June 27, 2025 • 29 mins
Today Dr. Pete sits down with a long time friend & colleague- Angelo Gingerell- the strength and conditioning coach at Seton Hall helping thousands of Division 1 Athletes for the last 20 years become successful in the very competitive Big East Conference. Angelo is also an adjunct professor, a published author and he serves on the New Jersey State Directory of the National Strength and Conditioning Association (The NSCA).
Learn more about Angelo here:
https://www.instagram.com/mr5thround/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Hello and welcome back to on air with Dr Pete.
I hope you're all ready foranother summer weekend.
It's hopefully going to be fun.
We got two guys from the JerseyShore coming to you today.
I recently just finished asilent retreat and it was really
incredible.
I encourage people to take timelike that during the summer
where you can just slow down,shut down and go inside.
(00:38):
It's very easy to get wrapped upin our careers and only focus
on the finish line, but it'sreally important that we create
a work-life balance, and I'vebeen fortunate enough to make
some incredible connectionsthroughout my college career, or
just my career in sports, andAngelo is one of those.
And so Angelo Gingerelli ishere.
We go way back to Seton Halldays, and he's currently the
(01:01):
strength and conditioning coachat Seton Hall and has helped
thousands of Division I athletesbecome successful in the very
competitive Big East Conference.
He's also an adjunct professor,a published author, which I
love seeing all these bookscoming out, and he serves on the
New Jersey State Directory ofthe National Strength and
Conditioning Association.
So, angelo, thanks for beinghere.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
On air with Dr Pete man.
I couldn't be more excitedbecause we talk fairly often.
Like you said, this is thefirst time we've done something
that's going to go out to themasses, so super excited for
this day, man, thank you verymuch.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
I'm so glad you're here.
My memory is terrible.
Do you have any memory when wefirst met?
Speaker 2 (01:45):
If I'm right about this, you had just finished up
your swimming career at SetonHall when, I got there.
Okay, volunteer coachingprobably still in grad school at
that, at that point maybefinish, yeah, so yeah, and I
think I got there in 05.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
I was just gonna say when did you start, but I think
we.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
You were around a lot , I remember that yeah, no, I.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
So you're right, you are, um, as I said, my memory is
terrible and yours is not.
Yours is great, uh, because2005 I was in grad school and I
was a volunteer coach for theswim team, so, and that was your
first year there yeah, I gotthere in 05.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
I've been there for 20, my 21st year coming up and
this school year starts how isthat possible?
Hey, dude, it's a long time ina regular job, it's an eternity
in a college athletic positionuh anybody listening knows.
But what I always say to peopleis I think, if you find a job
you like in a part of thecountry you like if you want to
work in college athletics yougot to stay with it, right.
And one thing that I feel likeI've gotten out of it that maybe
(02:31):
if I were jumping job to jobevery couple of years is I've
got my hands in a lot of otherthings Right.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I probably would be able to be an adjunct professor,
an author, head of New JerseyNational Student Association if
I was moving every couple years.
So I was looking at career-wise.
I didn't necessarily go grow upevery year, but I definitely
grew out every year and gotinvolved in a lot of different
things, which for me was theright decision career-wise right
, not the other ways a way to doit too yeah I figured out
something that worked for mepretty good I mean, I love that
(02:58):
and I hope every listener canconnect with that.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
It's not growing up, it's growing out and by far you
illustrate that because you got,like you said, all these other
roles that you have.
I mean, how many other strengthand conditioning coaches have
all the things that you havegoing on?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
you know not I don't think it's many.
No, it's not many.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
I'll tell you, it's not many good.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
As you know, I work, I think from watching what
you've done over the last, let'ssay, 10, 15 years that you've
been out of school it, it's kindof similar right.
You work with differentpopulations, different schools,
different athletic departmentswhich.
I think you know it makes you abetter clinician, a better
whatever you want to do.
The more populations you do itwith, the better.
(03:35):
You're going to be right and Ithink you know, economically, in
the world we live in now, ifyou put all your eggs in one
basket, the basket might fallapart.
Right, put all your eggs in onebasket the basket might fall
apart, right To use a cliche.
So I think you'd have a coupledifferent baskets going at any
one time.
I think guys like me and youare great examples of people who
did the academic stuff early intheir life, got degrees and
stuff and then found ways to getthrough four different things
(03:56):
going at once.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, 20 years in collegiate strength and
conditioning is a huge victoryand, like you said, you were
able to grow out.
You have all these things goingon and in today's world, I mean
, do you think you've seen themost change in the last?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
24 months that you've seen in college athletics since
you started, I I would say.
I always say it's the last fiveyears, right I think, we,
because your covid comes up onyour show a lot for a lot of
reasons and and totally fairyeah, but I think like in in
February of 2020, collegeathletics was one thing, then it
stopped and then, since we'vecome back, it never went back to
what it was in early 2020.
(04:35):
Rapid succession, NIL deals,transfer portal, massive TV
deals, a consolidation of thebig four conferences.
Also, I don't mean to change itover, it's not done yet.
I think we're working on whatit looks like in a couple years.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
No, as we're recording this, this settlement
hasn't even been made yet, so wedon't even know, like roster
limits and some of the actualfindings from this NCAA, from
this Judge Byrd.
So, yeah, I mean mean, this isall.
We still have no idea how thisis going to unfold.
And when you mentioned february2020, uh, seaton hall had their
(05:11):
potential for one of the mostrecent successful men's
basketball runs.
That was, and I remember beingin that, being like there's no
way they're canceling the NCAAtournament.
Remember that.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I think if you go back to that,like second week in March of
2020, the world changed everycouple hours.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
It did.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
It was like every few hours something came out and
you're like oh, we're not doingthat, we're not doing that.
And then it slowed down alittle bit after that.
But that error was so crazy.
I think not crazy use anableist term at all.
But one thing I think is sogreat about what you do, what
student athletes are.
It was an already stressfultime for everybody before COVID
happened Right.
(05:52):
And now in the last five yearsyou're taking a demographic of
people who are.
You know they're physicallymature.
We deal with physically men andwomen every day, but
emotionally, psychologically,mentally.
Some of them are still boys andgirls, Some are still figuring
out.
And then you throw in thesekids dealt with a pandemic, they
dealt with a vaccinecontroversy, they dealt with,
(06:12):
you know.
Now, now we're in a world whereback in the day you're on a
college basketball team,Everybody had the same
scholarship.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Right, right.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Now you got a guy making $2 million next to a guy
making a meal plan running thesame sprints.
That's right.
That's a different thing thanwe've ever dealt with before.
Ever, Kids this age.
So I would say, if you look atthe results of the NBA, the NHL
NFL players, if you give a22-year-old man a lot of money
at one time, a lot of times, itdoesn't work out.
(06:40):
Well, right Now we're going togive a similar amount of money
to a 17 or 18-year-old man who'seven less mature, less worldly
and less financially sound thanhow they deal with the world.
And we're going to wonder howit's going to work out, and the
reality is we haven't seen ityet.
We just don't know thelong-term effects of what this
is going to look like forcollege athletics and the people
that are getting the payments.
(07:01):
We don't know what that lookslike.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
We don't know, but thankfully, getting the payments
right we don't know what thatlooks like, we don't know, but
thankfully they have people likeyou and me in their corners to
help them think about it andthere's no more amateurism.
I mean, this is now to yourpoint.
You mentioned NBA, nba, nhl.
This is how, what we've beendealing with in professional
sports forever.
So and you've been inprofessional sports, so you were
also at Virginia Tech, nc State, the Pittsburgh Pirates, so
tell us about that early on inyour career.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Well, I think professional sports is a greater
environment that a lot ofpeople aspire to work in.
You talk to young sportspsychologists.
You talk to young training anddistrict coaches.
Everybody wants to work for theJets, the Giants the.
Yankees, whatever it might be,and I think there's a lot of
good to it, there's a lot ofreally cool aspects to it.
But I think, if you look at thestats, at least in strength and
(07:44):
conditioning, nobody does thatfor a long period of time
because the season is so long,it's so much travel.
If you want to have any kind oflife outside of your job.
College or even high school isprobably a much better thing,
right?
Speaker 1 (07:57):
It's a much better lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
And the thing that I figured out, the last, like, say
, 10, well, my daughter's?
My daughter is about to be 10years old next month.
I'm super involved in her littleleague and what I've been
saying for years is coaching andmaybe sports psychology I'm not
sure if you can tell me if I'mwrong but definitely all kinds
of strength and conditioning,athletic training,
sports-specific coaching.
We have the pyramid flipped, inmy opinion.
We give all the money, powerand respect to the men and women
(08:19):
that work at the highest level.
Then you've got the big fourcollege conferences, then you
got the smaller conferences,then you got the high schools,
then you got the youth groups,right.
But if you think about whoreally impacts a person in
development, it's the completeopposite way around, right?
My daughter's coaches andliterally coaches and teachers
now are shaping her every day ina way.
(08:39):
I am definitely not with theall-student athletes, right,
because they're just older.
They Definitely not with theall-studying athletes, because
they're just older.
They're more mature.
We hit them at a different ageand once you get to the pro
level, it's a job.
If you play for the Knicks,your coach is your boss, you can
get traded, he can get fired,he can take another job.
So that relationship is thesame as if you worked in a store
.
If you worked in a store andyour manager at Target is
(09:00):
probably not going to be amentor the, it's probably not
going to be a mentor.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
The same way, if you play for the minnesota
timberwolves, your coach is notgoing to be your mentor.
Yeah, I like that metaphor,it's really helpful.
So for you, that helped yourealize.
So did your daughter's littleleague help you realize that you
know you want to stay with thissort of younger athlete.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Or compared to your time with the pittsburgh pirates
yes, well, I'll be honest, man,the thing with the pittsburgh
pirates and I did like it.
I made a lot of goodcareer-long friends there.
But the schedule is not real,sustainable, especially baseball
.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Yeah, baseball is 162 games on both the spring
training.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
And then the other thing too, and I think you'll
appreciate this as a formercollege swimmer the best thing
about college training additionto me is I might be on campus
for 12 13 hours a day right youknow, during the fall spring
semester, every hour I'm in acompletely different group of
people doing somethingcompletely different.
Yeah, and it's just.
I really like that as opposedto being with the same people
all day.
So one of my favorite things andI've gotten to meet people all
(09:54):
over the world.
Right, we have swimmers from.
We have multiple kids fromisrael over the years we have a
woman swimmer from wales rightnow I went from denmark last
year um you know, and some ofthe teams are from different
parts of the world, different.
I think college athletics as aas a fishbowl is so interesting
because you take a bunch ofpeople that would never be in
the same room and put them inthe same room.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Yeah, it's a really interesting group to be around
it's profound to be able to dothat and unfortunately it's
being challenged.
Uh right, you know it's not aseasy to do these days and I
think all these changes thatwe're talking about, which we
haven't mentioned even just sortof the socio-political changes
too.
So you have, you know all thechanges in college athletics and
that.
So what was it that led youinto strength and conditioning?
Speaker 2 (10:33):
oh I, I basically.
I grew up at the jersey shorein ocean county not mom's county
.
Please don't judge me for thatanyone from jersey will
understand that.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
But go ahead.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
I went to a public high school in the 90s.
That said really lucky, had astrength coach.
He was a phys ed teacher and astrength and conditioning coach.
And it had a huge impact on mylife and I went to the weight
room like everybody else to getbetter at sports.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
And I just decided.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
I like training more than I like probably anything
else in my life at that point.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
So early on you realized it.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Yeah, I was a teenager.
I was like 17, 18 when I made adecision.
And then I got lucky too,because I was graduating high
school when this profession wasactually becoming a real thing
when you're majoring inkinesiology or exercise science
or something like that.
So, if I would have been 10years older, it wouldn't have
been, it didn't exist right.
And if I was 10 years later itprobably would have been a lot
harder to break into the jobsI've had and stuff like that.
(11:23):
So I got really lucky time-wisegraduated high school where the
career I wanted became a career, basically.
I was able to fall in line andfollow the steps.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Well, you work hard.
It didn't just fall in line.
You work hard, Angelo.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Well, I appreciate that Absolutely.
That is 100% true.
But then universe-wise I wasable to do it, if that makes
sense Exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
So how do you approach strength training?
Well, maybe tell people what itis, because there might be a
listener, there might be onelistener out there who doesn't
know what strength andconditioning is.
You and I say it so naturally.
So what is it?
And then, how do you approachit?
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Okay so, we'll take the college level specifically.
Right, If you're a collegeswimmer, you have a coach that's
a swim coach that is writingout your swim workouts, your
strokes, everything you're goingto do in the pool.
Strength coach kind of works onyour body outside of the sport
itself, right.
So you need to be stronger andmore flexible.
You need to work onconditioning you know our wind
and how long we do the activityand you kind of work on making
the body as strong as injuryresistant as possible for that
(12:24):
sport, right?
So I think there's a lot ofthings everybody could benefit
from.
But, to make it pretty simple,a baseball player should
probably train different than aswimmer, should probably train
different than a soccer player,right?
yeah um, I think, I think at ayounger age it's not necessarily
the case probably be moregeneralist once you get to the
college level, kind ofspecializing the training the
way you do your sport trainingis kind of the way to go right
(12:46):
at a place, likeon Hall our goalis to get our kids as big and
as strong, as athletic aspossible and maximize potential
right.
So if you come to campus youknow if a 10 is LeBron James and
a 1 is a person that can barelyput one foot in front of the
other.
If you're a 1, we can't get youto a 10.
But if you're a 7, you mightmake an 8, eight and a half and
that might allow you to play inthe NBA for a little while or
(13:07):
play overseas or break a bigEast record if you're a swimmer
or something like that.
So I think the higher up youget in the food chain, the more
incremental the improvements andthe more swimming at the
hundredth of a second makes adifference.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
So everything kind of matters.
Try to help people out as bestwe can.
So I want to go back to how youapproach it, because just
yesterday I was at a differentschool and watching a swimmer do
these exercises and I wasasking the physical therapist
and the strength coach, likewhat is that?
And they're like it's prehab.
And I was like, wow, I wishprehab was around when I was
(13:40):
swimming.
And so we had this conversationand I said to the athlete I was
like, as annoying as that mightbe, you'd be so thankful
because 20, 30 years later, I'mnow, for the in the last two
weeks, the first time I canraise my hand above my head with
no pain in 30 years.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
That's really something else.
Congrats on that.
So, whatever you did for thelast couple of weeks for a
couple of decades.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Well, I, finally started to do it.
It's my midlife crisis.
My midlife crisis is mywell-being and I was like I need
to deal with this chronic backshoulder issue.
They used to, angela, they usedto use me when, when you first
got to seton hall, they werejust starting that athletic
training program the academicremember that, yeah and they
used to use me in the lab toshow atrophy and how messed up
(14:25):
shoulders and backs look.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
That's rough.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Yeah, and then there are my trainers and everyone
else around just like laughingat me being used this way
without an intervention yeah,Now that being hold on.
I would have probably pushedback on the intervention because
I was lazy and I just wanted tolike swim and just go fast, but
I didn't want to do all theprehab.
But for young athletes outthere, prehab is critical.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
So what do you say about that?
Yeah, a hundred percent, Ithink the hardest thing with
young athletes and by young Imean college and younger is
trying to think long term righta lot of college athletes.
Even everybody thinks I justgot to get to the end of this
season, or the end of mysophomore year, whatever it is,
and things will get better.
They might if you do them, ifyou do the right things to make
them better right, that's rightI think the one thing we've seen
in the last 20 years are, ifyou look at like certain
populations, it takes swimmers aton of shoulder injuries right,
(15:12):
just shoulder over your stuffover and over again.
Baseball, softball, same thingswe're throwing so much right.
So, one of the things we coulddo ahead of time to make that
joint as stable and as secure aspossible, to not break down
right.
Yes, it's a weird thing I say.
For the 80s and 90s we kind ofrealized that lifting weights
was a good thing for sports andin the 2000s we realized that,
(15:34):
yeah, being big and strong andpushing some iron around is a
good idea, but it's got to bedone properly and it's not
always the big squat, benchpress, deadlift stuff which is
important.
It's got to be done right, butif you're maybe a swimmer or a
baseball pitcher, your shoulderwork should be a little
different than if you're asoccer player or something like
that.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah, and I wonder what you think.
This just came to mind, so Iwonder what you think about this
.
So my dad would not.
I grew up with a family ofbaseball players.
I was a swimmer, though my twoolder brothers played
professional baseball, and wewere not allowed to lift weights
until after high school.
Like he wouldn't let us liftweights because it's well.
Back then there was a thoughtthat it stunted your growth.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Hey, can I give you my little take on that real
quick.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yes, please.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
I came up in that era too Right.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
I really think what happened is they had the idea
because everybody that liftedweights was a bodybuilder, power
lifter back in the 70s wereshort, right, right.
They thought that liftingweights made you short.
Right, my theory is being shortmakes you lift weights.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
I agree, I'm 5'5".
If.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
I'm 6'5".
I never go to the high schoolweight room.
I never buy gym membership,because I'm good now.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Right.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
You know what I mean no-transcript, and that's why
they thought that for so long.
It's been proven incorrect.
But again, after high schoolprobably a little too late.
I think, you can probably waitto middle school, maybe, and do
(17:01):
some stuff and then dealing withyounger kids.
Now I think the problem we havewith younger kids where I live
is they're so sedentary.
They're playing organized sports, or they're literally sitting
on an iPad.
There's no in-between anymore.
If you can get young kidsmoving, and moving well and
squatting and hip hinging andbeing flexible, that's a great
start no-transcript.
(17:35):
Right now I'm kind of leadingup to her, because the last
thing I want to do is burn herout on anything.
That's something I learned fromcollege athletics, right.
We deal with so many kids thatare burnt out literally when
they get on campus.
They're already looking forwardto an ending right, that's
terrible I'm really trying toavoid that with her as best I
can.
So, yeah, you know being aliterally dad.
(17:56):
When she wants to play catch,we play catch when she wants to
go to the batting cage.
we go to the batting cage andI'm trying to push it to her too
much now because I've seen theadverse effects of taking stuff
too seriously too too young andthen just dealing with kids.
They're counting down the days,sometimes until the Big East
championship or the last game orwhatever it is.
To me that is not the waycollege athletics should be, so
(18:16):
I'm trying to be a little bit ofthe solution as opposed to part
of the problem.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
I love that and you are.
So thank you for doing thatbecause you're helping, you make
my job easier.
Then too, because because theburnt out athletes, the one that
comes to me I was always sayingsometimes the coaches are going
to think that something'shappening inside our room, cause
a lot of times we'll get peoplebefore the portal existed that
were transferring and it's causethey were not unwell, you know.
And so they're coming to uscause they're unwell and
whatever the dynamic is, but youknow.
(18:41):
So the coaches, if they knewthey were coming to us, they're
like oh, what is Dr Pete doingin those sessions?
Speaker 2 (18:48):
No, you know what.
I say a lot when I talk aboutthe book we'll talk about later.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
And this is one thing my profession doesn't do well
when a kid quits the team anddecides to be a regular student,
when a kid transfers right.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
A lot of times strength coaches will be happy
that they broke the kid.
They're happy they were strong.
They couldn't handle myworkouts.
They couldn't get up All thesethings right.
My attitude, attitude, peoplelike me, and you right, yeah,
our job is not to break thecamel's back, it's to make the
camel's back stronger I don'twant to be the last straw.
No, the.
The card or the email I want toget right around this time of
(19:20):
your graduation is hey, I reallyhad a great experience.
I didn't think I could make itthrough these workouts and these
practices, whatever it is, butyou, you help me out, you showed
me the right things to do.
I like talking in the officeand thanks for all your help and
let's grab a great life.
And I think that those are thecards guys I mean you got to
look out for, not the.
I can't stay in college sportsanymore.
I can't wait to get out of herecan't wait to be done.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Yeah, well, no, I want.
I want to jump to your booksbecause these are awesome.
Uh, so for listeners, you gotthe one book finish strong and
then the other one the next fouryears, so tell us about them
cool.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
So the first, uh, the book to finish, strong
resistance training forendurance athletes.
I wrote with dr rj borges,who's a professor on our campus.
We were, we were trainingtogether.
We got in our late 30s andwe're still getting faster.
We're still getting faster, notgetting injured on marathons.
He's a big swimmer and acyclist a triathlete I'm a one
trick pony, I can do one thing,you got more than one trick.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Angela, you got more than one um.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
But so we just I realized that most endurance
athletes are not lifting weights.
They're not doing it.
So we kind of saw the hole inthe market, pitched that to a
couple book companies and got adeal um, we turned the book in
no, january 31st 2020.
And then, uh, we waited, wewaited a while came out the end
of 2021, and that was a goodride.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
It was really fun and I think we helped a lot of
people with that.
I know that wasn't all fun.
Come on, no, once it came out.
Once it came out, it was fun.
Once it came out, yeah, yeah,that two years leading up to it
as your listeners can probablytell I like writing books.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
I love talking about books.
So then, a couple of yearslater, and the idea for the next
four years came about, becauseI worked with literally
everything from McDonald's,all-american basketball players
to walk-on cross-country runners.
And everybody comes to collegeathletics unprepared.
They don't know what they'regetting into, and we can talk
about why a little bit.
(21:06):
But I thought I didn't.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Why is it?
Speaker 2 (21:08):
What's that?
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Why is it?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Well, I think it's a couple of things I think in the
recruiting process.
Right, we don't tell kids I'mnot going to say we lie, we do
not.
Coaches out there, they're notliars, they are salespeople,
what I mean by, that is, we takethem in the weight room and we
go look, we have the pirate headon every platform.
We have eight racks, we haveall these great machines, all of
that.
What's also true is you'regoing to be in this room at 6 am
(21:32):
four days a week and whenyou're done.
You're going to rush to drink aprotein shake and get to class
for six hours then, come back topractice then, go to study hall
, maybe eat dinner.
I understand the recruitingprocess but we don't always give
the full picture a lot of timesright.
The other thing is just themedia social media and mass
media.
When we watch college athleticswatch you know people.
(21:54):
You know popping bottles in thelocker room after a
championship.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
We watch cutting the nets down we don't see the
thousands and thousands of hoursthat went into that right
that's why I love that netflixseries quarterback because it
showed how they had so muchstuff going on in life and, like
some of them, I forget whichwhich quarterback, but would
take like mondays to be familyday and not look at any playbook
or you know, and how importantthat is yeah, I think I didn't
(22:16):
see that, but that sounds like agreat, a great thing to show
people the real behind thescenes, right yeah yeah, and the
other thing that cloudspeople's judgment and I'm not
going to say it shouldn't, butcollege, secondary or higher
education becomes so expensive.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Yeah, forget nil deals Right.
If the school's seventy fivethousand dollars a year.
How do you turn down a threehundred thousand dollar
scholarship when you're 17 or 18years old?
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
So, once you get the dollar signs in your eyes which
they probably should, becausethat's a life changing amount of
money for just about anybody-Sure.
Yeah, sure, I'll do this, I'lldo that, I'll do that.
And then six weeks into ityou're like I don't know if I,
if I sign the right deal.
I don't know if I signed theright deal, I don't know if this
is the right thing.
I think a lot of those thingscontribute to it and I think so
I just decided that I thought Idid a really good job of helping
a freshman acclimate to life asa Seton Hall athlete.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
And.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
I thought I could help even more people by putting
a book out there and helpingpeople know what they're getting
into and then prepare for whatthey got themselves into.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
So there's going to say well, seton Hall, like you
know, whatever you know.
So how is this transferable,say, either for like a
non-Division I athlete, or forsomeone in the Power Four who
feels that?
Speaker 2 (23:22):
they're more superior .
Well, I think one thing youwant to look at across all of
those demographics of players,right, the level of play might
be significantly higher from oneschool to another, right, but
the daily schedule is probablypretty similar.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
And the amount of stress.
And the other thing is this ifyou're not going to a power four
, you're coming to a mid major,but you have a mid major body
and you're a mid major athlete.
That's going to be just as hardon you as an all American going
to a power four school.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Right, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
There's that much of a difference.
And also the other thing isthat everybody because the way
coaches recruit everybody onyour team and everybody in your
conference is as good as you are, if not better, right.
Everyone's the best player attheir high school at the level
they're at.
So I'm not sure it changes awhole lot, right.
But one thing I put in the bookand I say all the time once you
sign the deal, once you decideI'm going to school X, you
(24:11):
should put it on YouTube,Instagram, get the likes, put
the hat on, do the whole thing.
It's a great time in your life.
The next day, call the strengthand conditioning coach and find
out what's going to be expectedand start getting ready for
that, Right.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
There's no real reason to be unprepared.
That's what I'm talking about.
If you're committed to seeingall athletics and I can't give
you a call or an email.
You should decommit and go toanother school.
My job is to help you besuccessful, and if I'm too big
time to tell you what to expectwhen you get here, it's as much
my fault as yours if you'reunprepared and don't succeed.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Right, that is really really good advice.
You know, I love the way youjust explained that and it makes
me think about the power and insome ways, then power four.
You have it easier because youhave a lot more resources than
the mid-majors.
So, yeah, the schedule's thesame, competition is equal, if
you will like.
At least there's equity betweenthe competition and a lot of
these mid-majors.
(25:04):
Now that's why we do this.
You know they're playing up inthe in the power fours because
it might affect their entirebudget.
You know, like you could have amid-major play a power four in
one football game and then thatone game pays for the entire
season.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Yeah, it's a weird thing, honestly, in my opinion,
that everybody agrees these twoteams are mismatched, but we're
going to do it and generatemillions of dollars.
Right, I would never.
What I always say and I've beensaying it the whole run of this
book is most of theconversations I have about youth
sports and AAU, because that'swho funnels into college
athletics and the next level isthese bowl not bowl games like
(25:42):
preseason games where it's amid-major versus a power four.
But what I always say is nobodycares what I think about the
way college athletics should be.
There's literally tens ofmillions of dollars at stake in
tv deals and 19 under armor andeverybody else right so my
version of the world is.
I'm not going to tell you what Ithink.
I'm going to tell you how tosucceed in the way the world is
right now.
Right, um, because I reallythink like we can.
(26:03):
I've got guys like me and youcan have a four-hour
conversation on this and itmight be really entertaining, we
might have a ball talking aboutit, but nothing's going to
change right nothing's changing.
Doing a good training program,preparing your body for the next
level, the way it is now.
In your case, addressing yourmental health and seeking help
when it's necessary.
That's going to help people now, in the world we live in right
now.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
I love this next four years.
It's such a great book.
It's a great resource foranybody, especially for parents
listening that you know fortheir child who might be
considering any level of collegesports, this is an this is a
must buy book to help them anduh, and also for any of the
endurance sports the finishstrong resistance training for
endurance athletes.
So thank you for putting thosebooks out there, angelo what um
(26:44):
what about secrets.
So like as we're wrapping upalready, because, like you said,
we could talk for four hours,you and I, but we're we're not
going to for this episode.
Maybe we'll have a part two,but what are some secrets?
Your strength coach secrets?
Oh, that's hard to say.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Yeah, that's a lot of S's back to back.
I would say this the firstthing you need to do if you want
to play sports at a high levelfrom a physical perspective is
get really good at moving right.
Good running mechanics, goodjumps, good landing and just be
good at moving.
A lot of kids are not good atthat because we're specializing
so early right we specialize waytoo early yeah, and I think
(27:20):
your sport is maybe one of theworst, but yeah, you deal with
kids that can swim faster thanliterally 90 of the people on
the planet, and they can't do asquat, can't?
Speaker 1 (27:33):
wait, angela, you're gonna buy my trainer the other
day says to me you know, I hadthis swimmer and they were
talking about dry land and Ijust looked at her and I had no
idea what she was talking about.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Pete, in the 20 years I've dealt with seeing all
swimming, we've lost more kidsto the stairs than we have any
other injury.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
The stairs are undefeated.
I'm not surprised.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
All right, so so the secrets get good at moving, get
good at the basic motor patterns, get good at jumps, lands,
squats, push, pulls, all thatstuff and then once you master
that, if you get in a weightroom, keep it simple, right
push-ups pull-ups, dumbbell,bench press, dumbbell, rows um.
That's the book.
The training program in a bookis really it's strength training
(28:14):
101 and if you do that beforeyou go away to college, you're
ready to take the next stepright.
If you show up at square zero,you're really making it hard for
yourself.
So just get really good at thebasics.
And then the other thing Iwould say understand your body
and your sport as best you canwhen you're a teenager.
That'll help you as you getolder, right.
So understand.
Heavy squats are awesome theday before your county
(28:35):
championship meet probably notthe best Not necessary, yeah
Right so figure things out andknow what works for you as best
as you can.
And the last thing I'll say it'snot really a secret, but
nutrition sleep and hydrationare game changers.
And as you get older, they'remore of a game changer, right.
13, 14-year-olds get away withanything.
18, 19-year-olds get away witha lot.
20-year-olds can't get awaywith anything.
So if you master those threethings, you really put yourself
(28:58):
ahead of a lot of other peopleand on the road to a long,
healthy life.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah Well, Angelo, time flies when we're having fun
.
It's been great to catch up.
Thanks so much for being herereal fast.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Hey, it was flu for me too.
Man, that's a ball, thank you Iappreciate you.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
So we're going to have all the links to your books
and everything in the showdescription, so for listeners
out there, head to the showdescription to find where you
can pick up either of thesebooks or both.
Uh so, Angelo, thanks forsharing your story and for all
um, we will be sure to haveeverything there for our
listeners.
Thank you for listening at home.
We're thankful for all yoursupport and we encourage you to
like, follow and shareEverything's at official.
(29:32):
Dr Pete, I'll see you back herenext week.
Until then, spread a littlekindness and stay well you.
Hello and welcome back to on air with Dr Pete.
I hope you're all ready foranother summer weekend.
It's hopefully going to be fun.
We got two guys from the JerseyShore coming to you today.
I recently just finished asilent retreat and it was really
incredible.
I encourage people to take timelike that during the summer
where you can just slow down,shut down and go inside.
(00:38):
It's very easy to get wrapped upin our careers and only focus
on the finish line, but it'sreally important that we create
a work-life balance, and I'vebeen fortunate enough to make
some incredible connectionsthroughout my college career, or
just my career in sports, andAngelo is one of those.
And so Angelo Gingerelli ishere.
We go way back to Seton Halldays, and he's currently the
(01:01):
strength and conditioning coachat Seton Hall and has helped
thousands of Division I athletesbecome successful in the very
competitive Big East Conference.
He's also an adjunct professor,a published author, which I
love seeing all these bookscoming out, and he serves on the
New Jersey State Directory ofthe National Strength and
Conditioning Association.
So, angelo, thanks for beinghere.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
On air with Dr Pete man.
I couldn't be more excitedbecause we talk fairly often.
Like you said, this is thefirst time we've done something
that's going to go out to themasses, so super excited for
this day, man, thank you verymuch.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
I'm so glad you're here.
My memory is terrible.
Do you have any memory when wefirst met?
Speaker 2 (01:45):
If I'm right about this, you had just finished up
your swimming career at SetonHall when, I got there.
Okay, volunteer coachingprobably still in grad school at
that, at that point maybefinish, yeah, so yeah, and I
think I got there in 05.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
I was just gonna say when did you start, but I think
we.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
You were around a lot , I remember that yeah, no, I.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
So you're right, you are, um, as I said, my memory is
terrible and yours is not.
Yours is great, uh, because2005 I was in grad school and I
was a volunteer coach for theswim team, so, and that was your
first year there yeah, I gotthere in 05.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
I've been there for 20, my 21st year coming up and
this school year starts how isthat possible?
Hey, dude, it's a long time ina regular job, it's an eternity
in a college athletic positionuh anybody listening knows.
But what I always say to peopleis I think, if you find a job
you like in a part of thecountry you like if you want to
work in college athletics yougot to stay with it, right.
And one thing that I feel likeI've gotten out of it that maybe
(02:31):
if I were jumping job to jobevery couple of years is I've
got my hands in a lot of otherthings Right.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I probably would be able to be an adjunct professor,
an author, head of New JerseyNational Student Association if
I was moving every couple years.
So I was looking at career-wise.
I didn't necessarily go grow upevery year, but I definitely
grew out every year and gotinvolved in a lot of different
things, which for me was theright decision career-wise right
, not the other ways a way to doit too yeah I figured out
something that worked for mepretty good I mean, I love that
(02:58):
and I hope every listener canconnect with that.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
It's not growing up, it's growing out and by far you
illustrate that because you got,like you said, all these other
roles that you have.
I mean, how many other strengthand conditioning coaches have
all the things that you havegoing on?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
you know not I don't think it's many.
No, it's not many.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
I'll tell you, it's not many good.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
As you know, I work, I think from watching what
you've done over the last, let'ssay, 10, 15 years that you've
been out of school it, it's kindof similar right.
You work with differentpopulations, different schools,
different athletic departmentswhich.
I think you know it makes you abetter clinician, a better
whatever you want to do.
The more populations you do itwith, the better.
(03:35):
You're going to be right and Ithink you know, economically, in
the world we live in now, ifyou put all your eggs in one
basket, the basket might fallapart.
Right, put all your eggs in onebasket the basket might fall
apart, right To use a cliche.
So I think you'd have a coupledifferent baskets going at any
one time.
I think guys like me and youare great examples of people who
did the academic stuff early intheir life, got degrees and
stuff and then found ways to getthrough four different things
(03:56):
going at once.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, 20 years in collegiate strength and
conditioning is a huge victoryand, like you said, you were
able to grow out.
You have all these things goingon and in today's world, I mean
, do you think you've seen themost change in the last?
Speaker 2 (04:14):
24 months that you've seen in college athletics since
you started, I I would say.
I always say it's the last fiveyears, right I think, we,
because your covid comes up onyour show a lot for a lot of
reasons and and totally fairyeah, but I think like in in
February of 2020, collegeathletics was one thing, then it
stopped and then, since we'vecome back, it never went back to
what it was in early 2020.
(04:35):
Rapid succession, NIL deals,transfer portal, massive TV
deals, a consolidation of thebig four conferences.
Also, I don't mean to change itover, it's not done yet.
I think we're working on whatit looks like in a couple years.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
No, as we're recording this, this settlement
hasn't even been made yet, so wedon't even know, like roster
limits and some of the actualfindings from this NCAA, from
this Judge Byrd.
So, yeah, I mean mean, this isall.
We still have no idea how thisis going to unfold.
And when you mentioned february2020, uh, seaton hall had their
(05:11):
potential for one of the mostrecent successful men's
basketball runs.
That was, and I remember beingin that, being like there's no
way they're canceling the NCAAtournament.
Remember that.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I think if you go back to that,like second week in March of
2020, the world changed everycouple hours.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
It did.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
It was like every few hours something came out and
you're like oh, we're not doingthat, we're not doing that.
And then it slowed down alittle bit after that.
But that error was so crazy.
I think not crazy use anableist term at all.
But one thing I think is sogreat about what you do, what
student athletes are.
It was an already stressfultime for everybody before COVID
happened Right.
(05:52):
And now in the last five yearsyou're taking a demographic of
people who are.
You know they're physicallymature.
We deal with physically men andwomen every day, but
emotionally, psychologically,mentally.
Some of them are still boys andgirls, Some are still figuring
out.
And then you throw in thesekids dealt with a pandemic, they
dealt with a vaccinecontroversy, they dealt with,
(06:12):
you know.
Now, now we're in a world whereback in the day you're on a
college basketball team,Everybody had the same
scholarship.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Right, right.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Now you got a guy making $2 million next to a guy
making a meal plan running thesame sprints.
That's right.
That's a different thing thanwe've ever dealt with before.
Ever, Kids this age.
So I would say, if you look atthe results of the NBA, the NHL
NFL players, if you give a22-year-old man a lot of money
at one time, a lot of times, itdoesn't work out.
(06:40):
Well, right Now we're going togive a similar amount of money
to a 17 or 18-year-old man who'seven less mature, less worldly
and less financially sound thanhow they deal with the world.
And we're going to wonder howit's going to work out, and the
reality is we haven't seen ityet.
We just don't know thelong-term effects of what this
is going to look like forcollege athletics and the people
that are getting the payments.
(07:01):
We don't know what that lookslike.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
We don't know, but thankfully, getting the payments
right we don't know what thatlooks like, we don't know, but
thankfully they have people likeyou and me in their corners to
help them think about it andthere's no more amateurism.
I mean, this is now to yourpoint.
You mentioned NBA, nba, nhl.
This is how, what we've beendealing with in professional
sports forever.
So and you've been inprofessional sports, so you were
also at Virginia Tech, nc State, the Pittsburgh Pirates, so
tell us about that early on inyour career.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Well, I think professional sports is a greater
environment that a lot ofpeople aspire to work in.
You talk to young sportspsychologists.
You talk to young training anddistrict coaches.
Everybody wants to work for theJets, the Giants the.
Yankees, whatever it might be,and I think there's a lot of
good to it, there's a lot ofreally cool aspects to it.
But I think, if you look at thestats, at least in strength and
(07:44):
conditioning, nobody does thatfor a long period of time
because the season is so long,it's so much travel.
If you want to have any kind oflife outside of your job.
College or even high school isprobably a much better thing,
right?
Speaker 1 (07:57):
It's a much better lifestyle.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
And the thing that I figured out, the last, like, say
, 10, well, my daughter's?
My daughter is about to be 10years old next month.
I'm super involved in her littleleague and what I've been
saying for years is coaching andmaybe sports psychology I'm not
sure if you can tell me if I'mwrong but definitely all kinds
of strength and conditioning,athletic training,
sports-specific coaching.
We have the pyramid flipped, inmy opinion.
We give all the money, powerand respect to the men and women
(08:19):
that work at the highest level.
Then you've got the big fourcollege conferences, then you
got the smaller conferences,then you got the high schools,
then you got the youth groups,right.
But if you think about whoreally impacts a person in
development, it's the completeopposite way around, right?
My daughter's coaches andliterally coaches and teachers
now are shaping her every day ina way.
(08:39):
I am definitely not with theall-student athletes, right,
because they're just older.
They Definitely not with theall-studying athletes, because
they're just older.
They're more mature.
We hit them at a different ageand once you get to the pro
level, it's a job.
If you play for the Knicks,your coach is your boss, you can
get traded, he can get fired,he can take another job.
So that relationship is thesame as if you worked in a store
.
If you worked in a store andyour manager at Target is
(09:00):
probably not going to be amentor the, it's probably not
going to be a mentor.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
The same way, if you play for the minnesota
timberwolves, your coach is notgoing to be your mentor.
Yeah, I like that metaphor,it's really helpful.
So for you, that helped yourealize.
So did your daughter's littleleague help you realize that you
know you want to stay with thissort of younger athlete.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Or compared to your time with the pittsburgh pirates
yes, well, I'll be honest, man,the thing with the pittsburgh
pirates and I did like it.
I made a lot of goodcareer-long friends there.
But the schedule is not real,sustainable, especially baseball
.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Yeah, baseball is 162 games on both the spring
training.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
And then the other thing too, and I think you'll
appreciate this as a formercollege swimmer the best thing
about college training additionto me is I might be on campus
for 12 13 hours a day right youknow, during the fall spring
semester, every hour I'm in acompletely different group of
people doing somethingcompletely different.
Yeah, and it's just.
I really like that as opposedto being with the same people
all day.
So one of my favorite things andI've gotten to meet people all
(09:54):
over the world.
Right, we have swimmers from.
We have multiple kids fromisrael over the years we have a
woman swimmer from wales rightnow I went from denmark last
year um you know, and some ofthe teams are from different
parts of the world, different.
I think college athletics as aas a fishbowl is so interesting
because you take a bunch ofpeople that would never be in
the same room and put them inthe same room.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Yeah, it's a really interesting group to be around
it's profound to be able to dothat and unfortunately it's
being challenged.
Uh right, you know it's not aseasy to do these days and I
think all these changes thatwe're talking about, which we
haven't mentioned even just sortof the socio-political changes
too.
So you have, you know all thechanges in college athletics and
that.
So what was it that led youinto strength and conditioning?
Speaker 2 (10:33):
oh I, I basically.
I grew up at the jersey shorein ocean county not mom's county
.
Please don't judge me for thatanyone from jersey will
understand that.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
But go ahead.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
I went to a public high school in the 90s.
That said really lucky, had astrength coach.
He was a phys ed teacher and astrength and conditioning coach.
And it had a huge impact on mylife and I went to the weight
room like everybody else to getbetter at sports.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
And I just decided.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
I like training more than I like probably anything
else in my life at that point.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
So early on you realized it.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Yeah, I was a teenager.
I was like 17, 18 when I made adecision.
And then I got lucky too,because I was graduating high
school when this profession wasactually becoming a real thing
when you're majoring inkinesiology or exercise science
or something like that.
So, if I would have been 10years older, it wouldn't have
been, it didn't exist right.
And if I was 10 years later itprobably would have been a lot
harder to break into the jobsI've had and stuff like that.
(11:23):
So I got really lucky time-wisegraduated high school where the
career I wanted became a career, basically.
I was able to fall in line andfollow the steps.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Well, you work hard.
It didn't just fall in line.
You work hard, Angelo.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Well, I appreciate that Absolutely.
That is 100% true.
But then universe-wise I wasable to do it, if that makes
sense Exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
So how do you approach strength training?
Well, maybe tell people what itis, because there might be a
listener, there might be onelistener out there who doesn't
know what strength andconditioning is.
You and I say it so naturally.
So what is it?
And then, how do you approachit?
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Okay so, we'll take the college level specifically.
Right, If you're a collegeswimmer, you have a coach that's
a swim coach that is writingout your swim workouts, your
strokes, everything you're goingto do in the pool.
Strength coach kind of works onyour body outside of the sport
itself, right.
So you need to be stronger andmore flexible.
You need to work onconditioning you know our wind
and how long we do the activityand you kind of work on making
the body as strong as injuryresistant as possible for that
(12:24):
sport, right?
So I think there's a lot ofthings everybody could benefit
from.
But, to make it pretty simple,a baseball player should
probably train different than aswimmer, should probably train
different than a soccer player,right?
yeah um, I think, I think at ayounger age it's not necessarily
the case probably be moregeneralist once you get to the
college level, kind ofspecializing the training the
way you do your sport trainingis kind of the way to go right
(12:46):
at a place, likeon Hall our goalis to get our kids as big and
as strong, as athletic aspossible and maximize potential
right.
So if you come to campus youknow if a 10 is LeBron James and
a 1 is a person that can barelyput one foot in front of the
other.
If you're a 1, we can't get youto a 10.
But if you're a 7, you mightmake an 8, eight and a half and
that might allow you to play inthe NBA for a little while or
(13:07):
play overseas or break a bigEast record if you're a swimmer
or something like that.
So I think the higher up youget in the food chain, the more
incremental the improvements andthe more swimming at the
hundredth of a second makes adifference.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
So everything kind of matters.
Try to help people out as bestwe can.
So I want to go back to how youapproach it, because just
yesterday I was at a differentschool and watching a swimmer do
these exercises and I wasasking the physical therapist
and the strength coach, likewhat is that?
And they're like it's prehab.
And I was like, wow, I wishprehab was around when I was
(13:40):
swimming.
And so we had this conversationand I said to the athlete I was
like, as annoying as that mightbe, you'd be so thankful
because 20, 30 years later, I'mnow, for the in the last two
weeks, the first time I canraise my hand above my head with
no pain in 30 years.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
That's really something else.
Congrats on that.
So, whatever you did for thelast couple of weeks for a
couple of decades.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Well, I, finally started to do it.
It's my midlife crisis.
My midlife crisis is mywell-being and I was like I need
to deal with this chronic backshoulder issue.
They used to, angela, they usedto use me when, when you first
got to seton hall, they werejust starting that athletic
training program the academicremember that, yeah and they
used to use me in the lab toshow atrophy and how messed up
(14:25):
shoulders and backs look.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
That's rough.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Yeah, and then there are my trainers and everyone
else around just like laughingat me being used this way
without an intervention yeah,Now that being hold on.
I would have probably pushedback on the intervention because
I was lazy and I just wanted tolike swim and just go fast, but
I didn't want to do all theprehab.
But for young athletes outthere, prehab is critical.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
So what do you say about that?
Yeah, a hundred percent, Ithink the hardest thing with
young athletes and by young Imean college and younger is
trying to think long term righta lot of college athletes.
Even everybody thinks I justgot to get to the end of this
season, or the end of mysophomore year, whatever it is,
and things will get better.
They might if you do them, ifyou do the right things to make
them better right, that's rightI think the one thing we've seen
in the last 20 years are, ifyou look at like certain
populations, it takes swimmers aton of shoulder injuries right,
(15:12):
just shoulder over your stuffover and over again.
Baseball, softball, same thingswe're throwing so much right.
So, one of the things we coulddo ahead of time to make that
joint as stable and as secure aspossible, to not break down
right.
Yes, it's a weird thing I say.
For the 80s and 90s we kind ofrealized that lifting weights
was a good thing for sports andin the 2000s we realized that,
(15:34):
yeah, being big and strong andpushing some iron around is a
good idea, but it's got to bedone properly and it's not
always the big squat, benchpress, deadlift stuff which is
important.
It's got to be done right, butif you're maybe a swimmer or a
baseball pitcher, your shoulderwork should be a little
different than if you're asoccer player or something like
that.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah, and I wonder what you think.
This just came to mind, so Iwonder what you think about this
.
So my dad would not.
I grew up with a family ofbaseball players.
I was a swimmer, though my twoolder brothers played
professional baseball, and wewere not allowed to lift weights
until after high school.
Like he wouldn't let us liftweights because it's well.
Back then there was a thoughtthat it stunted your growth.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Hey, can I give you my little take on that real
quick.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yes, please.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
I came up in that era too Right.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
I really think what happened is they had the idea
because everybody that liftedweights was a bodybuilder, power
lifter back in the 70s wereshort, right, right.
They thought that liftingweights made you short.
Right, my theory is being shortmakes you lift weights.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
I agree, I'm 5'5".
If.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
I'm 6'5".
I never go to the high schoolweight room.
I never buy gym membership,because I'm good now.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Right.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
You know what I mean no-transcript, and that's why
they thought that for so long.
It's been proven incorrect.
But again, after high schoolprobably a little too late.
I think, you can probably waitto middle school, maybe, and do
(17:01):
some stuff and then dealing withyounger kids.
Now I think the problem we havewith younger kids where I live
is they're so sedentary.
They're playing organized sports, or they're literally sitting
on an iPad.
There's no in-between anymore.
If you can get young kidsmoving, and moving well and
squatting and hip hinging andbeing flexible, that's a great
start no-transcript.
(17:35):
Right now I'm kind of leadingup to her, because the last
thing I want to do is burn herout on anything.
That's something I learned fromcollege athletics, right.
We deal with so many kids thatare burnt out literally when
they get on campus.
They're already looking forwardto an ending right, that's
terrible I'm really trying toavoid that with her as best I
can.
So, yeah, you know being aliterally dad.
(17:56):
When she wants to play catch,we play catch when she wants to
go to the batting cage.
we go to the batting cage andI'm trying to push it to her too
much now because I've seen theadverse effects of taking stuff
too seriously too too young andthen just dealing with kids.
They're counting down the days,sometimes until the Big East
championship or the last game orwhatever it is.
To me that is not the waycollege athletics should be, so
(18:16):
I'm trying to be a little bit ofthe solution as opposed to part
of the problem.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
I love that and you are.
So thank you for doing thatbecause you're helping, you make
my job easier.
Then too, because because theburnt out athletes, the one that
comes to me I was always sayingsometimes the coaches are going
to think that something'shappening inside our room, cause
a lot of times we'll get peoplebefore the portal existed that
were transferring and it's causethey were not unwell, you know.
And so they're coming to uscause they're unwell and
whatever the dynamic is, but youknow.
(18:41):
So the coaches, if they knewthey were coming to us, they're
like oh, what is Dr Pete doingin those sessions?
Speaker 2 (18:48):
No, you know what.
I say a lot when I talk aboutthe book we'll talk about later.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
And this is one thing my profession doesn't do well
when a kid quits the team anddecides to be a regular student,
when a kid transfers right.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
A lot of times strength coaches will be happy
that they broke the kid.
They're happy they were strong.
They couldn't handle myworkouts.
They couldn't get up All thesethings right.
My attitude, attitude, peoplelike me, and you right, yeah,
our job is not to break thecamel's back, it's to make the
camel's back stronger I don'twant to be the last straw.
No, the.
The card or the email I want toget right around this time of
(19:20):
your graduation is hey, I reallyhad a great experience.
I didn't think I could make itthrough these workouts and these
practices, whatever it is, butyou, you help me out, you showed
me the right things to do.
I like talking in the officeand thanks for all your help and
let's grab a great life.
And I think that those are thecards guys I mean you got to
look out for, not the.
I can't stay in college sportsanymore.
I can't wait to get out of herecan't wait to be done.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Yeah, well, no, I want.
I want to jump to your booksbecause these are awesome.
Uh, so for listeners, you gotthe one book finish strong and
then the other one the next fouryears, so tell us about them
cool.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
So the first, uh, the book to finish, strong
resistance training forendurance athletes.
I wrote with dr rj borges,who's a professor on our campus.
We were, we were trainingtogether.
We got in our late 30s andwe're still getting faster.
We're still getting faster, notgetting injured on marathons.
He's a big swimmer and acyclist a triathlete I'm a one
trick pony, I can do one thing,you got more than one trick.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Angela, you got more than one um.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
But so we just I realized that most endurance
athletes are not lifting weights.
They're not doing it.
So we kind of saw the hole inthe market, pitched that to a
couple book companies and got adeal um, we turned the book in
no, january 31st 2020.
And then, uh, we waited, wewaited a while came out the end
of 2021, and that was a goodride.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
It was really fun and I think we helped a lot of
people with that.
I know that wasn't all fun.
Come on, no, once it came out.
Once it came out, it was fun.
Once it came out, yeah, yeah,that two years leading up to it
as your listeners can probablytell I like writing books.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
I love talking about books.
So then, a couple of yearslater, and the idea for the next
four years came about, becauseI worked with literally
everything from McDonald's,all-american basketball players
to walk-on cross-country runners.
And everybody comes to collegeathletics unprepared.
They don't know what they'regetting into, and we can talk
about why a little bit.
(21:06):
But I thought I didn't.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Why is it?
Speaker 2 (21:08):
What's that?
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Why is it?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Well, I think it's a couple of things I think in the
recruiting process.
Right, we don't tell kids I'mnot going to say we lie, we do
not.
Coaches out there, they're notliars, they are salespeople,
what I mean by, that is, we takethem in the weight room and we
go look, we have the pirate headon every platform.
We have eight racks, we haveall these great machines, all of
that.
What's also true is you'regoing to be in this room at 6 am
(21:32):
four days a week and whenyou're done.
You're going to rush to drink aprotein shake and get to class
for six hours then, come back topractice then, go to study hall
, maybe eat dinner.
I understand the recruitingprocess but we don't always give
the full picture a lot of timesright.
The other thing is just themedia social media and mass
media.
When we watch college athleticswatch you know people.
(21:54):
You know popping bottles in thelocker room after a
championship.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
We watch cutting the nets down we don't see the
thousands and thousands of hoursthat went into that right
that's why I love that netflixseries quarterback because it
showed how they had so muchstuff going on in life and, like
some of them, I forget whichwhich quarterback, but would
take like mondays to be familyday and not look at any playbook
or you know, and how importantthat is yeah, I think I didn't
(22:16):
see that, but that sounds like agreat, a great thing to show
people the real behind thescenes, right yeah yeah, and the
other thing that cloudspeople's judgment and I'm not
going to say it shouldn't, butcollege, secondary or higher
education becomes so expensive.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Yeah, forget nil deals Right.
If the school's seventy fivethousand dollars a year.
How do you turn down a threehundred thousand dollar
scholarship when you're 17 or 18years old?
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
So, once you get the dollar signs in your eyes which
they probably should, becausethat's a life changing amount of
money for just about anybody-Sure.
Yeah, sure, I'll do this, I'lldo that, I'll do that.
And then six weeks into ityou're like I don't know if I,
if I sign the right deal.
I don't know if I signed theright deal, I don't know if this
is the right thing.
I think a lot of those thingscontribute to it and I think so
I just decided that I thought Idid a really good job of helping
a freshman acclimate to life asa Seton Hall athlete.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
And.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
I thought I could help even more people by putting
a book out there and helpingpeople know what they're getting
into and then prepare for whatthey got themselves into.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
So there's going to say well, seton Hall, like you
know, whatever you know.
So how is this transferable,say, either for like a
non-Division I athlete, or forsomeone in the Power Four who
feels that?
Speaker 2 (23:22):
they're more superior .
Well, I think one thing youwant to look at across all of
those demographics of players,right, the level of play might
be significantly higher from oneschool to another, right, but
the daily schedule is probablypretty similar.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
And the amount of stress.
And the other thing is this ifyou're not going to a power four
, you're coming to a mid major,but you have a mid major body
and you're a mid major athlete.
That's going to be just as hardon you as an all American going
to a power four school.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Right, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
There's that much of a difference.
And also the other thing isthat everybody because the way
coaches recruit everybody onyour team and everybody in your
conference is as good as you are, if not better, right.
Everyone's the best player attheir high school at the level
they're at.
So I'm not sure it changes awhole lot, right.
But one thing I put in the bookand I say all the time once you
sign the deal, once you decideI'm going to school X, you
(24:11):
should put it on YouTube,Instagram, get the likes, put
the hat on, do the whole thing.
It's a great time in your life.
The next day, call the strengthand conditioning coach and find
out what's going to be expectedand start getting ready for
that, Right.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
There's no real reason to be unprepared.
That's what I'm talking about.
If you're committed to seeingall athletics and I can't give
you a call or an email.
You should decommit and go toanother school.
My job is to help you besuccessful, and if I'm too big
time to tell you what to expectwhen you get here, it's as much
my fault as yours if you'reunprepared and don't succeed.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Right, that is really really good advice.
You know, I love the way youjust explained that and it makes
me think about the power and insome ways, then power four.
You have it easier because youhave a lot more resources than
the mid-majors.
So, yeah, the schedule's thesame, competition is equal, if
you will like.
At least there's equity betweenthe competition and a lot of
these mid-majors.
(25:04):
Now that's why we do this.
You know they're playing up inthe in the power fours because
it might affect their entirebudget.
You know, like you could have amid-major play a power four in
one football game and then thatone game pays for the entire
season.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Yeah, it's a weird thing, honestly, in my opinion,
that everybody agrees these twoteams are mismatched, but we're
going to do it and generatemillions of dollars.
Right, I would never.
What I always say and I've beensaying it the whole run of this
book is most of theconversations I have about youth
sports and AAU, because that'swho funnels into college
athletics and the next level isthese bowl not bowl games like
(25:42):
preseason games where it's amid-major versus a power four.
But what I always say is nobodycares what I think about the
way college athletics should be.
There's literally tens ofmillions of dollars at stake in
tv deals and 19 under armor andeverybody else right so my
version of the world is.
I'm not going to tell you what Ithink.
I'm going to tell you how tosucceed in the way the world is
right now.
Right, um, because I reallythink like we can.
(26:03):
I've got guys like me and youcan have a four-hour
conversation on this and itmight be really entertaining, we
might have a ball talking aboutit, but nothing's going to
change right nothing's changing.
Doing a good training program,preparing your body for the next
level, the way it is now.
In your case, addressing yourmental health and seeking help
when it's necessary.
That's going to help people now, in the world we live in right
now.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
I love this next four years.
It's such a great book.
It's a great resource foranybody, especially for parents
listening that you know fortheir child who might be
considering any level of collegesports, this is an this is a
must buy book to help them anduh, and also for any of the
endurance sports the finishstrong resistance training for
endurance athletes.
So thank you for putting thosebooks out there, angelo what um
(26:44):
what about secrets.
So like as we're wrapping upalready, because, like you said,
we could talk for four hours,you and I, but we're we're not
going to for this episode.
Maybe we'll have a part two,but what are some secrets?
Your strength coach secrets?
Oh, that's hard to say.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Yeah, that's a lot of S's back to back.
I would say this the firstthing you need to do if you want
to play sports at a high levelfrom a physical perspective is
get really good at moving right.
Good running mechanics, goodjumps, good landing and just be
good at moving.
A lot of kids are not good atthat because we're specializing
so early right we specialize waytoo early yeah, and I think
(27:20):
your sport is maybe one of theworst, but yeah, you deal with
kids that can swim faster thanliterally 90 of the people on
the planet, and they can't do asquat, can't?
Speaker 1 (27:33):
wait, angela, you're gonna buy my trainer the other
day says to me you know, I hadthis swimmer and they were
talking about dry land and Ijust looked at her and I had no
idea what she was talking about.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Pete, in the 20 years I've dealt with seeing all
swimming, we've lost more kidsto the stairs than we have any
other injury.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
The stairs are undefeated.
I'm not surprised.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
All right, so so the secrets get good at moving, get
good at the basic motor patterns, get good at jumps, lands,
squats, push, pulls, all thatstuff and then once you master
that, if you get in a weightroom, keep it simple, right
push-ups pull-ups, dumbbell,bench press, dumbbell, rows um.
That's the book.
The training program in a bookis really it's strength training
(28:14):
101 and if you do that beforeyou go away to college, you're
ready to take the next stepright.
If you show up at square zero,you're really making it hard for
yourself.
So just get really good at thebasics.
And then the other thing Iwould say understand your body
and your sport as best you canwhen you're a teenager.
That'll help you as you getolder, right.
So understand.
Heavy squats are awesome theday before your county
(28:35):
championship meet probably notthe best Not necessary, yeah
Right so figure things out andknow what works for you as best
as you can.
And the last thing I'll say it'snot really a secret, but
nutrition sleep and hydrationare game changers.
And as you get older, they'remore of a game changer, right.
13, 14-year-olds get away withanything.
18, 19-year-olds get away witha lot.
20-year-olds can't get awaywith anything.
So if you master those threethings, you really put yourself
(28:58):
ahead of a lot of other peopleand on the road to a long,
healthy life.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah Well, Angelo, time flies when we're having fun
.
It's been great to catch up.
Thanks so much for being herereal fast.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Hey, it was flu for me too.
Man, that's a ball, thank you Iappreciate you.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
So we're going to have all the links to your books
and everything in the showdescription, so for listeners
out there, head to the showdescription to find where you
can pick up either of thesebooks or both.
Uh so, Angelo, thanks forsharing your story and for all
um, we will be sure to haveeverything there for our
listeners.
Thank you for listening at home.
We're thankful for all yoursupport and we encourage you to
like, follow and shareEverything's at official.
(29:32):
Dr Pete, I'll see you back herenext week.
Until then, spread a littlekindness and stay well you.
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