Latest / Just Fly Performance Podcast / 483: Jack Barry on Confidence and the Art of Instinctive Athleticism

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483: Jack Barry on Confidence and the Art of Instinctive Athleticism · Just Fly Performance Podcast

• 0:00
  Jack, welcome to the show, man. Could you start by telling us a little bit about
• 0:04
  your journey as an athlete?
• 0:05
  And then in addition, I'm also curious what pitchers do for sports once their
• 0:10
  pitching career is over.
• 0:12
  I think you mentioned something about tennis. So I'm curious.
• 0:14
  I'm curious of that trajectory as well. But yeah, your sport background and
• 0:19
  then what you're up to now.
• 0:20
  Well, you popped open the can of worms early on this one. So yeah,
• 0:24
  I'm a former college baseball player. I played at Division III Salisbury University, go goals.
• 0:31
  And growing up was not like the greatest athlete per se, kind of like a chubby kid.
• 0:39
  Both of my siblings were endurance sport athletes. So like one was a distance
• 0:43
  swimmer, the other one did soccer and lacrosse.
• 0:47
  And so I've alluded to this a couple of times with some other people,
• 0:51
  but like our meals were pretty carb and calorie
• 0:54
  centric and for a third baseman
• 0:57
  corner infielder on a baseball field that wasn't super conducive to
• 1:00
  having like an elite physique and so had to
• 1:03
  kind of adjust some habits there as I got older but that
• 1:07
  helped me kind of dive into training and sports performance which is obviously
• 1:12
  why we're here and really enjoyed that and applied it to my own career and so
• 1:19
  used that and through college just continued to pick up on bits and pieces.
• 1:25
  Tommy Labriola is a good friend of mine.
• 1:28
  He's a former strength coach for the Blue Jays and he was my strength coach in college.
• 1:33
  Also got the opportunity to play with him for my first two years and just saw
• 1:38
  what he did and saw how much passion he applied to the weight room,
• 1:43
  but then also the field side of things.
• 1:46
  And that really gave me some tools and some insight on maybe this is something
• 1:51
  that I want to do one day if the broadcasting thing doesn't work out, which it didn't.
• 1:56
  That was kind of my own doing just because I had more of a fire under my rear
• 2:00
  end to do something like this and stay involved with athletics and performance
• 2:04
  and fitness and health and all that good stuff.
• 2:06
  And so that kind of brought me into doing this now in the online space.
• 2:12
  And as far as what pitchers really do when they're done playing I always love
• 2:19
  training and I always love fitness and I always love just competing and being on a team.
• 2:25
  And so when I lost the team aspect that allowed for me to try and pursue some
• 2:31
  new competitive outlets.
• 2:32
  And so I tried the jujitsu thing. Uh, I have long levers.
• 2:36
  And so basically like all I had was a ground game and triangle chokes,
• 2:41
  but that's like a pretty limited offensive repertoire there.
• 2:45
  Uh, as there, as it relates to grappling sports, uh, I tried,
• 2:49
  I still golf here and there, but five hours out of your day is a big chunk of time.
• 2:54
  Yeah it is i was like all right so where can i get a good like cardiovascular stimulus.
• 3:00
  Sweat uh and compete and have
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  just like a something that's going to really give me that that competitive aspect
• 3:08
  of my life that i lost when i stopped playing and so i just gave tennis a try
• 3:13
  i'm kind of pseudo anti pickleball i don't really know like i'm not i just i
• 3:19
  don't know i'm I'm more of a traditionalist,
• 3:21
  I guess, you know, I wear all the cotton apparel. I'm not into like the gym shark stuff.
• 3:26
  So, uh, yeah, you saw the blue light blockers. I'm an optimizer to a certain
• 3:30
  degree, but, uh, really do enjoy tennis.
• 3:33
  So watching the U S open, watching Wimbledon, watching Carlos Alcaraz,
• 3:37
  just get to every single ball on the court.
• 3:39
  Uh, like that kind of stuff. It's, uh, it was, it started with a toe just kind
• 3:44
  of dipped in and then I just dove head first.
• 3:47
  And, uh, that's kind of where we're at now. that's that's part
• 3:49
  of the training journey still lifting a lot of weight and still doing mobility
• 3:52
  stuff and uh doing some distance running as well i found out i have a pretty
• 3:56
  good vo2 max for my age apparently and so uh and again like long levers long
• 4:02
  arms yeah i can uh i can i can do some work on a track apparently so that's
• 4:08
  kind of where we're at with everything.
• 4:10
  Yeah, I think in the midst of athletic performance, a very explosive orientation.
• 4:16
  And, but for those of us who have a distance swimmer or runner somewhere in
• 4:21
  the family tree, there's a superpower work capacity in there somewhere.
• 4:24
  I think that's just important to mention. And I know for myself,
• 4:28
  like I have, I have a good general work capacity, not necessarily just distance
• 4:33
  running, but just doing a lot of work, like in a dense period of time,
• 4:37
  I was like a good hustler on a basket, the basketball court and stuff.
• 4:40
  And so I realized I need to feed that engine and that is enjoyable,
• 4:44
  but finding diverse ways of doing it is the trick.
• 4:47
  I don't enjoy if I was just to go run three or four miles on the road,
• 4:51
  that would not necessarily be my favorite thing. But yeah, feeding that,
• 4:54
  that animal, I think, or finding a way to do that, I think is really important.
• 4:58
  For sure. And it's something that I wish I would have discovered sooner because
• 5:03
  maybe I could have like gotten some scholarship money to like go.
• 5:07
  And I'm not saying that like cross country would have been that competitive
• 5:10
  outlet for me, but, uh, I was never the type of guy that could just like pick
• 5:15
  up a ball and flick mid nineties off the rip.
• 5:19
  And I know people that can do that, um, or, you know, just jump 35 plus after
• 5:25
  not jumping for a while, I was, uh, definitely more type two oriented, I guess.
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  Um, and so like, that's where, uh, I probably could have leaned into the cardiovascular
• 5:36
  side or found like more of that,
• 5:38
  uh, work capacity based action earlier that might've been more conducive to
• 5:44
  just my genetic predisposition, but you don't want to look back,
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  learn from the experience and maximize what I probably could have from just like a pure power and,
• 5:57
  strength side.
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  But then the gains became so negligible. I was like, I need a new outlet.
• 6:01
  And that's where I'm getting some of these newbie gains now.
• 6:03
  And that's where it's really fun.
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  So hopefully I can maintain that level of enthusiasm throughout the next 6,
• 6:09
  12, 18 months, however long this really goes.
• 6:12
  Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned, Jack, like Family Tree, a distance swimmer.
• 6:16
  And I've worked with distance swimmers, a fair number of them.
• 6:19
  And if you want to have this spectrum of like, on one end, super explosive team
• 6:24
  sport athlete, I would say almost all the way on the other is distance swimmer.
• 6:29
  Not in every case, but in quite a few cases.
• 6:32
  So I think that there's also something to, you know, those of us who had to
• 6:37
  overcome some of those genetic limitations, like if you were a more slow twitch athlete,
• 6:42
  and it's a thing where you almost don't want to read it if you have a gene report
• 6:45
  that said you are slow twitch, like you wouldn't want to read that.
• 6:48
  But it definitely the problem to solve to become more explosive is it's not
• 6:55
  as direct as like you said, those people who can just pick the ball up and just rip 95.
• 7:00
  And they just they have all those things just sitting there more readily than
• 7:05
  those of us who have to climb more rungs on the ladder to get there.
• 7:10
  Yeah. Like for me, when I was going through like the, I don't know if you've
• 7:16
  had Jake on the podcast, but like when I was doing the vertical jump protocol,
• 7:19
  um, or when I was doing sprint training.
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  The, uh, the curvature within like the developmental line for me was definitely
• 7:30
  a lot more gradual to, whereas when I started distance running,
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  it took me a month to be able to knock my thousand time down.
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  To like a sub two or like my you know i could
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  sit in the high fives low
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  sixes as far as mile pace for like more than
• 7:49
  two miles um and so like
• 7:52
  i could i ran i think it was
• 7:55
  nine miles the other day at like a sub nine pace and woke up the next day and
• 7:59
  felt like i could do it again and so maybe that's just the fact that um i'm
• 8:04
  all limb and like the relationship between my rib cage of my pelvis is so short
• 8:09
  that I literally just have like, I,
• 8:12
  it's probably not conducive for me to try and chase output in the weight room.
• 8:17
  And I, I told my training partner that I'm working with now,
• 8:21
  it's like, I'm probably not going to be a bodybuilder.
• 8:24
  You know, I'm probably not going to be the strongest guy in the gym,
• 8:27
  but darn it, if I'm not going to have one of the highest VO2 maxes and work
• 8:31
  capacity and be able to cook you on the track, you know,
• 8:36
  after a month of training and actually being able to like kind of periodize what I'm doing.
• 8:41
  Because before it was just like, I wanted to build this work output preparing
• 8:45
  for this elk hunt that I'm doing in Colorado soon.
• 8:49
  And so I was like, all right, well, I'm just going to start with like a 20 minute
• 8:51
  run and I'm just going to add a minute per week.
• 8:54
  And that's what I did until I met my training partner. he's like
• 8:57
  no you got to do a speed session if you want
• 8:59
  to get faster you have to do a distance session or
• 9:02
  a work like a volume session you have
• 9:05
  to do your slower paces your faster paces like you would
• 9:08
  you literally approach this just like any
• 9:11
  other training modality it's just that it's all one
• 9:14
  action and you're just doing it at different intensity and so
• 9:17
  if if your only goal is to increase your
• 9:20
  volume or what you're able to withstand on
• 9:23
  the lower half like yeah adding a minute to your runs per week
• 9:26
  is probably making sense but if you
• 9:29
  do want to get faster if you do want to be able to run further for
• 9:32
  longer at faster paces you need to kind of like split up the
• 9:35
  focuses of each one of those training sessions and supplement them
• 9:38
  in throughout the week and that's something that i didn't it's
• 9:42
  not that i didn't realize it you know i think that you can apply that simplicity
• 9:46
  of progressive overload to pretty much any training modality but just being
• 9:52
  a newbie and not having the knowledge of working with runners or even being
• 9:55
  one myself until you hear from somebody else you're not going to actually apply
• 9:59
  it to the training side yeah.
• 10:01
  It makes me think about pitching in the sense of
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  Any aerobic contribution as well, like with tennis, like tennis is essentially
• 10:09
  launching a projectile, although it's you have a tool with a repeat component,
• 10:15
  like there's an aerobic system involved. And it makes me think of a sport I've
• 10:19
  never played team handball.
• 10:21
  We're running and throwing repeatedly, like when you add an aerobic piece to something.
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  I know I benefited tremendously, but by playing basketball for my track and
• 10:31
  field career, and it wasn't only just the intentional little cuts and jumps
• 10:35
  and sprints and blocking shots and getting rebounds.
• 10:37
  I think that I also played in a manner that probably reflected my strengths,
• 10:42
  which was really just a lot of volume, just a lot of medium to high intensity
• 10:46
  sprints. Like I needed that volume.
• 10:48
  And it makes me think too about like, yeah, tennis and someone,
• 10:52
  if someone's a little bit more slow twitch like you and you just get the reps
• 10:55
  in, get the reps in, get the reps in.
• 10:57
  That's probably pretty helpful. I wonder maybe, you know, tennis in the off
• 11:01
  season would have been your jam back in the day too.
• 11:03
  Like for those people who do need more stimulation, a little slower Twitch on the end.
• 11:07
  There needs to be a new term for that too, by the way. I feel like if we just,
• 11:11
  we want to make everything binary or slow Twitch or your fast Twitch,
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  maybe we call it something else.
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  You're more work capacity positive. I don't know.
• 11:20
  Something else, uh, because you can still deliver good outputs.
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  It's just the route there is just a little bit different than,
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  than the person, like you said, and pick up the ball and just whip 95 and need
• 11:32
  some more explosive, just pure explosive pieces.
• 11:36
  Yeah, I think you can manipulate like the slider to a certain degree to where
• 11:40
  like you are going to bias towards one side or the other.
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  And that's not to say that like through your training, you can shift it one way or the other as well.
• 11:50
  But you're probably always going to have just like the ability to pick up where
• 11:54
  you left off as it relates to one of those sides due to genetics or due to just
• 12:00
  whatever the case may be.
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  We did do some tennis in the off we had a gorgeous indoor tennis center at my
• 12:07
  school and so uh in the winter semester when we would be there for class or
• 12:13
  just training and like preparing for the springtime we would be looking for
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  like cross training outlets,
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  and basketball at that point just seemed a
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  little bit more like risk averse for us
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  you know you turn an ankle or like a knee or something like
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  that through jumping you know like right before the season
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  probably not the best idea um tennis being
• 12:34
  a little bit less contact uh we also
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  would do like racquetball squash things like that oh yeah so like yeah so like
• 12:43
  racket sports with throwers especially um a lot of crossover there but as far
• 12:49
  as like the the work capacity point definitely a lot easier to, uh,
• 12:57
  to sort of program in or give to guys to when you give them like a competitive outlet.
• 13:03
  And I made the, I made the comment to one of my coaches the other day.
• 13:08
  It's that like conditioning for court sports.
• 13:12
  Is miserable. And when you compare it to like distance running outside or like
• 13:16
  a cardio stimulus, it's like, yeah, we don't have any problem running four miles
• 13:20
  in the park and the scenery changes and the weather's nice.
• 13:23
  But if you put us indoors and you just give us lines that we have to go back
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  and forth on for 200, you know, 200 times or whatever for an hour straight,
• 13:33
  like that's just, that's the, the physical sport representation of the loony
• 13:38
  bin essentially, you know, I couldn't imagine.
• 13:41
  Yeah could you imagine and yeah that uh that
• 13:44
  environmental piece changes everything even just track background
• 13:48
  running eight 200s is kind of a standard longer
• 13:51
  a little bit longer tempo sprint workout for a
• 13:54
  lot of athletes really there's a range that that could work for and when i would
• 13:59
  do that kind of workout with teammates it is totally different than doing that
• 14:03
  myself it's just it's just uh it is a completely different workout and i think
• 14:10
  there's definitely a lot to that.
• 14:12
  What you were saying, Jack, about, yeah, like racquetball, that really got some gears going.
• 14:18
  Because I think that just like basketball is kind of like a feeder for,
• 14:21
  I think the track and field jumps.
• 14:23
  Well, what's the feeder for a more singular, like baseball, it's just,
• 14:27
  you stand there and you swing. And of course you have a variety of ways you
• 14:30
  can swing, but you're not really moving.
• 14:31
  It's not like you're running and swinging. I guess you could say lacrosse,
• 14:34
  right? Like maybe that could be the feeder.
• 14:37
  Cause I just think about what puts you in multiple positions,
• 14:39
  but you mentioned racquetball.
• 14:41
  And I think, oh yeah, like you're, you would end up in a lunge and do a swing
• 14:45
  type position or a reverse lunge, you know, lunging to the clockwise if your
• 14:51
  right foot's forward side of your body and doing a reverse hit of the ball.
• 14:55
  And there's, there's more lower body options that could fit with that.
• 15:00
  And you have a little subtle aerobic piece in the background,
• 15:02
  which I, I also think the aerobic piece, like not crazy, but enough to kind
• 15:07
  of get you out of your head a little bit too.
• 15:09
  Like I think more authentic movement can get unlocked a lot of times when you
• 15:13
  have a little bit of heart rate, just enough to kind of, there's,
• 15:16
  there's more flow, like blood flow, flow, general, that kind of general thing.
• 15:20
  And I was even thinking about, um, it's like, like Danny ball or Hoover ball,
• 15:25
  like eat, like two on two or three medicine ball, volleyball,
• 15:27
  basically, where it's at least there's not so many players that the ball probably
• 15:32
  isn't going to come to you, but like you're getting involved every play.
• 15:35
  There's something that's, it's just a little bit faster rendition of what you do.
• 15:40
  And I think there's, you got my mind turning on all the different ways that
• 15:43
  are like feeder for even something that's more
• 15:46
  Singular and serial in nature
• 15:48
  Well the reactive component too pitching is completely,
• 15:53
  unreactive in the sense that you start every play yeah where
• 15:57
  with a quarterback you know they're not
• 15:59
  going to struggle with command um or like
• 16:02
  the yips per se and i'm going to use the y word i
• 16:05
  don't care if people are scared of that word like you need to verbalize it
• 16:08
  in order to you know give it less of
• 16:11
  an importance or a significance um it's because
• 16:14
  they have the defenders moving around them the line changes the
• 16:17
  routes change the time on the clock changes your
• 16:20
  arm slots going to change to a certain degree and so like they're going
• 16:23
  to have better command um to whereas with pitching
• 16:26
  you have 20 seconds in between throws and you're
• 16:29
  throwing to a stagnant target it's the same reason that somebody can stand
• 16:32
  over a golf ball and a golf tee and start thinking about a
• 16:35
  million things it's because like you have to actually like
• 16:38
  hit the ball off the tee in order for it
• 16:40
  to do anything in order for like the play to start and so
• 16:43
  i think there's definitely a component to that and uh with
• 16:47
  the racket sports especially like you have the reactive component you
• 16:50
  know like before you serve and that's where a lot
• 16:52
  of people get messed up because again you have to that
• 16:55
  starts the play um and so like you take away that reactive component to where
• 17:00
  you just have to like dive stand up make a throw to a base or you just have
• 17:05
  to like beat the guy running to the base with a throw you can dot a bull's behind
• 17:10
  doing that you put that same guy on the mound, he has no clue where the ball is going.
• 17:15
  Same thing with a tennis player. They might...
• 17:18
  Scorch five serves into the net or have no clue what they're doing when they
• 17:22
  toss the ball up and they have to hit it,
• 17:24
  but they can scorch a backhand down the line or they can, you know,
• 17:27
  hit a hundred, hundred mile an hour forehand winner with no problem or come
• 17:30
  up to the net, volley, all those, all those types of things.
• 17:34
  Um, so I think that's a big piece of it as well.
• 17:37
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• 17:41
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• 17:44
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• 19:02
  Yeah, I think that's a really underrated element.
• 19:04
  As one of the areas of study that I've been really interested in maybe the last probably three years.
• 19:11
  And it was something in Nick Winkleman's book, um, the language of coaching.
• 19:15
  Uh, I think, I feel like I'm saying that wrong. If it's such a,
• 19:18
  such a ubiquitous book, I'm sorry, Nick, if I, I think it's the language of coaching.
• 19:22
  Um, but anyways, it talks about the different brain networks.
• 19:26
  And one of the main ones is the default mode network, which is kind of,
• 19:29
  you're just daydreaming, ruminating, like it would be very active if you're
• 19:33
  like doing a set of squats and you just sit there before the smartphone era
• 19:37
  and people just sit on the bench.
• 19:39
  So you do a set of squats, you're sitting there, you're just kind of ruminating,
• 19:41
  daydreaming, you're not like necessarily, um, you're not flowing like you would
• 19:46
  be like the balls going back and forth in tennis or something like that.
• 19:50
  But as soon as there's things flying at you, there's less room for the rumination.
• 19:55
  There's less room for that default mode network to mess you up, essentially.
• 20:00
  And what's interesting too, is I think, I believe like our sense of self,
• 20:05
  the ego is very active in that default mode network.
• 20:08
  So that person waiting to pitch that egocentric default mode,
• 20:13
  okay, I'm going to do this or waiting to serve, like you said,
• 20:16
  that's very active, but then the ball's in play and all of a sudden that can change.
• 20:21
  But that's been one of my biggest pieces in studying and both sport and even
• 20:26
  just the way we train basic athletic abilities, because I don't think we give it its due credit.
• 20:32
  Because like you said, it can definitely, especially people who are over thinkers
• 20:37
  and their ego is really tied up in their performance or any combination of those things.
• 20:44
  And it's really interesting what you mentioned with the yips too.
• 20:46
  I don't come from my baseball background, but I, when you give that,
• 20:50
  um, analogy between a pitcher and a quarterback, I was thinking,
• 20:54
  oh, that makes perfect sense because I've never heard of a quarterback getting the yips.
• 20:58
  I mean, my father-in-law is a Browns fan and, you know, living through the Deshaun
• 21:02
  debacle. Maybe there's a lot of that.
• 21:03
  I don't know, but, uh, yeah, there's, I, that's such an interesting,
• 21:08
  um, this is such an interesting, um, uh, comparison you had there.
• 21:13
  Well, I grew up playing quarterback, too, and we didn't throw the ball a ton.
• 21:19
  Like, we ran the triple read option. Not the triple read option,
• 21:22
  but we ran a read option-based offense. And so, like, we were lucky to throw
• 21:28
  the ball more than 10 times a game.
• 21:30
  And those times that we did, it would be no issue for me to hit,
• 21:36
  you know, a crossing route or, like, a harder route to throw, like, into the defense.
• 21:43
  Because I usually had to run for my life because I outweighed four out of the
• 21:47
  five offensive linemen.
• 21:49
  And that was just kind of the reality of our team. Like, you know,
• 21:53
  credits of the guys that were in front of me, they did a great job.
• 21:56
  They did the best they could.
• 21:58
  But when I'm 180 pounds as a high school quarterback.
• 22:02
  And the rest of my linemen are like 165, 170, 172, 175,
• 22:08
  whatever, and then we had like one 280-pound behemoth,
• 22:11
  you have to be very very reactive to what's
• 22:14
  going on around you and so I'm not thinking about like how the
• 22:17
  ball is coming out of my hand how I'm gripping it uh you
• 22:20
  know what uh obviously with pitching you
• 22:23
  have different pitches that you need to throw and counts and the
• 22:26
  hitter is going to be reactive to that as well so that's
• 22:29
  a that's a secondary element to that but I
• 22:33
  think that the simplification aspect as it relates to coaching where we see
• 22:39
  a Luke Weaver type eliminate the the leg lift and he has a lot of success guys
• 22:44
  kind of like quick pitching and that being some of their best ways that they
• 22:48
  can get guys out or like messing with timing or even,
• 22:53
  visual focal points to where guys won't even pick up the target until right
• 22:56
  before they release the ball and their command goes up so there's a lot of different
• 23:01
  like brain and body sort of connections and manipulations that you can make
• 23:05
  as far as timing and visual cues and all those sorts of things that can help
• 23:09
  give guys solutions if they are dealing with,
• 23:12
  the yips or that type of issue, you know?
• 23:16
  Yeah. Yeah. So how many times are you allowed to say the word,
• 23:18
  the word, if it is a big deal, I'm getting that baseball world,
• 23:21
  But start the count.
• 23:23
  Yeah. It makes me think about, I've probably mentioned this somewhat recently
• 23:27
  in this series as a Darian bar talking about the stumble,
• 23:30
  like a Darian bar, one practice he's mentored me in biomechanics and been on
• 23:35
  this podcast a lot of times,
• 23:37
  but there was a practice where he would like intentional tell
• 23:40
  us to intentionally stumble in an acceleration and i
• 23:44
  would say there's probably a lot of similarities like that picture who's not
• 23:47
  looking till the last second what it does it just makes you more reactive as
• 23:51
  soon as you have to react your deep innate systems have to react to something
• 23:54
  and you you're basically not allowing your forebrain or the default mode network
• 23:58
  to get overly active it's like how can i constantly trick the system to allow
• 24:04
  the parts of my human machinery to do the innate job it's supposed to.
• 24:07
  Um, I just sent this out. I was digging through, I send out a weekly email and,
• 24:12
  uh, the, the last email, a lot of the focus was on like innate,
• 24:16
  our innate power, uh, innate power outputs.
• 24:18
  And I think there's a lot to be drawn from the animal kingdom.
• 24:21
  And so I like watching like, like bears fighting is, is really interesting.
• 24:25
  Like they're just kind of like going around each other, like,
• 24:27
  and then all of a sudden one just explodes. And And it's so visceral if you watch it.
• 24:32
  I'm like, this is insane. Like there's total disinhibition.
• 24:35
  You would call it just power of nature.
• 24:38
  But that power lies inside of us on a, you know, not like a bare like strength
• 24:42
  level, but that basic ability is just we have to shut off.
• 24:46
  All the things that are inhibiting that away to allow it to move forward.
• 24:51
  So I, I liked, um, yeah, that the one you said about, yeah, the not looking
• 24:55
  till the last second, I feel it hit close to me. Cause I was thinking, oh, I would do that.
• 24:59
  I would, that's like, that's a trick I would do.
• 25:02
  And yeah, I think for people listening, just for the sake of speed and power, I know it myself too.
• 25:07
  If I do a sprint from a two point start, three point start, I'm thinking about,
• 25:11
  okay, got my knees here, my shin angles here versus just start on your belly,
• 25:15
  get up and race somebody.
• 25:17
  And everyone starts on your belly. The coach says, go and you'll race.
• 25:20
  I was always way better at that. And honestly, I think I was faster and moved
• 25:24
  a lot better if it was that type of situation or like a stumble.
• 25:27
  So I think that, yeah, this type of principle is universal, whether you're,
• 25:31
  you're training something that's more linear speed or more complex.
• 25:34
  I think the, I suppose the place you probably wouldn't want to do it necessarily
• 25:37
  is squatting 500 pounds.
• 25:39
  Hey, hey, drop it. I'm going to push the weight.
• 25:42
  Go do that um yeah it's but yeah the innate athletic piece i just think there's
• 25:48
  so much there that people don't talk about so often
• 25:50
  Or like how many college track coaches
• 25:53
  could recruit you know
• 25:56
  athletes based on them participating
• 26:00
  in some type of debauchery and hearing police sirens go
• 26:03
  off and then how quickly they have to get away from whatever whatever they're
• 26:07
  doing you know um a reactive piece and it's just something where you're not
• 26:12
  thinking about anything besides getting out you know like get get out as fast
• 26:17
  as you possibly can and that being the only sole focus yeah.
• 26:21
  I love um
• 26:22
  Even just having, you know, speaking of distance swimmers, there was in the
• 26:26
  off season back training swimmers at Cal, I wouldn't, you mentioned basketball and risk.
• 26:32
  And so I would, there was a certain amount of risk I would tolerate once the season got around.
• 26:35
  But in the way off season, we would have them do a fair amount of like,
• 26:39
  even like chasing drills, like where one guy's lying on their stomach,
• 26:42
  the other person's standing a few feet behind him.
• 26:44
  And as soon as the person gets up, then that's the trigger and you sprint away
• 26:48
  and go. And there's just, it's fun watching athletes, especially the ones who
• 26:53
  are running away, you're spinning your wheels and all that type of thing.
• 26:57
  Just that reactive ability.
• 26:59
  As it pertains to throwing, I heard Dan John once talk about discus and a machine
• 27:05
  gun drill where he, I don't know how many discus you have, dis guy.
• 27:09
  What's the plural of discus?
• 27:10
  How many dis guy you have sitting there to pull up this drill?
• 27:13
  But it's basically like throw the disc hand him another one or her
• 27:16
  throw the disc hand another one throw the disc hand
• 27:19
  another one and i i would imagine that that would stimulate
• 27:22
  probably a pretty similar you're not getting
• 27:25
  overly hung up on your okay i should have my arm here it's more like you have
• 27:30
  to start tying into feeling i was going to ask you jack if you do any or thoughts
• 27:34
  on any density like like you know you said 20 seconds between a pitch but is
• 27:38
  there any manipulations of density that is anything that people do in training pitching yeah
• 27:44
  Not to pull out too many dad jokes but this guy sounds smart um but uh one of
• 27:50
  the one of the drills i posted a while back
• 27:52
  and i actually saw devin hayes uh do it uh for the first time with an athlete
• 27:57
  he was on the mound and basically uh they would make a throw as soon as that
• 28:02
  throw was completed he would just they would turn around and he would like toss
• 28:06
  them a ball and they had to do like sort of that reactive catch to where it's like, you know,
• 28:10
  somebody tosses you something, you hit, you do like the little like stumble,
• 28:13
  like two hand kind of like into your stomach type catch.
• 28:16
  Um, and then he would have to throw it again, just get rid of the ball as quickly as possible.
• 28:21
  And so I've seen Brooks Hall do this as well. And a number of other people just
• 28:27
  to clean up arm actions to get you out of the conscious brain as it relates
• 28:33
  to just like a specific piece of the skill to where you would have a guy standing
• 28:38
  either behind you or to the side.
• 28:40
  And you can manipulate the positioning. You do even probably have a guy from
• 28:43
  the front if you wanted to include like more of a deeper arm swing from like
• 28:47
  the hand starting out in front. and then pulling your way back all the way up into flip up.
• 28:52
  But the whole goal is to catch the ball with your throwing hand and then get
• 28:56
  it out of your throwing hand as quickly as possible.
• 28:58
  So no glove tap, no leg lift, no lower body movement, upper body movement.
• 29:03
  It's simply something that's a time constraint for the arm itself.
• 29:07
  And I've seen a lot of success with it on numerous occasions.
• 29:11
  Now, where I think you aren't always able to mesh that into the actual like
• 29:18
  skill of pitching as it relates to like the entire action of the leg lift and
• 29:22
  throwing different pitches and the time constraint of the pitch clock and just
• 29:26
  the gamesmanship itself,
• 29:28
  is going from that into,
• 29:31
  okay, you can't do that in game.
• 29:33
  You know, like you can't have the third baseman toss you the ball or the shortstop
• 29:37
  toss you the ball and then you just make a reactive throw.
• 29:39
  Would that be great? Absolutely. Cause I've dealt with the stabby arm action and it's not fun.
• 29:43
  Um but at the same time
• 29:46
  i think that there are ways that you can manipulate like the time
• 29:49
  constraint of just like first move and so it's
• 29:52
  like something with your foot or something with your knee or something
• 29:55
  with like your front shoulder something with the glove side to where it's like
• 29:58
  you're giving yourself that first move that isn't coming from the arm directly
• 30:02
  and something that creates that reaction that then allows for you to just like
• 30:07
  not have to think about anything other than like get the ball out of your hand
• 30:10
  and that being the only focus.
• 30:13
  Yeah. Yeah. I've had similar thoughts in the sense of, like I mentioned you
• 30:17
  with like the get up start. Okay. Like what, or a stumble start.
• 30:21
  Yeah. Obviously if I'm on the starting blocks in my meet, I mean,
• 30:24
  I could stumble just for fun in the first meet or something, but yeah.
• 30:28
  What do you do to distract your brain to allow a quickness?
• 30:33
  And yeah, what's even coming to mind is things. I know a Darian Barr had mentioned,
• 30:37
  um, he was talking about like Ben Johnson's start, uh, who Ben Johnson,
• 30:41
  one of the most, like, almost like an alien.
• 30:42
  And there's one start he's doing a sprinter in the 80s for people who don't know steroids but
• 30:47
  lots of guys run steroids at that point yeah and um
• 30:50
  yeah he just like just there's one that looks like you
• 30:53
  wound up a spring and he just shoots out the starting blocks and adarian
• 30:56
  had said something about looking at even like the tension it's almost like the
• 30:59
  they're flexing their arms real quick or something their triceps like and he
• 31:04
  had us doing that like kind of creating tension in the hands but even just doing
• 31:07
  that distracts you in a little bit from whatever else is going on i know yeah
• 31:12
  relax, waiting for the gun. I do get that. There's that.
• 31:15
  And ultimately, it's probably the best practice, but I like thinking of,
• 31:20
  well, what are the little subtle steps that you would take to get from that reactive?
• 31:25
  Oh, I felt that thing when it was reacting externally.
• 31:29
  Now, how do I make that world internal? How do I do that same thing when I'm
• 31:34
  just, it's just me and there's nothing else or, you know, those like little
• 31:38
  tricks to do it. And I think that's that approach to mastery.
• 31:41
  And same thing with the climbing the ladders, like that guy at the top,
• 31:44
  maybe even outside of fast twitch, maybe just being a good athlete,
• 31:47
  that person at the top, the guy or the girl, they could just turn it on.
• 31:50
  And that's, I think, where they say too, like a lot of the best movers,
• 31:54
  I've heard this in parkour,
• 31:56
  are not intellectual giants. They're the people who have the least of those
• 32:01
  typical tripwires of the, you know, four brain default mode network.
• 32:05
  Maybe that part of their brain is just not going.
• 32:07
  But I think for the rest of us, especially those of us who really take to that
• 32:11
  intellectual side, it's a big deal.
• 32:13
  And I was going to ask about baseball, not to, I want to keep a lot of this
• 32:17
  very general applicable to whatever your sport is, whatever your training practice,
• 32:21
  but it strikes And maybe that's because there's a lot of pauses in baseball.
• 32:26
  It seems like baseball and moneyball, right?
• 32:29
  Baseball is very data-centric. It can be hyper-cerebral.
• 32:33
  And I've heard you talk about a lot of things, basically, to not make it hyper-cerebral.
• 32:39
  You mentioned on your Instagram or social media, Twitter was like being sexy, essentially.
• 32:45
  That's the opposite of overthinking in so many ways. I'd be curious for you
• 32:50
  to explain that one as well.
• 32:51
  Yeah it's and i think
• 32:54
  for me to go into like a deep tirade on this would be really counterintuitive
• 32:58
  to the entire idea behind it because it
• 33:00
  really is that simple to where it's just like if that's
• 33:03
  your only cue that you can give yourself i think
• 33:06
  it's a pretty darn good one because it just allows for you to get back to
• 33:09
  whatever is your unique skill set
• 33:12
  that allows for you to perform at the highest level and so if that means that
• 33:17
  like your version of being sexy is just flipping over like 72 mile an hour sliders
• 33:21
  from a low slot like is that from the public perspective not as sexy as throwing
• 33:27
  like 100 miles an hour at the top of the zone and blowing a guy's doors off maybe not but,
• 33:33
  the fact of the matter is that you can get a lot of guys out and it's also the
• 33:37
  difference between like.
• 33:39
  You know, them awarding sexiest man alive to some, you know,
• 33:44
  big, fat, funny guy versus like the guy with the eight pack,
• 33:48
  you know, like they're both sexy in their own unique ways.
• 33:51
  Um, and they, they can accomplish the same type of deal, whether it's appeal
• 33:56
  or whether it is performance based on their own unique skillsets.
• 34:00
  And so that's really what it came down to.
• 34:03
  And I got it from Bryce Harper. He did an interview, uh, in one of his earlier years,
• 34:08
  nationals talking about how he had a hitting coach who he
• 34:11
  was going through this period of cerebral practice and just really kind of struggling
• 34:16
  I don't even know if like you can call it the hitting yips or whatever you want
• 34:19
  to call it but just like was struggling at the plate and he was just like go
• 34:23
  out there and be sexy man and he went out and he was able to kind of break the
• 34:28
  rut and break the pattern.
• 34:29
  As a result of that and it also made me think back to my own career to where
• 34:34
  I was like The times that I was able to break out of a rut or a slump, it was the most mundane,
• 34:40
  non-related to the actual physical action things that allowed for me to really
• 34:46
  get out of that or find my way back towards the path of elite performance that I wanted to be on.
• 34:54
  So it was like something as simple as my mom, like taking me to the driving range and being like,
• 34:58
  Oh, try and hit this target with your seven iron, try and hit that target with
• 35:01
  your pitching wedge or going out and playing a game of pickup basketball or
• 35:07
  just doing something completely unrelated, like eating a different meal,
• 35:11
  you know, like those different pattern breaks.
• 35:14
  And then from that point, you can just go back into the game and just be like,
• 35:18
  go out there and have fun.
• 35:19
  I had a college teammate and this is kind of like where I'll wrap up this point, I guess, but like.
• 35:24
  He noticed that like I was super distracted, like super over stimulated during
• 35:29
  like a pretty important series that we had.
• 35:32
  And he's like, you need to lock in. Come here. And so he just like pulls me
• 35:36
  over and he was a, he was a GA at the time we had actually played two years together.
• 35:40
  And so he comes up to me, he's grabs me by the helmet and he just plants a massive
• 35:46
  kiss right on the logo of my helmet.
• 35:49
  And, uh, I think like I hit a nuke that I bat like that very soon.
• 35:54
  At bat and I look back towards the dugout I point to him he's going nuts he's
• 35:57
  going crazy and from that point on for the rest of the season he would do that
• 36:01
  before every single at bat,
• 36:04
  and I ended up having you know obviously didn't get a hit like every single
• 36:07
  time but still was able to go out and just like ball kind of looked like a beach
• 36:11
  ball from that point and was able to just go out and enjoy it and,
• 36:15
  It was, uh, it was just kind of like a lighthearted thing to do to really just
• 36:18
  kind of ease the tension before and at bat.
• 36:21
  And I think that more guys need that because they, they take it a little bit
• 36:25
  too serious and they do get super overly analytical in a, in a sport to where it's not as reactive.
• 36:32
  And so I think that if you can, you know, create those pattern breaks that make
• 36:36
  it more of a reactive thing, you can allow for the subconscious to take over
• 36:39
  the conscious, uh, which I think is a big issue for a lot of guys.
• 36:44
  That's awesome. Um, I, part of me wants to almost get over a technical and be
• 36:48
  like, okay, the biopsychosocial, that's right.
• 36:52
  But it's just, yeah, putting you at ease. I remember when I was in college track,
• 36:57
  um, our head coach was a very analytical person.
• 37:00
  Like he was the mastermind behind the workouts and a lot of really good physical
• 37:04
  education inspired workouts that were really helpful.
• 37:07
  But the assistant coach was very like, kind of like that guy who gave you a kiss on the forehead.
• 37:12
  Like he would give us like kind of like a half noogie, like,
• 37:15
  and I don't know, it was just this way of physically connecting that puts you
• 37:20
  at ease that, I don't know, you just didn't feel like you could go out and have
• 37:24
  fun doing like you were going to have fun doing what you were doing.
• 37:28
  And yeah i think there's there's so much power to that and i find too that mind
• 37:34
  is the trigger that a lot of things happen and that's why i really like that
• 37:37
  be sexy analogy and i love that you put the individualized piece behind it because
• 37:41
  it does mean something different for everybody but
• 37:44
  so much performance before we even get into the subtle biomechanics it just
• 37:49
  starts with body language even watching how someone walks around like if i'm
• 37:53
  watching a track practice how does someone walk around between sprints?
• 37:56
  Like after they finish their one sprint, they walk to the next one.
• 37:59
  How do they carry themselves? Do they still have a little bit of side to side
• 38:02
  swagger to them? Do they, or do they kind of look uptight or they feel like fearful or nervous?
• 38:07
  And, uh, it's something that, you know, like, uh, Simon Cape on neuro-linguistic
• 38:12
  programming and a lot of that mind body stuff he talked about.
• 38:15
  Like if you are playing tennis, like back to the tennis example,
• 38:18
  he talked about a coach who told a player who was, I think, struggling with
• 38:22
  nervousness, hey who's your favorite player Nadal okay go be Nadal like imagine what he's doing
• 38:27
  And I don't think it's it's not the only thing
• 38:30
  you need to do but it's one of the first I
• 38:33
  think things that actually starts before a
• 38:36
  lot of other things is just how do you carry yourself what's the energy by which
• 38:41
  you carry yourself into this practice whatever it is it's whether it's the weight
• 38:45
  room or specific skill or more you know speed and power output type things and
• 38:50
  yeah that's So I think that was something you said that I think not just baseball,
• 38:54
  I think a lot of activities can really benefit from that overall mentality.
• 39:00
  Yeah. Nadal, as far as an example for like uniqueness, I think is great because
• 39:06
  I saw a clip of him the other day at Roland Garros.
• 39:09
  Uh, and it was one of his last major victories of him in the tunnel.
• 39:14
  And with tennis, like the two opponents kind of walk out, you know,
• 39:19
  one before the other lower seed before the higher seed generally.
• 39:23
  And um his opponent is like standing there
• 39:26
  super nervous because he's about to play nadal obviously and uh
• 39:30
  he's on his home court and he well where he's
• 39:32
  had the most success and he's like how much time do we have like what's
• 39:35
  what's the count like where are we you know and nadal
• 39:38
  comes storming out he's got his full nike sweatsuit on
• 39:41
  and he just grabs his racket out of its bag and just
• 39:44
  starts like basically shadow boxing you know
• 39:47
  and he's like running up and down the tunnel and he's like you
• 39:50
  know he's going through like his backhand his forehand just doing
• 39:53
  like a bunch of jumps and bunch of sprints and stuff and um
• 39:57
  the other guy is just like stunned he's like should
• 40:01
  should i be doing that like should i be moving like that should i be should
• 40:04
  i be like you know and and i think he i think he got beaten straight sets um
• 40:08
  with pitching you're gonna have guys that want to do like dry mechanics work
• 40:13
  you know like the kershaw kind of visualizations and then you're gonna have
• 40:16
  the Scherzer types that are a little bit more angry,
• 40:19
  a little bit more like caged animal types to where then you're also going to
• 40:23
  have the Jock Peterson types who's a hitter.
• 40:26
  It's not in the pitching sense, but like he's walking around barefoot.
• 40:29
  Tristan Casas, who's like walking around barefoot doing yoga shirtless in the
• 40:33
  outfield before the games.
• 40:35
  And so, yeah, different things are going to work for different people.
• 40:39
  And some people are going to be more cerebral than others.
• 40:44
  But what it really comes down to, I think, is just being able to find like what's
• 40:47
  going to put you and my college coach, to his credit,
• 40:52
  talked a ton about like conscious versus subconscious mindsets and states and
• 40:58
  how it's like, yeah, when you're doing some form of deliberate practice and
• 41:01
  you're trying to work on a skill, you probably want to be a lot more conscious.
• 41:05
  And then when you get into the actual performance side, that's where you want
• 41:08
  to be completely subconscious and allow for all the work that you put in to
• 41:10
  really just showcase itself and
• 41:12
  you can bear the fruits of your labor that you've put in on the front end.
• 41:16
  And I've always kept that in the mind's eye to where it's just like,
• 41:19
  tell yourself a joke, laugh enjoy the competition but then like when it's time
• 41:24
  to work that's where you need to be super deliberate and focused and and and
• 41:28
  analytical behind what you're doing.
• 41:30
  Yeah yeah that's its own area i think of study that's also so important that's
• 41:36
  universal and it makes me think back to the the default mode it's that can be
• 41:42
  more active when we're you know in very you know very training situations.
• 41:48
  But the closer we get to competition, we have to learn to shut that thing down.
• 41:53
  And so it's almost like a dial, like how much do you want this on right now?
• 41:57
  And within that as well, to my understanding within that network,
• 42:01
  there's also the capacity to visualize or to tell yourself to be a thing.
• 42:07
  That's where that comes from as well. So if I want to, hey, I'm going to do
• 42:09
  this visualization before I pitch or sprint, or I'm going to act like this person,
• 42:13
  there is some of that, you know, self-direction, but you don't want to do that
• 42:17
  in the middle of the, you shouldn't need to do that.
• 42:20
  If I'm in the middle of the basketball game, I shouldn't need to be sitting
• 42:24
  there like, oh yeah, I'm going to visualize.
• 42:25
  I mean, again, maybe you need to, but like the ultimate, I highly doubt like
• 42:29
  Michael Jordan, maybe trash talking was his innate way of doing that.
• 42:34
  Maybe that was their innate way of just getting, you know, just getting into
• 42:38
  that pure spirit of that competitive nature and what they did.
• 42:43
  And yeah, I, I just love that stuff. And I, I think I do because I struggled with that so heavily.
• 42:50
  I was always so just disappointed, I think, in what I felt I could have achieved.
• 42:55
  And everyone's like, oh yeah, I could have been a better sport athlete.
• 42:58
  The coach didn't like me. My coach always said, he, he's like,
• 43:01
  there's the Joel who's good.
• 43:02
  And then there's the, whatever other, the overthinking Joel that shows up and
• 43:06
  I always knew it and it just drove me nuts.
• 43:08
  And so, yeah, to think about those individual things that help you bring out
• 43:13
  the best in both skill and, you know, for I think for any speed and power outputs,
• 43:18
  I think they're also highly, you know, readily applicable.
• 43:21
  The text that I shill on a lot of people, if not everyone that I talk to when
• 43:26
  we dive into this type of topic, and this is from Ron Sires,
• 43:31
  the associate head coach at Salisbury, Dr.
• 43:33
  Ron Sires, I apologize, Coach Sires, but How Champions Think by Dr.
• 43:39
  Bob Rotella, sports psychologist, has worked with Tiger, has worked with LeBron
• 43:43
  as well, but talked in his book about visualization tactics.
• 43:50
  And one of them being like making a highlight reel
• 43:53
  for a struggling athlete or just an athlete that wants to play better
• 43:56
  and having them watch it before competition
• 44:00
  so instead of that like visualization piece to
• 44:02
  where they have to do the mental gymnastics of being like
• 44:05
  oh am i going to take the shot this way or this way or you know
• 44:08
  is the puck going to break this way or that way or you know is
• 44:11
  the pitch going to move this way or that way they have the
• 44:14
  the visual proof that they've
• 44:17
  done exactly what they're going to want to
• 44:20
  do in competition because it's right in front of them and
• 44:23
  he would have them pair like their favorite music behind it
• 44:26
  and edit the clips and make it
• 44:29
  super tick tocky i'm sure however however you
• 44:32
  know the complexity of the edits would work back when
• 44:35
  he was actually doing this but it would give them
• 44:38
  that subtle boost of confidence and so i've used
• 44:41
  that with specific athletes that i've worked with before
• 44:44
  like live batting practice sessions or like rehab
• 44:47
  guys big piece of rehab in my opinion it's
• 44:50
  just like being able to get back to that state of like elite performance
• 44:53
  not having to think about the injury obviously i'm sure that's you've talked
• 44:56
  to people about that as well but uh actually
• 45:00
  seeing yourself do the thing yeah and in more of like a uh out of body way whether
• 45:07
  it's just through like the visual um it is a lot more powerful than just like
• 45:12
  sitting there and chanting chakras and saying like i'm the best and I'm the greatest.
• 45:17
  And like, no, you actually have done it before. Like we have the proof.
• 45:21
  Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I like, um, Julian Pinot said something to the tune of
• 45:26
  you can't namaste the bear away.
• 45:28
  Like you can't sit there and I love that sitting there, visualize,
• 45:31
  you know, you have to do something that's like an actual moving identity.
• 45:36
  Um, that, that, um, like that track, that visualization tracker reminds me in
• 45:40
  the, in the track and speed world,
• 45:42
  Chris Corfist, I think it was the last time he was on the podcast said that
• 45:45
  there was like an audiovisual kid on the team, or I don't know if he was a manager
• 45:49
  or he just loved putting videos together.
• 45:51
  So he made each athlete like their highlight reel, essentially.
• 45:55
  And I was just thinking, how powerful.
• 45:58
  And it takes me back to thinking about when I was in track, so 2002 to 2005,
• 46:03
  like it was not like smartphone era.
• 46:05
  I mean, if you wanted to get video, it was the camcorder, VHS.
• 46:09
  And I didn't start getting videos really that I was watching of my jumping until maybe 2005.
• 46:15
  And I, but I remember the, the first videos I was really watching was when I
• 46:18
  was finally jumping like six feet, 10 or getting up to seven feet.
• 46:22
  And it was like, it was almost like I was watching someone else.
• 46:25
  I was like, I can't believe I'm, for me, I mean, there's guys who jump a lot
• 46:27
  higher than that, but for me, it was like very empowering to see that.
• 46:31
  I was like, oh, I guess I can do this. And so I just, I just remember what I
• 46:37
  felt the first time I saw those things.
• 46:39
  And yeah, that was, um, that was a question that I was going to ask you as well.
• 46:43
  And you addressed already there but your take on the balance
• 46:46
  of like self-talk versus those other
• 46:50
  levels would you put it as almost like a like a pyramid
• 46:53
  or like you can self-talk and that's great but it has to eventually go up into
• 46:59
  something that's maybe more comprehensive like it has to go up into the visual
• 47:02
  you have of yourself or how would you place that if you had to lay out self-talk
• 47:07
  versus other methods in the structure of things
• 47:11
  I, that, that bear analogy is great. Um, I think that when it does come to that,
• 47:17
  um, the deliberate practice has to kind of come first and you have to like put
• 47:21
  the time in, like you have to put the actual hours behind the practice.
• 47:25
  And then the, the biggest thing with like confidence is, and just like being
• 47:31
  able to gain confidence, I think it's just skill acquisition,
• 47:34
  but then also the demonstrated performance behind it.
• 47:37
  And so like, if you haven't put in the hours and then also shown that you can
• 47:41
  actually do the skill in an environment that's going to be required for you
• 47:46
  to do the skill, then you haven't really earned the right to do that visualization.
• 47:51
  You know, like you haven't really earned. And frankly, we wouldn't even if we
• 47:55
  were to put together one of these videos that we're talking about, right?
• 47:58
  Like you wouldn't have any of the proof. You wouldn't have any of the data, you know?
• 48:01
  And so that's a good indicator that you probably need to put in more of that
• 48:05
  deliberate practice on the front end and identify some of the opportunity areas
• 48:10
  that might be preventing you from doing that.
• 48:12
  And then having some specific direction as far as like where you can allocate
• 48:17
  most of your training volume and where you can allocate most of your hours or
• 48:21
  training economy, whatever you want to really call it.
• 48:24
  But I do think that sometimes with, especially with guys that are like elite
• 48:30
  and have performed at an elite level in the past.
• 48:34
  There's a lot more tools that you can have in the
• 48:37
  toolbox versus the guy that they might not want to hear it but it's just like
• 48:41
  man you got to put in the hours because some guys are going to be more uh quick
• 48:48
  dopaminergically motivated to where they're just like i want the thing now like
• 48:52
  i want to be at this level now but they look at the.
• 48:57
  This massive pile of work behind them. And they're just like,
• 49:00
  I don't know if I can do that.
• 49:01
  But then it's like, well, that's kind of what's required. Like you kind of have
• 49:05
  to do that in order to get there.
• 49:07
  And they might not want to hear that. But I think that part of being a good
• 49:11
  coach is also being truthful with guys and being transparent.
• 49:14
  Yeah, big part of it, you know? And so it's, it's about telling guys what they
• 49:18
  need to hear, not what they want to hear necessarily.
• 49:21
  And, um, that's not something that you can like force them into.
• 49:25
  They kind of have to force themselves into it.
• 49:28
  But, uh, that's kind of my take on it. It might be like a tough love approach
• 49:32
  or a brute force approach.
• 49:33
  Uh, and, and it's counterintuitive to my kind of entire approach to training
• 49:39
  as well, because the text that I give to everybody is from a sports psychologist.
• 49:44
  So, um, that's where I think like
• 49:46
  the mirroring between those two sides really comes in. But I think Dr.
• 49:49
  Rotel does a great job talking about how to
• 49:52
  get into those states through deliberate practice it's not
• 49:55
  like the two are exclusive to one another it's like you can get into those states
• 49:59
  and you can have that sort of like mindset shift and the positivity and the
• 50:03
  self-talk and all the benefits that come along with those but you have to earn
• 50:07
  those through the deliberate practice first and so it's it's the two things
• 50:12
  together it's not like one's exclusive from the other.
• 50:17
  It makes me think about what can be drawn out from putting the time in,
• 50:21
  in the sense of an identity.
• 50:23
  Like you put the time in, you spent this time. So show that you're the person who put that time in.
• 50:29
  And it makes me think about, and not to say that I think that there's people
• 50:34
  who critique the 10,000 hour rule, because if you're 10,000 hours,
• 50:37
  it's just kind of ho-hum.
• 50:40
  There's not like that real flow state and problem solving and win the workout
• 50:44
  or the training session based challenge. it can be a very different experience.
• 50:49
  I was thinking about, it might have been a documentary or just something I was
• 50:52
  watching on Karsten Warholm, who's a 400 hurdler for Norway, world record holder.
• 50:58
  His ability to maintain speed, endurance, and rhythm is absolutely insane.
• 51:03
  And the coaching system there in the volume reminds me a little bit of what
• 51:07
  I heard about the Bulgarian weightlifting, Abijayev, the butcher,
• 51:10
  where they just, I mean, they train hours and hours and hours every day.
• 51:14
  And part of what was said, I think, on the documentary is because he trains
• 51:19
  so much, he feels that he is, it's like the training, it isn't necessarily,
• 51:24
  I mean, what's the extra two hours going to give you, honestly,
• 51:27
  if you already trained six hours?
• 51:29
  Like, I don't know, probably in my opinion, but it makes you believe that you
• 51:35
  are going to be the guy because you can handle that.
• 51:39
  And I think that's a tricky area because I think there's a lot of people you
• 51:42
  give that volume of training to, and they're going to blow up.
• 51:44
  I know a lot of people have blown up on that system and there's only a few champions
• 51:48
  that come out of it, but if you can tolerate it, then you can be the dude.
• 51:52
  Um, I'm sure there's probably a, yeah, there's probably a lot of genetic factors.
• 51:55
  I'm not advocating for training that many hours a day, but it's,
• 51:59
  um, I think for those people, and if you can get that mindset off of it,
• 52:02
  I think there's a lot of things that connect in that equation to make it, make it work. And so,
• 52:08
  Yeah. The, like the, whatever the connection is between, you know,
• 52:12
  put in the time to be the guy and then make that part of the identity.
• 52:16
  I, yeah, it definitely works if then body perspective more than just,
• 52:21
  Hey, just say you are, even though you haven't done it. Right.
• 52:25
  Yeah. And I think the common like human reaction is when things aren't going
• 52:29
  the way that you want, like doing more.
• 52:31
  I get this reaction from athletes a lot. It's like, i got
• 52:35
  a text from an athlete a young athlete yesterday he's like hey i have an outing
• 52:39
  tomorrow uh is there anything i can do to prepare and i'm like sure yeah you
• 52:46
  can get a great night's sleep get a good dinner in you know like go to bed early
• 52:50
  wake up early get the body moving get blood flow.
• 52:53
  But he's looking for drills he's looking for stretches he's
• 52:56
  looking for you know an extra lift it's like
• 52:59
  you know i i i'm sure that
• 53:02
  we've all went through that period as like a you know a teen or
• 53:05
  an adolescent whatever to where like we do
• 53:07
  100 push-ups and then like we think that the next day it's going
• 53:10
  to help us hit the ball farther or you know we do
• 53:13
  an extra set of squats or whatever we think we're going to run faster the
• 53:16
  very next day you know and that's where then you
• 53:20
  learn about the said principle and you know the adaptation
• 53:22
  cycle and all those types of things but um but
• 53:26
  yeah so they're always looking for more and like that's
• 53:29
  not necessarily a bad thing um but i
• 53:31
  do think that it takes away some of like the some of
• 53:35
  the actual direction behind the training and as it relates to
• 53:38
  throwers especially like guys that
• 53:41
  want to make 100 throws a day and then like something
• 53:43
  doesn't feel right so they make another 50 and then they make another 75
• 53:47
  doing this variation and then like that's where you get the localized stress
• 53:50
  in the elbow that's where you get the injuries that's where you get the pitch counts all
• 53:53
  these things that are leading into like the tj crisis if you want to call it
• 53:56
  that i don't even know if that's really the term that people are using but like
• 53:59
  got a lot of arm injuries and a lot of drills being thrown at guys a lot of
• 54:03
  different tools a lot of different weighted balls a lot of different uh pseudo
• 54:07
  throwing mechanisms that lead into like oblique strains or lower body injuries.
• 54:13
  Lumbar fractures just like all the other things that come with
• 54:15
  like rotational actions um and so
• 54:19
  yeah i think that it's really hard for guys to conceptualize
• 54:22
  that like hey if you just focus like and
• 54:25
  on on these 30 reps or
• 54:28
  these 50 reps it's going to provide you
• 54:31
  10x the benefit of gassing yourself
• 54:34
  over the next 150 reps um but
• 54:37
  it's it's not the it's not the again
• 54:41
  the sexy like sweat pouring down
• 54:44
  your forehead you know like physically gassed
• 54:47
  out of breath like tasting pennies on your tongue type of like work that's been
• 54:52
  glorified it's like no like four hour work week you know like be deliberate
• 54:57
  about what you're doing and then you can actually reap the benefits of it and
• 55:01
  then maybe you can do something else that's going to provide you the uh,
• 55:06
  the, the dopaminergic sort of like cortisol raising come down parasympathetic,
• 55:13
  uh, decompression that you're looking for as far as like a physical stimulus.
• 55:17
  I just threw a lot of big words out there, but that's just kind of like how
• 55:20
  my brain's working as I, as, as, uh, as I deal with more of these guys.
• 55:25
  So, yeah, that's where I love, um, that Tony Holler's essentialism.
• 55:30
  And I know there's probably a lot of people who don't agree with,
• 55:32
  you know, the feed the cats mentality and this that.
• 55:34
  And there's a lot of ways to look at things, but I think that something that
• 55:37
  I really appreciate from Tony is that essentialism and like doing more,
• 55:43
  well, what are you going to get out of that?
• 55:45
  I think, and I like thinking of, you don't know sometimes until you do less.
• 55:50
  And then like, if I was going to do like, um, you mentioned like 50 pitches,
• 55:54
  or if I was going to do a tempo sprint workouts, my low day,
• 55:57
  and I'm going to do, you know, some two hundreds that essentialist mindset said
• 56:02
  almost of, all right, it's your low day.
• 56:04
  So you don't want to run too fast on these. How are you going to get the most
• 56:07
  out of these four or five 200s?
• 56:09
  And I would think, okay, well, if I only get five, I want to hit the time as
• 56:14
  effortlessly as possible.
• 56:16
  Like everyone is just how effortless can I do this? Can I be more relaxed on the next one?
• 56:21
  Can I be more precise on hitting the exact time? There's something that's more
• 56:25
  yin in the system on that day that makes each rep better versus,
• 56:29
  well, I'll just do more to be better. I'll just do 10 or 12 or whatever.
• 56:33
  And I remember when I was coaching my first full-time track coaching job,
• 56:38
  I was also in charge of coaching the quarter milers, the 400 meter athletes.
• 56:42
  And I ran some four by fours in high school. I didn't train for it.
• 56:45
  I was not, and honestly, training, doing typical 400 workouts with a lot of
• 56:50
  lactate, my body didn't do that well with, that was more plodding.
• 56:54
  And I remember one of the other coaches I was asking about, we had had some
• 56:58
  indoor meets and the guys were struggling finishing the races and we didn't
• 57:02
  have an indoor track either.
• 57:04
  So there was just like, there was a lot of things that a lot of it was racing
• 57:08
  yourself into shape or trying to find ways to run outside if you didn't have the indoor track.
• 57:11
  But I remember one coach was like, well, he's like, what are your tempo workouts?
• 57:16
  Like I was like, well, we run eight or nine, 200s.
• 57:19
  He's like, well, you could run 12 and it's like, okay, like,
• 57:22
  yeah, but I mean, I think, and maybe that would move the needle a little bit,
• 57:28
  but not nearly as much as the more specific pieces.
• 57:30
  And it's just the totality of, of doing the most essential work incredibly well
• 57:35
  and having that piece of it.
• 57:37
  And then the other stuff, but yeah, that's right. I really like that.
• 57:40
  You know, that essentialism more if I'm high jumping and I only get six jumps
• 57:45
  today, how will I approach each of those jumps.
• 57:47
  And that teaches you something that you will never get if it's just only volume, volume, volume.
• 57:54
  And that's why I kind of, I would be interested to sit in like,
• 57:57
  you know, one of Karsten Warhol's training sessions. I just would be interested
• 58:00
  in observing these athletes who do thrive on
• 58:03
  That much and and what drives their engine how is their emotional system going
• 58:09
  with that versus they probably like it they probably love it honestly yeah versus
• 58:13
  a lot of people didn't love it and then therefore yeah we just get crushed um
• 58:17
  so yeah it's interesting to think about
• 58:19
  Effort feels good you know like effort does
• 58:22
  feel good um for most people and i think that like there are going to be the
• 58:27
  days where you show up to the gym the track the field whatever and you get moving
• 58:32
  and you're like i want to do more now you know it's a feedback loop but what
• 58:37
  i tell guys is just like when you cook a piece of chicken if it's underdone
• 58:41
  you put it back in the oven,
• 58:43
  but like if you overdo that piece of chicken you're gonna know right away and
• 58:46
  you're gonna be like this is no good to eat anymore you know um and so it's
• 58:51
  like i to simplify training volume and recovery in the same way it's just like
• 58:57
  i would start with less because you can always add more.
• 59:02
  Um, not saying that that means like, you know, man, I feel really good after 50 pitches.
• 59:07
  I'm gonna throw another 50, you know, it's like, okay, like you've got an extra
• 59:12
  three days to recover on the backend or, you know, we don't have games this
• 59:15
  weekend or you don't have games this weekend.
• 59:18
  You're late into an on-ramp period. So you have some volume that you can play with.
• 59:21
  Like, yeah, we can work on a secondary pitch or we can make an additional 10
• 59:25
  throws using this specific variation at 80% that's working on a,
• 59:31
  you know, specific mechanical change or a deliberate change or make it to your arsenal.
• 59:35
  That's fine. It's where, and you can relate it to diet.
• 59:39
  You can relate it to, you know, leisure, whatever you want to.
• 59:43
  It's like, yeah, if you want to eat a couple of cookies after dinner,
• 59:46
  you're probably going to be okay. It's where you eat the entire box that you
• 59:49
  fall into trouble, you know?
• 59:50
  So, yeah, Jack, I wanted to get this, this question.
• 59:55
  It's a little bit more of a training question in the sense that I mean, it's all training.
• 59:59
  I shouldn't say it like physical exercises is what I mean. I think it's so all related, though.
• 1:00:07
  And you mentioned barefoot and you I've heard you or seen you talk a little
• 1:00:12
  bit about throwing and pitching barefoot and then the impacts or the changes
• 1:00:17
  that can make versus throwing in shoes.
• 1:00:18
  So I'm curious about your approach to barefoot athletics and in the scope of pitching.
• 1:00:25
  I think that there is kind of like an over emphasis with younger guys or more
• 1:00:30
  inexperienced guys on the lower half.
• 1:00:32
  They hear the term hip shoulder separation or they hear like hip rotation or
• 1:00:36
  hip drive or lower half drive or lower half stability and they think like,
• 1:00:41
  okay, I have to push harder or I have to rotate my hips better or I have to
• 1:00:45
  create a cleaner block on the front side.
• 1:00:47
  But then I show guys examples of like upper 90s throwers throwing like upper
• 1:00:52
  80s or low 90s even in some scenarios like from their knees basically where
• 1:00:57
  like the lower half's not involved,
• 1:00:59
  and i just tell them like the upper half throws the ball like your
• 1:01:02
  arm does throw the ball there are going to be specific things
• 1:01:05
  that you can do with the more proximal structures of the
• 1:01:07
  body to influence that but at the end of the day it's
• 1:01:10
  just like you're creating a loop
• 1:01:14
  of energy working from the ground from like a stick stability
• 1:01:18
  point on the ground all the way up through the pelvis the trunk
• 1:01:21
  eventually into the arm the fingers and then
• 1:01:23
  into the ball and so when i
• 1:01:26
  have had some guys throw barefoot it simplifies
• 1:01:30
  the lower half because it eliminates a lot of like the driving forces behind
• 1:01:34
  like trying to drive off the mound or basically defy gravity essentially which
• 1:01:39
  is going to be like that fixed point that you're able to create rotation from
• 1:01:42
  and they can create a more efficient upper half that's going to create I appreciate it.
• 1:01:49
  The rotational structure just through the middle of the body. Um,
• 1:01:52
  and I've used the analogy of like throwing a phone booth before just to make
• 1:01:56
  it more of like a rotational action rather than like the, the overly linear
• 1:01:59
  component of getting on the slope and gravity kind of pulling you downwards
• 1:02:03
  as well, which I think is where guys kind of fall into traps as well.
• 1:02:07
  Um, and so I think that to really distill it down to a base level without getting too complex behind it,
• 1:02:12
  it really just helps guys that have like an overextending lower half or too
• 1:02:16
  much emphasis on their lower half,
• 1:02:18
  just bring things back to being able to create that rotational structure through
• 1:02:22
  the middle and get back to the the emphasis on like efficiency with the upper
• 1:02:26
  half base with the lower half and then making the throw.
• 1:02:30
  Got it do you think that i was thinking about how barefoot impacts just things
• 1:02:37
  like if you're just running jumping like playing soccer barefoot or whatever
• 1:02:41
  it is uh jumping is an interesting one barefoot because you can't get quite
• 1:02:46
  that horizontal driving force into the plant, you have to have a little more touch.
• 1:02:50
  Do you feel like with Devin Hayes, like he talks about coil and clear,
• 1:02:56
  like coil being that big windy rotational, like Aroldis Chapman and clear is
• 1:03:01
  that over the top, more Justin Verlander.
• 1:03:03
  It would strike me that would a clear, more linear
• 1:03:06
  throw be something that's more related to a fast stop you get from shoes and
• 1:03:11
  then if someone had been over coached into be clear like finishing the c and
• 1:03:17
  and and maybe they needed more coil like would that be a way to kind of a constraint
• 1:03:22
  to kind of help them with that yeah
• 1:03:24
  For sure and that's where you get into like javelin training versus like hitting
• 1:03:27
  training like hitters or guys that have like more of a hitting background are
• 1:03:32
  going to favor more the counter rotation,
• 1:03:34
  myself being one of those um so i
• 1:03:37
  like was a turn and burn candidate so i would like for my
• 1:03:40
  over speed or my pull down variation would start away from
• 1:03:43
  the target and then turn back foot plants.
• 1:03:46
  Get rid of the ball as quickly as possible other guys that
• 1:03:49
  have more like that linear capacity or that like javelin clear-esque
• 1:03:52
  sure they're going to favor more of like the straight running guns
• 1:03:56
  to where they have more of the linear momentum yeah so it's
• 1:03:59
  it's the it's the difference between like are you going
• 1:04:02
  to be more biased towards the the externally biased or
• 1:04:06
  retroverted like hip structure to where you might favor more
• 1:04:09
  of the linear capacity of the throw um or are
• 1:04:12
  you going to be more of the the coil mechanism to where
• 1:04:15
  you need to stay closed a little bit longer in order
• 1:04:17
  to create the gaps between like the lower half rotation the
• 1:04:21
  upper half rotation um justin lazaro
• 1:04:24
  who is the pitching coach at cal state bakersfield
• 1:04:27
  he has a great presentation on youtube if you can find it
• 1:04:30
  hopefully you can you just type in his
• 1:04:33
  name but it's about how uh lefties and
• 1:04:35
  righties differ biomechanically just as as far
• 1:04:38
  as like the structure of our bodies the way our organs sit
• 1:04:41
  and why like a lot of righties throw harder than lefties and
• 1:04:45
  the training strategies that you could potentially use if you
• 1:04:48
  are a pitching coach behind both of those and
• 1:04:51
  and how a lot of these guys are biased like
• 1:04:54
  righties are going to favor more um abduction for
• 1:04:57
  the arm behind the body uh lefties are going to
• 1:05:00
  favor more adduction as they kind of work across and so
• 1:05:03
  they're going to favor more of like that linear capacity where righties might
• 1:05:06
  favor more of the of the of the coil uh behind it as well so you can get super
• 1:05:11
  nuanced with it and uh there's smarter people that can dive into the biomechanics.
• 1:05:15
  Behind it but hopefully that's more of like a simplification of the idea uh
• 1:05:19
  between those two that's.
• 1:05:20
  Really interesting yeah i never really thought about that with lefties versus
• 1:05:23
  righties because everybody's you
• 1:05:25
  know your heart pri your heart's more on your right and you know is and
• 1:05:28
  Exactly one.
• 1:05:29
  Lung is bigger than the other and so yeah structurally it just makes sense like
• 1:05:33
  rotating that way so that's interesting yeah um well cool man i i like that
• 1:05:39
  hearing that too because i think a lot of times we get very binary all
• 1:05:43
  Barefoot's the best for everything.
• 1:05:44
  And i feel like for you know an average
• 1:05:47
  athlete a team sport athlete running around i mean i
• 1:05:50
  think it's good to do things both like if you take
• 1:05:53
  your shoes off you have to have more touch it's a little bit more touch with
• 1:05:57
  the ground gentleness with the ground and then you put the shoes on and you
• 1:06:01
  feel what the extra being able to push and really drive that extra friction
• 1:06:05
  you wouldn't get now gives you and yeah there's just there's good things for
• 1:06:09
  both but it's interesting to hear that exact here's specifically what that gives you in pitching
• 1:06:13
  Yeah and there's some guys that use the ground exceptionally well and they ask
• 1:06:19
  like so does that mean that i should like throw barefoot and I'm like no not
• 1:06:22
  at all and then there's some guys that have zero clue what they're doing with
• 1:06:25
  their lower half and so like the proprioceptive capability of just having them
• 1:06:29
  take their shoes off and eliminate a lot of the things that like,
• 1:06:32
  the stability with the ankle, the foot that like an, an external,
• 1:06:36
  uh, piece, like a shoe could give you depending on what you're wearing.
• 1:06:40
  Like that could be super beneficial for them.
• 1:06:42
  I don't like guys throwing in barefoot shoes.
• 1:06:45
  Um, I have like an affiliate with a barefoot shoe company just because I like training in them.
• 1:06:50
  And I think that it's something that helps with, you know, ankle stability,
• 1:06:53
  foot stability, just like the things that kind of work up the chain biomechanically
• 1:06:57
  with that gate, all those good things that, that come along with those.
• 1:07:00
  But as far as it relates to like a skill-based action
• 1:07:03
  you do want to have like cleats on your
• 1:07:05
  front leg uh rob hill who's with the dodgers
• 1:07:08
  like he was wearing two shoes back in the day to where it's
• 1:07:11
  like the lead foot's going to provide a
• 1:07:14
  bunch of stability the rear foot's going to provide a lot more like
• 1:07:17
  malleability as far as being able to create eversion so
• 1:07:20
  you can create energy loops working up uh as
• 1:07:23
  you as you create more of the linear action of the throw so you can get super
• 1:07:27
  nuanced with it and you can you can get super uh detailed with how you manipulate
• 1:07:31
  that in your training but uh another devin point here because i know you've
• 1:07:36
  spoken to him before that's like level six stuff you know so you can't you can't skip steps there yeah.
• 1:07:41
  100 i see high jumpers in the olympics like world world class sometimes with
• 1:07:45
  two different shoes on and it's for that exact reason they feel it like they
• 1:07:50
  it's but that's a level six thing like i'm not gonna you know tell an 11 year
• 1:07:55
  old who's just starting high jump hey let's optimize you what this foot's doing and that foot's doing
• 1:08:00
  Gosh yeah yeah.
• 1:08:01
  Uh yeah too optimal too early type thing let's yeah i got the pyramid we'll
• 1:08:07
  get to it you know hopefully someday you can get to it so
• 1:08:10
  Yeah uh.
• 1:08:11
  Jack awesome talking to you man where can people learn more about you and what you're doing
• 1:08:16
  All socials is john b underscore sp
• 1:08:19
  so j-o-h-n underscore uh j-o-h-n
• 1:08:22
  b underscore sp i'm on x i'm on instagram i am on tiktok and that's where i
• 1:08:31
  put out all my content that hopefully helps people uh and i'm sure i'll have
• 1:08:35
  some some things that i can expand upon from this conversation as well.
• 1:08:40
  And, uh, I do one-on-one coaching for pitchers and I put out a lot of stuff
• 1:08:45
  relating to nutrition and diet
• 1:08:47
  and sleep and recovery and some of the content center on my dog as well,
• 1:08:52
  because I love the heck out of him, uh, and some lifestyle stuff.
• 1:08:55
  And I try to keep things light and entertaining on the, on the flip side of that.
• 1:08:59
  So, uh, if you feel so inclined, follow me and interact and try to get back
• 1:09:04
  to all the comments and messages and everything.
• 1:09:06
  But, uh, yeah, I'm just appreciative of you having me on.
• 1:09:09
  I've been a big fan of yours in the pod for a while. I've been listening and,
• 1:09:13
  uh, uh, for years now actually.
• 1:09:16
  Uh, and so this is kind of a cool little full circle moment for myself.
• 1:09:20
  And so I'm just very appreciative of you.