“I would challenge people, if they see things as an escape, I think you should be asking yourself, ‘how am I doing with the harmony in my life? Why do I need an escape?’.”


What’s up everybody and welcome the 27th episode of Outside The Rack brought to you by Kinetic Performance the makers of Gymaware. In this show we are going to try to dive a little deeper into the minds of the top practitioners in the world of sport performance to learn a bit more about who they actually are and how they got to where they are at today. Today we are joined by the Associate Director of Athletics for Sports Medicine and Director of Integrated Performance at the University of Illinois, Randy Ballard. Randy, thanks for being with us.

Before we start, who is Randy Ballard?

I’m a believer, a father, a son, and a husband. Professionally, I’m a “pot of chili”.

1) Describe a learning situation that brought about an epiphany in your career

We can learn from a lot of different places, and we have to strive for a harmony in the blending of our life.

2) If you could ask one question and you know you would get the answer what would that be and why?

How do we make more resilient young people?

3) What’s your escape?

Nature, camping, hiking, and spending time with my kids out doors.

We are hoping to provide the best possible content for strength coaches with each of our shows. If feel this could provide value for anyone else in the strength and conditioning field please feel free to share.

Enjoy the content? Then you should check out The Strength Coach Network!

We built The Strength Coach Network to provide you three ways become the best practitioner possible. First, each month we add a new lecture from one of the best practitioners in the world to help keep you and your staff up to date with what the best of the best are doing with their athletes RIGHT NOW! Secondly, the forum provides you a new avenue to connect with practitioners around the world to find a unique point of view from coaches all over the world when it comes to career advice, training ideas, or any aspect of our lives in coaching. Finally, you get exclusive discounts on all products CVASPS related, INCLUDING your seat at The Seminar! When you add those three in with our library of over 100 sensational lectures, including all of those from The Central Virginia Sport Performance Seminar, you have found your one stop shop for continuing education for you and your staff. Make sure you hop over today and get your first 48 hours for only $1 by using the link here: https://strengthcoachnetwork.com/cvasps/

#StrengthCoach, #StrengthAndConditioningCoach, #Podcast, #LearningAtLunch, #TheSeminar, #SportsTraining, #PhysicalPreparation, #TheManual, #SportTraining, #SportPerformance, #HumanPerformance, #StrengthTraining, #SpeedTraining, #Training, #Coach, #Performance, #Sport, #HighPerformance, #VBT, #VelocityBasedTraining, #TriphasicTraining, #Plyometrics

“I take an approach of working above and below the demands of the sport.”

“We are there to make them a master in their sport.”

“First and foremost, within all of this, it’s an education program before you get into the sets and reps and any of that. It’s making these guys understand that these are the boxes you’ve got to tick.”

This episode of The Podcast is brought to you by Exxentric, the makers of the kBox and kPulley. Exxentric is the world leader in fly wheel training technology providing multiple pieces to fit your budget and needs to better serve your athletes. North American customers looking for more info should contact Andreas at andreas.ahlstrom@exxentric.com or 503-739-1391. All others, or to learn more about the kBox, kPulley and flywheel training, please go to their website at: https://exxentric.com/.

I have the pleasure of sitting down and discussing the physical preparation of tennis athletes with Kris Borthwick. After a quick run-down of how Kris got to Winston-Salem he dives right into his unique perspective on energy system development for tennis players. Kris gives us a great overview of what his programming looks like and how he progresses his athletes throughout the year. He then shares with us where the on-court work fits in with the preparation work he prescribes. Kris then shares with us how he is teaching them to find their “gears” so that the athletes are able to work both above and below the outputs of a match to better improve the capacities they need to perform in competition. Next, we discuss different ways he has monitored his athletes to program better, and communicate how practice is actually affecting the players. We finish off discussing the role of nonverbal communication in increasing buy in, and where he hopes to continue to progress with his programming for his athletes. Give him a follow-on IG @krisborthwick to see everything he’s doing with the tennis athlete’s he gets to work with going forward.

We are hoping to provide the best possible content for strength coaches with each of our shows. If feel this could provide value for anyone else in the strength and conditioning field please feel free to share

Enjoy the content? Then you should check out The Strength Coach Network!

We built The Strength Coach Network to provide you three ways become the best practitioner possible. First, each month we add a new lecture from one of the best practitioners in the world to help keep you and your staff up to date with what the best of the best are doing with their athletes RIGHT NOW! Secondly, the forum provides you a new avenue to connect with practitioners around the world to find a unique point of view from coaches all over the world when it comes to career advice, training ideas, or any aspect of our lives in coaching. Finally, you get exclusive discounts on all products CVASPS related, INCLUDING your seat at The Seminar! When you add those three in with our library of over 100 sensational lectures, including all of those from The Central Virginia Sport Performance Seminar, you have found your one stop shop for continuing education for you and your staff. Make sure you hop over today and get your first 48 hours for only $1 by using the link here: https://strengthcoachnetwork.com/cvasps/

#StrengthCoach, #StrengthAndConditioningCoach, #Podcast, #LearningAtLunch, #TheSeminar, #SportsTraining, #PhysicalPreparation, #TheManual, #SportTraining,
#SportPerformance, #HumanPerformance, #StrengthTraining, #SpeedTraining, #Training, #Coach, #Performance, #Sport, #HighPerformance, #VBT, #VelocityBasedTraining, #TriphasicTraining, #Plyometrics

“Instilling that confidence comes from positive reinforcement based on the communication you’ve had all season, and plugging and playing, allowing them to auto regulate.”

“Making sure that the athletes know that we believe in them, and really, the best thing they can do is believe in themselves as much as we do because the minute that happens is when the magic happens.”

This My Thoughts Monday is brought to you by Vald Performance, the team behind the NordBord, ForceDecks, the GroinBar and HumanTrak. With all their products providing evidence-based solutions to performance professionals so they can get the right information, for the right decision, at the right time. Make sure to go check out all their great products at: www.valdperformance.com

As we come down to the wire with the “clock” winter sports of swim and dive and indoor track and field there are many athlete’s in their peaking phase. In this week’s My Thoughts Monday I share where I see the role of the performance staff in the psychological aspect of this phase, and how this is something we work to build from day one so they understand how this fit into our “pay the toll” ideology.

We are hoping to provide the best possible content for strength coaches with each of our shows. If feel this could provide value for anyone else in the strength and conditioning field please feel free to share.

ENJOY THE CONTENT? THEN YOU SHOULD CHECK OUT THE STRENGTH COACH NETWORK!

We built The Strength Coach Network to provide you three ways become the best practitioner possible. First, each month we add a new lecture from one of the best practitioners in the world to help keep you and your staff up to date with what the best of the best are doing with their athletes RIGHT NOW! Secondly, the forum provides you a new avenue to connect with practitioners around the world to find a unique point of view from coaches all over the world when it comes to career advice, training ideas, or any aspect of our lives in coaching. Finally, you get exclusive discounts on all products CVASPS related, INCLUDING your seat at The Seminar! When you add those three in with our library of over 100 sensational lectures, including all of those from The Central Virginia Sport Performance Seminar, you have found your one stop shop for continuing education for you and your staff. Make sure you hop over today and get your first 48 hours for only $1 by using the link here: https://strengthcoachnetwork.com/cvasps/

#StrengthCoach, #StrengthAndConditioningCoach, #Podcast, #LearningAtLunch, #TheSeminar, #SportsTraining, #PhysicalPreparation, #TheManual, #SportTraining, #SportPerformance, #HumanPerformance, #StrengthTraining, #SpeedTraining, #Training, #Coach, #Performance, #Sport, #HighPerformance, #VBT, #VelocityBasedTraining, #TriphasicTraining, #Plyometrics

“If we are constantly changing the exercises are we ever actually getting better at the exercises that we are saying get us better at the sporting exercise?”

“If we are altering the sets and reps and intensity of the exercise, if we are cutting volume and increasing intensity is there really a need to change the exercise? And if we are changing the exercise is there really a need to change the volume and intensity?”

This My Thoughts Monday is brought to you by Vald Performance, the team behind the NordBord, ForceDecks, the GroinBar and HumanTrak. With all their products providing evidence-based solutions to performance professionals so they can get the right information, for the right decision, at the right time. Make sure to go check out all their great products at: www.valdperformance.com

I have been experimenting with other people programming of late in order to have unique perspectives of the training process to see if there are some things that we can do better. In this process I’ve seen some consistencies across them, and one of them is changing volume, intensity, and mode of exercise all at the same time. In this week’s My Thoughts Monday, I ask why we do that and provide the reasons behind why I feel that this may not be in the best interest of our athletes and their prolonged development.

We are hoping to provide the best possible content for strength coaches with each of our shows. If feel this could provide value for anyone else in the strength and conditioning field please feel free to share.

ENJOY THE CONTENT? THEN YOU SHOULD CHECK OUT THE STRENGTH COACH NETWORK!

We built The Strength Coach Network to provide you three ways become the best practitioner possible. First, each month we add a new lecture from one of the best practitioners in the world to help keep you and your staff up to date with what the best of the best are doing with their athletes RIGHT NOW! Secondly, the forum provides you a new avenue to connect with practitioners around the world to find a unique point of view from coaches all over the world when it comes to career advice, training ideas, or any aspect of our lives in coaching. Finally, you get exclusive discounts on all products CVASPS related, INCLUDING your seat at The Seminar! When you add those three in with our library of over 100 sensational lectures, including all of those from The Central Virginia Sport Performance Seminar, you have found your one stop shop for continuing education for you and your staff. Make sure you hop over today and get your first 48 hours for only $1 by using the link here: https://strengthcoachnetwork.com/cvasps/

#StrengthCoach, #StrengthAndConditioningCoach, #Podcast, #LearningAtLunch, #TheSeminar, #SportsTraining, #PhysicalPreparation, #TheManual, #SportTraining, #SportPerformance, #HumanPerformance, #StrengthTraining, #SpeedTraining, #Training, #Coach, #Performance, #Sport, #HighPerformance, #VBT, #VelocityBasedTraining, #TriphasicTraining, #Plyometrics

“Context has been lost in several areas in our profession.”

What’s up everybody and welcome the 26th episode of Outside The Rack brought to you by Kinetic Performance the makers of Gymaware. In this show we are going to try to dive a little deeper into the minds of the top practitioners in the world of sport performance to learn a bit more about who they actually are and how they got to where they are at today. Today we are joined by the Senior Associate Athletics Director for Performance and Student-Athlete Welfare at California State University Northridge, Bob Alejo. Bob, thanks for being with us.

Before we start, who is Bob Alejo?

I’m a veteran strength and conditioning practitioner, who is looking for the best ways to provide the best experience for the athletes we get to work with.

1) Describe a learning situation that brought about an epiphany in your career

There’s actually 2. The first was seeing Al Vermeil coach in the early 80’s and watching him coach. The second was in 2005 working with the track team at UC Santa Barbra watching a squat assessment taught him not everyone feels and enjoys training like we do.

2) If you could ask one questions and you know you would get the answer what would that be and why?

“When are you perfectly ready to train again?”

3) What’s your escape?

I’ve been called a workaholic but I really find relaxation in reading research and talking shop. Otherwise I really enjoy fly fishing, and music and movies. But I wouldn’t call them escapes, that’s my life.

We are hoping to provide the best possible content for strength coaches with each of our shows. If feel this could provide value for anyone else in the strength and conditioning field please feel free to share.

Enjoy the content? Then you should check out The Strength Coach Network!

We built The Strength Coach Network to provide you three ways become the best practitioner possible. First, each month we add a new lecture from one of the best practitioners in the world to help keep you and your staff up to date with what the best of the best are doing with their athletes RIGHT NOW! Secondly, the forum provides you a new avenue to connect with practitioners around the world to find a unique point of view from coaches all over the world when it comes to career advice, training ideas, or any aspect of our lives in coaching. Finally, you get exclusive discounts on all products CVASPS related, INCLUDING your seat at The Seminar! When you add those three in with our library of over 100 sensational lectures, including all of those from The Central Virginia Sport Performance Seminar, you have found your one stop shop for continuing education for you and your staff. Make sure you hop over today and get your first 48 hours for only $1 by using the link here: https://strengthcoachnetwork.com/cvasps/

#StrengthCoach, #StrengthAndConditioningCoach, #Podcast, #LearningAtLunch, #TheSeminar, #SportsTraining, #PhysicalPreparation, #TheManual, #SportTraining, #SportPerformance, #HumanPerformance, #StrengthTraining, #SpeedTraining, #Training, #Coach, #Performance, #Sport, #HighPerformance, #VBT, #VelocityBasedTraining, #TriphasicTraining, #Plyometrics

“You got to know who you are, you’ve got to know how to fix what your weaknesses are and your blind spots are.”

This episode of The Podcast is brought to you by Exxentric, the makers of the kBox and kPulley. Exxentric is the world leader in fly wheel training technology providing multiple pieces to fit your budget and needs to better serve your athletes. North American customers looking for more info should contact Andreas at andreas.ahlstrom@exxentric.com or 503-739-1391. All others, or to learn more about the kBox, kPulley and flywheel training, please go to their website at: https://exxentric.com/.

Today we are joined by Georgia Southern’s Director of Strength and Conditioning for Olympic Sports Don Day to discuss the role of mindset in your position. After he shares with us how he got down to Georgia Southern he discusses what the impacts of past mistakes have made on him to better understand how great you can actually make any situation. We then discuss how truly understanding what you have access to is the key to building your program, and how important your staff is in that process. He then shares with us the tenants of their program, and how he and his staff set the standard and hold themselves to that. Next, he shares with us a great story about selecting staff members and how building a relationship and looking at things in a positive manner had the hugest impact on how he selected his staff. We finish off discussing ways to show your staff appreciation to help keep better resolve and progress moving forward.

We are hoping to provide the best possible content for strength coaches with each of our shows. If feel this could provide value for anyone else in the strength and conditioning field please feel free to share

Enjoy the content? Then you should check out The Strength Coach Network!

We built The Strength Coach Network to provide you three ways become the best practitioner possible. First, each month we add a new lecture from one of the best practitioners in the world to help keep you and your staff up to date with what the best of the best are doing with their athletes RIGHT NOW! Secondly, the forum provides you a new avenue to connect with practitioners around the world to find a unique point of view from coaches all over the world when it comes to career advice, training ideas, or any aspect of our lives in coaching. Finally, you get exclusive discounts on all products CVASPS related, INCLUDING your seat at The Seminar! When you add those three in with our library of over 100 sensational lectures, including all of those from The Central Virginia Sport Performance Seminar, you have found your one stop shop for continuing education for you and your staff. Make sure you hop over today and get your first 48 hours for only $1 by using the link here: https://strengthcoachnetwork.com/cvasps/

#StrengthCoach, #StrengthAndConditioningCoach, #Podcast, #LearningAtLunch, #TheSeminar, #SportsTraining, #PhysicalPreparation, #TheManual, #SportTraining,
#SportPerformance, #HumanPerformance, #StrengthTraining, #SpeedTraining, #Training, #Coach, #Performance, #Sport, #HighPerformance, #VBT, #VelocityBasedTraining, #TriphasicTraining, #Plyometrics

“What do you do when what you do well isn’t going well for ya?”

“When your career is your hobby, sometimes you don’t need an escape.”

What’s up everybody and welcome the 25h episode of Outside The Rack brought to you by Kinetic Performance the makers of Gymaware. In this show we are going to try to dive a little deeper into the minds of the top practitioners in the world of sport performance to learn a bit more about who they actually are and how they got to where they are at today. Today we are joined by the Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach at the University of Alabama in charge of Men’s Basketball, Mike Snowden. Mike, thanks for being with us.

Before we start, who is Mike Snowden?

I’m a guy from Fredrick Maryland who went to the Navy and found strength and conditioning. A coach who deeply cares for his athletes and the progression of the profession.

1) Describe a learning situation that brought about an epiphany in your career

“Be you”, people have different coaching styles and such, but you need to be true to you and who you are, and be adaptable. “What do you do when what you do well isn’t working for you.”

2) If you could ask one questions and you know you would get the answer what would that be and why?

“What are we here for?”

3) What’s your escape?

My family, communication with them is always a refresher. Going to the range, I was a marksmen in the Navy, but “when your career is your hobby sometimes you don’t need an escape.”

We are hoping to provide the best possible content for strength coaches with each of our shows. If feel this could provide value for anyone else in the strength and conditioning field please feel free to share.

Enjoy the content? Then you should check out The Strength Coach Network!

We built The Strength Coach Network to provide you three ways become the best practitioner possible. First, each month we add a new lecture from one of the best practitioners in the world to help keep you and your staff up to date with what the best of the best are doing with their athletes RIGHT NOW! Secondly, the forum provides you a new avenue to connect with practitioners around the world to find a unique point of view from coaches all over the world when it comes to career advice, training ideas, or any aspect of our lives in coaching. Finally, you get exclusive discounts on all products CVASPS related, INCLUDING your seat at The Seminar! When you add those three in with our library of over 100 sensational lectures, including all of those from The Central Virginia Sport Performance Seminar, you have found your one stop shop for continuing education for you and your staff. Make sure you hop over today and get your first 48 hours for only $1 by using the link here: https://strengthcoachnetwork.com/cvasps/

#StrengthCoach, #StrengthAndConditioningCoach, #Podcast, #LearningAtLunch, #TheSeminar, #SportsTraining, #PhysicalPreparation, #TheManual, #SportTraining,
#SportPerformance, #HumanPerformance, #StrengthTraining, #SpeedTraining, #Training, #Coach, #Performance, #Sport, #HighPerformance, #VBT, #VelocityBasedTraining, #TriphasicTraining, #Plyometrics

This episode of The Podcast is brought to you by Exxentric, the makers of the kBox and kPulley. Exxentric is the world leader in fly wheel training technology providing multiple pieces to fit your budget and needs to better serve your athletes. North American customers looking for more info should contact Andreas at andreas.ahlstrom@exxentric.com or 503-739-1391. All others, or to learn more about the kBox, kPulley and flywheel training, please go to their website at: https://exxentric.com/.

Today we are joined by Oklahoma Basketball Assistant Director of Basketball Strength and Performance Scientist Aaron Heishman to discuss his dissertation research looking at fatigue in the sport of basketball. After a quick run-down of how he got to Norman, Aaron dives right into his research, which actually started with his time in Charlottesville. Initially he looked into the training loads effect on jump height. This has led him down the force plate rabbit hole to look at acute changes in performance, readiness, and fatigue from day to day. He is looking at those alongside endocrine responses and perceptual responses. He then shares with us why he uses the jump over some alternatives to test outputs from the athletes. Next, he shares with us another method he’s utilizing to look at the differences between central or peripheral fatigue, and low frequency fatigue or high frequency fatigue. He finishes of sharing with us where his research can be applied with athletes, along with what more work he hopes to do on the topic.

We are hoping to provide the best possible content for strength coaches with each of our shows. If feel this could provide value for anyone else in the strength and conditioning field please feel free to share

Enjoy the content? Then you should check out The Strength Coach Network!

We built The Strength Coach Network to provide you three ways become the best practitioner possible. First, each month we add a new lecture from one of the best practitioners in the world to help keep you and your staff up to date with what the best of the best are doing with their athletes RIGHT NOW! Secondly, the forum provides you a new avenue to connect with practitioners around the world to find a unique point of view from coaches all over the world when it comes to career advice, training ideas, or any aspect of our lives in coaching. Finally, you get exclusive discounts on all products CVASPS related, INCLUDING your seat at The Seminar! When you add those three in with our library of over 100 sensational lectures, including all of those from The Central Virginia Sport Performance Seminar, you have found your one stop shop for continuing education for you and your staff. Make sure you hop over today and get your first 48 hours for only $1 by using the link here: https://strengthcoachnetwork.com/cvasps/

#StrengthCoach, #StrengthAndConditioningCoach, #Podcast, #LearningAtLunch, #TheSeminar, #SportsTraining, #PhysicalPreparation, #TheManual, #SportTraining,
#SportPerformance, #HumanPerformance, #StrengthTraining, #SpeedTraining, #Training, #Coach, #Performance, #Sport, #HighPerformance, #VBT, #VelocityBasedTraining, #TriphasicTraining, #Plyometrics

“The more you make it about us, and not me vs you, the more that relationship will flourish and the better you’ll be for the kids.”

This My Thoughts Monday is brought to you by Vald Performance, the team behind the NordBord, ForceDecks, the GroinBar and HumanTrak. With all their products providing evidence-based solutions to performance professionals so they can get the right information, for the right decision, at the right time. Make sure to go check out all their great products at: www.valdperformance.com

Sometimes social media can lead to some great discussions, and a recent back and forth we had on Twitter on the “medical model” of building a performance department was a great example of that. In this week’s My Thoughts Monday I share some of the pros and cons of this model, and where I feel we have had some success using a modified version of it.

We are hoping to provide the best possible content for strength coaches with each of our shows. If feel this could provide value for anyone else in the strength and conditioning field please feel free to share.

ENJOY THE CONTENT? THEN YOU SHOULD CHECK OUT THE STRENGTH COACH NETWORK!

We built The Strength Coach Network to provide you three ways become the best practitioner possible. First, each month we add a new lecture from one of the best practitioners in the world to help keep you and your staff up to date with what the best of the best are doing with their athletes RIGHT NOW! Secondly, the forum provides you a new avenue to connect with practitioners around the world to find a unique point of view from coaches all over the world when it comes to career advice, training ideas, or any aspect of our lives in coaching. Finally, you get exclusive discounts on all products CVASPS related, INCLUDING your seat at The Seminar! When you add those three in with our library of over 100 sensational lectures, including all of those from The Central Virginia Sport Performance Seminar, you have found your one stop shop for continuing education for you and your staff. Make sure you hop over today and get your first 48 hours for only $1 by using the link here: https://strengthcoachnetwork.com/cvasps/

#StrengthCoach, #StrengthAndConditioningCoach, #Podcast, #LearningAtLunch, #TheSeminar, #SportsTraining, #PhysicalPreparation, #TheManual, #SportTraining, #SportPerformance, #HumanPerformance, #StrengthTraining, #SpeedTraining, #Training, #Coach, #Performance, #Sport, #HighPerformance, #VBT, #VelocityBasedTraining, #TriphasicTraining, #Plyometrics

“Different sports require different capacities, mentally and physically.”

“If you need to reset and you’re seeking that more then once a month you need to change your environment.”

What’s up everybody and welcome the 24th episode of Outside The Rack brought to you by Kinetic Performance the makers of Gymaware. In this show we are going to try to dive a little deeper into the minds of the top practitioners in the world of sport performance to learn a bit more about who they actually are and how they got to where they are at today. Today we are joined by the High Performance Director with the Chicago Red Stars Megan Young. Megan, thanks for being with us.

Before we start, who is Megan Young?

Megan Young is a connector.

1) Describe a learning situation that brought about an epiphany in your career

Different growth points of who am I along the way, starting with football and basketball, but moving more towards soccer that taught her outward presentation doesn’t mean as much as communication.

Understanding who she was as a person and knowing that in and out, not being dependent of where she’s working and what she’s doing professionally.

2) If you could ask one question and you know you would get the answer what would that be and why?

It would relate to partial physics because we are so close to understanding neutrinos and their effect on our actual aura.

3) What’s your escape?

I have my “corner” where I start my day, but going out to Hawaii and unplugging.

We are hoping to provide the best possible content for strength coaches with each of our shows. If feel this could provide value for anyone else in the strength and conditioning field please feel free to share.

Enjoy the content? Then you should check out The Strength Coach Network!

We built The Strength Coach Network to provide you three ways become the best practitioner possible. First, each month we add a new lecture from one of the best practitioners in the world to help keep you and your staff up to date with what the best of the best are doing with their athletes RIGHT NOW! Secondly, the forum provides you a new avenue to connect with practitioners around the world to find a unique point of view from coaches all over the world when it comes to career advice, training ideas, or any aspect of our lives in coaching. Finally, you get exclusive discounts on all products CVASPS related, INCLUDING your seat at The Seminar! When you add those three in with our library of over 100 sensational lectures, including all of those from The Central Virginia Sport Performance Seminar, you have found your one stop shop for continuing education for you and your staff. Make sure you hop over today and get your first 48 hours for only $1 by using the link here: https://strengthcoachnetwork.com/cvasps/

#StrengthCoach, #StrengthAndConditioningCoach, #Podcast, #LearningAtLunch, #TheSeminar, #SportsTraining, #PhysicalPreparation, #TheManual, #SportTraining,
#SportPerformance, #HumanPerformance, #StrengthTraining, #SpeedTraining, #Training, #Coach, #Performance, #Sport, #HighPerformance, #VBT, #VelocityBasedTraining, #TriphasicTraining, #Plyometrics