holistic approach, your best athletes if we're just talking athletic position are the strongest, fittest, more resilient to injury athletes and they can play their sport. That's how I look at it.
Jordi Taylor:We were talking about Josh before.
Nik Popovic:We really focused on certain areas for him that not only he wanted to do and he knew that he needed to do, but also that his coaching staff had asked and worked on as well. You know his performance staff at OKC. So you've got to keep that going. And then you think about it. You might only do a 15 or 20-minute session, or a 10-minute session here and there and around things or after shooting, or whatever it may be. So that's my approach. I think you've got to keep at it.
Jordi Taylor:Yeah, no, I love it. Thank God you circled back to Josh, because I really wanted to ask this question. It was probably the key one that I wanted to ask. You've obviously been in multiple roles where you're leading the team, in the team setting, but also in the off-season. You're actually the off-season guy and there's plenty of off-season guys, off-season girls out there that look after athletes outside of the season. Due to a whether that's preference for the athlete, whether that's preference for the team, whether that's simply because they're in the same city as where the athlete is, there's a mirage of reasons. Why Is there value in being the off-season guy?
Nik Popovic:A hundred percent, but you have to be a great communicator not only with the athlete. That's paramount. In my experience as being the off-season guy, the first thing I did was reach out to OKC and connect it with their performance. Andrew Paul and he was awesome. He came down. We were in Vegas one couple of years back during the summer league and he came down and jumped in the sessions and can I join in?
Nik Popovic:Of course you can. The athlete works for you, not for me. I'm just a part-time, sort of off-season. But you have to have this collaborative approach and this day and age, the way that professional sports is going, you see a lot of athletes do their own thing in the off-season and they're working with individuals and if you don't have a relationship with those people, those off-season trainers, you're really not sure where that athlete's going. But if you have buy-in, not only from the athlete, you have it from that person and you can communicate and share knowledge. I mean, no one's going to reinvent the wheel. We all just have variations of how we do things. That off-season period is when they're going to get stronger, when they're going to get fitter. They might work on some weaknesses, like we spoke about If that's not done right and being on the other side of the fence so that I make sure that not only Josh is happy but OKC at that time before he went trade OKC are happy.
Nik Popovic:Things are going to go sideways and you do not want to go there. Does that make sense.
Jordi Taylor:No, certainly, and that kind of leads into perfect, to this. It allows you to see the perspective of both being inside the camp and also outside of the camp. As such, when you are the off-season guy. Is there value in being in the private sector and just being that sort of person over the years? Because you do have your own business, which is Gravity Performance Solutions, which has been going, I think, as long as you've been going.
Jordi Taylor:Like is there value in that? Or you think that, like you really have to have experience both to be able to work in that setting correctly.
Nik Popovic:What's your thoughts? It's an interesting view. Look, there's obviously values in both areas of the industry professional sports, private sector. It depends what drives you, depends what you're passionate about. I was always passionate about professional sports. At the same time, you see a lot of athletes private sector people, general walk walk-of-the-mill everyday sort of people wanting to get these things done. If you're someone that's working with a professional athlete and you don't know the dynamics or the culture around, that sport or how everything works on a daily basis.
Nik Popovic:it's really challenging and difficult because it's completely different, I feel, to what the private sector is. And again, that's the same with the private sector. You've got to know how to manage that. So to me and not sitting on the fence I think there's value in both. Depends where you drive your business. If you're more interested on the one-on-one in your private sector and you're working with professional athletes but Joe and Joanne, every single day people, you then have to experience in both, because nothing defeats experience, and you could have a situation in professional sports that you've never come across.
Jordi Taylor:I've got a good one for you on this. Tell me, this is a bit of a story. So I recently met the ex-CEO of Illawarra Hawks. Okay, and he was over here, or he was the GM at the time when Lamello was over. Okay, and they kept Lamello on the American time schedule, wow.
Jordi Taylor:So, he never adapted to the Italian time schedule. So he would get calls at 3.30 in the morning, 1 o'clock in the morning, saying so. He would get calls at 3.30 in the morning, 1 o'clock in the morning, saying hey, I want to go do my shoot around, wow. So, for example, you look at that on face value and you think, okay, that's a lot of work, but it actually makes a lot of sense. They never wanted him to adapt to the Australian time, so he would never sleep, or he would sleep when the guys are up and then he would do his own things when everyone was asleep. So there's a lot of things that go on behind the scenes that you wouldn't ever pick up on, would you? I'm sure you've seen some stuff 100%.
Nik Popovic:That's really interesting, because you're here for four or five months, so you maybe want to adapt to that time zone. But look if it worked for him, yeah great. And from there too, geordie, there's situations that crop up that you won't or don't normally expect to happen in the everyday. I mean public sector. Who's going to call you at 3 o'clock?
Jordi Taylor:let's get a session in no one.
Nik Popovic:You know maybe, but not many people.
Jordi Taylor:They're a special character.
Nik Popovic:Yeah, yeah exactly so there's an understanding of what is accepted, what is not accepted, how you embrace those areas and how do you incorporate it? Into what your vision is. And again you're talking about one athlete and one coach, or maybe two coaches. You know a skills coach, s&c coach. How do you work that and what are you willing to give up?
Jordi Taylor:I mean, if they had someone open up the practice venue at 3.30 in the morning and they needed someone to rebound for him Exactly Now you're talking three or four people right, besides the financial costs and all the rest of that.
Nik Popovic:So there is a different world, it is hugely different. So you do need value, Sorry, you do need experience in both areas and there's value to have experience in both and, I think, the cultural.
Jordi Taylor:Again, I've never worked in professional basketball but I love basketball. Sure, I know a lot of people that do and and love to dig in behind the scenes a little bit. Like we talk about high performance sport being not healthy, I think basketball is probably the best example of high performance sport being not healthy because, for whatever reason, basketballers seem to sleep until 10 o'clock every day. That's their wake up. General rule of thumb paint everybody with the same brush and they're up till 3, 4 shooting in the morning. It's just a different body clock.
Jordi Taylor:It is what's your experience been on that culture, because you've done cultural now not only in the NBL, you've done in China, you've done national programs and also collegiate as well in women's basketball, like there. That's a lot of different culture, yeah, different different ways about going yeah, about going about things like what are the common threads and maybe what is the not so common threads as well. Like, was I too generalized then?
Nik Popovic:was I on the basketball side, and I'm not saying that there aren't a huge percentage of athletes that want to focus on the physical side. They understand the education has gone through over the years and they understand that their body is their vehicle to success. The skill is a skill. What I always say to the athletes I've worked with in all of those different regions of the world that you've just mentioned and different cultures at the end of the day, you're a basketball athlete. You're not a weightlifter, you're not a powerlifter, you're not a sprinter, you're not a track and field, you're a basketball athlete. So let's make sure we do what is crucial for you to be better at your sport. But nothing replaces the sport. And don't get me wrong sports specificity is great. We can get bands, we can get kettlebells, we can get dumbbells and sleds and all sorts of movement, but nothing beats the sport. As S&C coaches, we've got to make sure we get our athletes better from a strength point of view, from a conditioning point of view, from a resilience point of view. But when it comes to different environments, the biggest challenge Commonality is that they just want to spend time on the court and if you can get guys understanding the crucial component of the physical side. Then you have something magical happen and what happens is there's a push to be better physically so that the skill component can be exposed or shown for longer periods of time.
Nik Popovic:Countries are different, the US is different, the collegiate system is different. There's a lot of good people that I work with, great people that I work with at USC, and everyone wanted to work, which is great, which is awesome. China was a different kettle of fish as well. Overwork too much, which is awesome. China was a different kettle of fish as well. Overwork too much three sessions a day, I mean, if I asked you what, the longest pre-season you've ever been.
Jordi Taylor:I know the answer to this one it's nine months, but mine was not nine months. Where do I go? Who do I?
Nik Popovic:ask about nine months and when that happened I was like what do I do? So there's a culture of work, work, work, work, light switch. You know the NBL from where it is now to where it was 20 years ago is different as well.
Jordi Taylor:Well, nbl 1 probably takes a lot of the time away from people.
Nik Popovic:Yes, it does, because now there's a financial component, whereas before that wasn't as much so that you had time to do some off-season work. So look, it's interesting. There's not one straight answer, but to me it pins down to who the person is and then whatever program they're part of and what that program stands for if that program is is geared towards a certain way of working or not working, or whatever it is that they're focusing on, then you'll have that sort of come through in your athletes as well. To me, you know like I enjoy the hell out of all the experiences I've had, and that's not to say that every and each one of them, each and every one of them, didn't present challenges.
Nik Popovic:They always do. But I think you've got to pin down to the person and then, if you have one person, the second person, third person, all of a sudden, collectively you've got a group buying into that. Yeah, look, it's a challenge but it's great when it happens.
Jordi Taylor:Especially in like a small squad, like basketball right. You've only got 12 to 15 guys.
Nik Popovic:Exactly.
Jordi Taylor:One player can start that domino effect either way positive, negative, exactly exactly big example of that was in china.
Nik Popovic:No one had any correlation and this is no disrespect to anyone there. Uh, the relationship between food and performance. Until one of my athletes ripped an ACL, went to the US, had the surgery, came back 15 kilos heavier In a good way, in a bad way, in a bad way, in a bad way. And my conversation with him was your career's over. And he looked at me. He's like what are you talking about? I'm only 27. I said no, it's over.
Nik Popovic:It's going to take me forever for you to lose the weight to help you lose the weight, then we're going to do the rehab okay, a little bit in conjunction, but you're too heavy. He changed his world. He bought into the nutrition side and looked great the abs and six pack and everything and that was a trickle effect onto everyone else and from there.
Jordi Taylor:Oh, I want to look that way.
Nik Popovic:Well, you're going to play a certain way and perform a certain way, and if you do, you'll look that way anyway. So when you ask about culture and how it differs in different environments, it's very specific to the country and then to the program and the people that are within that program, and what drives that?
Jordi Taylor:No, no, that's perfect, because I think a lot of young coaches in particular, if they're working, say, with the local team or maybe you know NBL One or the lower grades there underneath that the players will look at what, let's say, kevin Durant does pre-game warm-up. He's got the aqua bags out. He's got the bands out he's got his aqua bags.
Nik Popovic:Yeah, he's got the bands yeah, he's got his own.
Jordi Taylor:You know this and that, yep, and they go well. Why doesn't that work? Why can't we do that? You're not kevin direct. Well, for starters. But secondly, like you don't have the ability to facilitate some of that stuff all the time, like think about how you're going to take all that equipment to a game, like exactly, there's a lot of stuff that goes on to it. So you that all black and white approach it, it's always in the grey right.
Nik Popovic:Exactly exactly. And here's the thing too it's great that these superstar athletes are showing us behind the scenes what they're doing, but Kevin Durant is 6'11" and he's an NBA veteran and he's been around and done all these wonderful things. You know, you might have an NBA 1 athlete that's 18, 19 years old and no disrespect again but isn't as genetically gifted as, say, kevin Durant is. So you've got to find ways to get around or do what works for you. I feel that each and every athlete that we work with, like I said before, is individual. And now, how much can you, or how far can you, push the boundaries of your genetic predisposition over years, not weeks or months over years?
Jordi Taylor:You know like, and would you say that's like again talking about a tippy top, is that you think someone like LeBron they've done that Like. His genetic potential was freakish at such a young age, but he's always managed to come back year on year doing something better.
Nik Popovic:Right, look at it 20 years, 21 years, whatever it is now the longevity, yeah, the longevity. You look at, look at him, look at guys like jordan, you know, before him working out game day and the exposure to what they were doing, or the insight was, was less than without social media and all the rest of it. Uh, but absolutely you look, look at guys like Steph Curry that I mentioned that I've literally found out in the last few weeks.
Nik Popovic:Lifts lower body before games, lower body after games, upper body as well is relentless. The volumes and the way that he lifts wow it's adaptation gradual.
Nik Popovic:Well, it's adaptation, you know gradual, but I think we were always in a race, in a rush to let's hurry up and get there. It takes years. So the NBL One athlete 17, 18, 19, 20, whatever age you are, keep working at it. You know, I've got one of our guys here at Adelaide 36ers that was not on the roster last year. He was on the roster this year, has played NBL one and has changed his body immensely. He'd done really well, but it's taken a year and a half two years to do that. So I think you've got to look at it individually and you've got to be patient with that, absolutely.
Jordi Taylor:Your non-negotiables for a basketball athlete. Do you have a set of rules? Now, obviously, nba or basketball athletes keep saying NBA, but basketball athletes can range from five foot six, you know, all the way up to seven, one, seven, two, like it's such a wide variety of not only body types, personality types, different, I guess, athletic qualities, but like, do you have like a set of non-negotiables? A basketball player that is at an elite level, you know, must do x, y and z yeah, as you were asking that question, I was thinking of specific exercise, but it's more than that, yeah.
Nik Popovic:I never try to waste anyone's time. Don't waste mine. So if you're going to do a session, if it's five minutes or if it's 50 minutes, intent, non-negotiable.
Nik Popovic:Don't go through the motions, don't sit there doing curls and saying, oh yeah, I should have seen how big this fish was that I caught on the weekend. It's got to have intent and purpose. That's not to say that you have to lift the maximum amount of weight, but it's got to be purposeful. Yeah, all right, when you're on the court, you're doing the same thing. Right, it's purposeful From a specific exercise point of view.
Nik Popovic:Look, if you have a look at the sport, you're in a ready position hips flexed, knees flexed, ankles flexed, forward, motion of the spine. Those areas need to be covered. You've got to do something for your knees, ankles, hips, lower back. They're non-negotiables. It's no good putting a program together and I never would. We're just doing curls and forearms and reverse hammers.
Nik Popovic:Okay, if you want to look good on the beach, great, and there's nothing wrong with those exercises. You've got to work on the trunk. You've got to work on your glutes. You've got to work on the trunk, got to work on your glutes, got to work on your lower legs, your hamstrings, your quads, your calves, your small muscles through the ankle joint, all that stuff. So and that's not to say that the upper body gets neglected. No, you've got to work on that. So it's a holistic approach. But if I narrowed it down two points, it's got to be purposeful and you have to have intent. And it's a running, jumping, sliding sport. What's the musculature that covers those areas? Are they strong? Are they mobile? Do you not need to get your leg over your head like a ballerina? Do you have enough range of motion to perform the movement patterns that you need to, and are we getting better in those areas? And then everything else goes from there.
Jordi Taylor:Two questions off the back of that, the first one being you've worked at a lot of different levels. When an athlete enters your program, have you found that over the years that's gotten better, Like their general I guess their general physical preparation? Is it a higher level or has it actually regressed, stayed the same? We talk quite often like basketball athletes. Like you, take them off a basketball court they look like Bambi on ice. They're all over the place giving them, you know, play football or something like that, and they don't know what they're doing. What's your thoughts on that?
Nik Popovic:Again, it goes back to which environment. Yeah, like I think in Australia we're pretty fortunate here. Like I think in Australia we're pretty fortunate here, kids are playing rugby and soccer and tennis and different sports going up through school and there's a big football code codes. I should say that lend itself to those kids getting exposed to that. Over the years it's gotten better. I feel that cross-pollination of sports. As a younger child you'll get some development in other areas.
Nik Popovic:However, it is specific to whatever that person's background is. You might have a kid that's just come up playing basketball and that is it, and so then you've got to assess that. So when someone comes in, we always assess, have a look at them. Medical, physical, uh, where are they what? What's their range of motions like? What are their patterns like, what are their shapes? Like you know, I had a seven foot kid in china that did a body weight squat that looked like a spaghetti noodle and like how am I going to load that? I've got to get his patterning right and his movements right.
Nik Popovic:So yes, it's improved, but it's very individual and I keep pushing back to the individual side because I feel that it's difficult. Even though it's a smaller group of people. It's difficult to put everyone in that same banner of the one sport. You look at this team now that I'm working with in the 36s there's a whole gamut of physical variety you know, from, like you said, 5'10 to 7', whatever it may be. So you have to play on that, work on that and again, it's optimal. I've seen some really strong basketball athletes after years of work. Do they necessarily need to lift X amount of weight in a specific lift? No, but if they can, great. You have a look at the kid Kelly I can't remember his surname, lepepe, excuse me if I'm pronouncing it wrong from the Sydney Kings.
Nik Popovic:He looks like an unbelievable, well-developed football player, rugby player and he's playing basketball. So he's obviously had a different upbringing with sports, but also his genetic predisposition. So you're always working with that Like.
Jordi Taylor:I mentioned before.
Nik Popovic:The longer levers, the different shapes, dimensions, lends itself to that. But it has improved. It definitely has, and I think sport in Australia as a whole in terms of the S&C, the physical development, the progression has improved Because now you're getting kids 10, 11, 12, mum and dad bringing them down to a gym and wanting to develop and get that going. That wasn't really as prevalent when I started my career.
Jordi Taylor:You mentioned optimal. I think that's a word gets thrown around fucking heaps and everyone has their own opinion on what optimal is. You mentioned the well-developed rugby sort of player. I think, like Zion when he came out of Duke like his body probably wasn't optimal for NBA and that probably showed his first two years Like he didn't spend a whole lot of time on the court. So we talk about optimal for a basketball player. We talk about body composition. Are we talking about what? What are the things you mean by?
Nik Popovic:optimal? Great, great question. Everyone talks about the, that NBA body broad shoulders, narrow hips, long arms, longer legs and torso, all that type of thing. And one picture, if you remember that back in the day To me, optimal, irrespective of your stature, is high power to weight ratio. Yep, lean body composition. You don't have to be super lean, you're not a bodybuilder but you know pretty good in that area. Ability to have good range of motion through hips, shoulders for rebounding, hips, for, you know, getting down low in a stance, defensive stance. You talk about being optimal, let's say, just on defense. You can't play defense vertically because everything is laterally, we're not crabs, we don't shuffle side to side. So do you have that external rotation in your hips? Do you have the ability to sit down and slide and get and guard your man and defend your man or woman, depending which leg? So, with all of that, optimal to me means, like I said, power to weight ratio, good body composition. Are you strong enough to at least move weight in certain planes of motion? That, as we both know, back to uh uni days.
Nik Popovic:In physics, force equals mass times, acceleration. Are you strong enough to move a mass so that you're forceful and you're powerful and you can accelerate you. Let's say you got 150 kilo squat great. Do I need to get it to 200 kilo? Not necessarily. What's the rate of that force development? You know, can I move quickly, can I get up off off the ground quickly, can I slide quickly, and then you work with that. So that's's to me optimal. And you only find those things out as you work with someone. I don't know. That day one I might test them, assess them. What's your squat, what's your whatever we can do. And then we've been talking a lot about lower body.
Jordi Taylor:You always took it away from me. I was going to say that shoulders doesn't get a whole lot of it's overhead sport in a lot of regards.
Nik Popovic:Why a whole lot of it's overhead sport in a lot of regard. Exactly why and I'll have no problem saying this why do I have?
Jordi Taylor:pull-ups in my program well, we're not gymnasts.
Nik Popovic:Okay, that upper body retraction work, whether it's a pull-up, whether it's a row, getting that musculature at the back to work, everything is pushed past, shot everything. Everything's in front, everything's anterior chain. Why is that important?
Nik Popovic:That's the reason why, a few years back, talking to a good friend of mine, that was working with the Bucks Milwaukee Bucks, michael and we were comparing notes and I said you don't have to tell me exactly who, but what's your program look like and what are you doing? And we started sharing notes, comparing notes. He's got them doing pull-ups and let's just say a certain player that won the MVP a few years ago Rhymes with something yeah right, that's seven, foot or whatever. Was doing 40 kilos around his waist for three reps on the pull-ups and weighs 100 kilos. Foot or whatever. Was doing 40 kilos around his waist for three reps on the pull-ups and weighs 100 kilos. Could do 15 reps.
Nik Popovic:You know body weight at pull-ups. It's important. You're building a holistic athlete and I talked about the dominance, if you will, of the lower body because of the nature of the sport. But you're rebounding. You're getting pushed and shoved. Anyone who thinks that basketball isn't a contact sport yes, you can't tackle anyone, right, and you can't throw an elbow and a hip check, but it's physical, these guys are big yeah, run around a screen from a seven footer yeah, and they're heavy.
Nik Popovic:They're not 70 kilos, they're 110, 13, 15 kilos. So that side of things needs work and needs development Upper body is just as important as the lower body, but we don't run on our hands, so maybe your split is 60-40 or 70-30 or whatever. However you think the person in front of you that you need to coach needs and requires, and you're looking at that.
Jordi Taylor:That's really important, because the coach is sitting there going okay, he's just told me I need 40-kilo pull-ups. Hang on, that's the tippy-toppy. How do you get there Exactly? Is it lat pull-downs, Is it whatever it is to get yourself in that time position?
Nik Popovic:There's a progression and you know, like I've had guys that can do one pull-up and they can do three, four. Okay great, they're stronger. Is that going to help them perform better directly to their sport?
Jordi Taylor:maybe not linearly, but yes, it will keep them a better athlete and they'll have enough retraction strength so that they don't start getting impingement problems in their shoulder, which has been a big one like thoracic outlet syndrome for a lot of athletes, like the one that comes to mind, I think, because I'm a lakers fan, like brendan ingram missed a significant amount of time. I know there's been a lot of athletes that have that issue there, like you know, is this sort of where a lot of this is now sort of started to come from. You think a little bit like we're looking more at the biomotor qualities of what the athlete is like. Yes, it doesn't correlate directly to an athlete's ability to shoot a jump shot, but does it make them a better, well-rounded athlete in general? Yes, so that's make them better before their jump shot. Probably like it doesn't have to have a direct correlation. Is that where you think people get caught, like x has to equal y?
Nik Popovic:my wife always says this balance, life's about balance, so is. So is athletic performance. You push your body to a certain skill patterning that typically you'll be. You'll become asymmetrical in some way shape or form, whether it's upper, lower, left, right, whatever it may be. And so if you don't continually progress, the physical development of those asymmetries you're going to have a problem, like you just mentioned and I'll circle back to Josh pull-ups 15 kilos around his waist four reps and think about the moment arm.
Jordi Taylor:Say I'm five foot, nothing right Me doing 20 kilos.
Nik Popovic:my arms this big.
Jordi Taylor:Genuinely. How long more do you reckon his arms are than mine Double?
Nik Popovic:Double. Well, he's 6'8". His wingspan's around there, maybe a little bit more. So, yeah, double. And have a look at one of our athletes on our team now here at LA36. He's got a 7'3", 4'5" wingspan yeah it's a bit different.
Jordi Taylor:It's different.
Nik Popovic:Think about a squat. There's a longer way to go to parallel. Yeah, it's harder, there's more range of motion.
Jordi Taylor:And so, and do you take that into consideration as well, like, say, you've got a seven footer and I'm only talking out loud here you know, instead of saying you're six footer who moves. Quite well, they're quite symmetrical, if you're going to use that sort of terminology, you know. So three by six at 90 or whatever, or building up to 90, you know you might only give that seven footer three by four relative to the, the amount of work they have to do. 100, yeah, there, yeah.
Nik Popovic:There's more work per rep. Yeah, there's more. If you looked at distance, running distance, there's more distance in that movement, yeah. So yeah, look, absolutely the big guys and I've worked with quite a few seven-footers in my time, four or five guys, which doesn't sound a lot, but they don't grow on trees. You've got to adjust, you've got to adjust, you've got to adjust and we go back to that individuality. If you can get them working, even partial range of motion or eccentrics, to develop not only that strength but that range of motion and that feel of this doesn't feel too awkward and getting accustomed to it. You have to. You have to and I'm a big believer of you know. Like, let's say, we test day one and that's your squat and 90% of that is, 80% of that is whatever it's going to change day to day. So we set targets and then we work around. Okay, yeah, today's great, let's push a bit more.
Jordi Taylor:Today's not that great, let's drop it off a little bit less and it's not rocket science, Like you don't need to have 10-doe units out and all these sort of things. It's going. Hey, how does that feel? That looks a bit slow. You're all good.
Nik Popovic:Exactly so big time on making sure that you're balanced. You're working to be better at your sport, but you're also working to be a better athlete. Because why? What happens when you get to 29, 30, 31 as an athlete You've been playing maybe 10 years or so you start to slow down, or maybe you get a niggle injury here or there. Does your career finish at 30, 31 or does it go through to 35, 36 and you have another five?
Jordi Taylor:years of income.
Nik Popovic:And so how does that happen? And how it happens is resilience, consistency, work In work. Injury is unfortunately part of the sport, but if you've never done an upper body movement and all of a sudden you get compressed or you up for a rebound that gets jarred back and you don't have that joint integrity, that strength to hold it in place. I'm not saying that it's always going to keep it there. It helps, yeah it helps?
Jordi Taylor:Yeah, it helps.
Nik Popovic:I had a guy a few years back that we all thought did his ACL and this was at Melbourne United and he didn't. It just got stretched and he himself said it's all the squats and all the single eggs.
Jordi Taylor:The hamstrings for holding on.
Nik Popovic:Yeah, hamstring and all this and hey, great, awesome. I'm hoping that is.
Jordi Taylor:I don't know for sure, but maybe we put a lot of work in I've mentioned it a few times now in conversations with people, um, and a little bit on social media, but like that it's the. We're going to go through the, the age of the uh, the rise of the aging athlete. So a lot of athletes now have had some pretty good prep. They're looking after their bodies. I feel like it's far more front of mind and athletes are doing that earlier on in their careers, not later. Like look at Josh, he's so young, like he's got so much of a career left. God forbid, you know, nothing happens. He's going to play until 35, hopefully you know what.
Nik Popovic:I mean.
Jordi Taylor:Like that's another 15 years nearly on what he's got Exactly. We, some of these sort of things now, because the aging athlete are going to have different requirements to what the young athlete is 100% For the coach out there listening, that goes maybe that's a bit of a light bulb sort of moment to them, like okay, I'm going to actually start, probably going to maybe get some older athletes in here. Like, what are the considerations you think that you're dealing with when you've got the vets on your team, because every roster has vets, you've got the rookies and everyone in between. Is there anything specifically looking at vets? What do you maybe look around? Whether it's minimizing workload, changing their program? Is it anything in particular? Is it also just being aware? Let's just be aware.
Nik Popovic:Yeah, good point, mate. Wear and tear, it doesn't matter what you do. We're playing on a hard surfacing basketball, it's a wooden floor. Usually it's supported and all the rest of it. But you're going to have some wear and tear in your knees, in your ankles, in your hips. Do you need to do?
Jordi Taylor:with that veteran athlete as much plyometric work no you don't.
Nik Popovic:Try and keep everything strong. Try and keep everything mobile. Does the volume need to be necessarily the same? No, it doesn't.
Jordi Taylor:You can drop off a little bit and you find old man. Strength is a real thing as well.
Nik Popovic:Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely, you know, I mean I can attribute to that I was going to ask you about your biceps. No, but I don't know about my biceps.
Jordi Taylor:I just know my age.
Nik Popovic:I'm closer to 60 than I ever was, so I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Look, it definitely is there. You've got to. I'm not saying put that athlete in cotton wool, no work, continue to improve, maybe they can get better. I've had, I've been fortunate to have worked with guys in their early 30s with niggles, with injuries, with major injuries, and they play through to 34, 35, 36 because they're able to continue to progress. But you need to be mindful of the wear and tear. For example, we had a session the other day looking at the GPS system that we're running and a couple of our players have got two, three, 400 jumps of varying heights A small percentage of that is.
Jordi Taylor:So what you classify as a jump is a bounce. You got to go off the ground. Off the ground, yeah off the ground.
Nik Popovic:So otherwise it won't register. So it's off the ground, but the highest jump is anything over 40 centimeters and and of those two, three, four hundred jumps there is a small percentage, maybe around the 15, 20 percent that are high. But irrespective of the height, I say to you, geordie, okay, let's go out in the gym now, let's get a 30-centimeter box and you're doing 40 sets of 10.
Jordi Taylor:But you're not leaning on a box, he's leaning on the hardwood floor. That's right.
Nik Popovic:But even if I said 40 sets of, 10 on a box. You're like what the what's going on?
Nik Popovic:here, yeah, Think about the athletes that have played for 10, 12, 13 years. Now they're in their mid-30s or early 30s. There's a lot of wear and tear on those tendons. I'm sure if I scanned my body I'd be shit everywhere. So you've got to make sure that you're aware and then you adjust, and it doesn't have to be as dynamic. In some cases you can do some Decrease that volume down, Decrease that foot contact down and then work on keeping them strong and stable and mobile and whoever they are and however their strengths and weaknesses are work towards that.
Jordi Taylor:I have personally found I'd love to hear your thoughts on this as well. Look, I deal with a lot of NRL athletes that are on the back end of their career and the prep actually becomes probably more important than the session. 100%, that really sets the tone. So we probably spend more time on the prep than basically eliminate any high-intensity plyometric options. We might try to find ways to sneak in speed or move the bar fast, but we're not really necessarily doing jumps as such. Your thoughts on that like?
Jordi Taylor:front-loading the session more so than back-loading it.
Nik Popovic:I always like to front-load it anyway, because you can coach it from the start and you know what's expected when you get to athletes at that stage of their careers, as you mentioned. It's one of those things that you can find ways around it. You can have intent on a squat that drives the neural factor up as opposed to jumping. You know, because you know that they've gone through the miles. I'm a big believer that you need to be able to get around things. Get around, get over things. Have a look at what you've got. Do we need to do a box jump? No, maybe we can just do a power single leg Bulgarian drive. You know, rear foot elevated, whatever it may be, I'm just throwing shit out there, but the intent, like I mentioned before, as long as you're driving that nervous system is just as important as the actual action.
Jordi Taylor:Is it ticking the stimulus here?
Nik Popovic:Yes, yeah, you're getting those impulses driving quickly, and so if it is a jump that needs to be performed in the action of playing the sport, the neural drive is there. You might work on landings in a different way. It's a controlled way, so you're still getting that eccentric loading, you're getting that braking system, you're getting the absorption of what needs to, where it needs to be absorbed and what tension and forces. But that's a big one for me, you know, I think from memory, I think maybe the 35, 36, 37, somewhere there, athletes that I've worked with.
Nik Popovic:in terms of age, you've got to be mindful, Otherwise you don't want those athletes going the other way and you find once they soar, they stay sore.
Jordi Taylor:It's harder to get them healthy than it is to keep them sorry. Harder to get them from feeling sore back to healthy than the other way around and keeping them healthy.
Nik Popovic:You lose days and they become very valuable yes, and just on that, with soreness and doms and all those type of things. I find and I know with myself personally the older you get nutrition, nutrition, recovery, sleep. What do you do around those areas? I've always said the harder you work, the harder you have to recover, but that becomes even more important as you go on in your career. So how much time are you spending to those areas? Hydration, food Food is key when I was young in this career oh yeah, train, train, train, let's go.
Nik Popovic:Food is massive in terms of inflammation recovery. Are you getting the right nutrients in there to repair? Hydration? Sleep's a big one. We're flying all over the country, different time zones, whatever it may be. How are you in those areas? So, when you're talking about the older athlete, making sure that's covered as well, because you're not going to recover as quick? I don't. I'm not an athlete, I don't play professional sport, but it takes me longer to recover from certain things. So are you looking at a holistic approach to get that athlete to still perform?
Jordi Taylor:optimally. I don't know how much curry is on this story here, because it seems a bit far-fetched, but I also genuinely believe it. Someone I know who's worked with LeBron for a very long time, and specifically with his sleep.
Jordi Taylor:So when he travels away, lebron will have three rooms. He'll have his day room, which is set at a certain temperature, which is just his everyday room. He then has his nap room certain mattress temperature, bedrooms at a certain light, certain temperature. He has his nighttime room where he sleeps. Again, same deal applies now. Whether that's true or not, I don't know, because it is a good story it probably is, but I kind of believe it because it's america, so, and it's's LeBron, so anything could happen there. But that's probably the extreme right.
Jordi Taylor:Sure, even just basic things, like even just becoming aware of what your sleep's like with wearables, now and again people will say, oh, wearables, this, wearables that Look at the end of the day, it's one piece of information that you can use to help, I guess, justify some of your decisions. That's it. You better. You don't have to stick to everything that it says. Because it's in the red doesn't mean you don't train. That's not what it means. It just means that you're probably not going to be the best today. And guess what, sometimes you actually perform better on those days. Like that's right, you'd be very surprised, but it's just meant to be a tool.
Nik Popovic:It sounds like a great story and I I believe it yeah but even if you boil it down to the very basics, we've just had one of our athletes have his first child. Obviously lack of sleep. You know, we've gone on the road. First thing I asked him was how'd you sleep? He goes great, yeah, even that. So you're feeling different? Yeah, but look, if you've got the finances and the resources to go to that degree, and you want to and you can sure, but if you don't, like most of the world doesn't, or most of us don't, um address the big rocks yeah, get the big rocks.
Nik Popovic:Are you sleeping well? What are you eating? You know, one of my mentors said to me years ago.
Jordi Taylor:Do you eat to live?
Nik Popovic:or do you live to eat? Now, if you're an athlete, whatever you'll put, if I said to you right now, here's a set of keys, I've just bought you a brand spanking new ferr. It's out the front. I'll say thank you See you later. We're done, we're out, but it's sitting out front. It's worth $300,000. It's yours. Okay, sorry, didn't put any gas in it. Petrol, didn't put any petrol in it. You're going to have to fill up. What are you going to put in that Ferrari?
Nik Popovic:You cheap stuff, but the best stuff your body's got to be worth more than three hundred thousand dollars, especially if you're a professional athlete, it certainly is yes, especially if you're a professional athlete and you want to play for a long time to get that high income package and whatever it is else that you that you can achieve from from your career. So the sleep we've talked about what are you eating? What do you put in there? You know, put in there. We all need comfort food. Mine's chocolate. I could eat three kilos of chocolate right now. But you have to make sure that if your main source of income and the way that you live your life support your family is through your body, that you're looking after it. And we started that whole area on older athlete, but I think it applies to everyone Recovery, nutrition, sleep.
Jordi Taylor:And the earlier you can master it, the better it is. Yes, people don't get it until later on.
Nik Popovic:Oh shit, I'm 29, 30,. All these things are happening. What am I going to do? We could have done something.
Jordi Taylor:The alerts were on the dashboard beforehand, but you're just choosing to ignore them versus now the plane's crashing. You're in all sorts, yeah, exactly.
Nik Popovic:Exactly, and I think the smart ones get it. And and again, I'm not being disrespectful Sometimes it takes a while to to learn things. I've gone through that, my my experience, in my experiences. Uh, you've got to make sure that when you see those things creep in, you attack it like you do with anything else. If you've got a weakness in your game whichever sport I've got to get better there you attack it. What do I need? Coach, this, that the other? Okay, so same thing 100%.
Jordi Taylor:Last question because I do want to round it off. It's a little bit off topic what we've been speaking to, but I think it's important, especially especially now with a lot of people doing consulting online. They're doing coaching online or programming. I don't like saying coaching because I don't feel like it's coaching.
Nik Popovic:I feel like it's programming here we go.
Jordi Taylor:You, to my understanding, were brought into Adelaide the first year and you were actually doing it in the States, correct? Yes, and no To some extent yes and no. Do you want to clarify that before I sort of go into it.
Nik Popovic:So a good friend of mine and a former athlete of mine, CJ Bruton, was the head coach at Adelaide at that time. And not to say that and I'll just stop there, but I should have said before, Not to say that there's anything wrong with online coaching, online programming and all the rest of it, but in my situation at that time, when CJ reached out to me, I was at USC and I said, look, I've committed to USC, I cannot come. Unfortunately, he had a certain gentleman here, Alf Connolly, the guy's name and CJ had asked because it was his first experience with professional sports as a group if I could help out. And that's where it was.
Nik Popovic:So hey more than happy to do that Got on calls with Alf, work through, try to help him with whatever I could from afar and then to further sort of go down that road. To me I'm a little bit old school coaching is in person. Programming yes, you can do it online. I said no disrespect to anyone. You can put all that out, but it's only worth a piece of paper or the screen that it's on if it doesn't get executed the right way.
Nik Popovic:So there's been a massive drive and push over years of getting things online, especially with COVID when that sort of occurred and you couldn't get to people. Okay, you can still work and you can do video and all the rest of it. That's great. But there's a difference to me when I'm in front of you. We could have done this podcast, I could have been in Sydney, you could have been here. But it's different in person and when it comes down to technique, form, drive, motivation, help, whatever it may be, you've got to be in person.
Nik Popovic:So my situation was always more than happy to help, be another set of eyes. If you haven't had experience in this, that or the other, I'll jump online and show you and talk you through. I don't think I've ever done anything like that since or before in the 27 years that I've been doing this, and there's a reason why, and that reason is because I believe in person is the best way. Sometimes you can't get that and that's why these other modalities are available and it's good to use. But with professional teams, if you're not there day in, day out, it makes it really challenging, and so that worked really well for when it was. And then, uh yeah, when I did start with the adelaide 36s, I kept alf on board that year, which was last year, and we worked together and tried and help him as a coach coming up in professional sports he's been involved in health and fitness for a while but try and help him sort of understand the nuances of how to work through things, and that pretty much answered my question.
Jordi Taylor:It was how did you manage that? Because there is so difference between you, don't? Everything we spoke about was about dealing with the athlete on an individual level on a day-to-day basis, you know, communication, talking to them, all that sort of stuff. Like I was really curious to see especially someone who would never my assumption was never done that before, hadn't done a whole lot of that how you manage that. And if there was any advice for people that get put in that situation because you're 100% right, there's nothing to beat in person coaching, though, if you are the right person and it's the next best thing you know what was the key lesson you took away from it? Or did it work as well as what you thought it would, or better than what you thought it would, or was there anything from there, from that experience you might be able to pass on to someone that's thinking about it? Or even that situations arose and they didn't know how to approach it like anything?
Nik Popovic:so many things in my head I want to say to you. It's kind of, I'll say this, I'll say that. Look. Number one is rapport and relationships. How do you build a rapport and relationship with someone that you've never met and you just texted? It's difficult. So availability hey man, you need something? Call me, Text me. Happy to help Any issues, but generally it works okay in my experience and I've only done this once where it's been from afar, but I've got to be there, I've got to at least have known the person. Like, if I all of a sudden send an idea during the Olympics, Josh was unbelievable. Hey, we've got a game tomorrow. Can you send me through a primer? Yep, sent it through.
Jordi Taylor:Because you know he's going to perform it the way you expect him to perform it.
Nik Popovic:Yes, there's a front loading, a front ending stuff. You've got to get that done. So that's exactly right With that side of things. With Adelaide, I just was an ear and eye help whatever I could, but it never going to work the same as if you're there and again we are all different, like I've been pushing and harping on this whole time.
Jordi Taylor:Coaches are the same not only athletes.
Nik Popovic:My strengths and my weaknesses are obviously different to yours and your strengths and your weaknesses. So what I can achieve from athletes whether I know them or I don't know them, I've known them for a long time or I haven't is different than, say, someone else. And so from there you've got to be understanding that it's not ideal, but you can get to where you can, and that may be it, and I think that's the best way. You're never going to.
Jordi Taylor:Would you say it's managing expectations like this is the level of expectation.
Nik Popovic:It's a challenging one mate, I don't know if you meet expectations that way. It'd be like if I just said now to the 36ers hey look, I'm going to go back to Sydney for a month, I'll just do things remotely. It's not going to work, it's not. You've got to be there. You can try and meet expectations. Whether you do or whether you don't, really falls on whatever message you're delivering. How is that then perceived, acted upon and worked through and initiated? Does it get to the same level or not? And that's up to say that it might not happen in person as well, but your ability to help that along the way is more so because you're here, because you're in front.
Nik Popovic:So I think that year was difficult in that that team was very talented and things happened as they did and the team didn't finish where they wanted to. So you can it's really easy to point the finger, but that is something that I hate in the sense of oh, it's his fault, it's his fault point the finger, but that is something that I that I hate in the sense oh, it's his fault, it's his fault, her fault, whatever it may be. No, we're a group. We win together, we lose together, we go through the shit together and we try and enjoy the successes together as well.
Nik Popovic:So that year was a challenging one because I was quite a bit away and uh had every intention to stay at u, but it was a family situation. When I came back I had to come back with my wife's family. Cj then reached out and said hey, you're back, can you come in now? And that's how that sort of operated. But yeah, it's an interesting one. It's an industry that's really popular. Kudos to everyone that does it. You know great stuff and I've done a little bit here and there, like I said, but it's something that I kind of don't push myself towards.
Jordi Taylor:It's I'd rather be in person yeah, no, I love, I think it's. It's important to have different perspectives as well, like I, I struggle with it a lot. Yeah, I'm trying to do a little bit more, um, but yeah, I really do with it a lot, probably because I have probably the same values as what you do. Yeah.
Jordi Taylor:I really believe that the in-person side of it is unmatched. However, I used the word expectations before because it's like well, I know I can't deliver that, so is this good enough, and is that clear from the start that this is the level of support and help that you're going to get? I try to do that up front, so then you're at least being very clear and transparent about that versus, oh, this isn't what I expect it to be. There's nothing worse than that. You know what I mean not getting something you expect. I feel like that's the worst thing, as an athlete, you can possibly get 100%, and you just mentioned it then honesty hey, man, it's good enough, it's not good enough.
Nik Popovic:We're like that as well. In in our industries, in our vocations and our roles, you have to be able to be honest and open. And if you're doing something online, like we're just discussing, hey, this is what I'm expecting you to do, like if it's a hypertrophy, hypertrophy program and you're wanting the rest periods to be 90 seconds to two minutes, whatever, well, is that what you're doing or not?
Nik Popovic:yeah, because you're resting five minutes, or it's a different program yeah, you know so if you can meet those standards and that's what we're trying to do, Everything we've discussed so far, we're talking about a standard. If I asked you, Geordie, what's the highest standard of sport in the world, what would you say?
Jordi Taylor:It's a very good question. It's a very good question because I know what I think is and I also know what is.
Nik Popovic:Okay, so tell me, what do you think?
Jordi Taylor:Well, I think that NBA would be the highest standard. Forget about basketball, any sport EPL.
Nik Popovic:EPL. Okay, where would you say Olympics stands?
Jordi Taylor:Well, the fact that it's only once every four years is probably the reason that it doesn't come front of mind. Gotcha, gotcha.
Nik Popovic:So EPL, nba Olympics, let's say they're the top three. What we are doing every day doesn't meet those standards of those athletes?
Jordi Taylor:Yes or?
Nik Popovic:no, who knows, I'm trying to push myself to that point as a coach, my athletes as their progressions, if you picked up an athlete and threw them in the EPL or the NBA or the Olympics, irrespective of skill.
Nik Popovic:Let's say everyone was the same skill physically, can they perform all right and being fortunate and having great luck to be around olympic athletes both here and at the olympics, and then seeing other athletes in the gym doing some unbelievable stuff. Okay, genetics plays a big part, but are you pushing yourself to that standard? And everything we've discussed, we've talked about certain standards. In a way, you know whether it be, you know, the older athlete, mature athlete or how we approach the day-to-day.
Nik Popovic:So, yeah, I really feel that that's something that, as an S&C coach even if you're a younger S&C coach coming through, what's your standards? I used to say to the athletes I worked with my very first year we're all professional athletes.
Jordi Taylor:No, I'm not, I didn't get paid.
Nik Popovic:It's your approach. Your mindset and my approach was always from day one. I went through uni really late and finished and I was 29 and had no job and in this day and age it's like when you think about that it's difficult, but my standard was always this and I'm going to drive up to that.
Jordi Taylor:So I think the athletes that we work with. I believe the athletes that we work with.
Nik Popovic:If you're pushing to those standards whatever those standards are in your mind you will get the most out of yourself.
Jordi Taylor:I love it. I think that's the perfect place to finish. I don't think I can add anything to that that's going to make that any better.
Nik Popovic:I hope so, mate. If not, I don't know what else to say.
Jordi Taylor:Mate, as I said at the start, I really appreciate you giving up your time off the back of the session in particular and jumping in and for the rest of the season I really wish you guys the best of luck. I'm sure if you keep driving the standards that we've discussed, that I think good things will happen.
Nik Popovic:I really appreciate it. Jordan, thank you for thinking of me and then reaching out and having me on here, and I'm really pleased to do so and and would love to catch up again and hopefully your listeners gain something from from today. I'm sure they will, mate, appreciate it. Good man, thank you, brother.
