Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #148: Gill1918 Presents Coach Gail and Shaun Williams “Four Pillars of Recovery” Powered by Coach O

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#148: Gill1918 Presents Coach Gail and Shaun Williams “Four Pillars of Recovery” Powered by Coach O · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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Welcome to the Gill 1918 Project, a podcast series by
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coaches for coaches, powered by Gill Athletics.
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Think of it as the Ted Talks of track and field coaching.
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Short, insightful, and packed with valuable strategies to help
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you grow as a coach. This episode is part of the
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Youth and Beginner Series, brought to you by Coach O.
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In this series, we focus on topics relating to coaching
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youth athletes, coaching beginner athletes of any age,
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and supporting brand new coaches as they find their way.
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With that in mind, let's grow. What's up ladies and gentlemen,
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it's your boy Sean Williams back at it again with another episode
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of Sean Takes on where we talked to the leaders of today to
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empower the ones of tomorrow. Today I'm joined with the Co
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founder of Performoflex, Mr. my mom, GAIL Williams, and we're
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here to talk to you about our four pillars of recovery.
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First being prevention, performance, provision and
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purpose as a sneak peek into our recovery certification course.
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But before we begin talking about the pillars, just a little
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bit of information about us. Me, Charlotte Williams, have
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spent 15 years of my life being a former athlete in the Division
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One level at Sacred Heart University, doing wrestling and
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also just overall trying to figure out what the purpose in
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life is along with how to continue to be better at my
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sport and my mother. I've spent 15 years of coaching
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and running track programs and coaching lead athletes on the
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kid level all the way up to adult and collegiate level.
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I also work as a USATF official and I'm in charge of AAU track
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and field and cross country for the state of Connecticut.
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And I've watched countless athletes, I mean amazing
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athletes, including you, Sean, push themselves to the absolute
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limit and only to leave out recovery in their, you know, in
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their chance of actually performing at a higher level.
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We've teamed up, Sean and I, because we realized that we're
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tracking the same performance levels and it's the same
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problem, just from two different lenses.
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Absolutely. And so with that being said,
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let's start with our first pillar prevention.
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From my perspective as a former wrestler, prevention means
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looking at recovery at a protective armor, right?
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You want to stop things from happening before they happen.
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With that being said, as a veteran coach, where do you see
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prevention and what does that look like for your athletes in
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the game? Oh my gosh Shawn, that's a
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great, great question. It starts with treating and pre
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training and post training routines with the exact same
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respect as your actual workout. The proactive strategy means
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hydrating properly, getting the right nutrition, getting the
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right sleep and targeting the mobility through active recovery
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to ensure your joints are moving to their full intended range of
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motion before again before you actually load them with heavy
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weights or top speed. Track and field logistics and
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and training and practice. Absolutely.
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And I think a lot of people get to the misunderstanding that
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prevention or that they should do something when something
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hurts them. They should take action as soon
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as the hurting starts. But I always tell my athletes as
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well as told myself when I was competing to do a body scan,
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take a time. Take 5 minutes out of your day,
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if that, to go ahead and scan your body.
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Feel what works, what's working for you, what feels good, what
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maybe needs some treatment today or what needs some rest.
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Because even at that moment, right and time and even with the
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resources you probably have, which is minimal, that is doing,
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that's making the difference. I think a lot of people think
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about recovery in the essence of, OK, well, I have to take a
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whole day of rest. I have to do all these things, I
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have to spend all this money when a simple body scan can go a
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long way. Absolutely, Sean.
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You know, you have to build this in as a routine.
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It's absolutely everything to have a routine that includes
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recovery. You can eat a salad once a
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month, maybe not going to be healthy.
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You had a liken to that. You can try to foam roll out one
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time, but that's not going to give you the load capacity that
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you need and expect your body to be bulletproof.
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Consistency is what makes the difference.
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It creates adaptation and it really makes it to the point
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where you're ready to go. Yeah, keeping it simple is very
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important, especially in the prevention aspect, because while
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you're not hurt, you're preventing yourself from being
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hurt. A little goes a long way.
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It definitely works with itself, but 5 minutes of dynamic from 5
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minutes of dynamic movement before training or just taking 5
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minute down downtime to regulate after a workout is going to take
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you so far and consistency and to keep going in your sport
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every single day. And what about nutrition?
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You need a three hour routine. You know, my track and field
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athletes on on the field are stretching, as you said, form
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drills, dynamic stretching to prepare for the exertion of
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what's to come. My ABS.
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This is, you know, one of the my absolute favorite things to talk
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about every day. Performance is our next pillar.
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Exactly. Getting reading right into it,
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GAIL, this is really your wheelhouse as a coach and as a
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meat director. How does recovery support
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physical capacity and strength? Again, leading in absolute
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favorite pillar because people forget that training doesn't
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make you better. It actually breaks down the
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muscles. It it, it it, it's just, I can't
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even stress. Let me tell you again, it breaks
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down the muscles. You can only get stronger and
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faster and more explosive during your recovery phase.
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The recovery is the physiological or biological
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process of your body to rebuild itself at a higher capacity
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based on what you've done from breaking down the muscle.
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You don't understand that they think I want to get stronger and
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better by by just going and going, going hard.
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That's not how it works. Yeah.
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And think of I guess to simplify it out for other people who are
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watching and maybe don't know what we're talking about, think
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of training as like the stimulus and recovery as your response.
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Absolutely. And it because it has, if you
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have a massive stimulus, say an intense conditioning every
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single day or on that day, but a terrible recovery response, you
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end up overtraining and a lot of people get overtrained or burnt
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out or they just can't handle anymore and they have overuse.
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Of their muscles. Exactly.
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And so we don't want people to get to overtraining.
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And I know certainly you guys watching or listening don't want
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to be have any type of overtraining.
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But when you perfectly match the stress of training with the
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quality of recovery, you get a positive adaptation.
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Absolutely. What does that look like for
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athletes that you coach? Like who's done it right and who
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have you seen? You don't have to name any
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names. I'm not gonna name any names to
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protect the innocent, but you see it meeting changes when they
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walk in a track or in the gym. They're fully recharged.
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They've got a full tank to go and, and, and really have their
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bodies react positively from that performance piece we just
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talked about, the power output increases because the central
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nervous system is fresh and the time to fatigue lengthens.
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I know my 400 runners, some people are like, how do they do
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that? Well, if you're doing the right
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things to your body, which I keep harping on, remember the
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time to fatigue lengthens. And every life I think of every
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day in my life is a 400 run. You know, from a track and field
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perspective, my 400 runners out there, you'll get that.
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But on the flip side, the biggest mistake most athletes
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make is chasing the volume to break down the plateau.
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Let me say that again. Most athletes make a mistake by
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chasing the volume to break down the plateau, often doing less
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but recovering harder is what unlocks that next level of.
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Performance, absolutely, and further emphasizing the
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consistency that we were talking about.
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I had something for my wrestlers.
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It is foundational for a wrestler to work hard.
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You don't work hard, you're not going to win.
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But a lot of us wrestlers don't work smart.
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And a part of smart working out is having a SMART Recovery
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routine, having a routine that's going to allow you to train hard
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and rest hard. That's why I always tell my
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athletes you should train, it's hard.
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You should rest as hard as you train because you need to
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recover. The taxing sport of wrestling.
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Your body's getting beat up. For me, 15 years of that, you
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need to find time to tell yourself to be like, OK, I need
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to stop or I need to slow down, right?
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And that's the start of proper recovery as well as getting that
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routine that you need. Because it's just this
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misconception that everybody thinks in sports that the harder
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I work, the better I'm going to be.
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It's like your body does breakdown as you age in the
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short run. You're aging, in a sense, when
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you're not taking care of yourself when you're working
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out. Right.
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And your muscles need time to recover because it makes it more
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elastic, more pliable and ready for what's to come.
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You mentioned that that that fiber tissue breakdown and the
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muscle stiffness, you really have to make that movement where
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you're recovering because if you are sedentary, it's going to
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make you more stiff. Yeah.
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So your muscle tissue remains pliable instead of fibratic and
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movement becomes more efficient. Exactly.
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Cost less energy to move and you're more bouncy and you're
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ready to go. Sounds good.
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I do want to move on to our next pillar, provision that leads us
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perfectly into our third pillar again provision.
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This is about delivering elite level recovery support to bridge
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the gap between injury and peak performance.
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To me, provision means giving your body the specific tools,
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nutrients and external support it needs to create the
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physiological environment required for healing.
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Which is basically what I was saying before.
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And being able to recover hard and having those tools.
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Why is this such a big deal for our big need for better support
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in that space? That's an awesome question.
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My track athletes are always saying I'm hurt, I need to do
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this, I got to do whatever. But the reason why this is such
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a big deal is because the gap between I'm not injured and I'm
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at peak performance is huge. Sometimes it's more mental than
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physiological. A lot of athletes, you know,
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live in that messy middle kind of thing where they're dealing
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with localized soreness or tightness or even spasms.
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And it leads to a minor set back, sometimes major setbacks
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depending on how how severe it actually is.
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But what you need to do as an athlete or somebody that
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supports athletes is you need to make things more localized.
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You need to target to get the support poor that you need
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because sometimes athletes get in this rut between
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physiological limitations and mental limitations.
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Huge, huge gap. Absolutely.
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And just Simply put, your body feels good.
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You're mentally going to feel good and you'll be able to
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perform well. Like blood flow brings oxygen to
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the body, nutrients bring that to the tissue and flushes out
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metabolic waste. And these things that you're
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doing when you created good habits for yourself are the
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things that give you that good performance.
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And that's exactly what we're talking about in a provisional
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aspect, checking in with those things.
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Do you know one of the biggest things from a provision
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perspective is what is that massage?
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OK, cuz massage in the soft tissues, which is the ones that
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are usually damaged or stressed or overloaded.
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When you massage those it takes out the old blood which creates
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DMS which is delayed onset muscle soreness.
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And when you massage, when you get a professional massage or
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the self-care piece you massage yourself takes out the old blood
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and brings in oxygen and breaks down that soreness or that scar
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tissue, the mental, mental, like the physical fibers that are
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being stressed. What it does is it regulates
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your nervous system. I think we talked about that
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before to improve your tissue glide, as they call it.
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So the smooth tissue, the elasticity and the pliability of
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the of the tissue, it shouldn't be reviewed like revered as a
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luxury. I mean, I love massage just as
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much as the next person, but once you have kids and life
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happens around, you don't have those.
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You know, the luxuries of having a massage therapist, but it
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should not be considered as a luxury.
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This is a biologic, A biomechanical tool that you
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really need to execute again from your trainer or from
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yourself to maintain the tissue quality.
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You know, what does elite support actually look like in
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everyday athletes to who don't have that proper training?
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You know, we don't, we're not multi $1,000,000 athletes that
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spend $1,000,000 on our body, but there are little incremental
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things we can do to get that blood flow and the oxygen moving
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and delay the onset muscle soreness.
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So you can prepare, you know you can compete at a high level.
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Absolutely. It has to be accessible,
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consistent, and science backed. Yep.
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If a tool requires an hour to set up, you're most likely not
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going to use it. Correct.
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Honestly, that's exactly why we created Performer Flex Mr.
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together. We wanted to have a supportive
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tool for everybody in everyday use that they can rely on daily
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that will provide them the targeted relief without needing
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a full time athletic trainer to stand.
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By Oh, those are nice. Exactly.
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The trainer's nice, that's true. It's it.
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It looks like stacking winds. Hydrate.
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Use your supportive tools on targeted areas that are dragging
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you down. Get 8 hours of sleep.
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Bring the bridge the gap by doing the boring work
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brilliantly. Right, You guys remember that
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also includes active recovery. So if you're a track athlete,
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try swimming. If you're a wrestler, maybe try
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gymnastics. You know if you're any of those
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active recoveries because that gets rid of the stiffness and
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increases the joint mobility. Absolutely.
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And that brings us to the final pillar, which is purpose.
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Why is it so important to educate athletes about recovery
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tools that support long term health and performance?
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You know, it's ignorance and it's not on purpose.
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People don't know, which is why I got in this business six years
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ago to research these types of things, to bring these types of
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this information to high performing athletes as well as,
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you know, Rd. Warriors and, and, and weekend
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warriors and gym goers. You have to know because if you
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don't understand, you're going to abandon any type of recovery.
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When athletes understand the physiological purpose behind a
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recovery regimen, recovery tool, recovery muscle rub, whether you
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use performa flex or not, they build it in because now they get
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the relief they're looking for, they can recover more
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effectively. So when it, you know, comes to
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recovery, this should not be negotiable.
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It should be non negotiable that this is part of your routine.
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You want to drop down to that 46400, you know, you want to
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drop down to that 19, you know, 200 meters education and how to
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recover will help you do that. Is it a silver bullet?
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No. But when you provide all these
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things together and the education of recovery and the
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education of nutrition, the education of active recovery,
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the education of, of sleep and hydration, H2O, crazy how it
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works with the sleep and, and the things that come along with
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that. So allowing you know, you or
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your athletes to discern what actually needs to be done is
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half the battle. It's not just the clever
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marketing, it's it's really the education behind the routine of
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recovery. I see that all the time,
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especially a lot of athletes are focused on today's workout or
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this week's meet. I always ask them about their
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life after the sport. You know, do you want to be able
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to pick up your kids without your back giving out?
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What do you, what do you, what do?
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What you do today dictates to your structural integrity.
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And that's why we also coach that for our kids to both and
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track and wrestling, We both say it's not only just about making
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you a good athlete, but a better person, not mentally, physically
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and spiritually. And so again, what you do
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dictate your spiritual integrity for tomorrow.
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And I want them to review, review recovery and have that
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same investment, not to make it a chore.
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Right. And if you remember nothing
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today, because this is a short little clip of what muscle
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recovery is all about, remember you cannot out train poor
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recovery period. If you go hard in the gym, go
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hard in recovery. If you go hard on the track, go
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hard on recovery. If you go hard on the mat, go
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hard on recovery. Period.
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When you put all four pillars together, because now we've gone
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through our 4 pillars, Prevention, Performance,
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provision and purpose, I think what most athletes are missing
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is the system itself. Correct?
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Recovery is a system, not a single fix.
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People try to cherry pick one pillar, like buying a fancy tool
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for provision, but they completely ignore purpose and
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prevention. Mom, what would you say to an
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athlete who doesn't know where to start?
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Where should they start? You know what?
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You can't do all this at once. Rome was not built in a day.
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We are creatures of habit. So start with one.
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I call them your superpowers. What are you really good at
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right now? And then what are you next good
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at? Add that in and what are you
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next good at after that? And then what the next one
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you're at that. So then you get 4 pillars in
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those veins. But don't like if you're really
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good at prevention and you're the next super powers provision,
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go to provision next. You can't do it all at once
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because you get frustrated and you'll do nothing.
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And most people just do nothing because it's easier than
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actually adding it in. So just incremental changes.
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Pick AP and then from there move to the next one and move to the
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next one and then it'll master the basics because then you'll
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have a routine. What is it people say it takes
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20 times to do something for it to become a?
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Habit. Something like.
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That take recovery the same way 1P and let us know which one you
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start with and then go from there.
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Absolutely. And I can I agree.
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You know, a lot of us, all of us as high performing athletes or
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active individuals perform right, whether that is
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physically in a run or a lift or on the mat or on the track.
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We perform at work, we perform for kids, we perform in general.
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So everybody has that first P right Start there.
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How is your performance? Are you performing well?
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Are you are you doing it at the level in which you're satisfied
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with? Have you given everything today
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and from there figure out where these other PS can now put
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themselves in there for your performance to get better,
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Correct. And when you start there, you're
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able to realize, Oh my gosh, it is really important that I need
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to get 8 hours of sleep. Yep.
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It is really important that I need to be eating properly.
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It is really important that I need to figure out what my
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recovery thing is going to be and being able to develop that
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type of correct performance that I want to give to myself, my
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family, and people around me. So start there.
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Yep. But before we close, but we want
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to give a quick mention again to perform a Flex Mr. It's 1 great
19:25
option for athletes to take a look at in localized recovery
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support as a part of the broader routine that we're talking about
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here too. If you want to learn more about
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that science backed talk talk that we're having today and how
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to buy it, find everythingdirectlythatyouneed@performerflexmr.com.
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Right. And if you want to learn more
19:48
about muscle recovery, because I've been studying for six
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years, we're going to be having some trainings that are going to
19:54
be coming out to talk to the different levels of
19:56
certification and taking care of your body.
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If nothing else. You can also follow us because
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we're going to be active on Instagram and YouTube at
20:04
Performer Flex Mr. We'll post, you know, as much as we can on a
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daily basis. Education on recovery content on
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mobility routines. And deeper dives into muscle
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recovery and the importance of muscle recovery.
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Absolutely, Mom Gil Co, founder of Performer Flex Mr. Thank you
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so much for being on this podcast today and talking about
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our four pillar framework. I can't wait for people to want
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to learn more and dive in not only to the product, but into
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our future trainings that we have here today and include
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performer Flex in their lives just as much as we have.
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So I thank you again for visit having, you know, being here on
20:40
this podcast as well as you for listening out there.
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I thank you very so much Sean for finally getting me on.
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Sean takes on to talk about this very important topic and I look
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forward to future podcast with you.
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Thank you so much for Co founding with me.
20:51
Absolutely. We'll see you next time.
20:53
Hey gang, Mike Cunningham here. Thanks for joining us for this
20:56
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