Latest / The Layback Podcast / Danny Sheehan, Lindenwood University Head Baseball / Rugby Strength Coach

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Danny Sheehan, Lindenwood University Head Baseball / Rugby Strength Coach · The Layback Podcast

• 0:00
  Hey everyone, welcome back to The Layback Podcast.
• 0:03
  Joining us today is strength coach at Lindenwood University,
• 0:06
  Danny Sheehan. Danny currently heads up the
• 0:09
  baseball strength and conditioning program there, as
• 0:12
  well as men's and women's rugby, and is currently filling in as
• 0:17
  the softball strength coach as well.
• 0:18
  So he's certainly wearing a lot of hats.
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  He's had a few different stops in his career, the ones that I
• 0:24
  know of for sure. And who knows?
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  I feel like there's always more the the laundry list of stops
• 0:29
  and the strength coach life. Usually it's too long to list on
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  a single resume, but I know you spent time in the Brewers
• 0:34
  organization as well as at Longwood University.
• 0:37
  Not to be confused with Lindenwood.
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  Those are two different schools and two different states.
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  Longwood way out in the middle of nowhere in Virginia.
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  FarmVille, correct? That's right.
• 0:47
  Yeah, so the hopefully the city or the town name is indicative
• 0:51
  of what's around Longwood. So we might need to ask some
• 0:55
  specific questions of what life is like in FarmVille.
• 0:58
  But Danny, thanks so much for joining us today.
• 1:00
  Really looking forward to this discussion.
• 1:02
  And from here, I'm just going to kick it off to you for the high
• 1:05
  level bio. Awesome.
• 1:06
  Yeah. So I kind of got into strength
• 1:10
  conditioning going into my junior year of college.
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  That summer going into it, I kind of helped out at my high
• 1:17
  school, my former high school here in Saint Louis, Shaman
• 1:19
  College Prep. I just helped the the football
• 1:22
  team with their strength, strength conditioning, and I did
• 1:25
  that with with my strength coach Shaft shout out Coach Shaf is if
• 1:29
  he's listening. And then going into my senior
• 1:32
  year, I interned at Saint Louis University, worked with the
• 1:35
  basketballs and volleyball teams there over the summer.
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  And that was where I I really got in like the college side and
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  felt like I got like a really good background and and kind of
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  first experience with with the field.
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  After that, went back, had my senior year of college,
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  graduated and then interned at Lynnwood with the football team
• 1:54
  and Coach Hall there, who has been talked about with you with
• 1:58
  with Aaron Younger a few episodes ago.
• 2:01
  So after that, then started applying for GA that summer and
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  kind of just got lucky enough that Leonard Wood was hiring.
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  So I got hired as Aga at Lindenwood for that fall of of
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  23 and spring of 24, that stop at Leonard Wood for my GA, I
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  worked with men's ice hockey, field hockey, women's rugby, and
• 2:20
  men's and women's tennis. Men assisted with baseball in
• 2:22
  the second semester. So that's where I kind of got my
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  foot in the door with the staff, met, met Denton, met PJ, met,
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  met all those guys and started work with some of the players
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  there that summer. Then got an offer to go.
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  I work at Longwood University in in FarmVille, VA, so I worked
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  there from about August to February.
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  We're then super grateful. Got an opportunity with the
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  Brewers. Little bit of a crazy story with
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  the Brewers. So I got hired to be there at
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  their rookie ball associate, packed up, moved across the
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  country to Phoenix. I was planning to be in Phoenix
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  all year, Got out there, had about a week and a half of
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  spring training when I got called in my coordinator's
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  office and he goes, hey, I heard you just signed a lease for an
• 3:02
  apartment. Like, Yep, did that last night.
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  And he was like, all right, I need you to to get out of that
• 3:07
  lease. I was like, oh, God, am I fired?
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  And he was like, he's like, no, you're right, but you can't
• 3:13
  really ask me any questions about it.
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  I was like, OK, so kind of worked all that out with the
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  apartment complex was able to just like push the move in date
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  and couple days later calls me back into the office.
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  He's like, all right, you're you're going to AAA in
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  Nashville. So a week and a half got a
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  little bit of a promotion there base would have was our AAA
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  associate. He got an opportunity with the
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  the twins to run their low A or their high A affiliate.
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  So I was able to kind of backfill that spot.
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  I was in Nashville then for the season or until about August
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  power. Then I got the job here back at
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  Lindenwood. Yeah.
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  So then been here ever since. I've been been loving it back in
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  Saint Louis and it's going going really, really well for this
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  first year here. That's a lot in a short time.
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  And before we dive too deep in your career endeavors, I want to
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  go back maybe to your initial exposures to the SNC world.
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  As we talked about offline, you were actually a dual sport
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  athlete at DePaul University. Did you even have time for
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  strength and conditioning if you were playing both football and
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  baseball? Like what was your real first
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  dive into this world? Yeah, so I have a brother who's
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  four years older than me, so he started lifting like freshman,
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  sophomore year of high school. And so I was in like 6th or 7th
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  grade. He's comes home from, you know,
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  waits after one day and he's like, hey, we're going to start
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  lifting. So that kind of like how would
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  spark to just doing push ups in the garage with with my brother
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  Jack, obviously get into high school starting lifting more
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  like I just saw the the improvement it made for me on
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  the field. Kind of, you know, super average
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  athlete, the typical strength coach route, but the gym makes
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  you better. Kind of where I fell in love
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  with it. And then moving into college.
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  De Paw did not have a strength conditioning staff or department
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  yet. So the coaches did that for
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  their own teams. They have since hired someone
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  who's who's awesome. Larry Howard's the man.
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  I've had a few talks with him, but saw that in the in the
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  college light and you know, just a lot of in season training.
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  But for me, the time, definitely not the smartest guy in the
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  world was like, Oh yeah, it's it's Monday.
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  We don't play till Saturday. Let's let's squat as much as
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  humanly possible. I was doing that.
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  I mean, then in the offseason talked with like my coaches a
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  lot and and we'd get like a good program going and that's when
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  I'd really attack it when I was home for break.
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  And so that was really the first time going through in college.
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  So I, I do feel like I got my my fair share of, of lifting and
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  development in a college for sure.
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  When did science creep into the equation for you?
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  Beyond just as you said, I'm going to put as much weight on
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  this bar and move it. Yeah, kind of starting that
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  exercise science program, Kinis program at at the POD that
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  started my interest in it. And we had one of our professors
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  who was really brilliant. I would talk with him a lot
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  about just like exercise science in general.
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  We talked to like his workouts through like, you know,
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  whatever, whatever sport workouts and you know, still
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  super green at the time, like, oh, what are the best exercises
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  for baseball versus like football, whatever, instead of
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  you just just getting strong in general, but like talking with
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  him a lot and then like kind of learning a little bit of
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  periodization and then definitely like all my
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  internships with coach Hall and that's slew.
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  Those were super beneficial kind of never stop learning, but
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  especially through working with different people at Longwood and
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  then my time with the Brewers, obviously a bunch of brilliant
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  people in in that organization. So talking through it with
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  everyone and getting the the science side and learning
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  something kind of new every stop is is where that really started
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  and getting into it for me for real.
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  What's a specific strength and conditioning rabbit hole that
• 6:48
  you got caught down that probably wasn't the best thing
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  to get stuck in that's. Good.
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  So probably force plates without real guidance.
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  First year, my GA year at Lindenwood, obviously we have
• 7:02
  Hawkins and that's super beneficial now, but at the time
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  I didn't know what force plates were is just like, oh, this is
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  so cool. Have all your athletes jump on
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  them and then just talk to a few people.
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  And it's like, this seems like a good metric and let's choose
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  this without any real reason or science or really a ton of know
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  how behind that. So first time really running
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  teams and then using like the same KP is for for women's
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  tennis as I was for men's ice hockey that that probably wasn't
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  it wasn't my best choice. But then kind of the summer
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  after that, I read take off by Daniel Bove.
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  Obviously time with the Brewers were extremely helpful and then
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  talking to Denton and then we have a a sport science professor
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  at Leonard Wood talking with him.
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  All those have become really, really helpful and I feel like
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  I'm, I'm more well versed, certainly no expert in force
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  place or anything, but I know what I'm looking for.
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  I know what my goals are with them and and how to kind of keep
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  things simple and digestible for me.
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  If we can try to pigeonhole you now and catch you in a very
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  uncomfortable position where you have to pick one thing and put
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  your name on it, what one or two?
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  I'll, I'll give you 2 potentially metrics might you
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  look at now that you have more knowledge of force plates, not
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  just for baseball but for each of your disciplines.
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  Yeah, I am very curious, like where these do differ of course
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  to us, we know baseball and softball are very different from
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  men's and women's rugby. But I'd be curious then on the
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  training side how you might look at data differently.
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  Absolutely. So I'll go to because, because
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  they require context and this is something I, I try to tell
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  people all the time or, or at least remember myself, is that
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  like metrics are great, KPI's are great, but a KPI is a KPI
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  until it isn't. Like at some point, you know, it
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  maxes out either because it doesn't translate to the sport
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  as well or the athlete can't, can't, you know, do it or, or,
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  or implement that quality then within their sport.
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  So for me, my 2 are if I had to just only pick two really for
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  any sport, at least for for rugby and baseballs, it would be
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  jump height and then absolute peak power.
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  Jump height is my improvement metric.
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  So the way IQ my guys and and girls is go down fast and jump
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  as high as you can. So what I want them trying to do
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  is jump through the roof. That's that's the absolute goal
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  with it. And then the power and the
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  impulse in like the breaking RFD, all that comes in on the
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  back end and I get to see their strategy for try to jump as high
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  as we can. So when I'm trying to track
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  improvement and just see if if they're getting better and the
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  program's working, that's a jump height thing.
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  And so that's my improvement metric.
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  That's how I'm making sure what I'm doing is going well and that
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  they're responding how I want them to.
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  And then absolute peak power I think is the most useful kind of
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  like underlying structure of that.
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  So for baseball, we have a ton of research with absolute peak
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  power correlating really, really highly to both bat speeds and
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  throwing velocities. I have some data from the
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  Brewers and from one of my Co workers who previously was at
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  driveline on basically percentiles and then their
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  sports skill related to those percentiles for the force
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  plates. And so I get to say, hey, at
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  least for baseball, you jump whatever 6500 watts, you should
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  be able to throw whatever it is, 92, whatever.
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  And then if you can't throw that, OK, do we need to up the
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  throwing side or do or like how do we then structure your
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  training around that versus you, the guy that throws 95 and jumps
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  4000 watts on the forest place? Well, we need to get you more
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  physical. We need to get stronger.
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  We need to get that force production up for a safety
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  thing. And then from a wholesale, you
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  know, hopefully getting a little more squeeze and a little more
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  juice out of you. I think power is really
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  beneficial. And like we talked about, like I
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  just mentioned, kind of no metric is absolute.
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  It's not perfect kind of anything you choose and using it
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  within context is important. But having a metric that tells
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  you essentially the combination of how much force you can
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  produce and how quickly you can produce it, I think it is a
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  pretty good metric and carries over pretty well to most
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  sporting tasks. How often are you structuring
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  programs around improving those KPIs as opposed to using those
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  KPIs just as monitoring tools for what the athletes are doing?
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  Yeah, that's a great question. I think it all depends on time
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  of year. So my main ways that I really
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  write programs number one is training age.
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  So, you know, sport to me obviously matters from an energy
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  system development side and a little bit from like a weight
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  room side, if we want to prepare and, and prep certain tissues a
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  little bit better. But for the most part, you know,
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  if, if you have someone who's never trained, you have to ease
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  them into the weight room and just kind of get them acclimated
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  to the movements in, in a little bit of like stress from that
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  side. And then #2 is time of year.
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  So I could really want to improve someone's speed or, or
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  or power or whatever strength, but if the time of year doesn't
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  fit that, then I'm not going to do something I want to do at the
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  detriment of the athlete. Those are kind of my main
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  things. So depending on the time of year
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  is when I'll set that program up around really trying to improve
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  KPIs versus just keeping an eye on it.
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  So for most of our guys right now in season, it's mostly on a
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  monetary basis. I would say yes, I want guys to
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  get better in season. I think we can improve those
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  qualities in season, but especially for position guys, we
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  just came off a week where we played five games in six days.
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  So like if their jumps are down that week, that's fine.
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  I just want to make sure weights kind of staying up that jump
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  high of it isn't suffering too much.
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  And overall we're kind of doing OK versus like our starting
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  pitchers. Hey, we're on a little bit more
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  of a schedule. Obviously I want you to perform,
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  but I know I can hit you a little bit more on on start day
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  +2. So two days after your your
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  start day because you have those five other days to recover.
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  So for kind of those guys that are in the meat of their season,
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  that's a lot more monitoring, making sure that they're kind of
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  feeling good and performing well in the field versus, let's say,
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  if we had a red shirt right now, I'd really be pushing those
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  those physical qualities like, hey, we don't need you to really
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  compete and be excellent on the mound until next spring.
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  So like we're going to get after it.
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  We'll keep jumping obviously, but like this is really our time
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  to develop that strength and kind of get you that that
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  necessary force needed and then move that obviously into kind of
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  the next training cycle with the rest of the team.
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  Possibly a funky question here, but I think it is very much
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  worth spending some time on, especially in the baseball
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  world, knowing that baseball is an incredibly demanding game on
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  the skill side, right? Nobody who's playing baseball at
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  a high level lacks skill. So now applying this to your
• 14:00
  realm, are you seeing higher correlations to those force
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  plate KP is in younger populations as opposed to maybe
• 14:12
  veterans in the game? In my personal experience, and I
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  would caveat that with, I haven't really trained that many
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  athletes in the grand scheme of things.
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  I think the younger athletes and even like kind of guys I have
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  now, they stray a little bit farther from those correlations
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  in in KPIs to their sports specific skill versus a lot of
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  the percentile. I'll users kind of based on big
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  league or or professional player data.
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  And with so many guys, you know, I've like so many a relative
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  term for people in professional baseball, but you got, you know,
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  a couple 100 at least within your organization.
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  And, and we had a ton of data points from when we were with,
• 14:53
  when I was with the Brewers that we were kind of basing it off
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  of. It's almost more standardized
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  because the skill level is much more equal at that level.
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  And then it's as you know, it's really small things that get you
• 15:04
  that next level. So when the skill level equates,
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  it becomes a physical capacity thing.
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  So if we get that, that high school kid that that isn't very
• 15:13
  strong and isn't very powerful yet, but he, you know, he's
• 15:17
  really skilled, we can get him in be like, Hey, we know what
• 15:20
  his issue is. Let's, let's get him in the
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  weight room. Let's put some weight on him.
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  Let's let's get him going versus these guys that we kind of get
• 15:26
  at Leonard Wood, these these freshmen in high school where
• 15:29
  skill level can kind of, I think be a little bit different.
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  You have the guy who's, let's say super physical, but maybe
• 15:35
  lacks a little bit on the skill side.
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  But because he's he's strong, he's powerful, He's able to
• 15:40
  elevate that side of his game enough to get to Division One
• 15:43
  baseball versus the opposite side of spectrum that that dude
• 15:46
  that really skilled but but not quite as physical yet.
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  So I think with me at least and what what I'm dealing with now,
• 15:53
  you have kind of more of those outliers and that I think kind
• 15:56
  of makes the decision process a little bit harder for me with
• 15:59
  how I want to attack guys like, well, OK, what's what's really
• 16:03
  worth the squeeze and what's really going to get this guy
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  there. And so that's that's done
• 16:07
  through conversations with with Denton and PJ and Chandler are
• 16:10
  hitting coach and in kind of our AT even be like, hey, what's
• 16:12
  really the limiting factor where this guy what do we want to
• 16:15
  attack? And then I kind of tell this to
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  all of our crews. I think we do this extremely
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  well of we are always on the same page.
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  I'm in the clubhouse or I'm at practice every day.
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  I'm talking with the coaches, they're talking with me.
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  Make sure that our training plans are centered around the
• 16:31
  athlete, not just doing something we want to do and pull
• 16:34
  them in different directions, but make sure that our egos are
• 16:38
  in check and we're not going to do anything that that's going to
• 16:40
  harm the athlete that we're our plan is making them sore and and
• 16:44
  perform really well. I'm sure you can understand why
• 16:47
  I was asking the question going back to kind of how you entered
• 16:52
  this topic, where these are KP is until they are no longer KP
• 16:57
  is eventually in baseball skill can take over like we we just
• 17:02
  watched the World Baseball Classic in Luis Arise just
• 17:05
  absolutely dominates. Luis Arise is not an incredible
• 17:09
  athlete, but he is better back to ball skills than anyone on
• 17:12
  the planet right now. And that's what enables him to
• 17:17
  be an everyday starter, an All Star, like all all league
• 17:23
  caliber player at the Major League level.
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  But we go put him in the weight room and it wouldn't surprise me
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  if 90 percent, 95%, maybe every guy on the team at Lindenwood
• 17:35
  right now could outperform him in literally every category.
• 17:40
  And then I mean, we we could look at pictures as well.
• 17:44
  I mean, your classic examples, Bartolo Cologne, you can look at
• 17:47
  Bartolo Cologne and just like, all right, man.
• 17:50
  Like he probably isn't putting up incredible numbers on a force
• 17:53
  plate, but he is obviously proven that he can dominate at
• 17:57
  the big league level or was able to do it for a serious amount of
• 18:02
  time. Maybe it was some alleged PED
• 18:05
  use in there, but nonetheless, he was able to do it.
• 18:09
  That's why I brought up the skill discussion in my my
• 18:12
  hypothesis was going to be there's a much stronger link in
• 18:16
  the younger populations before skill truly Trump's athleticism
• 18:23
  and like force output. Yeah, I think my.
• 18:27
  Thought, oh 100% and that's something.
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  So kind of on a more of a general perspective that like
• 18:32
  that thought makes a ton of sense.
• 18:34
  And this is something I've been struggling with this year is
• 18:36
  kind of like I'll think I'll have theories, whatever, and
• 18:39
  then I'll, I'll actually like see like the people in front of
• 18:43
  me and I need to challenge all of those thoughts I've had.
• 18:46
  And so I I think a really classic example of this is
• 18:49
  archetype discussions with like wide verse narrow ISS.
• 18:53
  And it's like, Oh man, well, well, this kid looks like a
• 18:55
  narrow, but he his force plays like he presents as a wide and
• 18:59
  and he prefers to do this move versus another.
• 19:01
  I mean, I think that's been a really challenging thing for me
• 19:06
  this this year overall is challenging those things that
• 19:10
  that you learn and like the textbook or even your own
• 19:13
  thoughts as like this makes sense in my head, but then the
• 19:16
  actual athlete doesn't present that way.
• 19:18
  And so I just think that's that's really interesting
• 19:20
  because like your thought totally makes sense.
• 19:22
  And then like, I get, you know, I feel like I see the opposite.
• 19:25
  And I'm sure that the strength coach at, you know, whoever else
• 19:29
  is like, Oh no, I completely disagree with Danny.
• 19:31
  Like all my guys are this way. And so that's just something
• 19:34
  interesting that I've been challenging myself with this
• 19:37
  year's is, is kind of working on that and on my own, my own
• 19:41
  thoughts and and make sure that I'm not just having like
• 19:44
  preconceived biases that I'm bringing with me to training.
• 19:48
  It probably speaks to the fact that most training really should
• 19:53
  be focused on the interpersonal output, like how you program for
• 19:57
  the individual as opposed to how you program across the board
• 20:02
  and. Engaging improvements, you're
• 20:04
  always going to be better off looking at the individual.
• 20:07
  Of course, that's asking you to do a little bit more work than
• 20:11
  just putting out a blanket program.
• 20:14
  But then that's where things like force plates and VBT really
• 20:18
  become important because rather than just saying, all right,
• 20:21
  here's 35 different programs, it can be the pitcher program
• 20:27
  versus the the hitter program. And then the things that change
• 20:30
  in between are how fast we're trying to move the bar,
• 20:34
  eccentrics like time under tension, things like that.
• 20:38
  That's where you're beginning to get individualized as opposed
• 20:41
  to, no, you do rear foot elevated split squats, you do
• 20:45
  back squat, you do front squat, you do whatever, just like pick
• 20:49
  all your variations. I mean, I feel like every time
• 20:52
  we have a strength coach on here, we end up having the
• 20:54
  individualization discussion. So I I'm not trying to force you
• 20:58
  down that rabbit hole, but I just given the response you just
• 21:01
  offered that that's where my head naturally went.
• 21:04
  Yeah, no, absolutely. I think that's that is always
• 21:08
  the classic like and and that's something I I got caught on.
• 21:11
  I say early my career, like, I mean, I've been doing this 2 1/2
• 21:14
  years. Like, but you, you, you listen
• 21:19
  to podcast and you listen to, you know, these, these high
• 21:21
  level strength coaches and they, they talk about, oh man, I
• 21:24
  individualize this and this and this.
• 21:26
  And so then you kind of get in your head that you have to.
• 21:28
  And so I've, I've gone down the rabbit hole of trying to
• 21:30
  individualize everyone, trying to keep everyone the exact same.
• 21:33
  And at least what I've landed on with, with baseball here at
• 21:35
  least, is that I kind of just individualize need to need and
• 21:40
  even some guys will do, they'll be the only guy doing a specific
• 21:44
  accessory. So like we've had, we've had a
• 21:46
  picture with his, his neck is locked up a few times this year.
• 21:50
  And so 2 sets a week I just put in like neck manuals with me.
• 21:55
  And so I just like get trying to get a little stronger, trying to
• 21:58
  get it a little more like resilient and deep range of
• 22:00
  motion. And then we've had a few guys
• 22:02
  with like shoulder pains. We're like, all right, like
• 22:03
  we're just going to add a couple sets of face poles or something
• 22:07
  like like maybe it's an overcoming eye.
• 22:09
  So it depends a little bit kind of what I'm feeling, what, what
• 22:11
  I need or what I think they need.
• 22:14
  But for the most part, I'll I'll bucket the dudes a little bit.
• 22:17
  Most of training looks the exact same.
• 22:19
  And then it is almost like specific need to need basis.
• 22:23
  If a guy doesn't like a movement, I'm not going to, I'm
• 22:25
  not going to force you into in a barbell benching if you really
• 22:28
  want to do a dumbbell and you've done dumbbell forever.
• 22:31
  So like we have a really, really good group.
• 22:35
  Denton did an awesome job with the pitcher last year and and
• 22:38
  kind of year before that. So and he's, so they are kind
• 22:42
  of, I trust them a lot with being able to look after their
• 22:45
  own training. So it's not like, oh man,
• 22:48
  they're going to do it wrong if, if they don't have everyone else
• 22:51
  in the team doing it with them. I can, I'm super comfortable
• 22:54
  changing a movement for for one guy, knowing that he'll know
• 22:57
  what to do. And then I don't have to keep a
• 22:58
  super close eye on him if I have 10 other guys in the room and I
• 23:01
  need to watch them as well. So I'm super blessed with the
• 23:05
  team I have and in the staff I have that they've given them
• 23:09
  that agency and the guys take ownership of it in the weight
• 23:12
  room. So that's kind of how I approach
• 23:14
  individualization. I think it's probably a little
• 23:16
  different than how most coaches do it.
• 23:18
  I'm also OK having a less organized session in some ways,
• 23:22
  especially this point in the year.
• 23:24
  I've had these guys since since the fall.
• 23:26
  I know that they know what they're doing and so I'm more
• 23:30
  comfortable giving them specific stuff to do and that will still
• 23:33
  get really good work in. Is there anything in your
• 23:37
  programming that we might not see across the rest of college
• 23:42
  baseball? Like is there anything you think
• 23:44
  that is unique or just less common that you and your guys
• 23:49
  are doing? And it's totally OK if the
• 23:51
  answer is no, because our work is boring and we just need them
• 23:55
  prepared for the field. Yeah, for the most part,
• 24:01
  absolutely not. I, I don't try to, I don't, I
• 24:04
  don't try to reinvent the wheel. I'm no, I'm no guru.
• 24:07
  And even like again, the longer I've been in this, the more I
• 24:11
  feel like kind of the old mantra of like, hey, you just have to
• 24:13
  keep stacking days. That's that's what really
• 24:15
  matters. I imagine I probably do a little
• 24:18
  bit more plyos than most teams, especially with, with the
• 24:21
  pitchers and things where it's, it's almost like a coordination
• 24:24
  drill rather than even a power drill.
• 24:26
  So like we'll do a lot of single leg challenging, multiple multi
• 24:30
  directional plyos just to challenge their ability to to
• 24:35
  redirect their center of mass and then to kind of be explosive
• 24:38
  in in difficult positions. I think you see a good squeeze
• 24:42
  with that on the mound. And then awesome Jokum has been
• 24:44
  on this for a long time. But like if you want to jump
• 24:47
  high, you should probably jump a lot and as many different planes
• 24:51
  and as many different variations you can think of.
• 24:53
  So I think I'd probably do that a little bit more than than the
• 24:56
  average strength coach, but certainly nothing crazy.
• 24:58
  I'm not I'm I'm no Cal D. It's just just, you know,
• 25:02
  ripping, ripping my own stuff. No, I'm no genius here.
• 25:05
  I want to clarify one thing before I ask my next question.
• 25:09
  You did say plyos. Just for all the pitchers out
• 25:12
  there, that is plyometrics. It's not that Danny's having
• 25:16
  dudes RIP 9 oz plyo balls in the weight room as part of their
• 25:20
  training. We'll save that for the field.
• 25:23
  Just want to make sure that we have our abbreviations playas
• 25:26
  get said enough on this podcast. And this time we were talking
• 25:30
  about plyometrics and jumping and moving, moving your body,
• 25:34
  not just your arm. Now you did mention Austin
• 25:38
  Jochum or Yochum or however it's pronounced.
• 25:40
  I thought it might be a soft J like Youngers if we're sticking
• 25:44
  with our up north guys. So you say doing nothing crazy,
• 25:47
  but then you bring up Austin Yochum.
• 25:49
  So we're not seeing any like games or like whatever you have
• 25:53
  one movement today and you just have 400 reps of it and that
• 25:57
  that's what you're going to do for your work this week.
• 26:01
  Yeah, so I'm not to his extreme, but I think he's he's awesome
• 26:06
  and I wish I kind of knew him more.
• 26:08
  I've never talked to the guy, but I've, I've been following
• 26:10
  him just kind of since the beginning of my SNC and, and he,
• 26:14
  I love him like kind of the me MC posts the edginess of him
• 26:18
  kind of like a more current key wing and flat, you know, kind of
• 26:21
  challenging the, the standards of the field.
• 26:23
  I, I, I love that. So we'll play games in our
• 26:27
  warmups. I really love that.
• 26:29
  That's something we're actually doing a lot with softball at the
• 26:30
  moment because they, they come literally right from practice,
• 26:33
  they finish practice, they come right to the weight room.
• 26:35
  All I care is like, hey, let's get the heart rate up a little
• 26:37
  bit, make sure we didn't cool down too much walking over from
• 26:40
  the softball field. So different game everyday RGA
• 26:44
  at Linenwood right now, Connor Stratton, he's the game genius
• 26:47
  man. So he he was at Driveline before
• 26:49
  coming to us and he's been helping me with with baseball
• 26:52
  and softball and he's he's the man I asked him more often than
• 26:55
  not, hey man, he got got a game idea for today and he's got some
• 26:59
  always on the top of his head. So I love those for warmups.
• 27:03
  But the tough part with college SNC is we kind of do have a
• 27:05
  little bit of work to do. We can't play games for 30
• 27:07
  minutes for a worm. So it's so some nice 5-10
• 27:10
  minutes, get a little competition, get the juices
• 27:12
  flowing and and I love that. I've taken that from from Austin
• 27:15
  and and from the Cubs SNC staff. I think that was those guys are
• 27:18
  awesome too. Try to get influences from a
• 27:21
  from a lot of different places. But for the most part, the meat
• 27:23
  and potatoes of the program definitely is, is not too crazy.
• 27:27
  We're not doing 400 squats a day or, or or five minute long ISO
• 27:32
  holds and then sending them out there.
• 27:35
  Maybe one day we'll get into those.
• 27:37
  One day, one day, one day, once, once I get a lot of buy in from
• 27:40
  these dudes and I can I can talk Denton into letting them be sore
• 27:45
  for their lives. Straight, we'll just find the
• 27:47
  right time of year, get to the point where you're one of those
• 27:50
  schools that the guys never leave campus, they're just there
• 27:53
  year round. You can find that time in
• 27:55
  mid-july where it doesn't matter if they can't walk, but we
• 28:00
  haven't really spent much time on your different stops in the
• 28:05
  career so far, so I would like to do that.
• 28:08
  I'd like to know maybe what was the toughest part or a big
• 28:12
  learning moment from that initial jump from college to pro
• 28:16
  ball. Yeah.
• 28:19
  So that was, I'm going to say tough for me, but it was all
• 28:22
  self-imposed. So I had I played D3 sports, I
• 28:28
  was like I said, I was a super average athlete.
• 28:30
  Professional baseball was never even something I, I thought
• 28:33
  about obviously never going to play it.
• 28:35
  And then I kind of just thought everyone in professional
• 28:38
  baseball is, is way smarter than I am.
• 28:40
  I'm never going to. I would never get an opportunity
• 28:43
  there. And then round November of 2024,
• 28:47
  our former director at Littlewood, Michael Reese, he
• 28:49
  reached out to me with Steph. A message from Stephen Simmons,
• 28:54
  who was kind of looking for some jobs with the Cubs.
• 28:56
  And so I, I called Stefan, he's a linen wood alumni and we just
• 29:00
  talked professional baseball. He's like, look, man, like I
• 29:05
  don't know, I don't know. You haven't met you, but don't
• 29:08
  get into it because you think you're not smart enough to.
• 29:11
  If this is something like you want, like you seem like a hard
• 29:14
  working guy and he's like, frankly, I've seen some some
• 29:16
  programs that guys in professional baseball have
• 29:18
  written. It's something crazy.
• 29:20
  It's it's just strength conditioning.
• 29:21
  Still, it's like all right, like cool, This is something I I want
• 29:24
  to do. This is kind of the time to do
• 29:25
  it young. I didn't really have like
• 29:29
  family, like like no attachment yet.
• 29:31
  So this is the time to to try to do it and, you know, live out of
• 29:33
  a hotel room. And so started applying to just
• 29:35
  everything I could find and I had a couple interviews.
• 29:38
  One of them I I totally bombed did, did awful, but you know,
• 29:42
  Canon event, right? Have have to go through it.
• 29:45
  And then another one I, I thought I did pretty well, but
• 29:47
  the, the org that was with kind of had a guy in mind.
• 29:49
  So they so they want things like, all right, totally fine.
• 29:52
  And then that was after Christmas break of my year at
• 29:56
  Longwood. I get back and I'm working out
• 29:58
  in the weight room and I get it. It actually went to my junk
• 30:01
  e-mail. I get an e-mail from the
• 30:03
  coordinator at the Brewers and I had applied for the Brewers like
• 30:06
  2 months prior. It was like, Hey, like got your
• 30:08
  resume, got your application, like you, you free for a talk.
• 30:12
  And I was like, God, I never checked my junk e-mail.
• 30:14
  Thank goodness I didn't. It interviewed and it went
• 30:17
  great. And I just messed really well
• 30:19
  with those guys and the staff and was lucky enough to get
• 30:22
  there. So when I got out there then it
• 30:25
  was almost, I almost felt like I was restarting having had a
• 30:28
  couple essentially full time positions where like you're
• 30:30
  running your own teams and you go back to being an assistant or
• 30:33
  an associate. And so I really felt like I had
• 30:35
  to prove myself and I kind of got out there.
• 30:37
  My expectation was that everything would be super
• 30:40
  organizational and that everything would be, hey man,
• 30:43
  the org says we have to do this. So everyone on staff has to do
• 30:46
  this. And I'm sure there are some
• 30:47
  organizations like that. The Brewers are not like that.
• 30:49
  We have our main KPI's that our leadership decides, at least
• 30:53
  from the weight room side. And we have like obviously like
• 30:56
  the pitch department, hitting department have those things and
• 30:58
  they work together. Those are the main goals.
• 30:59
  But as far as like exact programming goes, it was not
• 31:02
  like that at all. And for the first at least few
• 31:04
  weeks, I was really struggling like, Oh my gosh, like I did
• 31:08
  this with a guy today. Like they're going to be so mad
• 31:11
  at me. Like I took them off the program
• 31:13
  that they've been on, like they're going to be, I'm get in
• 31:16
  trouble, whatever it was. And then kind of the more I talk
• 31:19
  to guys like the full time staff that that ran affiliates and
• 31:22
  guys that have been there forever, my coordinator, like,
• 31:25
  hey, like you got to just like trust it like you're smart.
• 31:27
  Like it's, it's just strength conditioning.
• 31:29
  Like we're not doing anything crazy like this.
• 31:32
  Professional baseball guys still squat, they still bench.
• 31:34
  Like getting stronger is getting stronger.
• 31:36
  That doesn't change because you go from from pro to college.
• 31:39
  And so through a lot of those guys that really, really helped
• 31:42
  me kind of settle down, understand what I was doing and
• 31:46
  just kind of do do what I knew how to do.
• 31:49
  And so that was a little bit of a struggle there at first for
• 31:51
  me, but then as I got into it a little bit longer, that was that
• 31:54
  was definitely better. And then moving into the in
• 31:57
  season because I was kind of all during spring training.
• 32:00
  The hardest part was just trying to periodize When you play 6 * a
• 32:04
  week like that is unreal. I, I felt like what I was doing
• 32:08
  had very, very small influences on, on the guys real like
• 32:14
  production. And I was still really hung up
• 32:17
  on almost the college side of it.
• 32:18
  I guess of I need to make them better and improve their ability
• 32:23
  to perform on the field when kind of a lot of times in pro
• 32:25
  ball. I, I personally hate taking this
• 32:28
  approach of hey, man, just keep them on the field, keep them
• 32:30
  healthy. Don't do anything crazy because
• 32:32
  I love pushing the agenda with guys and getting guys better.
• 32:35
  And I really hate the mantra of like, Oh man, like, you know,
• 32:37
  don't lift heavy in season or whatever, don't push it in
• 32:39
  season. But sometimes you know, when
• 32:41
  those, you do have those everyday guys that, that are
• 32:44
  going to literally play 9 innings every single day,
• 32:47
  understanding your role and knowing when to push the agenda
• 32:52
  versus when to just get them kind of feeling good.
• 32:54
  That that was something that I learned a lot.
• 32:57
  And that's big thanks to my, my boss this past year, Andrew
• 33:00
  Remick. He's been a AAA for, for the
• 33:02
  Brewers for, for a long time and he's been super influential in
• 33:05
  my journey now that I, I got to work with him.
• 33:08
  So all that, I know it's a ton of kind of information there,
• 33:11
  but those were kind of the biggest challenges for me and
• 33:14
  some that has been really influenced my philosophy and how
• 33:18
  I kind of look at S&C. And then even with these guys,
• 33:20
  kind of the lessons I can take from that, because that was by
• 33:23
  far the most challenging time writing workouts I've ever had
• 33:27
  of balancing that act of getting guys better, making sure they
• 33:30
  feel good, and that's to make sure they perform well on the
• 33:32
  field. So how do you make that
• 33:35
  decision? Yeah, gosh, it's it's so case to
• 33:38
  case. So I guess I'll just like give
• 33:41
  an example. So like three guys in, in
• 33:43
  professional baseball, we, we had those guys that really
• 33:45
  played, you know, two times a week.
• 33:47
  And for them it again, it's a little bit on them if, if they
• 33:50
  wanted that of what we called like the micro dosing program
• 33:53
  where they lift it every day and we kind of just split it up or
• 33:55
  if they were those lift 2 * a week guys.
• 33:59
  And so those dudes that played every day, we're going to, we're
• 34:01
  going to take the foot off the ass a little bit.
• 34:03
  We're going to get them something slow.
• 34:04
  We're going to prioritize force production.
• 34:06
  So we're going to jump and we're going to like kind of lift
• 34:08
  heavy, but that volume is going to be really low.
• 34:10
  We're going to try to get you in there as often as not as often
• 34:13
  as you can, but at least once a week to make sure that then when
• 34:16
  we do put you under a bar with a little bit of load, you're not
• 34:19
  absolutely crushed and you're sore and you're you're feeling
• 34:21
  it on the field. Applying that more to the
• 34:23
  college setting. It's getting that work in when
• 34:25
  you can. I think again, understanding
• 34:28
  based on your game schedule and like what you've kind of done to
• 34:31
  that point when you can push. So at kind of I feel like
• 34:35
  everyone in working in college sports does this, but you want
• 34:39
  to put that highest day of the week as far away from the game
• 34:42
  day as you can. So we'll come off a weekend
• 34:46
  usually Tuesday lift. That's the day we'll where we
• 34:49
  will hit it a little bit midweek to this point obviously has been
• 34:53
  non conference still. So we've been every game is just
• 34:57
  as important as as that weekend series.
• 34:59
  So I'm OK pulling back a little bit from that day to make sure
• 35:03
  that we prioritize performance on the field.
• 35:06
  And then I, at least to this point, have been able to have a
• 35:10
  day once every three or four weeks where I can really push
• 35:14
  the guys. I'll add a little bit more
• 35:15
  volume or at a kind of a second like what I call heavyset to
• 35:19
  make sure that we're kind of keeping that strength on and
• 35:22
  keeping that strength residual. Whether that's been a week
• 35:25
  without a midweek where we feel like we're actually like we can
• 35:27
  do it or talk with guys like, Hey, how do you feel today?
• 35:30
  Like we can push it today, like yes, no, whatever.
• 35:33
  So it's I know that's not an awesome answer.
• 35:35
  It's it's super case to case and depends a lot just on the on the
• 35:40
  dude like we talked about on the person in front of you rather
• 35:42
  than kind of what the textbook says.
• 35:44
  Well, potentially weird one for you stemming from that not so
• 35:50
  succinct answer, which I'm not trying to make you feel bad, but
• 35:53
  that no, I know it's case to case and just laughing along
• 35:56
  with you with it, but why I say potentially strange?
• 36:01
  Yeah, we can just call a spade a spade and recognize that in
• 36:07
  Lindenwood's current cases of baseball program, the conference
• 36:11
  they're in, the way that you guys get to the post season is
• 36:16
  by winning your conference tournament.
• 36:18
  That's it. Like, let's face it, maybe if
• 36:21
  you go undefeated, you get in that large bid, but
• 36:24
  unfortunately that ship has sailed.
• 36:27
  But there is no going undefeated at this point.
• 36:30
  And even if you went out, that means what you finished the year
• 36:33
  at the time of this recording, like 42 and 12.
• 36:37
  Yeah, I don't know if I if I did my math right, I think I'm
• 36:40
  pretty close. It's.
• 36:42
  Right around there, at least. And that would be like maybe
• 36:45
  putting you guys on the bubble as an at large team just because
• 36:49
  of the very short D1 history of Lindenwood.
• 36:53
  You don't have the name recognition with that background
• 36:56
  now for for the masses out there, does that change the way
• 37:00
  you think about in season programming as opposed to the
• 37:05
  way you might do it, whether it's in professional baseball or
• 37:09
  if you were at a super name brand Power 4 program?
• 37:13
  We're literally your RPI matters.
• 37:17
  Like every single game you have matters because let's face it,
• 37:20
  like right now, you just have to be in that final six or eight
• 37:25
  teams that makes it to the conference playoffs to then
• 37:29
  hopefully be positioned well to win the conference championship
• 37:34
  and then get selected from the automatic bid.
• 37:37
  Yeah, it absolutely does. So what I'm kind of OK with in
• 37:44
  season, especially now with conference rolling around is
• 37:48
  sacrificing stuff on my side like the the weight room doesn't
• 37:52
  matter. I obviously there me and my
• 37:55
  staff and our staff. Lynnwood yes, the weight room is
• 37:58
  important. It is great for for development
• 38:00
  and for giving you the ability to express your your phys like
• 38:04
  your your your sports skill. But I never want a guy to feel
• 38:10
  like they don't perform well because all we lifted or I'm
• 38:13
  sore or whatever. Especially now with conference
• 38:16
  throwing up one game can can mean everything.
• 38:19
  And so something that I've been trying to get myself used to.
• 38:23
  Like we talked about, I hate the, the be careful approach
• 38:26
  with train conditioning, but I think a mistake that is made a
• 38:31
  lot, and I'm certainly a culprit of it, is thinking that
• 38:34
  adaptations aren't made at lower intensities.
• 38:37
  I, I started this year using a lot of BBT trying to be really
• 38:40
  specific with guys and in trying to be really specific with
• 38:43
  knowing the stress that they were under, at least from my
• 38:46
  side. And so I would basically, I
• 38:48
  would for their like main lifts of the week, I would try to get
• 38:51
  them build them from like what I would call a moderate set,
• 38:55
  probably around like 70 ish percent in in the strength speed
• 38:59
  zone if if you want to use that. And then building them to a
• 39:02
  heavy set. And I try to moderate it all
• 39:05
  with with loss based training. What happened to those sessions
• 39:08
  then is that the entire session was built around, OK, So what do
• 39:13
  I jump now for this next set? How much in weight should I jump
• 39:16
  up to to get this? And I felt like that that wasn't
• 39:20
  what I wanted out of the session.
• 39:21
  And it was almost like the case where having another number was
• 39:26
  just adding way too much stress to the guys and into me.
• 39:31
  And it's something that I didn't honestly really care about.
• 39:33
  I was like, you know what, Like I would rather like you guys
• 39:36
  just feel like this is heavy today.
• 39:38
  And I know that that then plays and we're getting stronger from
• 39:43
  it or making some sort of adaptation as long as the effort
• 39:45
  and the intent is there when we're moving it.
• 39:47
  So kind of after that first block of the season, I move to
• 39:52
  just an RPE scale and not even like 1 to 10 or anything.
• 39:56
  I just like, hey, your first sets moderate, your second sets
• 39:59
  moderate heavy, and your last sets heavy.
• 40:01
  And if you move it as fast as humanly possible every single
• 40:05
  time, even if it's not the most ideal like strength adaptation
• 40:09
  we're making, that's fine. Like, I don't, I'm not worried
• 40:12
  about that right now. One, because this isn't our goal
• 40:15
  and because two, I know you're still getting stronger and
• 40:17
  getting a little better from those sets.
• 40:19
  And what I found is that that has then taken a lot of stress
• 40:21
  off of the guys. I mean, it's taking a little bit
• 40:23
  of more stress off me because I'm like, well, I just got to
• 40:26
  relax. I got to be OK with not
• 40:27
  everything being optimized and these guys getting what they
• 40:32
  what. What I know is making the
• 40:33
  difference. Well, I I appreciate you
• 40:36
  breaking that down, but now I'm going to ask you to backpedal a
• 40:38
  little bit because I've been stuck on one thing you said a
• 40:42
  couple responses ago, and I apologize if we're going to make
• 40:47
  you relive a tough moment, but you said you absolutely bombed
• 40:51
  an interview. I I want to know, you don't have
• 40:54
  to say the team, you don't have to say like the Super specifics,
• 40:58
  but what did bombing look like? And I guess just provide provide
• 41:04
  a look into that environment because I know there's going to
• 41:06
  be people that are listening to this that want to go a similar
• 41:10
  route that you have or they're curious about what this world
• 41:13
  looks like. So I'd love if you could just be
• 41:16
  vulnerable for a moment and explain to the masses what
• 41:19
  bombing looked like and why you found yourself in that
• 41:21
  situation. Yeah, absolutely.
• 41:24
  So for me, it was just not knowing what I wanted to get
• 41:28
  across in that interview. I think interviews specifically
• 41:32
  for me, the few that I've like conducted or had the privilege
• 41:35
  to sit in on, what I have found really impactful and made me
• 41:40
  confident in hiring people is that they know exactly what they
• 41:45
  want and they have a clear vision and they're able to
• 41:47
  express that really well. Because if someone asks me a
• 41:51
  question and I can explain what, but then I can't explain the why
• 41:54
  or I can't explain exactly what that looks like and what my
• 41:57
  vision is, I don't have faith in that person to be able to then
• 42:02
  do it within the job. So at the time of the team that
• 42:06
  I was interviewing with, they asked me basically, what's a new
• 42:09
  thing in strange edition you've been like trying to learn.
• 42:11
  And I had just been getting down the ISA rabbit hole and on the
• 42:15
  Super, super brim of it, like not even getting deeper than rib
• 42:20
  cage, rib cage angle. So I started talking to them
• 42:26
  about that and I had been listening to a little bit of
• 42:29
  like Rick Franz Blau and how he applied it to then sporting
• 42:33
  skill, which I think is it's so far past what I can handle with
• 42:37
  that. Even like now I've, I've learned
• 42:40
  a little more about it, but I basically got down that rabbit
• 42:43
  hole without having the requisite knowledge to do that.
• 42:48
  And so I knew it didn't go well because they, they kind of kept
• 42:51
  going back to questions about it.
• 42:52
  And in like, how would you apply this with, with whatever this a
• 42:55
  narrower wide or whatever. Not like, man, we've, we've
• 42:59
  gotten down to a place that I can't hang with.
• 43:02
  So after the interview, I, I, they, they told me I did, I
• 43:07
  didn't move on and I kind of, I knew it was coming, but I, I
• 43:09
  reached out. I was like, hey, just, you know,
• 43:12
  I'm young. Can you give me advice for next
• 43:13
  time? And they basically like, yeah,
• 43:14
  like we didn't feel like you, you knew you're, you weren't
• 43:18
  convicted in, in what you like said you knew.
• 43:22
  And I'm like, Yep, I know. So that was the biggest thing
• 43:26
  for me. So that kind of every interview
• 43:28
  I've had since then, I've really thought about like what really
• 43:32
  matters to me and what I really want to get across in that
• 43:34
  interview and what I really value, strength, conditioning.
• 43:38
  And then I'll kind of just hammer home those points and
• 43:40
  instead of spreading myself too thin and kind of talking about
• 43:44
  things that I definitely don't know as well.
• 43:45
  So now let's apply that question back to you.
• 43:48
  What are some things that are kind of on the cutting edge or
• 43:53
  things that you're just kind of getting into that you want to
• 43:56
  explore and learn more about? So now you don't have to act
• 43:59
  like, you know those things. You can just say these are
• 44:02
  things I'm curious about. So please take it away.
• 44:05
  I think the traditional periodization ideas within team
• 44:08
  sports has been getting really, really interesting with me.
• 44:12
  And this is pretty popular on, you know, SNC social media, but
• 44:15
  also within books, you got guys like Daniel Bove writing
• 44:18
  quadrant system. And and this is obviously a
• 44:20
  super hot topic that will always stay hot because a lot of
• 44:24
  strange fishing professionals or taught the the traditional
• 44:27
  models of block or linear or undulating or whatever it is.
• 44:32
  Because obviously strength conditioning stems from the
• 44:36
  Eastern European like true weightlifting and powerlifting
• 44:40
  blocks where you have one competition a year.
• 44:43
  And you can stress that. I really feel like I'm just
• 44:46
  scratching the surface of my periodization knowledge and then
• 44:49
  trying to find ways to have those cycles within like team
• 44:54
  sports seasons or within team sports annual training cycles.
• 44:57
  So having times where we can do like an accumulation block and
• 45:02
  treat it almost more like block periodization.
• 45:04
  Because everyone in SNC knows that the more qualities you try
• 45:09
  to develop at one time, the less adaptation you will see in all
• 45:12
  those qualities. So it's really playing the time
• 45:15
  of year of hey man, those are offseason.
• 45:17
  This probably our time to develop strength.
• 45:19
  How much volume can we can we have with that while also not
• 45:23
  sacrificing a ton on the power side because power is what plays
• 45:27
  and what translates. And then how do we like transfer
• 45:30
  that? How much time do you need to
• 45:31
  transfer that? Where does your your
• 45:33
  intensification blocks and your transmutation blocks come into
• 45:36
  play and kind of all that? So that's something I've been
• 45:39
  diving into a little bit more and some I've been really find
• 45:42
  interested in, in trying to read as much as I can about that.
• 45:46
  As you've begun to spend time looking at these training
• 45:51
  blocks, is there anything that you just 100% disagree with that
• 45:57
  you think the industry has kind of done wrong that you think you
• 46:04
  specifically not, not what other people are saying, like an area
• 46:08
  that you think can be improved upon and how might you improve
• 46:13
  upon it? Yeah, I think so this this kind
• 46:18
  of stems into a whole different belief I have, but I think it's
• 46:22
  it's coaches not trusting themselves enough to make edits
• 46:26
  to the the traditional model. So someone, let's say I'm
• 46:30
  writing that that program and I, I feel like I have to stick to
• 46:34
  traditional block criticization because that's what it says in
• 46:38
  the textbook and that's what guys have done and that's how
• 46:41
  it's worked. And so then, oh man, like a
• 46:44
  feeling like I can't modify it because I'm not smart enough to,
• 46:47
  to modify this, this thing that has worked.
• 46:50
  I think that's ridiculous. Kind of one of my overarching
• 46:52
  themes in training conditioning is that any program works as
• 46:57
  long as like the buy insurance there and stuff.
• 46:58
  So I think what's important for for us as team sport coaches is
• 47:04
  adding what you can and then try not to take away from like what
• 47:08
  really matters. Like when I this this winter,
• 47:10
  for example, I ran a bit of a strength accumulation block and
• 47:15
  then LED to some intensification leading in a preseason for those
• 47:17
  guys that are from Saint Louis. And I was able to get kind of
• 47:20
  voluntary lifts with them over over the break.
• 47:23
  For them. Strangles are our priority.
• 47:25
  But I didn't completely remove all jumping or all plows are all
• 47:29
  sprinting, because if you do that, then the time it takes to
• 47:32
  build all that back up is going to be a lot more.
• 47:35
  So you sacrificed a little bit on the strength accumulation
• 47:38
  side so that we then don't have to sacrifice that on the back
• 47:41
  end to build those power qualities back up.
• 47:44
  And I think something I would challenge that I feel like
• 47:47
  people do is they're like, oh man, well, if we're doing block,
• 47:51
  we're doing block. If we're doing undulating and
• 47:54
  and vertical integration, we're doing that.
• 47:56
  And I think most coaches are smart enough, you know, if they
• 47:59
  kind of, if they're able to think for themselves, for lack
• 48:02
  of a better term, to merge those two and to find the blend that
• 48:07
  works for them given their current situation.
• 48:11
  And I feel like that's empowering for me.
• 48:13
  That's something I, I did not do much early in my career.
• 48:16
  I had to read a book and I'd like, oh, I want to try
• 48:18
  programming this way and I think this would work, but I can't do
• 48:21
  it because that isn't what this person wrote about in the book.
• 48:24
  So it wouldn't work with, with my spin on it.
• 48:26
  And I, I just don't think that's true.
• 48:28
  I think coaches are smart and you need to apply your knowledge
• 48:31
  given your current situation into then what has worked in the
• 48:35
  past. And what is the quadrant model
• 48:38
  that you were talking about earlier?
• 48:40
  You mentioned it super quickly and we kind of just moved on
• 48:43
  because it wasn't the meat and potatoes of that discussion.
• 48:46
  So Daniel Bove, he is this brilliant guy.
• 48:49
  He's he wrote take Off, which is kind of what I recommend to
• 48:53
  everyone who wants to learn about force plates.
• 48:55
  He has been with the Pelicans for years and he actually just
• 48:57
  took a job with the the Flyers in in Philly.
• 48:59
  So he's brilliant and he's really he's wrote the book for
• 49:05
  team sports periodization, especially in professional
• 49:07
  sports. So he wrote a book called
• 49:09
  Quadrant System and it is how he approaches periodization from a
• 49:14
  team sports model within like a multi competition year.
• 49:19
  Because like I talked a little bit earlier, a lot of strength
• 49:21
  coaches are taught the traditional weightlifting
• 49:23
  models. But the problem with those is
• 49:25
  that they don't translate well to team sport calendars because
• 49:28
  these traditional Russian lifters where a lot of this
• 49:32
  periodization models are, are built off of.
• 49:34
  They had that one competition there that they were building
• 49:36
  towards versus we had, you know, we have competitions multiple
• 49:40
  times a week. So you can't peek all for those
• 49:41
  one competitions. So he has written a really good
• 49:45
  model for how to use those traditional periodization models
• 49:51
  and put it into the team sports setting and then how to kind of
• 49:54
  still get peaking cycles in and out of season.
• 49:59
  And so that was a really good book for, for my development.
• 50:01
  I, I highly recommend everyone that they read it simply from
• 50:04
  the side of, hey, this is cool ideas.
• 50:07
  And even if you don't use them or even if it doesn't apply
• 50:09
  perfectly to your situation, think about it and and it's a
• 50:12
  really good book in in manual kind of to read and give you
• 50:16
  good ideas. I'm going to push a little bit
• 50:18
  more. Can you give us the the
• 50:20
  highlights of what the quadrant system actually looks like?
• 50:24
  Yeah, so essentially the each quadrant represents stress.
• 50:28
  I forget how we order exactly, but quadrant 1 is like top left.
• 50:33
  That's like recovery. So when you have a recovery day,
• 50:36
  that should be your your day to actually recover.
• 50:39
  This all kind of stems as well from the sport is the most
• 50:43
  stressful part of your day. You know of your life like you
• 50:46
  should not be the weight room should not take priority over
• 50:49
  the sport is essentially what it is.
• 50:50
  So on those off days or or low days of practice, you also want
• 50:55
  to match that with low days and recovery days in the weight
• 50:57
  room. And so quadrant 1 is about
• 50:59
  recovery and about like adapting it and getting that day off
• 51:03
  because obviously you know, every athlete needs days off as
• 51:05
  as we know, quadrant 2 is higher volume and lower intensity.
• 51:13
  So I forget exactly how he has phrased this in the book, but
• 51:18
  it's essentially it's kind of like active recovery days
• 51:21
  basically. So you're not trying to crush
• 51:24
  them, you're not trying to get them really high intensity, not
• 51:27
  trying to make them sore necessarily.
• 51:28
  But this would be like where we have a practice that is more
• 51:33
  like game planning almost. So you'll walk through some
• 51:37
  stuff, maybe use some like light intensity drills.
• 51:38
  You're getting a little volume, but there's nothing super
• 51:41
  intense that would really fatigue you for the following
• 51:43
  days. So then you match your stressors
• 51:44
  in the weight room or with your energy system development with
• 51:47
  those days. So for my strength coaches out
• 51:49
  there, you know, these are your tempo run days.
• 51:52
  These are days where you can do like low intensity, low weight,
• 51:55
  like time under tension work. Maybe it's an accessory exercise
• 51:59
  day or if you're an upper lower kind of person split or or a
• 52:04
  high low person split, these are like your low days.
• 52:06
  So maybe you get a little light upper body in that quadrant 3
• 52:09
  then is your higher intensity but lower volume days.
• 52:13
  So these would be great like before game days to kind of
• 52:16
  almost potentiate the body for feeling good that next day.
• 52:20
  What we see a lot, you know, with pitchers like primers and
• 52:22
  stuff primer for your start day. So for for he's a basketball
• 52:27
  guy. So for his examples, like, yeah,
• 52:28
  these are like small sided drills.
• 52:31
  We're getting like a few high speed efforts, but nothing
• 52:34
  crazy, nothing that would necessarily make you super tired
• 52:36
  for, for the game the next day in the weight room.
• 52:38
  Then you can do like higher velocity barbell movements and
• 52:43
  then like jumps in, in things that are going to develop a
• 52:45
  little bit of power. And then that 4th quadrant is
• 52:48
  really your, your physical development days.
• 52:50
  So high volume and high intensity.
• 52:53
  So these are your hardest practice days for like pitchers.
• 52:55
  These would be bullpen days for like him.
• 52:58
  He's a basketball guy. So these are game day -2 or 3
• 53:01
  where then you haven't had a game like 2 previously either.
• 53:04
  So you can kind of push it from the development side, you can
• 53:07
  get some high speed meters. You can develop those energy
• 53:10
  systems and really push it. So then from the weight room
• 53:12
  side, these are the days where you attack strength because
• 53:15
  that's the most stressful and you're trying to, you're
• 53:17
  probably going to get a little bit of soreness from that.
• 53:19
  So hopefully that was a nice little picture into Daniel's
• 53:23
  model. And he's, like I said, he's
• 53:25
  brilliant. That has been really helpful for
• 53:27
  me. It goes hand in hand with a high
• 53:30
  low model that Charlie Francis wrote for for track Models.
• 53:35
  For anyone that wants to dig a little bit deeper on that, it's
• 53:39
  not something I knew like the author's name.
• 53:41
  I didn't know. I didn't know him as the creator
• 53:44
  of this, or maybe that's just on me for not remembering.
• 53:47
  But Josh Hedka and I, I believe, talked a little bit about a
• 53:51
  similar concept in one of our Wake Forest player development
• 53:55
  seminar reviews, coming off of what the Cubs tried to do at
• 53:59
  their Dominican complex, they tried to incorporate this
• 54:03
  quadrant model when it came to skill acquisition in the
• 54:07
  baseball world and how they really tried to maximize
• 54:11
  practice time. So yeah, for for anyone that's
• 54:14
  trying to not just look at this from the SNC world, the high
• 54:17
  performance world, but you can also apply it to skill
• 54:21
  acquisition for your sport. So I encourage you guys to go
• 54:24
  back and check that one out. If I'm not mistaken, that was
• 54:29
  the first topic we discussed on. No, no, that's a lie.
• 54:33
  I didn't even lie yet, but I was gonna lie in my head.
• 54:36
  So I'm stopping myself and saying that's a lie.
• 54:38
  We we talked about it. I believe in part one of our
• 54:41
  review. If I did lie and it's actually
• 54:44
  Part 2. Sorry for making you listen to
• 54:46
  more of me. I apologize, but go back and
• 54:50
  check out Part 1 there. Now that I just finish that
• 54:54
  little tangent, Danny, what else is there for us to cover today?
• 54:57
  I really feel like we we covered a ton.
• 55:00
  We more or less exhausted my question list.
• 55:02
  So this is the funky one that I typically ask at the end.
• 55:07
  What did we miss, if anything? Is there anything else that you
• 55:10
  want to get off your chest before I let you go?
• 55:12
  Yeah, So I think I don't know how you want to handle this.
• 55:14
  Maybe we can edit it in or something, but some with like
• 55:19
  the cross disciplinary work with rugby I think would be
• 55:21
  interesting. Screw I didn't and we'll we'll
• 55:24
  just say this is on me for not bringing it up.
• 55:26
  Yeah, no, we're this is this is screw it.
• 55:29
  We'll do it live moment. So Danny.
• 55:30
  Yeah, take it away. We did talk about that quickly
• 55:33
  off air. I know you mentioned it super
• 55:35
  quickly at the beginning and maybe that maybe that was more
• 55:39
  just the similarities in how you train athletes, at least on the
• 55:42
  force plate side with baseball, softball and then the two
• 55:46
  Rugbys. What are you seeing?
• 55:48
  What have you learned? What is different in the
• 55:50
  athletes that you're training on on the diamond versus on the
• 55:54
  pitch? Yeah.
• 55:56
  So I think the, my main answer, honestly, what I kind of want to
• 56:00
  get across is like not much, at least from the weight room side
• 56:04
  training is training. And, and I mentioned it very
• 56:07
  briefly upfront, but like the, the sport that you are
• 56:11
  programming for should not probably make that huge of a, of
• 56:15
  a difference in your programming, at least in the
• 56:17
  collegiate setting. It's mostly a training age and a
• 56:20
  time of year thing. And I get questions all the time
• 56:23
  from from coaches and, and from players and kind of just my
• 56:26
  friends like, Oh my gosh, like those workouts for baseball and
• 56:30
  rugby must be like super different.
• 56:32
  And I'm like, well, no, it's like kind of our main thing is
• 56:35
  to develop the physical qualities needed to then perform
• 56:38
  your skill really, really well. So like my main question I get
• 56:42
  with like baseball training from, from people who are
• 56:44
  outside of the high performance world, like, oh man, you guys
• 56:47
  just do like a lot of like rotating exercises And it's like
• 56:50
  we do some yeah, but like, no, like, that's not it.
• 56:53
  Like we're going to squad and we're going to do all that
• 56:55
  stuff. And I'm going to do the same
• 56:56
  thing with rugby's because at least for me, I, I actually just
• 56:59
  posted about this on Instagram. Rotational and in like core
• 57:03
  training should not be reserved for your rotational sports.
• 57:06
  It's, it's about building a strong spine and a strong axial
• 57:10
  skeleton and a strong midsection.
• 57:11
  Like for me, yeah, the pitcher rotating at incredibly high
• 57:16
  rotational velocities, that's extremely stressful, but so is
• 57:21
  getting hit by that £250 front rower.
• 57:25
  If you're the 190 LB dude running 25 miles an hour, like
• 57:29
  that's pretty stressful on your ribs too.
• 57:31
  So probably be pretty strong there.
• 57:33
  Regardless. In some we've had, we've just
• 57:36
  happened to have a lot of AC sprains this year on the men's
• 57:39
  rugby side and they're kind of, I, I hate saying this, but you
• 57:43
  know, contact injuries are weird.
• 57:44
  They're almost unpredictable. I'm not going to say they're
• 57:47
  unpreventable, but to me, shoulder injuries in rugby are
• 57:52
  extremely similar to shoulder injuries in baseball.
• 57:54
  At the end of the day, it's about your strength and your
• 57:57
  stability and your coordination in your shoulder.
• 58:00
  Whether it's D selling from throwing that pitch 95 or it's
• 58:05
  laying that in that shoulder to the dude running 20 miles an
• 58:08
  hour. Like either way, stress on the
• 58:10
  shoulder is stress on the shoulders.
• 58:12
  The way that I try to address that is getting them something
• 58:16
  heavy and slow. So kind of high force through
• 58:19
  that heavy metrics was a lot of a lot of mechanical tension on
• 58:22
  the shoulder. And then also from a fast and
• 58:25
  light side for for lack of a better example.
• 58:27
  So those things I think are really important.
• 58:30
  And so with with rugby specifically, I think your
• 58:33
  traditional Olympics are really beneficial for that.
• 58:37
  So cleans, snatches, things like that can be really good because
• 58:41
  yes, you're developing really like good propulsive like power
• 58:46
  and and strength with those, but then also having to coordinate
• 58:49
  to then really high eccentric forces stopping that that bar
• 58:54
  from moving. I think that translates, for
• 58:57
  lack of a better term, well into having to lay a shoulder into
• 59:00
  someone. And then same with baseball.
• 59:02
  I have yet to implement Olympics with with the baseball team, but
• 59:06
  I think that's something I'm going to work on next year
• 59:08
  because that that stress is the same.
• 59:10
  You know, you're just D selling your shoulder really, really
• 59:12
  quickly. And so I think that's something
• 59:14
  that's really cool. And something that gets
• 59:16
  overlooked a lot is baseball and rugby are super different
• 59:19
  sports. But from the weight room side,
• 59:21
  we're trying to develop strength and robustness and then the
• 59:23
  difference is really come in with the sport.
• 59:26
  So I work like I've mentioned a ton of times, our staff at
• 59:29
  Lynnwood is unbelievable, Dens unbelievable, Peaches
• 59:32
  unbelievable, Chandler's unbelievable with making sure
• 59:35
  volume and intensities are moderated and no one's going too
• 59:40
  crazy from the injury side. And then I also have a really
• 59:43
  great staff with, with men's rugby here at Leonard Wood with
• 59:46
  Josh Macy, shout out Josh 500th career win last weekend, the
• 59:51
  man. And then Wade Monsky and and
• 59:53
  Steve Duff. We got a bunch of really good
• 59:55
  dudes, but they periodized really well with GPS And then
• 59:58
  even with like building up their contact levels that the guys
• 1:00:01
  face because that's a big thing too that people I think sleep on
• 1:00:04
  and and don't understand as much.
• 1:00:06
  I think we get it from a baseball side of yes, you need
• 1:00:09
  that, that build up to to throwing program so that you're
• 1:00:12
  not getting too much too soon. But from contact sport sides
• 1:00:15
  too. I mean, if you if your first
• 1:00:16
  practice of the year after not having played rugby for months
• 1:00:21
  is going to be a heavy contact day where you're doing basically
• 1:00:25
  what we call ball and play, but where you're essentially
• 1:00:27
  scrimmaging full contact for 20 minutes, yeah, you're going to
• 1:00:31
  get a ton of contact, your shoulders knocking ready for
• 1:00:33
  that. So they do a really, really good
• 1:00:35
  job of building up that volume and making sure they're not
• 1:00:38
  killing them and destroying their shoulders too quickly.
• 1:00:41
  It's kind of a weird full circle thing in our small little corner
• 1:00:46
  of the baseball world with acute to chronic workload ratios.
• 1:00:49
  Seeing how all that research initially stemmed from rugby and
• 1:00:53
  that's taken off like crazy in baseball, and now hearing you
• 1:00:57
  say, by the way, they also do acute to chronic work with Natio
• 1:01:02
  and rugby, it's like somehow the origin story of all this was
• 1:01:06
  forgotten. Yeah.
• 1:01:08
  So there you go, Tim Gabit, Like, don't worry, we still
• 1:01:11
  remember you. We know you're a rugby guy at
• 1:01:14
  heart, and we've just taken it and run with it in the baseball
• 1:01:17
  world. So where does the aerobic
• 1:01:20
  capacity work come in? Is that on you or is that on the
• 1:01:23
  skill coaches? I leave that mostly to the skill
• 1:01:26
  side just from the fact of I get 3 hours a week with with my
• 1:01:31
  men's rugby guys and in the weight room at least.
• 1:01:35
  And we, we have a really big team.
• 1:01:36
  We have 90 dudes. So in the weight room at one
• 1:01:39
  time we have at least 9090 men's.
• 1:01:41
  Oh my. Gosh.
• 1:01:42
  I'm super, I've said sometimes I'm super blessed with the space
• 1:01:45
  we have available. We have 20 racks.
• 1:01:47
  We get four or five dudes to Iraq and they get after it.
• 1:01:50
  But to put in like conditioning in that sense would be really,
• 1:01:54
  really difficult just because we have, we have 5 assault bikes.
• 1:01:56
  So I can't really rotate the boys in on that.
• 1:01:59
  So that's done mostly with the the skill side.
• 1:02:02
  And then I will make my way up to practice as much as I can and
• 1:02:06
  we'll develop what we'll try to put some stuff in there.
• 1:02:10
  But overall that's that's left to them and we'll all talk
• 1:02:14
  because they're like I said, they're brilliant.
• 1:02:16
  But we're all always trying to get better.
• 1:02:18
  Still talking to me like, hey, man, like, what do you think
• 1:02:20
  about this? Yeah, you know, that's probably
• 1:02:22
  good idea versus like. And that's it.
• 1:02:25
  And I think that's something that's super cool about rugby.
• 1:02:28
  I always say it's physically the hardest sport to play because
• 1:02:32
  you have to be, you have to have the endurance of a soccer
• 1:02:34
  player, the strength and size football player and like, you
• 1:02:37
  know, the speed of a track runner essentially.
• 1:02:39
  So you are truly pushing the boundaries of like human
• 1:02:43
  performance. It's a real interesting study, I
• 1:02:45
  think into like vertical integration and how well you can
• 1:02:49
  express all those qualities at once.
• 1:02:51
  That's like, you know, needed within a rugby batch.
• 1:02:53
  So I think that's super cool. It's always super fun to program
• 1:02:55
  for those guys and they're a great bunch.
• 1:02:57
  MY1 qualm with rugby actually has nothing to do with the
• 1:03:02
  actual sport of rugby and it's more to deal with the
• 1:03:07
  officiating. I have never seen a sport with a
• 1:03:10
  greater ref show than rugby. All those guys or women who also
• 1:03:16
  go by Sir, which I like when I learned that.
• 1:03:19
  So my wife played collegiate rugby and played a little bit
• 1:03:23
  post collegiately. So she she's a very high level
• 1:03:26
  rugby player. There's no question about that.
• 1:03:29
  She told me all about the Lindenwoods of the World Life
• 1:03:33
  University, all the schools that most people have never heard of
• 1:03:37
  that have these insane rugby programs and are putting
• 1:03:40
  everyone in like the USA development circuit and the
• 1:03:43
  people that she played with. And then like I'm talking about
• 1:03:46
  refs and she's, or maybe the first time she's telling me
• 1:03:49
  about rugby and she's saying the Sir, the Sir, who the hell is
• 1:03:53
  the Sir? She's like, that's what the
• 1:03:55
  referee goes by. I was like, that was a woman.
• 1:03:57
  She and my wife said no, they're also Sir.
• 1:04:02
  Like this makes zero sense to me.
• 1:04:04
  All of them think the entire match is about them so that that
• 1:04:09
  is my qualm. I I don't know if I can ever get
• 1:04:11
  into rugby until there is a little push back on the
• 1:04:16
  authority of these referees. Yeah, so my GA year I worked
• 1:04:20
  with women's rugby and we watched, I watched the Rugby
• 1:04:24
  World Cup with with the coaches. And it was like for the game,
• 1:04:28
  like, oh man, the ref made some really interesting decisions.
• 1:04:30
  And then I watched like a few more matches of them.
• 1:04:32
  And every single time the game's over, it's like, well, the ref
• 1:04:34
  did this. If your ref plays this big of a
• 1:04:37
  role in a game that sucks, you should not be talking about like
• 1:04:41
  the name of the ref, you know, and I think we're starting to
• 1:04:44
  get into that with MLB, you know, like whatever that Twitter
• 1:04:46
  account is tracks the. Oh yeah, there's some.
• 1:04:50
  Bad ones rabbit hole you don't want to go down because that's
• 1:04:54
  my biggest beef with it too. And as much as we want to
• 1:04:58
  support and respect the officials that enable us to play
• 1:05:03
  these competitions that we all love, because let's face it,
• 1:05:06
  we're, we're all playing games and we're employed adjacent to
• 1:05:10
  games for a living, which is amazing, right?
• 1:05:13
  I, I don't want to like take this for granted.
• 1:05:17
  I understand that when I tell people that I do elbow injury
• 1:05:20
  research and created Flexpro grip and then I have to explain
• 1:05:24
  Flexpro grip and like, yeah, there's applications to carpal
• 1:05:28
  tunnel and these injuries that people sustain in everyday life.
• 1:05:32
  But truthfully, we wouldn't exist if it wasn't for Tommy
• 1:05:36
  John surgery. 99% of all Tommy John surgeries stem from sport.
• 1:05:43
  So maybe if it's not baseball, it's softball and gymnastics and
• 1:05:46
  contact injuries in football. Now that I've gotten that caveat
• 1:05:51
  out of the way, we should not know the name of any official in
• 1:05:56
  any sport unless it unless it is the human interaction of you
• 1:06:00
  shake hands before the game and you shake hands after the game
• 1:06:03
  and you just happen to know the referees or umpires on your
• 1:06:07
  circuit. However, the the average fan
• 1:06:10
  should not know Joe West and Angel Hernandez and whoever
• 1:06:15
  else. Thankfully, that's kind of my
• 1:06:17
  limit. I think if others say more MLB
• 1:06:20
  umpire names, I can tell you like who's an umpire and who's
• 1:06:23
  not, but I hate that I even know the names of umpires.
• 1:06:28
  I shouldn't. I really shouldn't.
• 1:06:30
  I think the problem with the rugby too is like it's so easily
• 1:06:32
  solved. Just put another ref in there.
• 1:06:34
  You have one dude. It's insane running as much the
• 1:06:37
  players and it's like Oh well they have a hard job because in
• 1:06:40
  a scrum they have to look for like something like 30 potential
• 1:06:44
  like penalties. Add another like everywhere else
• 1:06:47
  is figured. Football has 12 refs on the
• 1:06:48
  field. Like add someone else in there?
• 1:06:50
  What are we doing? Yeah, I, I didn't think we would
• 1:06:54
  end up on this diatribe, the these takes going off, but yeah,
• 1:06:59
  that's, I just struggle with it so much because I, I still go to
• 1:07:03
  rugby games with my wife. She stopped playing right before
• 1:07:07
  she and I got pregnant with our daughter.
• 1:07:09
  So I mean, I don't know, she was probably still practicing in the
• 1:07:12
  first couple weeks of pregnancy. So like, she's still very tied
• 1:07:16
  to the game and I, I am far from an expert, but I have seen it.
• 1:07:22
  And like I said, I I just can't get into the sport fully until
• 1:07:27
  something is done about this officiating situation.
• 1:07:31
  Well, I appreciate your perspective on it because I say
• 1:07:34
  this to other rugby people. They're like, no, you're wrong.
• 1:07:36
  I'm like OK like my bad. No, they're wrong and you can't
• 1:07:43
  tell me otherwise. Any any sport that has that much
• 1:07:47
  subjective influence, I'm going to struggle with.
• 1:07:51
  Absolutely, yeah. Let let the ball decide the
• 1:07:55
  result. I I don't want someone's
• 1:07:57
  officiating style to impact the way the game is going to be
• 1:08:01
  played. On your percent.
• 1:08:03
  Yeah. So maybe now that you open the
• 1:08:06
  floodgates after I said, what did we miss?
• 1:08:09
  I'm assuming at this point we've covered everything or there's
• 1:08:12
  still other things. Now that that we've opened up
• 1:08:14
  the floodgates, like I said, that now you're like, well screw
• 1:08:17
  it, I might as well get these takes off my chest too.
• 1:08:19
  Now I think, I think I got everything I needed to off my
• 1:08:23
  chest. Great.
• 1:08:25
  Well, Danny, with that, I will say thank you once again for
• 1:08:28
  joining us today in the Lay Back podcast.
• 1:08:31
  It means the world to me to have you on here.
• 1:08:34
  It's been excellent to get to know you and of course, the work
• 1:08:37
  that you're doing with our beloved Lindenwood Lions.
• 1:08:40
  It's nice to be on the same team.
• 1:08:42
  As I said in our earlier Zoom when we actually got to finally
• 1:08:46
  meet face to face to talk to someone that is on the same
• 1:08:50
  team. I know I'm on the same team as
• 1:08:51
  you, just working in the shadows of dashboards and just preaching
• 1:08:56
  numbers to guys and trying to do some athlete monitoring with
• 1:08:59
  Flexpro. But yeah, I mean, we're we're
• 1:09:02
  all in this together, so it's really fun to have the
• 1:09:04
  discussion. No, it's been great.
• 1:09:06
  And you know, we talked about before, but like what you guys
• 1:09:09
  have have been able to do with with our team has been awesome.
• 1:09:12
  Obviously, we're all super thankful and super grateful to
• 1:09:14
  to you guys. So it's been great.
• 1:09:16
  Well, I appreciate that man. And of course, to all the
• 1:09:19
  listeners out there, thanks for laying back with us.