Just Fly Performance Podcast - 137: Joel Smith on Improving the Workout Experience: Dopamine, Motor Learning and the Experiential Brain Network | Sponsored by SimpliFaster

137: Joel Smith on Improving the Workout Experience: Dopamine, Motor Learning and the Experiential Brain Network | Sponsored by SimpliFaster

02/14/19 • 51 min

Today’s episode features your host, Joel Smith, talking on various elements of optimizing the manner by which an athlete experiences a workout. You could have similar workouts on paper, say 5x3 cleans or 10 jumps over a high jump bar, but the subtleties and nuances by which those repetitions are executed mean everything in how well an athlete will adapt to the movement, as well as move into the next workout with maximal freshness of the central nervous system. When you understand how to stimulate dopamine release, how to frame a workout to tap into the experiential brain, how to utilize sensory information to coach technique rather than internal cues (or even external), as well as how to make training fun and exciting when needed, you have the tools to turn an average program into an outstanding one. This isn’t to say meat and potatoes training isn’t important, because it certainly is, but having the tool-set by which to really optimize the way the athlete experiences the training process, both the fun and the repetitive, can really improve our effectiveness as coaches. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Key Points How to get into the experiential mode network while training, and not the default mode network and why it matters Training Gate Golf Long Jump Golf Low Rim Dunking/Playing Jump Games 5x200m Hurdles “Tricking” athletes into doing work (team sport principles) How the Easy Strength principles apply to speed and power training Ideas on making basic lifts more “experiential”, Olympic lift examples Olympic lifting Various ways to experience the bar and the second pull/sensory Some athletes just twitch different; when you do an Olympic lift well, it’s a harmony Various ways to approach the catch, etc. Keiser Jumper or anything else with a quantitative output Impulse in Keiser jumper is what matters/step up jumps Thoughts on VBT stuff How to structure a workout to maximize the manner in which the athlete processes and responds to the work Warmup/Meat and Potatoes/ISOS and super slow About Joel Smith Joel Smith, MS, CSCS is a NCAA Division I Strength Coach working in the PAC12 conference. He has been a track and field jumper and javelin thrower, track coach, strength coach, personal trainer, researcher, writer and lecturer in his 8 years in the professional field. His degrees in exercise science have been earned from Cedarville University in 2006 (BA) and Wisconsin LaCrosse (MS) in 2008. Prior to California, Joel was a track coach, strength coach and lecturer at Wilmington College of Ohio. During Joel’s coaching tenure at Wilmington, he guided 8 athletes to NCAA All-American performances including a national champion in the women’s 55m dash. In 2011, Joel started Just Fly Sports with Jake Clark in an effort to bring relevant training information to the everyday coach and athlete. Aside from the NSCA, Joel is certified through USA Track and Field and his hope is to bridge the gap between understandable theory and current coaching practice.

Previous Episode

136: James Smith (U of Strength) on Getting Better Transfer to Sport out of Physical Preparation | Sponsored by SimpliFaster

Today’s episode features James Smith, owner of the “U of Strength” in Tyngsboro Massachusetts. James has coached a variety of athletes from the novice to the elite skill levels, some of which include current NHL, NBA, and MLS players and the 2011 NCAA Men’s Basketball National Champion UConn Huskies. Through adaptive, creative, and experience-based program design, Jamie assists athletes in reaching their full potential on and off the ice, court, and field. We have had several coaches on this podcast previously in the world of perception and reaction. At the end of the day, barbell training is nice, but it can only help an athlete improve by a particular amount in their sport, and honestly, getting athletes strong is easy to do. What separates a great coach from a novice is the ability to see patterns in the gym (and turf warm-up) that indicate an athlete is actually going to see playing time in their sport rather than riding the pine. How many athletes have we seen get stronger and even faster but still not make an impact in their actual sport? This quote by James says a lot. “We used to have your typical dynamic warm up and it wasn’t productive” James Smith is the epitome of a forward thinker in the field. He realized that canned warmup drills and simply getting athletes strong wasn’t giving them their best chance of success in sport, which led him down the path of reactive training that mimicks the dynamic athlete-to-athlete decision making process. On today’s episode, James talks all things perception and reaction, how he got to the point he is now, and how it is making a big difference for his athletes. At the end of the day, the best athletes in sport should probably be the best at the exercises you are selecting for the brunt of your training program. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Key Points The “skill gap” that exists in the way that many high school sports are coached James first steps in implementing perception and reaction based work How and why athletes lose creativity through over-coaching and too much robotic drill work How perception-action work can transfer globally to sport play How to make weightlifting reps more variable and “game-like” What James is seeing through the implementation of perception/reaction based work instead of canned agility training “I believe at the younger level you can have a big impact on anticipation, pattern recognition; that part of their developmental process” “At some point (regarding the closed agility drills) I just took them out” “In the off-season we run 2-3 days of “problem solving” activities (we don’t call them agility)” “I still find a ton of value in our sprint work... if you want to talk about on the turf on the basketball court before we get in the weightroom, we always start with a problem solving activity” “We design the activity based on situations, 1v1, 1v2, 2v2, basically small sided games” “When you work with a younger athlete you have to be very careful on how you say things” “We used to have your typical dynamic warm up and it wasn’t productive” “(Regarding perception/action constraints) the defense is mimicking the jumping pattern of the offense” “I’ve seen a big difference in decision making, anticipation (in using perception/reaction work)” “One of the consequences of doing all these pre-planned robotic drills is that athlete’s creativity is gone” “Your activities, drills, etc. needs to be as representative as possible, but sometimes logistics/facilities can be an issue; when I’m training these skills it’s opponent on opponent... I want them in offensive and defensive situations” “We train every quality throughout the year, the only thing I change is the volume”

Next Episode

138: Cory Schlesinger on Athlete-Driven Strength and Conditioning | Sponsored by SimpliFaster

Today’s episode features the first in-person recording of the Just Fly Performance podcast with Stanford University basketball strength coach, Cory Schlesinger. Cory’s combination of creativity and intuition makes him one of the most unique strength coaches I know, and his passion for the proper physical development of his players shines through in the many podcasts he has been on in the past. He has a decade of experience as a strength coach, and is in his third year as the sports performance coach for the Stanford University’s Men’s Basketball team. He also works with NBA and NFL players along with currently preparing athletes for the 2020 Olympic Games. I’ve known Cory for a little while now, and have wanted to have him on the show for a while, but I felt it would do the most justice to be able to actually sit down in person and record a show, so this marks the first in-person recorded episode of the Just Fly Performance Podcast. Cory’s methodology in the weightroom resembles, to me, the art of a master craftsman, who has a myriad of tools for a variety of purposes. Where some coaches only have a hammer, Cory has the whole set of hammers and then some. The way Cory creatively and intuitively can determine what his athletes need in the gym, instead of what he himself as a coach wants to see is what sets Cory apart in this field. Today on the show Cory and I talk about how to make a true athlete driven training system, and then what it really means to be an athlete and train for it. This episode is also packed with common sense ideas that the modern strength coach can use to better serve athletes. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Key Points How Cory sees the creation of an athletic qualities in the weightroom How Cory structures each workout for his basketball players How the strength coach fits in a true “high performance” sport mastery system How to manage athletic performance in light of moving well/absorbing and releasing force/etc. The importance of understanding martial arts in context of coaching athletes How to “athletically” build an NBA body in context of good human movement patterns Cody’s advice on honing creativity in coaching Cory Schlesinger Quotes “Our training program is athlete driven, I give the the power of choice” “I give them the category; their needs and their preferences are what drives the results” “Guys are PR’ing in all of their lifts as we go through season, because I’m not putting an emphasis on it and our frequency is so high” “Once you’ve adapted to those adaptable things (college practice schedule, introducing games, being in college for the first time) then let’s start adding volume in the weightroom" “At the end of the day, it’s about the athletes, if they got the gold, it doesn’t matter what training program they are on, they got the gold” “If you are just going to be the weightroom guy, don’t be talking about salaries.... because that doesn’t determine success... you gotta find value in other ways” “I have to give (my tall players living in a short world) their childhood development back” “If you are talking about building better athletes, make them better humans first, and then they’ll be better athletes because they’ll be able to express” “What do you think chronic, heavy lifting is going to do, it’s all braking! Just imagine how good strength coaches would be if they took what the body already came with, and just make that better!” “(Regarding muscle hypertrophy) If you take a weak athlete and you introduce them to general movement patterns and then you generally load it, mass comes” “How I sneak in a lot of volume is... chins and dips. A lot of these guys can get great hypertrophy through bodyweight moveme...