Latest / The Strength In Numbers Podcast / EP 35: Julian Lo Casto | The Foundation for Building Elite Basketball Athletes

Transcript

EP 35: Julian Lo Casto | The Foundation for Building Elite Basketball Athletes · The Strength In Numbers Podcast

• 0:00
  I think when it comes to in season, you have to understand
• 0:02
  what they're getting in their sport.
• 0:04
  What are you getting in basketball?
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  You're getting a lot of high speed excels and D cells and
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  changes of direction when it comes to, you know, your in
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  season work because even during AAU seasons I like to treat that
• 0:16
  as an in season period. For a lot of kids, yes, this is
• 0:19
  their offseason, but you have to also understand that you have to
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  almost treat it like a mini in season period.
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  You can't be, can't be expecting to do offseason work at
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  offseason volumes and intensities with kids that are
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  basically playing in season. What what players are afraid of
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  is often not bulkiness. They're afraid of more of the
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  terms of tightness, of feeling heavy, feeling stiff like these
• 0:44
  are usually the results of just poor movement prep and adequate
• 0:48
  mobility, mobility work or even just poor training design.
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  How you show progress and results is a big reason for why
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  or how people are going to continue to come through your
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  door. I always tell people keep it
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  simple and clear from the beginning.
• 1:02
  You want parents to see improvement and you want to have
• 1:05
  a clear and concise method of how you're doing that.
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  You need to make sure that you are treating that person in
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  front of you like they are your idol basketball player.
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  Like Michael Jordan walked in the door and you're getting to
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  help him out with his career. If you treat every single person
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  like that in front of you and you give them the attention, the
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  level of detail and the respect that you would a higher level
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  athlete, you know, I promise they will be your biggest
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  billboards. They will tell their friends,
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  who will tell another friend who will tell another friend.
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  Welcome to the Strength in Numbers podcast.
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  I'm your host, John Bloom, and today's guest is Julian Lucasto.
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  Julian is the head of performance and nutrition at
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  Challengers Strength. And this summer he published his
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  first book, The Foundation Proven System for building Elite
• 1:54
  basketball athletes. That's what our talk centers on,
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  building great basketball players, the mistakes many
• 2:00
  hoopers make, what their schedule should look like, how
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  they should approach their Sprint and jump training and
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  much more. Julian also breaks down what
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  actually helps in business, including how to consistently
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  show parents that their kids are improving.
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  He also shares some of the sacrifices he's made to be aware
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  of today, but why you still need intentionally blocked off time
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  for your family and yourself, even if you don't necessarily
• 2:21
  have the perfect work life balance.
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  Enjoy the episode Julianne. I'm I'm pumped to get a talk
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  with you this morning. Oh, I'm excited to get talk
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  about basketball and basketball development with you that you do
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  a great job with, but also just, you know, you and your successes
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  and, and business and life and coaching and learn more about
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  that before we get anything basketball.
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  I'd love to hear, you know, everybody that's listening, kind
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  of like who you are and your story to, to getting where you
• 2:45
  are today. Yeah.
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  Absolutely, man, Thank, thank you again for having me on.
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  I really appreciate it. Haven't done one of these in a
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  minute. So, you know, it's been it's
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  it's great to finally get an opportunity to hop back on one
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  of these and, you know, get it opportunity to talk to someone
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  like yourself. But I always tell people I like
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  to try to give the the five minute version of my story
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  versus the 20 minute version. So basically in short, I grew up
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  playing basketball my whole life.
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  Had the opportunity as a walk on to play in college at the
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  division two level here in New Jersey.
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  After probably about a year, two years, kind of just realized
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  that, you know, I wasn't going pro as a, you know, 5-10 on a
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  good day point guard from New Jersey.
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  So kind of realized that early so decided to take my path
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  somewhere else. I was always super into fitness,
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  really loved the idea of building my body kind of like I
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  was being a skinny kid. So, you know, that was something
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  that you know, stuck with me for a while.
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  So the gym kind of naturally caught my attention early on
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  because of my development and like how I had to go through
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  things. So naturally fitness took over
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  competing in bodybuilding for a while.
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  Everybody kind of gets the the bodybuilding itch after they
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  compete in sports for a while. So that kind of took my
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  attention away, but really gravitated me towards fitness
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  and then kind of started dabbling into sports
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  performance. You know, I didn't go the
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  traditional route of going to schools, getting to getting the
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  degrees, getting, you know, the fancy certifications, didn't do
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  any of that. Nature was always just very self
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  curious, you know, wanted to learn and I actually wanted to
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  go to school to be a physical therapist.
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  You know, that kind of took me to the natural route.
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  I didn't even know SNC was even something that we could dabble
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  into at that time. So, you know, not a lot of
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  people were even doing it. I didn't even have an SNC coach
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  at my at my college. So it wasn't even something that
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  was readily available in my mind.
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  So naturally wanted to go to physical therapy, was on track
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  to do so, was having difficulty getting into physical therapy
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  school because of how difficult and how competitive that
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  environment was. So I had been working in the
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  field for five years at that point after I had graduated, I
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  was working under a fellow here in New Jersey, was learning
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  about physical therapy. And then one day, you know, my,
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  you know, my boss at the time was like, Hey, what do you want
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  to do for the, you know, in the next 5-10 years of your career?
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  Like, what do you plan on doing? And I, my answer was always, I
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  wanted to work with athletes. You know, I, I, I had a love for
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  basketball, you know, I wanted to work with basketball players.
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  And so the big thing for me was how could I get there?
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  And at the time, fortunately enough was when I got introduced
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  and partnered up with, with my man Jerry Defilippo.
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  A lot of people know him in the industry and challenger
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  strength, you know, was fortunate enough to get
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  introduced to him. Me and him are the same age.
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  We jived really quickly. We have a lot of similar
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  backgrounds, similar upbringings, Italian, Italian
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  immigrant, you know, families, but we have very similar the
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  ways of going about our business.
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  And so we just jived really quickly.
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  And I like to tell people, you know, 8 plus years later, you
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  know, we've been, you know, slowly building 1 of probably,
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  you know, and I, I say this in the most unbiased way, you know,
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  one of the probably the most premier places to go for sports
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  performance in the tri-state area.
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  So, you know, that's my little short spiel, but, you know, have
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  had some pretty good mentors over the years, Jerry being one
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  of them, you know, worked under guys like Doctor Ramsey, you
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  know, doing his courses and, you know, getting a really good
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  relationship with him. Mike G, Mr. Mr. doing a move and
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  a lot of people in the basketball, you know, industry
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  know him. Had had the honor of meeting him
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  a couple of times and talking with him.
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  Couple of guys in the industry that have been really good and
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  influential in my, you know, career.
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  And, you know, I can't be fortunate enough.
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  But that's my little short spiel of my story and how I kind of
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  got here. Yeah, I know.
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  I love hearing that. And you know, you use this this
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  past time you wrote the book, right, the foundation, the
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  proven system for building elite basketball athletes.
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  And you know, that's what I want to dig into, right, right.
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  Building great basketball athletes to start off like what
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  are what are some of the mistakes you see a lot of youth
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  basketball players making in their development or, or maybe
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  the myths that they fall for of what they should or should it be
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  doing? Yeah, I think there's a couple
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  of misconceptions and definitely some myths out there that are
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  still kind of perpetuated in the basketball space.
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  I will say that because of the Internet era that we live in
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  now, now it's definitely a lot better than when you and I were
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  younger for sure. Now, when you and I were
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  younger, we heard like a lot of the very like big time myths.
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  One of them that I still deal with at least with the younger
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  population, because obviously I'm in the private sector.
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  So I do have to still work with a lot of younger athletes and
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  especially parents that don't know better.
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  So like the one myth that I just keep hearing is, you know,
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  weight training is dangerous for my kid.
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  It's going to, you know, it's going to stunt their growth.
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  You know, it's not good for their growth plates, but I think
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  like a giant bit like really like the, the big part of why
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  that's perpetuated is not necessarily about, you know, the
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  insurance and outs of strength training itself.
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  I just feel like, especially in our area and in northern New
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  Jersey and and the tri-state area, there's a lot of really
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  bad SNC going around. Fortunately for you guys, I feel
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  in the South, it's it's so much different because you guys
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  actually have like accredited organizations that have like
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  high school SNC strength coaches in these places.
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  I know tons of guys, guys in the industry that are very, very
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  good at what they do in the high school space.
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  So I'm not even going to like touch that in terms of like the
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  South because you guys do a really good job down there.
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  But here up in North Jersey, I feel like one of the biggest
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  problems is there's not enough education going on at the high
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  school level. And there's not enough guys that
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  are actually, you know, accredited in the field that are
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  doing it within high schools. And I feel like that's like
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  probably the biggest problem that we have up here is that
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  there's not enough education for parents.
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  There's not enough, there's enough, not enough people doing
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  it like you and me that are actually like educating young
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  athletes. It's a lot of times it's all
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  these sports coaches and you know, I give them a lot of I
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  give a lot of problems on social.
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  If anybody follows me, they know that like it's probably one of
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  my biggest gripes. I always put these memes out
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  with, you know, like the athlete talking to me and telling me all
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  these things. But you know, people think I'm
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  just ragging on it, but this is literally what I see everyday.
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  You know, coaches always, you know, sports coaches that are
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  always running lifting sessions and they're not educated.
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  You know, they go on like the traditional like
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  bodybuilding.com or they go on like these like these random
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  workouts that they see on Instagram or TikTok and they
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  just, you know, they have their kids doing them and they have no
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  idea why they're doing them. And I think, you know, most
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  injuries come from playing too much basketball and not from the
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  strength training itself. I feel like Hooper's get hurt
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  because they're weak, fatigued, and they're moving poorly, not
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  because, you know, they touched the barbell once, you know, So I
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  think in my book, you know, I emphasize a lot on, you know,
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  movement competency first. And, you know, kids aren't
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  loading heavy barbells right away.
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  Like we're, we're, we're teaching them patterns.
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  We're learning to, you know, move properly within a squat, A
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  hinge, a push, a pull, You know, we're learning to land, absorb
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  force, you know, deal with ground contacts.
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  You know, this is what builds protection, you know, not, you
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  know, insurers risk. And I think a lot of parents
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  need to understand that. You know, there's several
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  studies that have been out, you know, from the National Strength
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  and Conditioning Association and even the American Academy of
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  Pediatrics that have been published clear positions, you
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  know, saying and supporting that resistance training for youth
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  athletes of all ages. And you know how it promotes,
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  you know, improved strength, speed and power, increased
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  muscle mass and higher bone density, you know, lower risk of
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  injury, better movement quality and body control and just
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  overall better self-confidence and discipline.
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  I feel like that's probably the biggest point, especially with
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  the younger athletes that I work with.
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  And if anybody that's listening to this has the opportunity to
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  work with younger athletes, I feel like that's probably the
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  best thing that I have to deal with.
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  Like and have to because, you know, I have kids that I've
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  trained, I mean, since they were like 8 years old that are now in
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  like high school or even going on to college now.
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  And it's crazy for me to think that, but it's like I've the one
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  of the biggest accomplishments of my career so far.
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  And it's not even like all the big time athletes I've sent off
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  to college or, or that are playing in the highest level.
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  It's the kids that like reach back out to me after they're
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  playing careers that I used to work with when they were
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  younger. And they're like, I still work
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  out and I still like, you know, use the things that we learned
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  when I was with you kind of thing.
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  Like that's like the biggest thing that I love, but that's
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  probably the number one myth I see.
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  The next one is, you know, lifting, you know, will will
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  make me bulky or will make me slow.
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  I feel like that's again, it's, it's slowly starting to fade
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  because of the information that's being put out there.
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  But I feel like, you know, with basketball players especially,
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  oh, there's a lot of guys that are like, you know, I get too
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  bulky. Like I'm not going to be able to
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  move well. I'm going to feel stiff.
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  You know, they don't understand that.
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  Like especially young athletes, they're like, you know, getting
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  bulky is a full time job, bro. Like, especially hoopers, like,
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  you know, they're playing 365 days a year 24/7 and they don't
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  stop. So it's like, I remember when I
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  was playing, you know, I was like when I was in high school,
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  I was like 130, 25 lbs soaking wet.
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  Like it took me a long time to put on muscle.
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  And I feel like that's what they don't understand is that getting
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  building bulk or building muscle is it's like a full time job.
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  They fear doing this because they don't understand how muscle
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  actually grows. And you know, it's like they
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  think if they lift a barbell, like, you know, if they lift the
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  weight once that they're going to turn into like Ronnie Coleman
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  overnight. And it's it just.
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  Doesn't work that easy. Yeah, if only it was that easy.
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  You know, I would, you know, I'd be signing up for the whatever,
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  you know, formula or whatever secret sauce they got going
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  around if that's the case. But, you know, basketball
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  strength training, you know, it doesn't turn kids into
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  bodybuilders. You know, it turns them into
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  better movers. I try to make sure that I'm
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  educating that because I just feel like bulky is often a
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  misused term in basketball. And it's, and again, I know
• 12:53
  people clown me online for using that because they're like, you
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  know, nobody says that. I'm like, I hear it a lot.
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  It's like, you know what? What players are afraid of is
• 13:01
  often not bulkiness. They're afraid of more of the
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  terms of tightness, feeling heavy, feeling stiff.
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  Like these are usually the result of just poor movement
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  prep, you know, inadequate mobility, mobility work or even
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  just poor training design and, you know, not lifting itself.
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  It's I feel like that's probably one of the biggest perpetuating
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  myths and just the idea that it makes you slow too or messes up
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  your shot. Like I just I feel like that the
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  shot thing is probably the one that like kids get the most.
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  And I I like to always reference back the study done Kansas
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  Kansas men's basketball that I believe Dan doctor Ramsey Nigem
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  actually was a part of. You know, they showed a lot
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  about how like shooting is more of like a fine motor skill
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  development thing. You know, it's built on like
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  thousands and thousands of reps It's it's not built, you know,
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  it's not going to disappear from a set or two of like a heavy
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  bench press or a squat or a trap or deadlift.
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  You know, if anything, strength will support the expression of
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  skill. And I feel like that's probably
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  one of the biggest misconceptions that's still out
• 14:04
  there just because kids get that feeling like, oh, if I do a
• 14:07
  heavy upper body session, you know, I might get like the ten
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  or five to 10 minutes afterwards, I might feel that
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  little heaviness in my arms. But kids don't understand that.
• 14:17
  You know, there's been studies done that show if you wait 30 to
• 14:20
  40, 5 minutes after a lifting session, you know, a lot of that
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  sensation goes away pretty quickly and a lot of it can just
• 14:26
  get shot out. And I could tell kids all the
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  time, as long as you're going, waiting an adequate amount of
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  time, getting some fuel in between and then you go out into
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  the core after like 3045 minutes afterwards and just take a
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  couple shots, a lot of times it just goes away.
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  So a lot of that is has been dispelled, a lot of that's been
• 14:43
  taken out of the equation. So I feel like those are
• 14:45
  probably some of the biggest problems that I see in the
• 14:47
  industry that are still being perpetuated.
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  And then just a lot of mistakes in terms of mismanagement of
• 14:53
  time in season. I feel like that's probably the
• 14:57
  biggest problem that I've dealt with in the high school space.
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  A lot of kids will come to me and they will say, hey, I need
• 15:04
  you to get me ready for the high school season.
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  I need you to get me ready for college.
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  They come to me like two or three months before their season
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  starts. We put in all this work and then
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  as soon as the high school season comes around, they
• 15:15
  disappear. And I feel like that is a
• 15:17
  miscommunication in terms of what athletes need to be doing
• 15:21
  in season. You know, fortunately for kids
• 15:24
  that I work with in the college space, they have the opportunity
• 15:27
  to go and have a strength coach full time.
• 15:30
  Some of them at least at the level at the higher levels.
• 15:33
  You know, fortunately, I do work with a couple of guys that work
• 15:36
  in the D3 area that still have good strength coaches.
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  But there's a lot of people out there that don't have access to
• 15:42
  those things. I myself didn't have access to
• 15:44
  that when I played. But for those, most college
• 15:46
  programs have guys that work with them all year round, so
• 15:49
  they're constantly training even in season.
• 15:52
  But at the high school level, I feel like the biggest problem is
• 15:55
  kids are not allocating any time towards maintaining what they
• 15:59
  built in the offseason. And that is probably the biggest
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  problem I see in the high school space is kids will often say,
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  OK, I put in all this work, it's going to just absorb by osmosis
• 16:10
  and now I'm just going to have all this results now for the
• 16:13
  whole season. The problem with that is you
• 16:15
  know you're spending majority of your time five to six months,
• 16:20
  you know where you're playing and you're playing non-stop.
• 16:23
  Especially here in New Jersey, they recently just they shorten
• 16:27
  the winter season. So essentially now you're
• 16:29
  playing a giant bulk of games in a shorter period of time.
• 16:32
  So now instead of maybe playing two or three games in a week at
• 16:36
  Max, now you see guys in our area playing anywhere between
• 16:39
  3:00 to five games in a week. So you're playing almost every
• 16:42
  other day. The problem with that is if
• 16:44
  you're not doing any type of maintenance strength work, a lot
• 16:47
  of what you built in the offseason is going to go away
• 16:49
  pretty quickly. You know, I like to reference
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  off the top of my head, I like to reference a chart, you know,
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  the training residuals chart by Vladimir Isserin.
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  You know, a lot of these qualities can be maintained for
• 17:02
  a long time, but strength especially goes away after 30
• 17:05
  days. So I'm not saying you have to
• 17:07
  train it often, but you do have to be training, touching on it
• 17:10
  at least once every couple, like every week or so to make sure
• 17:14
  you're maintaining what you're building because a lot of that's
• 17:16
  going to go away pretty quickly. So if you go a month without
• 17:19
  training your strength, a lot of that goes away pretty quickly.
• 17:22
  So for a lot of young athletes, I just try to educate them on a
• 17:25
  lot of these things in terms of maintaining these training
• 17:28
  qualities throughout the throughout the season.
• 17:30
  What are a lot of basketball players getting in season?
• 17:32
  They're getting a lot of short, rapid echoes, D cells, rapid
• 17:36
  changes of direction. What they're not getting is that
• 17:40
  force building qualities, you know, the strength, the strength
• 17:43
  work that they're supposed to be getting.
• 17:44
  They're not getting those things on the court.
• 17:46
  And no, this isn't going to turn into one of those arguments of,
• 17:49
  well, we don't have barbells on the court.
• 17:51
  That's then the other thing, it's just a matter of
• 17:53
  maintaining qualities that you're not getting in the sport.
• 17:56
  And these a lot of times these things, again, like I referenced
• 17:58
  before for youth athletes, these are big injury mitigation tools
• 18:02
  that you can be using. Now, I'm not saying that they're
• 18:05
  going to completely get rid of all injuries.
• 18:07
  You know, we can't always guarantee those.
• 18:09
  There are freak incidences that happened where we can't control.
• 18:12
  But for the most part, you know, strength training can yield
• 18:16
  pretty good injury mitigation when it comes to all that kind
• 18:19
  of stuff. So I feel like the misuse or
• 18:21
  misallocation of resources in terms of what they're doing in
• 18:24
  season towards training, I feel like a lot of that is probably
• 18:28
  the biggest problem. But those are some of the things
• 18:30
  that I see at least in the youth space that I feel like need to
• 18:33
  definitely be cleaned up. And I felt like at least with
• 18:36
  the resource that I put together through the foundation, I feel
• 18:38
  like I talk a lot about that and just kind of had a better met.
• 18:41
  Manage your time. Yeah, no.
• 18:42
  And I think you're spot on with all those.
• 18:44
  You know, let's say you're having a conversation with the
• 18:46
  parent of a, a potential athlete that was a training tier.
• 18:50
  And now, you know, you know, Julian, we really want to get in
• 18:52
  with you. But you know, he's got skill
• 18:56
  sessions on Tuesday, Thursdays, he's got AU Monday, Wednesday
• 19:00
  and then tournaments and the we can like and we just, we just
• 19:03
  don't know when we can find time.
• 19:04
  Like how do you approach that conversation with that parent?
• 19:07
  I think how I would approach that is fairly different now
• 19:10
  than how I would when I first started.
• 19:12
  I feel like when I first started I would probably be begging and
• 19:16
  screaming a lot of parents heads off and making sure that they
• 19:19
  get in. I feel like a lot of times, you
• 19:22
  know, especially early on if you're in business, a lot of
• 19:25
  times, especially during those dead months, like in season and
• 19:28
  stuff like that, you're trying to do whatever you can to keep
• 19:31
  kids in in in the gym from a business standpoint, obviously
• 19:34
  to keep your lights on, but also because you understand that you
• 19:36
  know what why it's good for them.
• 19:38
  You know, I feel like when it comes from a place of caring and
• 19:42
  understanding for the athlete, I feel like a lot of parents
• 19:45
  gravitate more towards that than trying to almost beg them like
• 19:49
  you're, you're trying to keep them there for business reasons.
• 19:53
  I feel like when you, when you approach a parent from that
• 19:55
  angle and you try to show them, you know, the progress and the
• 19:59
  results that they can achieve with continued maintenance in
• 20:02
  season, a lot of them understand.
• 20:05
  I feel like the people that don't understand are the ones
• 20:08
  that. Think for the quick fixes.
• 20:11
  And I feel like those parents are the ones that you should try
• 20:14
  to weed out pretty quickly. And that's kind of the
• 20:16
  difference in how I approach conversations with certain
• 20:19
  parents now versus how I would back then.
• 20:21
  Back then, I would kind of be trying to beg them to stay.
• 20:23
  If I find a parent that doesn't really see the value in what
• 20:27
  we're doing, then I'm not going to beg you to stay around.
• 20:30
  And I feel like a lot of people that are in the private sector
• 20:34
  should learn from that, especially as you start to grow.
• 20:37
  I feel like now we're at the point in a business where I'm
• 20:40
  not going to beg you to stay if you don't see the value in what
• 20:44
  I'm doing. If anything, recently we've
• 20:46
  started turning away people like that just because we want to
• 20:49
  start to build a standard with those that we do have.
• 20:52
  And I feel like if you do have those athletes, like if they,
• 20:55
  let's say they started with me in the offseason and they were
• 20:58
  actually with me consistently throughout the summer.
• 21:00
  As we approach the season time, I'm slowly starting to plant it
• 21:04
  in their head that, hey, this is the like, look at the results
• 21:08
  that you've made so far. Like don't you want to keep this
• 21:10
  come going? Or do you want to like, or do
• 21:13
  you want to just keep like have this fall off?
• 21:15
  I feel like a lot of times us coaches, naturally we're
• 21:19
  educators. We want to educate.
• 21:21
  But I feel like when it comes to that, you know, we also have to
• 21:24
  continuously educate them on how to, you know, go past what
• 21:28
  they're currently doing. And I feel like that's what I
• 21:30
  try to do. I try to place it from an
• 21:32
  emphasis of I care and I want to educate you because you don't
• 21:36
  know what I know. And a lot of times that's what
• 21:38
  they're paying for. They're paying for your, your
• 21:40
  level of expertise, your education.
• 21:42
  And I always try to place that on my athletes.
• 21:45
  I try to tell them, Hey, you know, it's awesome that you've
• 21:48
  been here consistently for the last 3-4 months and you're
• 21:50
  offseason. But the biggest thing that's
• 21:52
  going to help you not now, but for next year is making sure
• 21:56
  that you keep this consistency as you go into your season.
• 22:00
  And the biggest thing that you want to try to lay out for them
• 22:03
  is you want to lay out a plan for them so that way they
• 22:06
  understand like, hey, we're not going to be in here for two plus
• 22:09
  hours. So you don't need to allocate a
• 22:11
  ton of time to this. What you do need to understand
• 22:14
  is you need to be able to manage your schedule and manage the
• 22:18
  stress that you're doing into the gym.
• 22:20
  And that's where I come in. I can help you do those things.
• 22:23
  Once you tell a parent like, hey, I can map out a schedule
• 22:26
  based on whatever you give me and I can tell you when to place
• 22:30
  these sessions in, then they are more inclined to make it work.
• 22:35
  And I feel like that's also a good thing on our part is
• 22:38
  because we're so flexible. We're not we don't have a
• 22:41
  traditional business model in terms of, you know, this person
• 22:45
  is with this coach at this time. You know, we're more flexible
• 22:48
  with our approach. It gives athletes more of that,
• 22:52
  you know, desire to want to stay and put the work in even when
• 22:56
  they quote on quote, don't have the time.
• 22:58
  Yeah. So I think big part is just a
• 23:02
  circle back is just continue to educate, you know, just continue
• 23:05
  to give them, you know, that ability to understand what
• 23:08
  they're supposed to be doing, how they're supposed to be doing
• 23:10
  it. And then two, just like be
• 23:12
  flexible with your approach on how you want to go about, like
• 23:15
  making sure that these kids are getting what they have to get
• 23:18
  in, even if it's me. Just like, hey, you can't make
• 23:20
  it in this week. Cool.
• 23:22
  I'll give you something that you could do on your own at home.
• 23:25
  That way there's no excuse. You know, I feel like a lot of
• 23:28
  times the excuses, OK, well, I have to bring little Johnny from
• 23:31
  this place to this place to this place, and I have no time to get
• 23:34
  him there. Cool, you have stuff at home.
• 23:37
  Awesome. Cool.
• 23:38
  I'll give you stuff to do at home.
• 23:39
  And you don't even need a barbell or anything like that.
• 23:41
  I could just give you some stuff to do just so that way he's
• 23:43
  maintaining what he's doing. How does that sound?
• 23:45
  Cool, awesome. If that if, if I take all the
• 23:47
  excuses out of the equation, then there's no way to that.
• 23:50
  They can't make it work. But I also think from a business
• 23:53
  standpoint, you also have to be flexible with your approach on
• 23:56
  how to give them the resources that they need to be able to
• 24:00
  continue to maintain the work that they're doing.
• 24:02
  You want to make it so that way there's virtually no excuse.
• 24:05
  You're telling me you can't get in for 1/2 hour to 45 minutes
• 24:08
  one day right after practice? Cool, we'll be here for you.
• 24:12
  You know, it's like one of those things where you just kind of
• 24:14
  have to be able to educate and then also help manage the stress
• 24:17
  and the schedule of the athlete in season.
• 24:19
  And you know, as you talked about helping that family or
• 24:23
  those parents map out that schedule for a high school
• 24:26
  basketball player, you know, let's say maybe after the school
• 24:29
  season kind of get into AU season in the spring.
• 24:31
  Like what do you think a good schedule looks like with all
• 24:35
  those pieces of the AU the the strength and conditioning, the
• 24:39
  skill development? Like what should the frequency
• 24:42
  now the volumes of those things look like and kind of mapped out
• 24:45
  throughout the week? Yeah, I think when you want to
• 24:47
  start out, you got to start by mapping out their week.
• 24:50
  Most kids never actually look at their fullest calendar.
• 24:53
  You know, I always ask kids all the time when they come in,
• 24:56
  like, oh, what's your schedule this week?
• 24:57
  And they're like, I don't know, you know, my mom or my dad
• 25:00
  usually does this. So I always tell kids, map out
• 25:03
  your schedule and write it down. That way you have it in front of
• 25:06
  you from a week to week standpoint.
• 25:08
  You know what you're doing. I find that and you know, I
• 25:10
  don't even mean to put it this way, but I find that a lot of
• 25:13
  the athletes that really want to see the improvement will always
• 25:18
  find ways to put things into their schedule to always make it
• 25:22
  get work. I find that the kids that often
• 25:25
  are, and I hate to always use this word, but the kids that are
• 25:29
  lazy or always find excuses, they are the ones that are
• 25:32
  always going to say that they don't have time.
• 25:34
  And I always say it's more of a prioritization issue than it is
• 25:37
  anything else. But I always have kids map out
• 25:39
  their schedule and and then I use a simple high day, low day
• 25:43
  approach to balancing their training and their basketball.
• 25:46
  You know, I adjust their lifts based on their practices, their
• 25:49
  tournaments and travel. So they're not always in this
• 25:52
  fatigue state and this kind of this whole or this trap of
• 25:57
  always making sure that they're, you know, not, you know,
• 26:00
  pounding themselves into the ground.
• 26:01
  I feel like in the AAU era that we live in now, I was, it's
• 26:06
  funny that we're actually talking about this.
• 26:07
  I was just talking about this with an athlete of mine this
• 26:10
  past week. And, you know, one of the
• 26:12
  problems in AAU basketball now versus when I was, you know,
• 26:16
  younger, when you and I were younger back then, AAU was way
• 26:19
  more, it was, it was very much like a, like a closed off thing.
• 26:24
  You know, you had to know somebody, you had to like, you
• 26:27
  know, you had to be really good to try out for the team.
• 26:30
  Like it was like not an open invite thing.
• 26:33
  Now it's very like there's, there's pretty much like 4 five
• 26:35
  teams in your town, whereas back then there was maybe like one or
• 26:39
  two teams in your entire state, you know, so like AU is a big
• 26:43
  thing now and there's people popping up now every day that
• 26:46
  can just sign up and make a team, have a couple players.
• 26:50
  You know, as long as you pay this fee, you know, you can, you
• 26:53
  can play. So you know, the big thing now
• 26:55
  with this packed era of AU and the fact that you have to
• 26:59
  understand like it is a very short period of time, but it's
• 27:02
  also the most hectic time of the year for them because they are
• 27:05
  playing 5 to 8 games in a weekend, Especially if they're a
• 27:10
  good team and they're playing, you know, far into the weekend.
• 27:13
  You know, you might end up playing like 6 to 8 games in a
• 27:16
  weekend. And that's a lot on the body.
• 27:18
  So I tell people all the time, you know, you wanna use this
• 27:21
  time to allocate your resources and have it so that your week
• 27:26
  has ebbs and flows. You don't want to have high days
• 27:29
  every single day because then you're just you're taking those
• 27:33
  days that you could be using and allocating towards rest.
• 27:36
  And now you have consistent days where, you know, you're
• 27:39
  constantly adding high loads of stress onto your body.
• 27:43
  So I think teaching them how to say no, yes and no to certain
• 27:47
  things during the week is also probably the best thing to go.
• 27:50
  Like I don't think you need to be going with your skills coach
• 27:53
  five days a week and also having three days of practice.
• 27:58
  Well, in reality, the way the US model has it for AAU, you're
• 28:01
  actually only practicing 2 days a week.
• 28:03
  So you don't really have to necessarily worry about practice
• 28:06
  being a problem during the week because AAU only practices 2
• 28:09
  days a week. So taking the equation of two
• 28:12
  practice days a week, you know, maybe three if you're program
• 28:16
  that actually takes practice serious, you know, three days,
• 28:19
  two to three days a week of practice.
• 28:20
  I try to educate my kids. Do not.
• 28:22
  You don't have to say yes to extra team stuff.
• 28:26
  You don't have to say yes to the random open runs during the week
• 28:30
  or the unnecessary workouts. Try to keep it structure.
• 28:34
  So if you have a day where you know that it's going to be a jam
• 28:37
  packed that you have, you know, your, your skills training in
• 28:40
  your, you know, your basketball session, like your team session
• 28:44
  in one day, try to make it so that you have your most intense
• 28:49
  lift on that day. That way you don't have to worry
• 28:53
  about the idea of consistently stacking your schedule on
• 28:57
  different days. What the problem with most
• 29:00
  athletes that I encounter is when you don't educate them on
• 29:03
  those things, they think, OK, cool, if I have my team practice
• 29:06
  and my skill session on this day, that means I have to use my
• 29:09
  off day to do my my strength training session.
• 29:12
  But where that comes into play is you're just over piling your
• 29:15
  stress and then you have no days to rest.
• 29:18
  So I like to always try to make sure, you know, you want to try
• 29:22
  to reorganize your week in a way where now you have days where,
• 29:26
  yes, those high days are going to be high, but your low days
• 29:29
  are either days where you're just doing spot shooting or you
• 29:32
  know, you know, very low intensity work, maybe some
• 29:35
  mobility, maybe some light, you know, cardio just to kind of get
• 29:39
  blood flowing. But to make sure that you do
• 29:41
  have at least one to two days a week where you're just resting.
• 29:45
  You're not doing anything at all.
• 29:47
  Because I know for a fact you're going to have days on those
• 29:50
  weekends where it will be maybe even a Thursday through a Sunday
• 29:54
  or a Wednesday through a Sunday where you have a big tournament
• 29:56
  coming up and you're going to be gone.
• 29:57
  You're going to be playing two to three games a day.
• 29:59
  So with that in mind, you always want to make sure you're kind of
• 30:03
  giving them those ebbs and flows, making sure that you're
• 30:05
  mapping out their schedule for them, and you're just educating
• 30:08
  them on when to say yes and when to say no to certain things.
• 30:11
  And as we talk about that, like, like, I know you, I know you
• 30:14
  value Sprint training for basketball players and I believe
• 30:17
  it's really important too. But like, let's say we're in
• 30:20
  that period and, and obviously that, you know, Sprint training
• 30:23
  and let's say, you know, jumper plot jump training reply.
• 30:25
  I was like that stuff would all go into those high days.
• 30:28
  If, if the volumes of their schedule is super high, though,
• 30:32
  and they're doing a ton of basketball and let's say
• 30:34
  they're, you know, sometimes I know for me like they're coming
• 30:36
  to me after they've already had basketball.
• 30:38
  How are you still fitting those pieces in and, and making sure
• 30:43
  like they're in a state that they actually get the most out
• 30:45
  of it and that we're not going to add too much intensity or
• 30:48
  volume on top of the context that they're they're already
• 30:51
  getting from basketball? Yeah, and I think that's great.
• 30:53
  I think when it comes to in season, especially when it comes
• 30:56
  to speed and all that not nonsense.
• 30:58
  It's like you have to understand what they're getting in their
• 31:01
  sport. What are you getting in
• 31:03
  basketball? You're getting a lot of high
• 31:04
  speed excels and D cells and changes of direction when it
• 31:08
  comes to, you know, your in season work because even during
• 31:12
  AAU seasons, I like to treat that as an in season period.
• 31:15
  For a lot of the kids, yes, this is their offseason, but you have
• 31:18
  to also understand that you have to almost treat it like a mini
• 31:21
  in season period. You can't be, you can't be
• 31:24
  expecting to do offseason work at offseason volumes and
• 31:28
  intensities with kids that are basically playing in season and
• 31:31
  you, you're not doing this forever because a, you
• 31:34
  realistically is really the only important parts of it is like 2
• 31:38
  weeks in July and like maybe like a little bit of like June
• 31:43
  and May. Other than that, they take, most
• 31:45
  of them actually take the month of June off.
• 31:48
  They start in like March, March they're off because high school
• 31:51
  is done. April is when they try out May.
• 31:53
  They have like a full on like month of like playing.
• 31:56
  June, they're pretty much off. And then they have two or three
• 31:59
  weeks in July for like the main tournaments where they're
• 32:02
  getting exposure because that's when the open live period is.
• 32:05
  So you really just have to map out these live periods for them.
• 32:08
  But in reality, you have to treat it like an in season.
• 32:11
  So I always try to tell athletes, what are you getting
• 32:14
  in sport? What are you not getting in
• 32:15
  sport? And this is how you have to this
• 32:17
  is how I've approached in season training the last several years.
• 32:20
  So for me, if I'm getting high speed excels and D cells and
• 32:23
  changes of direction, you shouldn't be touching on those
• 32:26
  in your session because they're getting a lot of that in their
• 32:28
  sport. Now, I'm not saying you can't,
• 32:30
  you know, work on some low level D cell work in season to
• 32:34
  maintain qualities. But if you're getting thousands
• 32:37
  and thousands of excels and D cells, which I know they're
• 32:40
  getting on the court, I'm not going to really touch on those
• 32:42
  in season. Or what I am going to touch on
• 32:44
  in speed in in season are the things that they're not not
• 32:48
  getting for a lot of basketball players, it's a you're only
• 32:51
  covering a certain amount of feet or some distance.
• 32:54
  So you're not getting a lot of high speed exposures, which is
• 32:57
  again, if you look even at the NBA for an example, I don't like
• 33:01
  to use them a lot, but it is a good tool to see like, you know,
• 33:05
  a lot of these things and why things happen.
• 33:07
  But you see the pros and a lot of the pros will see that, you
• 33:11
  know, there's a lot of hamstring strains and a lot of hamstring
• 33:14
  pulls that happened early on in the season.
• 33:17
  A lot of that is because they don't get a lot of those high
• 33:19
  speed exposures in their training.
• 33:21
  So I try to educate my athletes. No, you don't want to go all
• 33:24
  offseason without touching on high speed exposures and neither
• 33:28
  do you want to do the same thing in season.
• 33:29
  I'm not saying we got to go outside and run, you know, 40
• 33:32
  yard, you know, flying sprints, but we'll will touching on light
• 33:38
  flying sprints, maybe like a 1015 yard roll in, you know, are
• 33:44
  those going to be beneficial for at least getting some high speed
• 33:47
  exposures at light intensities? Yes, those are going to be great
• 33:51
  for at least touching on those and keeping the hamstrings
• 33:53
  healthy throughout the season. And I'm not even going high
• 33:55
  volumes. We're not we're not touching
• 33:57
  like 45678 sprints. You know, we're touching on
• 34:01
  maybe one session, one or two sessions of one to two sprints.
• 34:06
  You know, again, these are the light exposures.
• 34:07
  We're not trying to, you know, touch Max velocities, you know,
• 34:11
  95 to 100% of your Max velocity. We're touching on very light
• 34:15
  percentages within very short entry speed just to make sure
• 34:19
  we're touching on these qualities and keeping the
• 34:21
  hamstrings healthy. Another thing that we're not
• 34:23
  getting and something that I'm very big on is the loaded aspect
• 34:28
  of acceleration. You know, we're not getting that
• 34:30
  in sport. You know, we're getting a lot of
• 34:32
  rapid movement, a lot of high speed movement, a lot of quick
• 34:36
  changes of direction. So I love the idea of
• 34:39
  maintaining the heavy loaded sled sprints, you know, really
• 34:43
  just making sure we're keeping those force and producing
• 34:46
  capacities high in season and again, touching on maybe 2 to 3
• 34:51
  sprints Max, like again, very low dosages, but making sure
• 34:56
  we're touching on this. I love again, referencing back
• 34:59
  to Vladimir Issurin's chart for training residuals because this
• 35:02
  is a big thing that you see on that.
• 35:04
  If you do not touch on speed within five to seven days, that
• 35:08
  quality will diminish. And a lot of players wonder why.
• 35:12
  And I, I deal with this more in the college space than I do in
• 35:14
  the high school space because obviously a lot of my high
• 35:16
  school athletes that continue to come to me, we work on these
• 35:19
  things. But I noticed it a lot with my
• 35:21
  college athletes. I will go through a lot of speed
• 35:24
  training with them in the offseason.
• 35:26
  They get super fast. You know, our numbers improve on
• 35:30
  all of our speed metrics. And then they go off to college
• 35:33
  and then they come back to me in the winter time and they're
• 35:35
  like, coach, I got so slow. Like I'm not fast anymore.
• 35:39
  I'm like, what does your strength coach or anybody have
• 35:41
  you sprinting? And they're like, no, we
• 35:43
  actually don't do any sprinting. We just lift.
• 35:46
  I'm like, that's the problem. We're not touching on any of
• 35:49
  those speed qualities. And that's why I try to tell
• 35:51
  people all the time, make sure you're sprinting.
• 35:53
  It doesn't have to be a lot, but if you're doing some short, you
• 35:57
  know, loaded sprints and also some touching on some light
• 36:02
  flying sprints, maybe one or two of each, that is enough to at
• 36:05
  least maintain those qualities in season.
• 36:08
  And I tell people all the time, you don't have to come three or
• 36:10
  four days a week in season 1 to two days Max is all you need.
• 36:14
  And I try to make sure that I'm doing a full body approach just
• 36:17
  to make sure that God forbid if they come for two days a week
• 36:21
  normally and they can't make it one of those days, they get
• 36:24
  everything in on the one day that they're missing.
• 36:26
  So I touch on some light flying sprints in the beginning because
• 36:30
  you always want to start fast. I tell people all the time start
• 36:33
  fast and slow. So start fast.
• 36:35
  We go with our flying sprints, do one or two of of those on
• 36:38
  each leg just to kind of get things going, making sure that
• 36:41
  everything's moving well. We touch on a little bit of our
• 36:43
  loaded accelerations because we want to again start fast, get a
• 36:46
  little slower. The loaded accelerations are
• 36:48
  obviously going to slow us down in a way that's good while we're
• 36:51
  maintaining those force, force producing capacities in our
• 36:54
  speed. And then we are touching on a
• 36:56
  full body strength training approach, one of five reps just
• 37:00
  maintaining strength and just making sure that we are touching
• 37:03
  on those strength, building the strength work.
• 37:07
  Again, I tell athletes all the time you do not have to touch
• 37:10
  offseason loads in season. You can maintain or continue to
• 37:14
  improve strength with maintenance loads.
• 37:17
  So as long as you are touching one to five reps at maybe a, you
• 37:22
  know, a 5 to 10% decrease of loads that you would normally
• 37:26
  use in the offseason, now you're going to see a lot of progress
• 37:30
  with that or maintain your strength levels at those lower
• 37:33
  loads. And so for me, those are
• 37:35
  probably the biggest things that I would want to hit on in
• 37:37
  season, especially from a speed perspective.
• 37:40
  Yeah, no, I mean, I love that that approach of, of how you
• 37:43
  think about those things. And one thing I was thinking
• 37:45
  about as, as you're talking about that with like the people
• 37:48
  I work in the private sector and during that time when they are
• 37:51
  heavy AU in spring and, and, and I don't know, I don't know about
• 37:55
  y'all, but here in Texas, like, and that June part with and that
• 37:58
  don't do AU, They have like TABC, which is like they're
• 38:01
  practicing like 3 * a week with their school team and have like
• 38:05
  big basically kind of live period showcase with their
• 38:07
  school team. So they kind of pricey around
• 38:09
  there. And, and even in the, the spring
• 38:12
  they're doing school practices with AU with all that.
• 38:15
  It's like we want to in the private sector show results for
• 38:19
  the parents of what the kids are doing.
• 38:21
  But sometimes it's like maybe chasing outputs of like really
• 38:25
  pushing their vertical with their spent time.
• 38:27
  Like maybe that's, you know, it's not ideally or, or
• 38:30
  realistically the time we're going to get these huge PRS just
• 38:33
  from a fatigue standpoint. So it's like during, during that
• 38:36
  time, how are you, how are you managing that balance of like,
• 38:39
  OK, let's show the, the parents like that they're getting
• 38:42
  results for their, the money they're spending while still
• 38:45
  giving the athlete kind of what they need in that time.
• 38:48
  Yeah, I think that's like pretty.
• 38:50
  It's honestly. And if anybody's listening to
• 38:52
  this that works in the private sector, you need to understand
• 38:55
  that, you know, how you show progress and results is a big
• 38:59
  reason for why or how people are going to continue to come
• 39:02
  through your door. I always tell people keep it
• 39:04
  simple and clear from the beginning.
• 39:06
  You want parents to see improvement and you want to have
• 39:09
  a clear and concise method of how you're doing that.
• 39:12
  They don't want to get hit with the science.
• 39:14
  They just want to know how you're going to get their kid
• 39:16
  better. And so as long as you are able
• 39:17
  to establish a system of how you do so from the beginning,
• 39:21
  literally from session one, and have them understand that this
• 39:24
  is going to be a repeat method of how we are collecting results
• 39:28
  over time. And these are the ways that you
• 39:31
  can see progress within those periods of time where there
• 39:34
  might not be any, you know, establishing that early on is
• 39:37
  going to be very key. You want to track concrete
• 39:40
  metrics that people can that are simple, repeatable and reliable.
• 39:44
  I tell people that all the time and that are done consistently.
• 39:47
  You know, I find that, but you know a lot of these especially
• 39:50
  in our area here you get a lot of places that are similar.
• 39:54
  But a lot of the reasons why parents leave there and they
• 39:57
  come to us is they see a lot of the OK, well, I don't there's no
• 40:02
  way for me to see if my kids getting better.
• 40:04
  Whereas from day one we are taking down not only vertical
• 40:09
  jump and all that kind of stuff, but we are getting full on
• 40:12
  Sprint times. We're getting showing clear and
• 40:14
  concise ways of how we are tracking strength markers and
• 40:18
  before and afters in terms of movement quality and movement
• 40:23
  capacity. And I find that another big
• 40:25
  thing that again, and something that you hit on in the question,
• 40:29
  you know, is how is how is how are there going to be ways that
• 40:32
  we can tell that we're getting a lot of these results on the
• 40:37
  court without having to do it during these like big times of
• 40:40
  their schedule where they might not be seeing the progress in
• 40:43
  the numbers. And I always like to try to
• 40:46
  educate parents early that the training needs to be translating
• 40:51
  into on court outcomes. So getting stronger doesn't
• 40:54
  matter if you're, and I hate to put it this way, getting
• 40:57
  stronger doesn't matter if you still suck at your sport.
• 41:00
  You know, if your kids getting bumped off the line less, if
• 41:04
  they're finishing more through contact, if they're faster off
• 41:07
  the dribble. These are things you have to be
• 41:09
  starting to look for in your kids during these big periods of
• 41:12
  time when they're training, especially during these high
• 41:16
  condensed periods of times during the in season or that AAU
• 41:19
  packed to your period or even during the period like you're
• 41:22
  talking about during summer ball where they have stuff with their
• 41:25
  teams, You know, if we're doing offseason work and they're doing
• 41:28
  summer ball stuff, you know, I always ask my kids, how do you
• 41:31
  feel on the court? Like how are you feeling out
• 41:32
  there? Like from when we started till
• 41:34
  now? Are you noticing a difference?
• 41:37
  And I'll always get the same things.
• 41:39
  Yes, like I'm noticing like kids aren't like, you know, I last
• 41:43
  year, maybe maybe I'd be driving to the rim and like kids would
• 41:45
  just easily bump me off my line. Whereas now this year I'm
• 41:48
  actually like bullying kids a little bit like, or I'm like,
• 41:52
  I'm getting my own now. Like you want to find these
• 41:55
  little things or, or, you know, like last year I was like, maybe
• 41:58
  like I would try to drive to the rim and I wasn't as fast off
• 42:00
  that first step, but now I'm like noticing that I'm blowing
• 42:03
  by people a little bit more. I think the, the on court
• 42:07
  outcomes need to also be factored in during these times
• 42:11
  of the year. And I tell parents all the time,
• 42:13
  like if you're not noticing these things, then it's either
• 42:16
  one or two things. It's you have to check to see
• 42:18
  how long they've actually been in your program for, you know,
• 42:21
  cuz that matters too. Like if you're telling me they
• 42:23
  just started like yesterday and they're obviously not going to
• 42:25
  see those results. But if this is somebody that's
• 42:28
  constantly been putting in work with you, you have to understand
• 42:31
  it might not show right away, but you have to continue to
• 42:33
  educate. You know, getting stronger
• 42:35
  doesn't automatically mean that they're going to get better at
• 42:38
  their sport. Sometimes it could be a skill
• 42:40
  issue, you know, and that's a conversation you have to
• 42:42
  consistently be having with not only the athlete, but you also
• 42:46
  have to have transparently with, you know, the parents as well,
• 42:50
  because you have to be letting them know.
• 42:51
  Because I do have instances where I've had kids that don't
• 42:55
  take the skill side of basketball as serious as they do
• 42:59
  the the weight room. And I tell them that all the
• 43:01
  time. It has to be a balance.
• 43:03
  You know, I I get on a lot of sports coaches a lot like on
• 43:08
  online because of what they do with the weight room stuff.
• 43:10
  But when it comes to actually getting players better, I always
• 43:14
  tells like parents and athletes. I actually have a really good
• 43:19
  relationship with a lot of skills trainers because there
• 43:22
  needs to be a balance of the both.
• 43:24
  You know, you can't just be all gun ho on the strength training
• 43:27
  and not do anything on the court and vice versa.
• 43:30
  You can't just be all on court and not be in the weight room as
• 43:32
  well. Like it's a, it's a very much
• 43:34
  like a healthy marriage and you have to make sure you're doing
• 43:37
  both. But I tell people all the time,
• 43:39
  you will be getting these results here, but understand
• 43:42
  that if you want to continue to see success in your sport, you
• 43:44
  have to also be doing things to improve your skill on the court
• 43:48
  as well. Because like I referenced before
• 43:50
  back earlier in this discussion, you know, strength can only
• 43:55
  improve the expression of skill. It'll make that more efficient
• 43:59
  as a mover and it'll make you more efficient within that
• 44:01
  skill. So we're going to continue to
• 44:04
  improve those areas here. But I think you need to also be
• 44:07
  doing stuff on the court to help with the stuff that we're doing
• 44:11
  in here. So I think the eye test is
• 44:14
  probably a good way to say that, you know, the eye test, the on
• 44:18
  court outcomes also need to be factored into discussions that
• 44:21
  you need to have early on with parents in terms of the progress
• 44:24
  and the results that they're making.
• 44:25
  Because as long as you're consistently, you know, doing
• 44:29
  the, the simple, repeatable, reliable, you know, metrics and
• 44:32
  as long as you're showing steady growth and progress over time,
• 44:35
  they're going to not really have anything to say to you.
• 44:38
  Because as long as you have something that's tangible in
• 44:42
  their hands that says we are getting clear and concise
• 44:44
  results, you know, the eye test is also going to be the next
• 44:49
  thing. I'm going to be like, hey, he's
• 44:50
  getting results here, but how's he doing on the court?
• 44:53
  How's he feeling out there? Is he saying that he's that he's
• 44:56
  moving better? Is he saying that, you know,
• 44:58
  things are looking better out there?
• 45:00
  If all those are are, you know, meshing together and they're
• 45:03
  you're they're looking good, then your kid is making
• 45:06
  progress. You know, it's not going to be
• 45:08
  instant. You know, I'm not telling.
• 45:09
  I don't ever promise anybody anything from the from the get
• 45:12
  go. I just say as long as you are
• 45:14
  consistent with your effort and your ability to get here
• 45:18
  consistently, I promise you your kid is going to be a completely
• 45:21
  different athlete in the next several months to a year.
• 45:24
  And I think that's probably the best thing, You know, just
• 45:26
  making sure that you're checking in with parents with with the
• 45:29
  kids often and just always having bring examples for
• 45:32
  parents on just like the, I guess the non scalable wins that
• 45:37
  you can have with an athlete. Yeah, no, man, Julian, I think
• 45:40
  there's a ton of gold in there, but I don't know, obviously for
• 45:42
  people in the private sector. But even like as I think about
• 45:45
  when I was in college basketball and like, OK, maybe like people
• 45:49
  aren't necessarily choosing to do business with you.
• 45:52
  You know, you kind of have those athletes, but now they kind of
• 45:54
  are with the transfer portal in NIL.
• 45:56
  But I think it's still important to not, not feel like you don't
• 45:59
  have to kind of sell what you're doing and continue to show those
• 46:02
  results and, and have those conversations of, Hey, how do
• 46:05
  you feel when you're finishing the contact or, you know, XY and
• 46:08
  Z and connecting those dots of the training to the on court so
• 46:12
  that they, they now are more bought into you, you know, as a
• 46:15
  client in, in the, in the college sector or pro pro
• 46:19
  sector, whatever it is. Like, it's not just the private
• 46:21
  sector, it's in every space that I think it's important to
• 46:25
  connect those dots of how the training is showing up in, in
• 46:30
  their work. Now as we as we talk about how
• 46:32
  important that is for business and showing those results like
• 46:35
  what, what are a few other maybe consistent actions that that you
• 46:38
  do in business that you feel are really important to your success
• 46:43
  and growth there? Yeah, I think anytime we're
• 46:46
  talking about like any type of like ROI or just any type of
• 46:49
  return on investment, you know, you, you want to think long
• 46:52
  term. I think you can't judge anything
• 46:54
  off a week or a month. I think most results often come
• 46:57
  after you've stacked months of consistency.
• 47:00
  And I think that's probably the biggest thing that I've have
• 47:03
  seen from working alongside, you know, guys like Jerry, Jerry's a
• 47:07
  big business guy. And you know, something that
• 47:09
  I've learned over the years is that you have to be ruthlessly
• 47:13
  consistent. And that's with everything that
• 47:16
  like your approach, like your routine, like how you go about
• 47:19
  your thing. Like, you know, I might not want
• 47:21
  to do this thing today, but like, if I know that if I just
• 47:24
  consistently do it and I show up, you know, I'm going to
• 47:28
  essentially be doing more than the guy next to me.
• 47:31
  You know, three to six months is, you know, a window where you
• 47:35
  actually see if something is working.
• 47:37
  So like, the biggest ROI comes from, you know, the athletes
• 47:41
  getting better, parents talking, referral spreading.
• 47:44
  I think over the years that has been probably one of our biggest
• 47:48
  reasons for the growth of what we've been doing is using the
• 47:53
  kids and using the athletes that are currently coming through
• 47:55
  your doors as your biggest billboard.
• 47:57
  You know, treat, treat the person in front of you like they
• 48:01
  would be an NBA superstar. You know, I tell people that all
• 48:04
  the time. I try to go about my business
• 48:07
  when I work with an athlete. I don't care if you're a 10 year
• 48:11
  vet in the NBA and I don't care if you're, you know, little
• 48:15
  Johnny who's seven years old, that's just coming to me for the
• 48:18
  first time. That's never worked out a day in
• 48:19
  his life. You know, you need to make sure
• 48:22
  that you are treating that person in front of you like they
• 48:25
  are your your idol basketball player like Michael Jordan
• 48:30
  walked in the door and you're getting you're getting to help
• 48:32
  him out with his career. If you treat every single person
• 48:35
  like that in front of you and you give them the attention, the
• 48:38
  level of detail and the respect that you would a higher level
• 48:42
  athlete, you know, I promise they will be your biggest
• 48:45
  billboards. They will tell their friends who
• 48:48
  will tell another friend who will tell another friend.
• 48:50
  And that's ultimately how things spread and how, you know, you
• 48:55
  end up getting these kids forever.
• 48:56
  I tell people that consistently that that has been the biggest
• 49:01
  model for how we've grown over the years.
• 49:03
  And, you know, because then what ends up happening is you get
• 49:06
  this small group of kids that come to you when they're really
• 49:08
  young. They get a lot of results.
• 49:10
  They stay with you through high school into college.
• 49:13
  And then next thing you know, you're getting the next
• 49:15
  generation because of, you know, spreading the wealth, you know,
• 49:20
  So I think that's probably my, the biggest thing is always
• 49:23
  making sure you're, you're having the, the attention to
• 49:27
  detail, even with the younger people and just always staying
• 49:30
  to your P's and Q's and just being consistent day in and day
• 49:33
  out. And as you talk about like that
• 49:36
  ruthless consistency, and obviously that's what a lot of
• 49:39
  people aren't doing. That's what helps separate you
• 49:42
  and, and, and helps you'll have the successful business.
• 49:44
  But having that ruthless consistency also comes with
• 49:47
  sacrifices because it's what you know, there's a reason not
• 49:49
  everybody's doing it for you. The things you've done to get to
• 49:53
  where you are today, like what are some of the greatest costs
• 49:56
  that you've had to and sacrifice you've had to make as part of
• 49:59
  that journey and process? Yeah.
• 50:01
  I mean, it's, you know, and I'm still dealing with it today.
• 50:04
  And, you know, one of the biggest things is, you know, and
• 50:07
  you know, I'm not proud of it, but you know, it's cost me a lot
• 50:10
  of time with family and friends. You know, you know, there might
• 50:14
  be nights where, you know, my wife wants me home by a certain
• 50:17
  time to have dinner with the kids and her.
• 50:20
  And, you know, I can't do that because I'm, you know, I'm out
• 50:23
  late making sure that I'm doing things that I got to do to
• 50:26
  continue to build and, and do the things that I have to do.
• 50:28
  Or maybe it means like, you know, when I'm at home, I'm, you
• 50:32
  know, online on my phone, you know, answering phone calls or,
• 50:36
  you know, texting people and making sure that I know
• 50:39
  schedules for the next week or, you know, making sure that, you
• 50:42
  know, I'm putting out the social media posts.
• 50:45
  You know, a lot of people think that that stuff's easy.
• 50:47
  And, you know, it's not it, you know, taking time away from
• 50:51
  people that you care about. You know, in the short term, you
• 50:54
  know, it's terrible and it's it definitely costs you a lot.
• 50:57
  But you know, in the long term, showing up and being consistent,
• 51:01
  that definitely does pay off in dividends and ultimately you're
• 51:05
  doing it for them anyway. So as long and I feel like
• 51:08
  that's especially for a lot of older coaches and or young
• 51:12
  coaches that are coming up right now that might be seeing this,
• 51:15
  yes, you might have to sacrifice a lot of nights out with, you
• 51:19
  know, your friends, you know, maybe instead of going out to
• 51:21
  the bars and, you know, doing whatever you like, you might
• 51:24
  have to do this or it just means that you have to allocate your
• 51:26
  resources a little better. You know, it might mean that it
• 51:29
  doesn't mean that you can't do those things.
• 51:31
  It just means that, OK, maybe like I don't go out on a
• 51:34
  Thursday night when my friends, you know, like I'm used to in
• 51:37
  college. Or maybe it means that, you
• 51:38
  know, maybe it means that you just like need to learn how to
• 51:41
  consistently build a better routine for yourself.
• 51:43
  I feel like my biggest routine is I make sure that I keep the
• 51:47
  weekend for my family. You know, I keep business for
• 51:51
  the weekdays. On the weekends, I maybe spend a
• 51:54
  good hour planning out my week, getting those quick little
• 51:58
  messages to certain athletes that I know I have to get there
• 52:00
  days and times for the week. Other than that, my phone is
• 52:04
  pretty much I'm off social media.
• 52:06
  I'm not doing anything that I need to do.
• 52:08
  Like I don't even post on the weekends.
• 52:10
  Like I try to keep my posting schedule from Monday to Friday.
• 52:13
  I know people that do that, that post seven days a week, but you
• 52:17
  know, I try to keep it Monday through Friday and I try to keep
• 52:20
  my home life, my home life on the weekends.
• 52:23
  And I try to keep everything work wise throughout the week.
• 52:26
  And I try to create a consistent schedule where I know, okay,
• 52:29
  this is times that I can be able to do this stuff.
• 52:32
  And I know that I have other days where I need to shut it
• 52:36
  off. And I feel like that's also
• 52:38
  something that you have to do as somebody that is coming up and
• 52:43
  trying to do something for yourself from a business
• 52:45
  standpoint, you have to create time for yourself to like, you
• 52:50
  know, decompress from everything you're doing.
• 52:52
  So have thing, have time where you're, you know, you know,
• 52:55
  you're just being present, being in, being with your family,
• 52:58
  doing what you need to do. It doesn't always have to be
• 53:00
  gung ho, but just make sure on the days that you have to be on
• 53:04
  that you are on. Yeah, yeah.
• 53:06
  No, I think that's great because it's like, you know, you know,
• 53:08
  people talk about, you know, work life balance.
• 53:10
  It's like especially in the beginning, it's probably not
• 53:13
  going to be a reality, especially in, in in coaching,
• 53:16
  but that that does. I think it's even when, you
• 53:19
  know, it might be, you might be making a lot of those
• 53:21
  sacrifices. Like you're saying, there has to
• 53:22
  be some of those intentional periods where you switch off or
• 53:28
  switch to your family. If it if it is just all work and
• 53:32
  and that gets mixed into that part, then that's going to
• 53:35
  really be a problem. But even if it's like, you know,
• 53:38
  a larger percentage word, but you still have that time when
• 53:41
  it's, you know, with your family with that, but it's that's,
• 53:44
  that's that time. I think that creates a massive
• 53:47
  difference versus just having them the waters just be muddied
• 53:50
  all the time. Absolutely, 100%.
• 53:52
  I couldn't agree more. Yeah.
• 53:53
  Well, that's awesome. You know, we mentioned your book
• 53:55
  The Foundation in the beginning, but but I'd love to, you know,
• 53:59
  if you just give a little more info on that and kind of, you
• 54:02
  know, the goal of it, who is it for, what it's about, what all
• 54:05
  is in it, and just let people know about that a little.
• 54:07
  Bit more, yeah. I mean, I tell people all the
• 54:09
  time, like the book happened by accident.
• 54:11
  It really did, you know, I had actually written it years prior.
• 54:16
  I was cooped up in my house and I was, you know, during COVID,
• 54:21
  you know, when we were on lockdown And no, it was one of
• 54:25
  those things where I was listening to a lot of podcasts.
• 54:28
  I was, you know, reading a lot of articles.
• 54:31
  You know, I, you know, I at the time, I wasn't with my, my now
• 54:35
  wife. So I was still pretty much like
• 54:38
  just, you know, to myself. And I just noticed that I was
• 54:42
  taking a bunch of notes on a bunch of thoughts that I had.
• 54:45
  I was just journaling a lot of my thoughts and just kind of
• 54:48
  like, you know, I was still like working with a couple athletes,
• 54:51
  giving them programs, whatever during that time.
• 54:53
  You know, we obviously weren't like, you know, actually in our
• 54:56
  facilities doing work at the time.
• 54:57
  But you know, I was still sending out programs and I just
• 55:00
  noticed that like I was putting a lot of my thoughts on training
• 55:04
  on paper and on my computer. And then next thing you know,
• 55:06
  I'm looking at and I'm like, these are kind of like chapters.
• 55:10
  And you know, the biggest thing that I love to say that I I kind
• 55:15
  of wanted to do differently with this book is I feel like there's
• 55:18
  a lot of stuff out there that's very textbookie and it's almost
• 55:22
  like it's hard to read. It's very like not actionable.
• 55:26
  Like you have to like really, like you almost finish a
• 55:29
  textbook on training and you almost have to go read another
• 55:32
  one to try to understand the material that's in it or you
• 55:34
  have to read it several times in order to understand where it's
• 55:37
  coming from. I've gotten several feedback so
• 55:39
  far saying it's like, it's almost like I'm, I'm digging
• 55:42
  into your mind on like a behind the scenes of a training
• 55:45
  session. And I almost wanted it to sound
• 55:49
  more like that. And really the biggest reason I
• 55:52
  came out with this in the beginning to, you know, just in
• 55:55
  general is because I didn't have a resource like this when I was
• 55:58
  coming up. You know, I was the skinny, you
• 56:01
  know, basketball player that needed somebody like myself to
• 56:04
  write something like this in order to really help that next
• 56:08
  generation of basketball players that are uneducated, that don't
• 56:11
  know much about nutrition, that don't know much about getting in
• 56:14
  the weight room and putting together a basic foundational
• 56:17
  plan together, you know, to get started.
• 56:20
  And I, I get those questions online all the time.
• 56:22
  Kids message me and my DMS all the time.
• 56:24
  Like, you know, what's something that I could do to start right
• 56:27
  now or what can I do to get faster?
• 56:29
  What can I do to get stronger? So I wanted to create a resource
• 56:33
  that kids could read right now, be able to understand at least
• 56:37
  from a basic level and say, hey, you know, I used to be you too.
• 56:41
  So that's probably one of the biggest things that I wanted to
• 56:44
  take away with this book. And, you know, I just wanted to
• 56:47
  create that resource for young athletes so that way they could,
• 56:50
  you know, have a place where they could start and just be.
• 56:53
  And, you know, one of the things that I wanted to make sure that
• 56:56
  I included was I put in stuff at the end where kids could have a
• 56:59
  pro program that they could start.
• 57:00
  Right now I have a basic program in there.
• 57:02
  And I also have an intermediate program for kids that already
• 57:06
  have a little bit of a base that want to get started with
• 57:08
  something a little bit different.
• 57:09
  But I also put together essentially a road map in there.
• 57:12
  OK, Like this is where you're starting.
• 57:14
  This is how you could slowly progress.
• 57:16
  This is how you can build. And it has sections broken down.
• 57:19
  It has, you know, has everything in terms of speed development,
• 57:22
  has everything with strength, power, you know, jump supply
• 57:25
  metrics. I tried to make sure I covered
• 57:28
  all my bases. And that's kind of like the
• 57:29
  whole idea of, you know, the foundation just making sure
• 57:32
  every corner is left unturned, you know?
• 57:35
  That that's awesome, Joanne, you know, hi there and everybody
• 57:38
  listen to go get that. You know, you've heard in this
• 57:40
  conversation just the wealth of knowledge that he hasn't been
• 57:44
  shared on all aspects of of just development and also just his
• 57:48
  background kind of building all that knowledge.
• 57:50
  Go get go get the foundation. Wait a minute.
• 57:52
  This is awesome. Man.
• 57:53
  I I enjoyed, you know, this is our first time really going to
• 57:55
  talk in person. I enjoyed getting to meet you,
• 57:57
  getting to learn, you know, both of us do a lot of basketball
• 58:00
  going to learn from your perspective on on those things,
• 58:02
  but also just, you know, some of those things at the end with
• 58:04
  with life and coaching. I think you know, that's as
• 58:06
  important as anything too. So thank you man for coming on.
• 58:09
  Yeah, John, I really appreciate your time and and really thank
• 58:12
  you for giving me this platform to be able to talk to your
• 58:16
  audience. I appreciate that.
• 58:17
  So.