Latest / The Uplift- with Luke Pollock / #13 - Darragh McGurn - Why Should You Have Options As An Athlete?
Transcript
- Luke Pollock: The following is a conversation with Dara McGirn. Dara is an Inter County GAA athlete and an online business owner. Dara is intentional around maximizing his personal and his clients performance on and off the pitch. I personally have learned a great deal watching Dara from the sidelines and I learned a great deal more from this conversation. I hope you as the listener find it as beneficial as I have. Enjoy. Dara, when I was ⁓ preparing for ⁓ podcast episode you, I went on your LinkedIn, believe it or not. ⁓ And ⁓ I could see was a lot of aerospace engineering chat, which is obviously very different from what you do ⁓ at the minute. ⁓ So talk through sort of that transition. Darragh McGurn: Yeah, that's funny. Actually, I probably should get on the LinkedIn and fill it with S &C stuff. But ⁓ yeah, the transition happened, to be honest, like without me really thinking about it all too much. was really COVID was the kind of the catalyst for it and that we were kind of stuck at home and there wasn't much to be added. And was still obviously in the midst of that Irish based engineering degree. But it was kind of the first time where I kind of had space to stop and think about what was actually going on and what I actually wanted to do with my life. from like, like going back years before that, when I started the degree, I wasn't enjoying it. And I've always kind of had that passion from the age of 15 that I wanted, that I was interested in like S and C and speed and fitness, everything that was a selfish thing to try and get me better as a player. because I wasn't good enough at that age. And to me at 15, it was like, okay, I'm not making the teams, I've been a wee bit overweight. The best thing I can do here is go 100 % all in on my physical qualities. And within that period, I ended up, I suppose, progressing a lot faster than those around me and realizing and seeing what was actually possible when you did go to the gym regularly, when you did work in your speed training, when you did completely change your eating habits. I ended up starting on basically every team from that, from 16 right up to 20 in terms of the county teams, school teams. ⁓ and that's where the passion kind of came from. And then as I say, over COVID was when I just started, I just was like, I said to one of the boys, think it was, I might start with an Instagram page and they're like, yeah, like 100 % go for it. Like if there's anyone is going to be good at it, it's going to be you because you're pretty obsessed with it. then did that. And then it escalated from there where off the back of me posting what I was doing consistently, people started asking me, could they get coaching? And that snowballed. And by the time I'd finished the degree, I already had like maybe 15 one-to-one clients. And it was a no brainer from there to just keep going. Luke Pollock: class and was that mostly like just word of mouth at the start or was it the page that actually was like a mass bit of a following at that point? Darragh McGurn: you It was the page. It was the page and it was probably a few people who already know me. My first ever client was someone I had played college football with. So he, I don't know, he probably was just following for that year or two. Yeah, so it was, it was all followers who had been watching what I'd been doing on the page probably for that first year or two. Luke Pollock: Mm. Yeah, that's class. when you sort of going back to when you were 15, 16, not making the teams, did you feel like it was just physical qualities letting you down? Like you had the skill level and stuff there and that was the biggest disparity. Could you get into like what those physical qualities were? Darragh McGurn: Yeah, to be honest, that like going back further to say six to ten, physical qualities aren't really like that much of a thing. It's like who's good at football? And at that age, I was always one of the better footballers. It was only when I hit like 11 to 13, 14, where I went into secondary school, eating habits got a lot worse. I did end up putting on weight and And that's when I started to not make teams. So in my head, I was like, I've always been a good enough footballer. My skill level has always been really good, but what's left me down here is I'm just in horrendous shape. I'm really unfit in comparison to the other players. ⁓ And so that's why I knew if I go after that set of things and I get as fast or strong or as well-conditioned as other players, I'm also as good, if not better than them in terms of skills. So in terms of what I went after, to be honest, at the start, was... So I was actually really lucky at 15 that I got a really big growth spurt. So I went from one of the very average, you know, in terms of height within my age group to probably one of the tallest in the whole year. I think it was like six foot one at 14, 15. And from there, it was a case of just getting into the gym and getting strong and putting on muscle mass because I had the frame and I had already leaned out in terms of, you know, a body fat perspective. So. strength and size. I remember if we would have been like, there was such little information back then, but we'd have been spending hours. There was actually two or three of us spending hours on YouTube trying to find out how do we get explosive? How do you get fast? And it would have been a lot of like med ball slams. It would have been doing explosive pull-ups, explosive bench press alongside all the heavy strength work to build muscle mass. We were pairing it up with all this stuff and like speed band stuff, ⁓ crazy stuff to be honest that we were doing, but it was just more the intent behind it. Luke Pollock: Yeah. Yeah. Darragh McGurn: ⁓ and there was less like actual speed work on a pitch, which obviously developed as the years went on in terms of that set of things. and then it was, I remember running one kilometers and running a yo-yo test was the thing back then, like up and down me driveway doing in the treadmill in the garage, doing like one kilometers, just trying to cover all of those things. ⁓ but the, the differential for me was purely size. put on probably Jesus, maybe 15 kilos. in a short space of time. Probably ended up getting too big, but yeah, that was probably the difference. Luke Pollock: Okay, yeah. Yeah, and it's for like, a lot of people listen to this and follow me from a rugby background, obviously. And you can sort of get away in certain positions in rugby with being just incredibly skillful as you'll know. Right at the top level, obviously, the SNC is pretty dialed in. But I play with boys who are playing at top level rugby in England who barely... focus on the rest and see, do you think like in the modern GAA scene, you can sort of shy away from it? Or do you think it's like everyone's pretty dialed in with it now? Darragh McGurn: At the highest level, everyone's pretty dialed in. Unless you're incredibly gifted, like incredibly gifted, you're not going to get away with The game's too fast. It's too up and down. It's too much chaos. You're going to be expected to run 8 to 10K a game, 1000 meters high speed running. You're going to be caught in one V1 high, or in one V1 battles quite often. Luke Pollock: Yeah. Shit. Darragh McGurn: I suppose the rules have kind of changed over this last two years and we've been able to keep three players up the pitch. So that probably lends itself more to someone who maybe doesn't go after the S &C as much or doesn't fully dial in on all those different physical qualities and is purely maybe skills-based. But even at that, you're still probably more open to letting your team down at times if you aren't athletic or you're not well-conditioned. ⁓ Luke Pollock: Yeah. Darragh McGurn: At club level, you're probably still going to get players who just don't bother with it. And that's just the nature of the sport. But in terms of that inter-county level, it's non-negotiable really. There's collective sessions where everyone has to be there, everyone has to be doing it. The speed training is probably taken from majority of teams pre-training anyway. You're in the gym doing your prep sessions collectively. Yeah. Luke Pollock: Yeah. Darragh McGurn: Most players, like the very odd player might try and still skip some of it, but it'll not be long before they're injured and they're probably having to dial in on it. Luke Pollock: And do think that is like, obviously for the reasons you've just mentioned the high speed running meters, how far you have to run, et cetera. But looking on, it looks like a lot of one V one just standard battles. Like if I'm more athletic than you, I'll take you here, you know? ⁓ Which is... Darragh McGurn: Yeah. Luke Pollock: There's actually, yes there is one V1 battles in terms of the contact area of rugby, but like you can be a 10 or a 15. I'd just be smart and like distribute the ball in rugby, you know, and you don't have to have that one V1. I'm going to take someone on at all times, which it seems like that's why I love forcing the GAA. It's just a constant like who's more athletic in this situation. Darragh McGurn: Yeah. And it's, it's going more so that way because teams are starting to figure out ways of creating them 1v1 battles. Whereas previously teams before the new rules came in and even maybe last year at times, because they were so new, the rules teams were alert, like teams were good at defending with three and four and covering small areas with a lot of people. ⁓ Whereas now teams are getting smarter in terms of right before breaking down a defense. Luke Pollock: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Darragh McGurn: How do we get the 1v1s, send more bodies inside, we stretch the defenders out around and then we create our 1v1s out around that arc. So we're seeing a lot more of that now. ⁓ And like, won't be a successful team unless you have four, five, six really, really good 1v1 players who are capable of really going at a player and creating something. You're always gonna have those players who don't. Luke Pollock: Yeah. Darragh McGurn: who aren't as great in 1v1s and they'll have different roles in the team and different jobs and that's fine as well. ⁓ That is what wins games really. Luke Pollock: Yeah. Yeah. So going on to like your coaching side of things, just with all that in mind, is that pretty much what you're coaching your athletes to be? Like the most dangerous player physically they can be on the pitch. I know you also talk about some like mindset stuff, et cetera, in your coaching. So give us an overview of like what your coaching entails. Darragh McGurn: Yeah, that'd be a huge part of it. Like I really go after movement mechanics firstly, and I break it down into your acceleration, your change of direction, your deceleration, your max velocity, upright roaming. And we try and improve how that athlete's actually moving and trying to improve the feel of those different positions, you know, in a closed environment within the gym. Which then once they start to get a better idea of how to access those different... postures and patterns and stuff. Then I work a lot on trying to progress that out onto the pitch and having, so athletes are obviously still in their team environments at club level, but they don't really get access to that top end speed work, that more focused change of direction, that more focused acceleration work. So with me, it's trying to find that window pre-training where you're really going after that side of things when you're fresh and you've done your bit of prep work. in the gym first and then you're going out and you're ready to really attack that kind of stuff. And when that, that stuff builds and builds and builds over time. And it's not something that after two or three weeks, athletes are just moving completely different. I'm big. And that's why it's called the three, six, five athlete. Like it's, takes time to build that stuff. takes, it takes reps. It takes progression maybe from, as I mentioned, closed environments, drills, progressing it into more maybe chaotic drills then as well. ⁓ but yeah. Luke Pollock: Yeah, yeah. Darragh McGurn: That's because athletes enjoy that stuff too. Like athletes want to be that guy who is good in a 1v1 scenario. They want to be, even if they're a 1v1 defender who's given a man marking role, your ability to accelerate, change direction and be agile is so key if you want to better success in those roles. So it all, like, yeah, as I mentioned, they all want to be kind of that guy or girl. Luke Pollock: And how did you like learn about each of those things in isolation? it just like, was it through injury or was it obviously back when you were 16, you probably weren't thinking about like, what can I do in the gym to then transfer directly on the pitch? What was like being your journey and learning about this? Like what game speed, game mechanics, other things and breaking the game right down into physical qualities then you can allow your athletes to access. Darragh McGurn: Yeah. So the speed side of things came first, probably just being an inter-county footballer and wanting to be better and wanting to be faster and learning off the likes of Jonas Doderu at Speedworks. And I did his mentorship and I was consistently out doing, you know, stuff on the pitch in terms of match velocity and acceleration, but I probably wasn't really focused on anything in the gym in terms of the posture, the positions and patterns. And then I ended up with the chronic groin injury. And that's when something switched where it was like, Luke Pollock: Yeah. Hmm. Darragh McGurn: something's missing here. Like how I'm moving just isn't right. And even watching myself move, it wasn't right, but I was moving at serious, like I had 10.08 meters per second that year. What I was moving was just not good at all. So that's where I started learning off Alan Murdoch ⁓ in terms of I did his mentorship and I also worked with him one to one. And that's where he really opened my eyes into the actual movement side of things. How you're sharing load, how you're interacting. Luke Pollock: Yeah. Darragh McGurn: the floor, what your reactivity is like, what space you have around the hips. And David Gray was another one in terms of, know, seeing, having a closer look in terms of how my hips were moving, how my feet were moving and where I could improve that in terms of, as I mentioned, space that I could access those different ranges and those different postures better when it came to acceleration and change of direction. But it was actually really enjoyable period too. Although it was very difficult, I learned so much over that year where I was like working closely with Alan and we were maybe looking at how I was moving and you could see maybe when I was planting off my right foot that I wasn't using my penultimate step right and was all the load was going over that right side and there was no real system stiffness. And then maybe on the left, you know, it was lovely shapes. It was striking the ground with intent. And it's just, it's just cool to see that in terms of, you know, there's probably no reason why you've got. Luke Pollock: Yeah. Darragh McGurn: a groin injury or you've got a hamstring injury or you've got a calf injury. And that was to be able to go and learn off that in much like the way Allen breaks down. I know if you've seen him is just unreal. Like it's so simplified. And once you see it, you can't unsee it. You nearly know it straight away when it comes to the different postures. ⁓ And you've also like once you can see something in terms of how an athlete's moving and maybe why that's not helping them, you can think you. Luke Pollock: Yeah. Darragh McGurn: you nearly have a solution straight away as well. Yeah, that was a whole process over that kind of two year period ⁓ where I was learning so much about myself and then implementing it with the athletes that I was working with. Luke Pollock: And do you think that's the biggest thing? Cause I was struggling with a bit of a groin injury, actually myself at the minute. Um, and I'm sort of just like, cause we've got quite a lot of break weeks and managing it at the minute till the end of the season. It is at the point. It doesn't have, what's your video on it? It doesn't sound like I've got the point where you were taking painkiller injections and stuff, but, um, it's all the point now where like, can feel it's impacted me and training and stuff. Um, do you think the like, If I was coming to you as a GA athlete, what would be the first thing you would look at doing? Darragh McGurn: I would probably look close at your movement. I would get you to video acceleration, max velocity. ⁓ Obviously taking a closer look at hip in turn and next turn rotation as well, just to see if there's any glaring gaps there. And then a big thing that I looked like is metabolic health and sleep and all those other factors that come into it as well. Like there could be just ⁓ a level of like systemic information in the body too that needs to be addressed before you even look at those different things. But ⁓ how you're actually moving, I think is so big, like especially when it comes to that change of direction side of things. From what I can see, that's nearly the biggest problem with athletes. It's their strategy when it comes to change direction. ⁓ And that's where I probably made the biggest changes and improvements. ⁓ Luke Pollock: I think it's also similar, like my story of how this started is similar to do yourself. Like I just came off off season where I was doing loads and loads of speed work. I a lot of rugby sevens, came into the season where we're training on like an old 4G. So it's very hard. So probably heavier than I ever have been. And then also faster as well. So the body's like what's going on here. So if there's anything out of kilter, even a little bit, you're going to start to feel it and that's just built up then over months and months, you know. Darragh McGurn: Yeah. And it's funny that was similar to me. Like I do think that's a huge factor in terms of heavier athletes, but also moving faster. It just makes sense in terms of the force you're to be putting through the ground and everything is going to be higher. So you're like everything else probably has to match that as well. ⁓ I think for athletes that are heavier and are also getting faster, that's where you have to be way, way more careful in terms of overall load. Luke Pollock: Yeah. Darragh McGurn: I do think later athletes who are extremely fast will get away with that wee bit extra in terms of volume. But me or you probably would be better at the most minimal effect of dosage speed work ever and just getting up there and away you go. Luke Pollock: Yeah. Yeah. Agreed, My lesson's been learned. Because it is addictive, right? Like you start to see the numbers tick up and you're like, let me, I can just keep going here. And then body just starts to say, hold on there. Yeah. Darragh McGurn: Yeah, I was at that stage. Like I remember pitching having the GPS and like, I couldn't believe after like four or five weeks what it was doing. Like I would do like a 20 or 30 meter acceleration and hit like 9.5 and be like, what? Like, how have I just done that? And then I'm mad to do another one. And then you're doing it more and more and your volume's just through the roof. Luke Pollock: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's class. that like, that's one of the, you know, I remember when I spoke to Owen McKay, I got the sense that he was very much like, and he said this himself, like, be about it. Whatever I give my athletes, I'll have done myself. And I get the sense that's the same for you, you know, which is probably, which is the best way to prescribe stuff, because you know how it should be feeling when it's feeling right. And you also know what the load on your body is going to feel like. Darragh McGurn: Yeah. Yeah, it's the skin in the game. think that's how it is so important because I've also seen and been given stuff from coaches maybe where I know they haven't done it. And I'm just like, this is... Have you done this? So when you've done it yourself, you know what's too much and what's enough, really. Luke Pollock: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, especially on the conditioning side of things, think that's when it's most easy to lose your head. when you're just being told by someone standing on the side of the pitch, yeah, do a few more of those. like, you've never, you don't know where I'm at the minute, you know, to ask me to do a few more of those. But like even, we had a, we had a session last night, which is, got a week off this week, so like a week off game. So there's a lot more conditioning and like. Darragh McGurn: Yes. See you later. Luke Pollock: One of the lads who is wearing the GPS is only six kilometres, but that's a proper blowout for us. But you boys are doing that. That'll probably be an average training night for you. Yeah, light session. Class. God, I to God, I good about myself. I was absolutely blown. Darragh McGurn: Our user gets hammered every session, probably physically. Luke Pollock: Yeah. Yeah, well, little bit. So going back to like the job in and of itself, so you've sort of covered what you, you progressed after uni, one-to-one coaching, 15, 15 one-to-one athletes. And then a few years go past and you open up like the, the 365, the 365 athlete. That's it. How's that been just in general, like as a learning curve business wise, and then also Darragh McGurn: athlete. Luke Pollock: I kind of been managing that because it seems like it's quite a big cohort, etc. Darragh McGurn: Yeah, it's been good. ⁓ Again, it was probably unknown territory at the start in terms of, yeah, like the idea of having group coaching is great. Let's just go for it. But the management side of things has been a wee bit tricky and trying to grow it and scale it to a level where you're actually building a community and you're not just building something where athletes think they're getting an eight week program and then they just want to leave like that. I'd never wanted it to be about that. And that was probably the way it was at the start. A focus for me over this last six to 12 months has been growing it, yes, but also how do I create that level of community and culture within there that athletes realize that it is a longer term game and it's not something you don't get to that next level athletically or even just performance wise on the pitch as a whole in terms of mindset and body composition and all those different things without sticking at it longer. ⁓ and surrounding yourself with other athletes too who are doing similar things. And the system side of things has been big. So I've created a go collab it's called, which is just a community, ⁓ which has been going really well over this last while where athletes will share their weekly recaps, their wins, different things that are going on on a weekly basis. And I've also brought in another coach to kind of help me with that and someone who thinks on a similar level to myself. ⁓ to answer questions and relay with different athletes. And then I hosted my first in-person coaching day in January, which was a big thing, ⁓ getting athletes in a room, which I, at the start was probably, probably scared of what to do because I didn't really know how it would go down within GA and like athletes would they engage, but it was, it was unreal. And Luke Pollock: Yeah. Darragh McGurn: It was something that athlete trade, they all thrived off like it was because it was so novel and new. And again, as I say, it was athletes all in a similar head space, probably in terms of where they want to go. And the level of coaching that I was able to do that day as well was kind of eye opening in terms of the changes they could make because online is one thing, but when you bring them into the environment and you start coaching them through the stuff that we've been doing in terms of maybe prep with purpose, you realize how much more there is to get there in terms of how they're actually moving, which Luke Pollock: Yeah. Darragh McGurn: like how much they can get out of their speed and their change direction and their strength work. So that's something I want to keep growing and bring into it as well. ⁓ Firstly, obviously because of the coaching side of things and improving that, but then just community, getting lads together, having a bit of craic. You probably don't get it as much in a club or even a county environment because it is so serious. You're always pushing for the next league game or the next championship game and... Luke Pollock: Yeah. Darragh McGurn: groups might only get that opportunity once a year to have a bit of a crack. yeah, it has been a challenge managing the large number and it's different to one-to-one coaching, whereas you will have athletes drop off a lot more often and you will have to go and do marketing a bit more often to try and, I suppose, bring athletes in and find the right athletes. And it means that you have to be more on the ball with coaching or with content and things like that. But it has meant that I've been able to lower down in terms of how many one-to-one athletes I am taking on board and probably the quality of one-to-one as well. could be a wee bit more specific with who's coming on as well, which has been a good thing. Luke Pollock: Yeah, has that given you more time back, you think then, overall? Darragh McGurn: That was the plan, but it probably hasn't really panned out that way because there is so much else to do. And it's definitely given me more time in terms of like check-ins were probably taken up two or three days and it was probably a lot more mental energy required for that. ⁓ But in terms of things to do, I'm still behind the laptop for majority of the week, know, having different things to do. ⁓ But I do feel in time it will give me more time back if that makes sense. Luke Pollock: Yeah, it's like your front-loading little work, right? Like building out the systems, bringing on your coach. But when it's up and running, hopefully, it'll be a bit more system-sized. I've been thinking about it as well, because there's the online side of it grows, and obviously, I'm doing one-to-one rehab, so it's quite a lot of checking in. Yeah, you can be in danger of just creating this big, this job for yourself where you are behind the computer, like, or on your phone, just replying to messages all the time. How do you sort of, how do you balance that? Like, I'd be genuine interested to know how do you balance that with playing and also having a normal social life, et cetera, like how do you balance everything? Darragh McGurn: Not well at times. Yeah, it is a challenge. Like it is, is ⁓ boundaries. something obviously we talked before this about my most recent post about trying to be better in terms of being online and stuff. And it's something I probably haven't done well in the past in terms of everything's merged into one and you're on WhatsApp, maybe you're in the team WhatsApp, like. Luke Pollock: With great difficulty. I figured you might say that. Darragh McGurn: in terms of different things going on in there. And then you're on your business WhatsApp and you're applying to clients and then you're on Instagram because you're searching for content and then you're on Instagram which you're applying to DMs and it's all merging into one. Whereas I think things have to be set in terms of boundaries like when you're on line and when you're on Instagram and what you're doing at that time on your Instagram, when you're creating content. Like I actually had a day yesterday where I was really specific with all those things and the day just flew so much better and I had far more space outside of that to just. not pay my phone and go to training with more energy. ⁓ So in terms of managing it, I've actually like, I got the lock device as well to try and manage it a wee bit better. ⁓ And I do think you have to be, you have to nearly have cut off times and you have to separate work from life as often as you can, because I would often come home from training at half nine, 10 at night and I still have content to do. And I'm sitting here and my head's fried come. Luke Pollock: ⁓ yeah, nice. Darragh McGurn: 11, 11.5 and that's the reality. then it's just 12 o'clock minimum before I'm sleeping. And that's feeding into the next day. So that's probably one of the biggest challenges I find with online is that there's no separation. Like if you're working in an office, you go home at five o'clock and hopefully that's you for the evening. Whereas it's not with us really, because you're always working on something to do. Luke Pollock: Yeah. Yeah, there's always more today. Yeah, and then you decide to start a podcast on the side just to give you even more to do. But yeah, in terms of like the, like you just said when you're coming home and you still have content to do, you're obviously following a plan for that and you stick to that quite rigorously or you just think, ⁓ I haven't posted anything in two days, I need to get something done. Darragh McGurn: Yeah, the latter. I'm not the most organized in terms of, I've that overly structured, like really specific, and I just didn't find it worked for me. ⁓ So yeah, it could be a case of, right, I will always have like, right, I want to post four times this week, or I want to post three to four times this week. ⁓ And I just try and, so I'll have my weekly recap and then it's more so if I've had something already planned for that day. Luke Pollock: Yeah. Yeah. Darragh McGurn: And I just haven't finished it. If it makes sense, it's just not ready to post just yet. might keep, you know what mean? Yeah, for me being better at that definitely is also deciding if I'm posting that day come five o'clock or not, instead of leaving it blurry like, ⁓ I might post today. I might not because it's not good for the, it's not good for the head space when you come home after training and you're thinking about content. it just. Luke Pollock: Yeah. Fine, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I was ⁓ when I started the page and like my content, so nowhere near where like the likes of yours is what I wanted to be. But when I started the page, I thought I'd go for 30 days here, but I post every day, which seems pretty doable. But. ⁓ Darragh McGurn: Happy the way. Luke Pollock: I think when you're not used to potion, you realize like it takes a lot longer. Like I could probably do a lot easier now than I could back then because it taking me ages to video stuff and I was still working nine to five. And I was waking up in the night like two or three times just because I would be on my phone just before bed. And then I wake up thinking about it like I couldn't I couldn't work out why I was waking up during the night because I wasn't wasn't something that ever happened to me before. And my missus was like, you think you should maybe just on your phone a bit much and you're trying to get too much in? And I was like, yeah, maybe that's it. So that sort of put me off, I suppose, like having a very structured like goal. want to post for 30 days straight because it did affect like other areas of my life. And also I wasn't proud of anything I was putting out either. How do you balance that? Like in terms of trying to get four posts out there, but making sure they're good posts because like all of your seem like they're well thought out, well curated and stuff. Darragh McGurn: one thing I try and do, like I found when I was in that period myself and I went through that where it was like, I wanted to post every day and it was more a case of like, I'm trying to complete a challenge here rather than trying to provide value. So I just, I went back to, I, if I have genuinely thought about something or like it's really, really relevant right now, I find my content's higher quality because of a bit of a buzz for that right now. If that makes sense, like not one yesterday where I just went out and recorded it. Luke Pollock: Yeah. Darragh McGurn: I'd been thinking about that for the last week. And I just was like, this makes sense to just go out and I have a bit of energy to talk about this rather than if I had said, right, every day I'm posting this week and I've just written down these random things that I'm trying to muster my brain up, but for something that I even thought about at all. So yeah, it's, it's more like relevance and things that I think like maybe stuff that athletes have brought up in check-ins this week, you know, like stuff that, And then like I wouldn't even, I wouldn't say a minor like really good quality at the minute. do, you know, we do what I've posted sometimes you put out and you're like, did I need to put that out? Like, that actually providing value? So I always try and think of that at the minute. Is this providing value? Are people going to get something from this? And then you obviously got your testimonial side of things as well that kind of need to go out as well. But definitely quality over quantity is something that I've tried to adopt and not. not put myself under pressure about not posting, think is the main thing. Because once I do that, that's when the quality drops and I'm just posting for the sake of it. But if someone comes to your page and they have like, they're just scrolling through your page, if you filled that with kind of low quality posts like that's what they're seeing as well. Luke Pollock: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's an easy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's definitely a good advice. I think it's easy to get caught up into like a numbers game because you're thinking how can I grow as fast as possible? And that's really just getting like more and more and more. See on the weekly roundups then. ⁓ I don't know if you've ever been asked this before, but do you write like outside of that, or is that just the only time you write? Because you're writing on those roundups is quite good. Like it's very easy reading. And that's a skill in and of itself. Like when I have done those in the past, it's hard to keep them interested, but also hard to make them easy to read, if that makes sense. Darragh McGurn: Yeah, I've actually enjoyed writing them and I've been doing that for a couple of years now. ⁓ So I do find you kind of just get better at like articulating your thoughts within those. Now, some Sundays I sit down there on Mondays and I am like, geez, I cannot put a sentence together here, you know, in a way. But I try and write it as I'm thinking it as well so that it kind of sounds like you. ⁓ But outside of that, would... Luke Pollock: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Darragh McGurn: I would do bits and pieces of writing, it'd be more so just like journaling and stuff. But I would always try and again, articulate my thoughts properly when I'm doing journaling rather than just writing for the sake of it. ⁓ And then I would do a good bit of reading too in terms of like on Substack and things like that. find it is very good. I find the way certain people write in Substack is really cool and you pick up so many different things from it. Like there's a lot of people on there and how they articulate. Luke Pollock: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. And I think it's very underrated skill, know, especially for like, so you're me here, like you're trying to convey a message in a certain way. You're also creating content and people are hopefully reading a lot of what you put out as well, whether that's on the screen with the captions or yeah, in the caption of the video, whatever. So yeah, it's something that I definitely have been more conscious of trying to get better at. terms of books, any books you would recommend or any books that you've studied over the last year or a few years, I suppose. Darragh McGurn: Yeah. One that a few that just jumped to mind in terms of what I've read and if I remember thinking like that's had an impact on me. The first would be how to win friends and influence people because if you're not a good person, don't think much else matters in terms of how you deal with people. I think, I don't know if you've read that book, have you? Luke Pollock: haven't but I've yeah I should really it's really old isn't it it's like from the 90s yeah Darragh McGurn: Yeah. Yeah. And it's probably the title that puts people off because it's like, don't need to win friends. Yeah. The other one I've actually got here was the code of the extraordinary mind. And it was a. It was a really cool book in terms of just changing my mindset at the time when I was transitioning from Irish based to coaching, and it basically just. Luke Pollock: Yeah, I got enough of those. ⁓ I haven't heard of that. Darragh McGurn: There's different concepts in the book that relate with me. I even think back, there was one where they talked about like brules, which are like bullshit rules, which is like having to go to college or like certain religion that you grow up believing in, or, know, you have to play that sport because that's what everyone around you. And just like getting out of that mindset of those different things, which kind of gave me that kick to just go for different things. Fuck it, you go for the coach and go for this. Like what's the worst that could happen? ⁓ And then there was different meditations and stuff within that book that were really cool. Because meditation is one of them things where, again, people are I'm not lying down and just fucking doing nothing for 20 minutes, where this is more like you lie down and you actually think of different things within that meditation that you're actually getting a purpose from it. You're getting something out of that 20, 30 minutes that you can bring more into your life. And then obviously, I've got Dan Carter's book here, The Art of Winning, which is one for athletes to read. Luke Pollock: Yeah. Darragh McGurn: If you are someone who's involved with rugby or involved with teams in GAA, like Dan Carter is one of the goats. I don't know if you've read about it. Luke Pollock: Yeah, I've listened to it on Spotify. Yeah. Darragh McGurn: Yeah, the concept's not big or unreal. I'm trying to think if I have any other roots. So Lord have not given a fuck at the time resonated with me, but I feel like if we read it now, it'd be like, that's shite, Luke Pollock: Yeah, it's just to repeat themselves for 200 pages. And it's good at a certain time. And I think like going back to that second book you mentioned about like rules that you have to sort of follow, like you and other boys have definitely led the way in terms of being young, being in a team sport in Ireland. and like going out and saying what you actually think about things. you know, like even the fact that can come on and say like, yeah, you meditate or, you know, you're pretty dialed in with like your routine, like you do like the red light stuff, et cetera. Like that is, that's obviously more out there than people are used to, but that's what you wanna do. That's what you wanna do. So it's made me like a whole lot more comfortable doing what I actually wanna do and saying what I think, you know. Darragh McGurn: Yeah, yeah, I that's important. Luke Pollock: Has that been like conscious for you or has been just like gradually over time getting more used to sort of yourself out to like putting out what you're actually like? Darragh McGurn: Yeah, I think at the start, probably wouldn't have been, it wouldn't have been a case thought. Definitely. Like you're, you, you build that over time, like over the years. And like you say one thing that you might think people judge you for and nothing comes up. But then you might say the next thing and you're like, right. Not like there's people, you're always going to have the people who. We think you're a bollocks. I think you're an asshole. I think you're over the top and probably a lot of them are in my team environment. Maybe, but it's nearly a lot of times it's like. Luke Pollock: Yeah. Yeah. Darragh McGurn: you're using red light and I'm just like, I am and what? But I, yeah, I think that's important when it comes to being online. think if you're like that, you're like that and that's the way you are. I think you have to portray that. I think it feeds into other areas if you are holding things back when it comes to that, you know, in terms of what you're like. I do think people buy into that too. they, they're like, oh, that's, that's Dower. Like he's just a bit of a, bit of a screwball, but that's, know. Luke Pollock: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Darragh McGurn: that's what's cool about him or whatever. Like if it is from red light or it is like certain people will relate to that. And the people who don't are probably the people that you didn't following yet where are buying your stuff. So yeah, and it's probably a thing of like walking the walk to like someone who's in that environment and you're you are the coach. You probably do need to be a wee bit more over the top than someone else. Do you know what mean? Luke Pollock: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100 % because you've tried that and more and you feel like, you know, if you're trying red light therapy, but you're still giving boys like, I still want you to do hip hinges every week, you know, because that's more important. Ultimately, you've tried the whole spectrum of things and you're cutting out the stuff that's less important to the stuff that is more important, per se. But you just do it all. Darragh McGurn: And it's funny, like I don't like, I'll never go to someone you need to buy a red light. Do you know, I use a red light. If you want to get one, get one. Like, do know what mean? It's like, they work? And I'm like, there's enough research there to dictate that they help. And I may have noticed a slight difference, but no, they don't drastically improve my injury healing. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Luke Pollock: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And saying that though, you did get back, you seemed to get back from your last injury pretty quickly. Is there anything you feel like did make a big difference there or was it a combination of things? Darragh McGurn: Yeah. think was a combination of things. The main thing was actually EMTT treatment, which is kind of a new treatment when it comes to healing stress fractures in terms of that there's a good, decent research in that. And it was just lucky that. Luke Pollock: Maybe actually just for the listeners, maybe just tell us what the injury was and how it came about and stuff. Darragh McGurn: Yeah, the injury was a stretch fracture, par stretch fracture, L4, L5. And it came about last August. I got a knee into the back in the game and it was from the next day onwards that the pain kind of started. Now, whether that knee was the thing that properly caused it or whether there was something brewing before that, I don't know. And I would probably, if I was to guess, I would say it was something that was building over time, which Luke Pollock: Yeah. Darragh McGurn: usually what happens with stress fractures just with the nature of them. So I was just, yeah, during that period then it was just a case of, of trying to speed the thing up as quick as I could because I was trying to get back for, for club championship in like six weeks, which was really unrealistic, but I went for it anyway. And so I was going down and getting the EMTD treatment, is electromagnetic transduction therapy is the actual name of it. Basically just like Luke Pollock: Yeah. Okay. Darragh McGurn: magnetic fields that are put into the, like on my back into the tissue that penetrate deep enough to create a kind of healing response. ⁓ So I did probably 10 sessions of that over the space of six weeks. and got another scan and the healing, like it was probably about 70, 80 % healed at that stage. I was like, Jesus, I wasn't expecting that at all. But I was also doing red light therapy, some oxygen therapy. And then I was doing... Luke Pollock: us. Darragh McGurn: the nutrition was really dialing with the nutrition side of things and the different minerals and stuff that you need in the body to work with bones and things like that. So it was like supplementing with vitamin K2, ⁓ vitamin D, those are different things to be honest. I can't even remember everything. It's that long ago now, but. ⁓ Luke Pollock: Yeah. Darragh McGurn: I really went after that side of things and cleaning up my nutrition and making sure that I was in a bit of a calorie surplus even to help with healing. then lifestyle as well, like getting outside as often as possible and things like that. And not doing anything in the gym or outside of that that would piss it off. Luke Pollock: Yeah, that's helpful actually because I because I'm a physio, I'm so attuned to like the rehab side of things and I think nearly sometimes I get too concerned about what I'm prescribing rehab wise, you know. But it likes myself at the minute, you know, if I followed a lot of those things with my osteotis pubis at the minute, I think it would would probably improve. You just dialed in your diet, reduced a bit of pitch load. Darragh McGurn: Hmm. Luke Pollock: wouldn't matter as much what sort of rehab you're doing, it'd probably gradually improve over time. So that is helpful. Darragh McGurn: Yeah, I know. Yeah, it's just harder to think about it that way when you're in the middle of pain. You want an easy solution. Luke Pollock: Yeah. Yeah. And you want to feel something like at the end of the day, you want to feel like you're doing something and like, oh, maybe that's working like the right area there. You know, you want to feel you want to feel like you're doing something all the time. Yeah. I'm majorly guilty of that. All right. Just closing up here, then, there are how has like how has your business changed? And I suppose your playing career as well, like as an athlete and a Darragh McGurn: Yeah. Luke Pollock: and someone who owns a business, how has that changed over the last 12 months? And then following on from that, where do you see it going in the 12 months or in the next 12 months? Where would you like it to go? Like if we're recording this in April, 2027, what would you like to look back on? Darragh McGurn: Yeah, good question. I suppose over the last 12 months, what has changed has been that, as I mentioned earlier, is just like really focusing on scaling the 365 athlete and getting more athletes involved and more athletes involved for the longer term approach, as I mentioned, because I want to have an impact. Like one thing I want to do is I want to I want to change kind of the standard of athlete within GA and to do that, I need more athletes involved and I need more athletes involved for the longer term. Luke Pollock: Yeah. Darragh McGurn: ⁓ Because as I said before, we can all do an eight week program and we can all be really dialed in with that. But I've seen it time and time again. It doesn't genuinely change how an athlete moves and their physical qualities ⁓ overly much. And I want to also change the mindset around that in terms of there's such a culture in GA at the minute of quick fixes and of, ⁓ fuck, I'm eight weeks out from Champ to Pierre. I'm to go and get a program. I'm to go and get in shape now. And it just doesn't work. Luke Pollock: Yeah. Yeah. Darragh McGurn: doesn't work. Obviously you might get in a small bit better shape from where you were a week ago to where you're now, but within a couple of weeks after the championship, you're back to square one. yeah, I suppose off the back of that, it's creating a more enjoyable experience for athletes and getting athletes back enjoying GAA again for what it is. We're really lucky at the minute in that the new rules have changed and for a long time, GAA was becoming very unenjoyable with the way the rules were before. We've got that back now. So for me to have that opportunity to have an impact on that and get athletes moving athletically again, as I mentioned, enjoying one-on-one scenarios, ⁓ having better performances and off the back of that, having their own clubs or their own counties compete for championships. That's what it's all about. ⁓ Where do I see it in 12 months, 24 months? Really, it's just continuing to grow it, get more athletes involved. have more in-person coaching days is definitely one because the one that I had in January was so enjoyable and I felt the impact that it had on other athletes. And then it's continuing with the holistic viewpoint that I'm trying to create at the minute. So we've obviously got the stuff that we're doing in the gym and on the pitch, which is one part of it. But I also want to continue to work on the mindset side of things, getting different performance psychologists in and working with the athletes within the group. So expanding. the whole thing in terms of how they think and how they live as athletes and as people as well. So that it's not just a physical program, but it's also everything else that encompasses performance too. ⁓ Given the more tools, improving their education, so building out the educational resources even further. And then the whole engagement side of things as well. ⁓ The goal is to keep improving that and getting athletes engaging with each other better over that period. So in terms of... Numbers, I have currently, I think, 150, 140, 150 within the group program. By this time next year, I would like to have 250 plus. Whether that's possible, who knows? Maybe bring in another coach and then probably have hosted two more in-person coaching days by this time next year and keep improving the programs themselves, keep learning myself as well. Luke Pollock: Yeah, I'm picturing a little 365 athlete retreat to Portugal, man, where you get all the boys over. That'd be cool. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny to get it in. Ultimately, like I was just thinking that when you were talking, your goal and what you're doing really well is you're giving athletes more options, you know, outside of this is the S &C coach or. Darragh McGurn: That'll be class. That'll be 20, 20 years. Luke Pollock: this is the club program I've been given. And like, if I don't get on with it, then that's tough luck. You know, this is as good as I can be on the pitch with the resources I've been given. You're coming in, stepping in saying, here's another way of doing things. It might work better for you. And by giving you more options off the pitch in terms of how you train, you're also going to have more options on the pitch in terms of the athletic ability that's available to you. And then hopefully going to be, yeah, climb up the ranks then much quicker. But thanks for coming on me. It's been great to chat to you and where can people find you if they want to. Darragh McGurn: Yeah, so again, firstly, thank you for having me on Luke. Massively appreciated and you can find me on Instagram at McGurran Fitness just and then I suppose on YouTube as well. I've started doing more long form YouTube, something I need to keep being consistent with because it's very easy to fall off as well. Luke Pollock: Yeah, no, I enjoy the YouTube's. Cheers, Dara. Yeah, cheers. Darragh McGurn: Thank you.