Just Fly Performance Podcast - 99: Christian Thibaudeau: Optimal Peaking, Competing and Coaching Through Neuro-Typing | Sponsored by SimpliFaster

99: Christian Thibaudeau: Optimal Peaking, Competing and Coaching Through Neuro-Typing | Sponsored by SimpliFaster

05/22/18 • 96 min

Today’s episode brings back Christian Thibaudeau, speaking further into neuro-typing, particularly on the impact of brain chemistry on athlete training individualization and coaching. Sport psychology is generally under-appreciated, as coaching of the highest order fully appreciates and understands the impact of an athlete’s mental state on competition and important training sessions. When one knows brain chemistry’s influence, there is less guessing, and the ability to more precisely prepare an athlete for their optimal performance. Coaching is also impacted by neurology, and in today’s episode, coach Thibaudeau goes into how each neuro-type is gifted with particular abilities to coach athletes. Some athletes are immensely attracted to, or frustrated by, the styles of particular coaches, so knowing potential links or conflicts created by brain chemistry and neuro-typing is a must to get the most out of your own coaching and your athlete’s performance. Finally, this podcast goes full circle, as the same things that create difficulty in responding to the highest competition for athletes also create difficulty in their ability to respond to workouts of a high neural intensity. Christian digs into the common brain chemistry behind these phenomena, and how our understanding can help us create better programming on the week to week basis, in addition to better competitive strategies. Finally, I recommend listening to my first podcast with Christian, episode #77 if you have not done so already, to get an overview of the neurotypes, since Christian hits the ground running on them in today’s show. If you are interested in becoming certified in Neurotyping, check out my review of Christian’s course. 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: Neuro-types more likely to choke in performance and why Optimal training activation strategies by neuro-type Environmental factors in determining neuro-type How training changes under stress in terms of neuro-type response The most difficult neuro-type to peak for competition How neuro-type effects coach-athlete relationships Why some athletes are able to recover from heavy neural training better than others “A Neurotype 3 in the 1960’s would not become a great golfer... nowadays technique is so deep that you can have someone who has less natural skills and more anxiety and compensate by becoming such a technical master” “If I am overstimulated I have too much muscle tension, and my mobility is affected” “That’s why people choke under pressure, it’s because high adrenaline situation speeds up the nervous system. You have two neurotransmitters responsible for exciting the nervous system... dopamine and adrenaline” “Type 1A and type 1B have a higher level of serotonin... that’s why a type 1A or 1B that’s why often time, they often look lazy” “Serotonin is a neural balancer, it keeps you in the optimal state for the task at hand. People with low serotonin have a really difficult time adjusting when they have daily activities that require either activation or relaxation” “People with low serotonin get amped up just the same (as those with high) but they cannot prevent over-activation of their nervous system” “If adrenaline becomes too high for 2A’s in competition then they will choke. 2A’s are their best in a minor competition or league game, but they will have a hard time at nationals” “Neurotype will affect how you coach athletes in a high stress situation” “The more sensitive to dopamine you are, the easier it is to get into that optimal (competition) zone.... Serotonin keeps you in that zone, so both are important” “If you are type 3 a very small inflammation might feel like tendonitis”

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98: Gary Ward: Integrating the Foot into Holistic Human Performance | Sponsored by SimpliFaster

Today’s episode features biomechanist Gary Ward, author of “What the Foot” and founder of “Anatomy in Motion”. Starting his interest in the foot as a ski-boot fitter, Gary is now known for solving unsolvable pain in minutes, not months. His passion for the foot hugely influenced his interpretation of human movement. He is increasingly sought after by all types of practitioners in the fitness and therapy industry, teaching an evolution that starts with the foot and results in whole-body integrated movement solutions. One of the things that has drawn me to Gary’s work is his holistic assessment of human biomechanics. When it comes to becoming the best athlete one can be, it is important to have core rules of human movement by which we can define our programs and practices. I haven’t read a work where those rules are as clearly defined as “What the Foot”, and after learning from other great resources in the field such as the Postural Restoration Institute, and then the dynamic fieldwork on Adarian Barr, Gary’s work makes good sense. Examples of such rules are things like “Joints act and muscles react”, and “Everything orbits around the center”. On today’s episode, Gary will go into his background, and how he began interest in the foot. He’ll talk about the big rules of movement, particularly how human position dictates muscle firing, and not the other way around. We’ll also talk about finding an athletes center and what that means for training, as well as the importance of pronation in explosive human movement. 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: Gary’s background in the industry and how he gained an interest in the foot How working with the foot has such a profound impact on the rest of the body How and why to be in positions to give muscles more options in which to fire Eccentric vs. concentric muscle contractions in light of joint actions and biomechanics How to find an athletes joint center and what that means for them Methods to allow an athlete to bring themselves back to centre The importance of pronation in human movement How to determine and teach a good pronation How to add exploration work to any isometric foot training “The second big rule of motion: joints act and muscles react” “My brain doesn’t go to muscles anymore, muscles will do anything the joint asks of it” “Hip flexors, when they are problematic tend to be long and tight” “There are no bi-axial muscles that will lengthen and shorten at both ends” “You can shorten a muscle in one plane, lengthen it in another plane, and do nothing in a third plane.... each muscle has six possibilities, and muscles eventually make you mad, look at the joint” “In an eccentric movement, the fibers are contracting the same way as a concentric movement” “When we are moving away from centre, the muscles will wake up and move us back to centre, and that is a more pure way of looking at things” “Everyone’s joint centre is unique to them, if we want to find centre we need to invite the person to find it themselves” “We never get the opportunity to (enter the learning space) if we are constantly abducting knees with a band while squatting” “The foot is made of three structures, the rearfoot, the forefoot and the toes. Each piece is super important for flowing movement all the way up the chain” “Shapes of the foot are really important” “Pronation is a foot lengthening and foot widening” “We gotta be good at pronating in order to generate a supination response” “The key to good pronation is the tripod” “What’s really important is that the rearfoot is always working in a closed chain in opposition to the forefoot” “Human movement and strength training are two different realms”...

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undefined - 100: “Let the Kids Play”: Jorge Carvajal, Zach Even-Esh, Jeremy Frisch: Youth Athletics and Early Specialization Roundtable | Sponsored by SimpliFaster

100: “Let the Kids Play”: Jorge Carvajal, Zach Even-Esh, Jeremy Frisch: Youth Athletics and Early Specialization Roundtable | Sponsored by SimpliFaster

Today’s episode features a special roundtable featuring experts Jorge Carvajal, Zach Even-Esh, and Jeremy Frisch. Together, these coaches have over half a century of training expertise, and have worked with a wide sweeping range of athletes. In addition to this, their experience is with many athletes ranging from very young to the professional level, and have also seen the changes sport culture that has come about over the last few decades (if you aren’t aware, those changes have resulted in injury rates magnitudes higher than what was seen in the 1990’s). Today’s topic is the injury crisis in youth sports and the related deprivation of movement and physical literacy of the coming generation. I was asked a while ago if I had anything special planned for the 100th episode of the podcast (I can’t believe it’s gone so far!). I didn’t have much in mind for it, but I’ve actually saved this recording a few episodes to be 100 since I feel that it checks a lot of boxes on what makes this podcast what it is, and that is the time and willingness of great coaches to be a voice to help other coaches, and ultimately, help athletes reach their highest potential. I think that the message today that these three coaches bring is honestly the most important one of all, more important than getting an extra tenth off your 40-yard dash, and a higher calling than tacking 2 extra inches on one’s vertical jump. That higher calling is the physical literacy and movement crisis that so many young athletes are facing. It is one that elicits burnout and injury like never before seen, and also feeds into the nature of our educational system itself. Topics covered on the show include the age an athlete may actually be ready to specialize and when that is appropriate, how local culture impacts which sport a child plays, how depriving students of movement is harming students' educational and global experiences and how to bring physical literacy back into our culture. 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: Zach, Jeremy and Jorge’s backgrounds in the field The earliest age an athlete should consider specializing in a sport How local culture and lifestyle impacts which sports athletes play Ways to help bring physical literacy back into our culture How depriving children of movement and free play is destroying the educational experience of many “An athlete specializes when they are really ready, mentally and emotionally” “It seems to take a lot of years and a lot of skill work to get to a certain level” “I’ll do another sport as the warmup to build their athleticism” “I could probably take 99% of little league pitchers, and they couldn’t get themselves across the monkey bars” “The logistics of parenting make it very difficult to have multi-sport athletes these days” “Everything is coached and organized, and they are not able to think for themselves” “What I was able to do with a new athlete 5 years ago, is different than what I’m able to do today, I call it the de-evolution of the athlete” “You have to stop de-emphasizing PE in school, that’s it, that’s where it starts” “Don’t run a youth class and train those kids like they are in high school... what is the better thing for the kids? They need the play” “(Regarding the importance of not emphasizing speed training in favor of free play for children) I get more phone calls from Dad’s about first step quickness than I do about the older kids” About Jorge Carvajal Jorge Carvajal is a performance coach and consultant who has worked with elite athletes in multiple sports and the tactical world for over twenty-five years. He has trained thousands of athletes, at the University of Florida, the University of Nebraska, the U.S.