483: Jack Barry on Confidence and the Art of Instinctive Athleticism

Today’s guest is Jack Barry. Jack is the founder of JB Performance and a former ABCA DIII All-American (York College, 2021) who played at Salisbury University. After college, he worked at Tread Athletics, then built a remote+in-person coaching model. Jack has coached athletes from high school to pro levels, appeared on Baseball America’s 90th Percentile, and hosts the “Just Rippin’” podcast. On today’s episode, Jack speaks on athletic potential as a function of work capacity with quality, deliberate practice. We unpack the mental side of training, how visualization, targeted self-talk, and timely pattern breaks calm performance anxiety and restore confidence. He also touches on how athletes thrive when they develop a unique identity, balance effort with recovery, and treat mindset and mechanics as equal partners. This is a dynamic episode, at the intersection of pitching skill and global human performance concepts. Today’s episode is brought to you by Hammer Strength and LILA Exogen wearable resistance. Use the code “justfly25” for 25% off any Lila Exogen wearable resistance training, including the popular Exogen Calf Sleeves. For this offer, head to Lilateam.com Use code “justfly10” for 10% off the Vert Trainer View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. (https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-home/) Timestamps 0:20 – From college ball to new competitive outlets4:10 – Work capacity, family influences, and cross-training7:10 – Adapting training: speed, volume, and specificity10:01 – Aerobic contributions in racket and throwing sports15:46 – Provoking reactivity: stumble drills and innate responses23:16 – Pattern breaks, the yips, and the "be sexy" mentality27:44 – Reactive throwing drills to clean the arm action31:15 – Pre-movement cues and subtle distractions to speed action43:21 – Visualization with highlight reels to build confidence52:25 – Essentialism in training: less and better59:50 – Start with less, progress intelligently1:00:25 – Barefoot training and simplifying the lower half Actionable takeaways 0:20 – From college ball to new competitive outlets Jack traces his path from Division III Salisbury baseball into jiu-jitsu, tennis, and a renewed love for training after leaving team sport. Treat post-playing transitions as a chance to experiment with new sports that satisfy the competitive impulse. Use cross-training to keep motivation high while developing complementary athletic qualities. When exploring a new sport, accept the beginner phase and enjoy the novelty rather than forcing immediate mastery. 4:10 – Work capacity, family influences, and cross-training Jack reflects on family genetics and finding his own work-capacity strengths through varied activities. If you enjoy sustained effort, program both volume and varied intensity (easy long efforts plus specific speed sessions). Use cross-training (racket sports, running, court games) to get game-like cardiovascular stimulus without burnout. Be deliberate: split session types by purpose (speed sessions, volume sessions, tempo work) instead of lumping everything together. 7:10 – Adapting training: speed, volume, and specificity Jack describes learning to periodize his running and mix speed with volume to actually get faster. Structure sessions by purpose: separate longer aerobic efforts from targeted speed work. Progress volume conservatively (small weekly increases) and add specific speed work for real improvements in pace. Treat running like any other modality: apply progressive overload principles and discipline. 10:01 – Aerobic contributions in racket and throwing sports Jack compares racket sports and throwing, noting the reactive and aerobic demands of court play. Use court-based conditioning to develop reactive stamina and contextual decision-making. Choose cross-training that mirrors sport constraints when possible (racket sports for reactive throws).

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Jack, welcome to the show, man. Could you start by telling us a little bit about
your journey as an athlete?
And then in addition, I'm also curious what pitchers do for sports once their
pitching career is over.
I think you mentioned something about tennis. So I'm curious.
I'm curious of that trajectory as well. But yeah, your sport background and
then what you're up to now.

(00:20):
Well, you popped open the can of worms early on this one. So yeah,
I'm a former college baseball player. I played at Division III Salisbury University, go goals.
And growing up was not like the greatest athlete per se, kind of like a chubby kid.
Both of my siblings were endurance sport athletes. So like one was a distance

(00:43):
swimmer, the other one did soccer and lacrosse.
And so I've alluded to this a couple of times with some other people,
but like our meals were pretty carb and calorie
centric and for a third baseman
corner infielder on a baseball field that wasn't super conducive to
having like an elite physique and so had to
kind of adjust some habits there as I got older but that

(01:07):
helped me kind of dive into training and sports performance which is obviously
why we're here and really enjoyed that and applied it to my own career and so
used that and through college just continued to pick up on bits and pieces.
Tommy Labriola is a good friend of mine.

(01:28):
He's a former strength coach for the Blue Jays and he was my strength coach in college.
Also got the opportunity to play with him for my first two years and just saw
what he did and saw how much passion he applied to the weight room,
but then also the field side of things.
And that really gave me some tools and some insight on maybe this is something

(01:51):
that I want to do one day if the broadcasting thing doesn't work out, which it didn't.
That was kind of my own doing just because I had more of a fire under my rear
end to do something like this and stay involved with athletics and performance
and fitness and health and all that good stuff.
And so that kind of brought me into doing this now in the online space.

(02:12):
And as far as what pitchers really do when they're done playing I always love
training and I always love fitness and I always love just competing and being on a team.
And so when I lost the team aspect that allowed for me to try and pursue some
new competitive outlets.

(02:32):
And so I tried the jujitsu thing. Uh, I have long levers.
And so basically like all I had was a ground game and triangle chokes,
but that's like a pretty limited offensive repertoire there.
Uh, as there, as it relates to grappling sports, uh, I tried,
I still golf here and there, but five hours out of your day is a big chunk of time.

(02:54):
Yeah it is i was like all right so where can i get a good like cardiovascular stimulus.
Sweat uh and compete and have
just like a something that's going to really give me that that competitive aspect
of my life that i lost when i stopped playing and so i just gave tennis a try
i'm kind of pseudo anti pickleball i don't really know like i'm not i just i

(03:19):
don't know i'm I'm more of a traditionalist,
I guess, you know, I wear all the cotton apparel. I'm not into like the gym shark stuff.
So, uh, yeah, you saw the blue light blockers. I'm an optimizer to a certain
degree, but, uh, really do enjoy tennis.
So watching the U S open, watching Wimbledon, watching Carlos Alcaraz,
just get to every single ball on the court.

(03:39):
Uh, like that kind of stuff. It's, uh, it was, it started with a toe just kind
of dipped in and then I just dove head first.
And, uh, that's kind of where we're at now. that's that's part
of the training journey still lifting a lot of weight and still doing mobility
stuff and uh doing some distance running as well i found out i have a pretty
good vo2 max for my age apparently and so uh and again like long levers long

(04:02):
arms yeah i can uh i can i can do some work on a track apparently so that's
kind of where we're at with everything.
Yeah, I think in the midst of athletic performance, a very explosive orientation.
And, but for those of us who have a distance swimmer or runner somewhere in
the family tree, there's a superpower work capacity in there somewhere.

(04:24):
I think that's just important to mention. And I know for myself,
like I have, I have a good general work capacity, not necessarily just distance
running, but just doing a lot of work, like in a dense period of time,
I was like a good hustler on a basket, the basketball court and stuff.
And so I realized I need to feed that engine and that is enjoyable,
but finding diverse ways of doing it is the trick.

(04:47):
I don't enjoy if I was just to go run three or four miles on the road,
that would not necessarily be my favorite thing. But yeah, feeding that,
that animal, I think, or finding a way to do that, I think is really important.
For sure. And it's something that I wish I would have discovered sooner because
maybe I could have like gotten some scholarship money to like go.
And I'm not saying that like cross country would have been that competitive

(05:10):
outlet for me, but, uh, I was never the type of guy that could just like pick
up a ball and flick mid nineties off the rip.
And I know people that can do that, um, or, you know, just jump 35 plus after
not jumping for a while, I was, uh, definitely more type two oriented, I guess.

(05:30):
Um, and so like, that's where, uh, I probably could have leaned into the cardiovascular
side or found like more of that,
uh, work capacity based action earlier that might've been more conducive to
just my genetic predisposition, but you don't want to look back,
learn from the experience and maximize what I probably could have from just like a pure power and,

(05:57):
strength side.
But then the gains became so negligible. I was like, I need a new outlet.
And that's where I'm getting some of these newbie gains now.
And that's where it's really fun.
So hopefully I can maintain that level of enthusiasm throughout the next 6,
12, 18 months, however long this really goes.
Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned, Jack, like Family Tree, a distance swimmer.
And I've worked with distance swimmers, a fair number of them.

(06:19):
And if you want to have this spectrum of like, on one end, super explosive team
sport athlete, I would say almost all the way on the other is distance swimmer.
Not in every case, but in quite a few cases.
So I think that there's also something to, you know, those of us who had to
overcome some of those genetic limitations, like if you were a more slow twitch athlete,

(06:42):
and it's a thing where you almost don't want to read it if you have a gene report
that said you are slow twitch, like you wouldn't want to read that.
But it definitely the problem to solve to become more explosive is it's not
as direct as like you said, those people who can just pick the ball up and just rip 95.
And they just they have all those things just sitting there more readily than

(07:05):
those of us who have to climb more rungs on the ladder to get there.
Yeah. Like for me, when I was going through like the, I don't know if you've
had Jake on the podcast, but like when I was doing the vertical jump protocol,
um, or when I was doing sprint training.
The, uh, the curvature within like the developmental line for me was definitely

(07:30):
a lot more gradual to, whereas when I started distance running,
it took me a month to be able to knock my thousand time down.
To like a sub two or like my you know i could
sit in the high fives low
sixes as far as mile pace for like more than
two miles um and so like

(07:52):
i could i ran i think it was
nine miles the other day at like a sub nine pace and woke up the next day and
felt like i could do it again and so maybe that's just the fact that um i'm
all limb and like the relationship between my rib cage of my pelvis is so short
that I literally just have like, I,

(08:12):
it's probably not conducive for me to try and chase output in the weight room.
And I, I told my training partner that I'm working with now,
it's like, I'm probably not going to be a bodybuilder.
You know, I'm probably not going to be the strongest guy in the gym,
but darn it, if I'm not going to have one of the highest VO2 maxes and work
capacity and be able to cook you on the track, you know,

(08:36):
after a month of training and actually being able to like kind of periodize what I'm doing.
Because before it was just like, I wanted to build this work output preparing
for this elk hunt that I'm doing in Colorado soon.
And so I was like, all right, well, I'm just going to start with like a 20 minute
run and I'm just going to add a minute per week.
And that's what I did until I met my training partner. he's like

(08:57):
no you got to do a speed session if you want
to get faster you have to do a distance session or
a work like a volume session you have
to do your slower paces your faster paces like you would
you literally approach this just like any
other training modality it's just that it's all one
action and you're just doing it at different intensity and so

(09:17):
if if your only goal is to increase your
volume or what you're able to withstand on
the lower half like yeah adding a minute to your runs per week
is probably making sense but if you
do want to get faster if you do want to be able to run further for
longer at faster paces you need to kind of like split up the
focuses of each one of those training sessions and supplement them

(09:38):
in throughout the week and that's something that i didn't it's
not that i didn't realize it you know i think that you can apply that simplicity
of progressive overload to pretty much any training modality but just being
a newbie and not having the knowledge of working with runners or even being
one myself until you hear from somebody else you're not going to actually apply

(09:59):
it to the training side yeah.
It makes me think about pitching in the sense of
Any aerobic contribution as well, like with tennis, like tennis is essentially
launching a projectile, although it's you have a tool with a repeat component,
like there's an aerobic system involved. And it makes me think of a sport I've
never played team handball.

(10:21):
We're running and throwing repeatedly, like when you add an aerobic piece to something.
I know I benefited tremendously, but by playing basketball for my track and
field career, and it wasn't only just the intentional little cuts and jumps
and sprints and blocking shots and getting rebounds.
I think that I also played in a manner that probably reflected my strengths,

(10:42):
which was really just a lot of volume, just a lot of medium to high intensity
sprints. Like I needed that volume.
And it makes me think too about like, yeah, tennis and someone,
if someone's a little bit more slow twitch like you and you just get the reps
in, get the reps in, get the reps in.
That's probably pretty helpful. I wonder maybe, you know, tennis in the off
season would have been your jam back in the day too.

(11:03):
Like for those people who do need more stimulation, a little slower Twitch on the end.
There needs to be a new term for that too, by the way. I feel like if we just,
we want to make everything binary or slow Twitch or your fast Twitch,
maybe we call it something else.
You're more work capacity positive. I don't know.
Something else, uh, because you can still deliver good outputs.

(11:25):
It's just the route there is just a little bit different than,
than the person, like you said, and pick up the ball and just whip 95 and need
some more explosive, just pure explosive pieces.
Yeah, I think you can manipulate like the slider to a certain degree to where
like you are going to bias towards one side or the other.
And that's not to say that like through your training, you can shift it one way or the other as well.

(11:50):
But you're probably always going to have just like the ability to pick up where
you left off as it relates to one of those sides due to genetics or due to just
whatever the case may be.
We did do some tennis in the off we had a gorgeous indoor tennis center at my
school and so uh in the winter semester when we would be there for class or

(12:13):
just training and like preparing for the springtime we would be looking for
like cross training outlets,
and basketball at that point just seemed a
little bit more like risk averse for us
you know you turn an ankle or like a knee or something like
that through jumping you know like right before the season
probably not the best idea um tennis being

(12:34):
a little bit less contact uh we also
would do like racquetball squash things like that oh yeah so like yeah so like
racket sports with throwers especially um a lot of crossover there but as far
as like the the work capacity point definitely a lot easier to, uh,

(12:57):
to sort of program in or give to guys to when you give them like a competitive outlet.
And I made the, I made the comment to one of my coaches the other day.
It's that like conditioning for court sports.
Is miserable. And when you compare it to like distance running outside or like
a cardio stimulus, it's like, yeah, we don't have any problem running four miles

(13:20):
in the park and the scenery changes and the weather's nice.
But if you put us indoors and you just give us lines that we have to go back
and forth on for 200, you know, 200 times or whatever for an hour straight,
like that's just, that's the, the physical sport representation of the loony
bin essentially, you know, I couldn't imagine.

(13:41):
Yeah could you imagine and yeah that uh that
environmental piece changes everything even just track background
running eight 200s is kind of a standard longer
a little bit longer tempo sprint workout for a
lot of athletes really there's a range that that could work for and when i would
do that kind of workout with teammates it is totally different than doing that

(14:03):
myself it's just it's just uh it is a completely different workout and i think
there's definitely a lot to that.
What you were saying, Jack, about, yeah, like racquetball, that really got some gears going.
Because I think that just like basketball is kind of like a feeder for,
I think the track and field jumps.

(14:23):
Well, what's the feeder for a more singular, like baseball, it's just,
you stand there and you swing. And of course you have a variety of ways you
can swing, but you're not really moving.
It's not like you're running and swinging. I guess you could say lacrosse,
right? Like maybe that could be the feeder.
Cause I just think about what puts you in multiple positions,
but you mentioned racquetball.
And I think, oh yeah, like you're, you would end up in a lunge and do a swing

(14:45):
type position or a reverse lunge, you know, lunging to the clockwise if your
right foot's forward side of your body and doing a reverse hit of the ball.
And there's, there's more lower body options that could fit with that.
And you have a little subtle aerobic piece in the background,
which I, I also think the aerobic piece, like not crazy, but enough to kind

(15:07):
of get you out of your head a little bit too.
Like I think more authentic movement can get unlocked a lot of times when you
have a little bit of heart rate, just enough to kind of, there's,
there's more flow, like blood flow, flow, general, that kind of general thing.
And I was even thinking about, um, it's like, like Danny ball or Hoover ball,
like eat, like two on two or three medicine ball, volleyball,

(15:27):
basically, where it's at least there's not so many players that the ball probably
isn't going to come to you, but like you're getting involved every play.
There's something that's, it's just a little bit faster rendition of what you do.
And I think there's, you got my mind turning on all the different ways that
are like feeder for even something that's more
Singular and serial in nature

(15:48):
Well the reactive component too pitching is completely,
unreactive in the sense that you start every play yeah where
with a quarterback you know they're not
going to struggle with command um or like
the yips per se and i'm going to use the y word i
don't care if people are scared of that word like you need to verbalize it

(16:08):
in order to you know give it less of
an importance or a significance um it's because
they have the defenders moving around them the line changes the
routes change the time on the clock changes your
arm slots going to change to a certain degree and so like they're going
to have better command um to whereas with pitching
you have 20 seconds in between throws and you're

(16:29):
throwing to a stagnant target it's the same reason that somebody can stand
over a golf ball and a golf tee and start thinking about a
million things it's because like you have to actually like
hit the ball off the tee in order for it
to do anything in order for like the play to start and so
i think there's definitely a component to that and uh with
the racket sports especially like you have the reactive component you

(16:50):
know like before you serve and that's where a lot
of people get messed up because again you have to that
starts the play um and so like you take away that reactive component to where
you just have to like dive stand up make a throw to a base or you just have
to like beat the guy running to the base with a throw you can dot a bull's behind

(17:10):
doing that you put that same guy on the mound, he has no clue where the ball is going.
Same thing with a tennis player. They might...
Scorch five serves into the net or have no clue what they're doing when they
toss the ball up and they have to hit it,
but they can scorch a backhand down the line or they can, you know,
hit a hundred, hundred mile an hour forehand winner with no problem or come

(17:30):
up to the net, volley, all those, all those types of things.
Um, so I think that's a big piece of it as well.
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Yeah, I think that's a really underrated element.
As one of the areas of study that I've been really interested in maybe the last probably three years.
And it was something in Nick Winkleman's book, um, the language of coaching.
Uh, I think, I feel like I'm saying that wrong. If it's such a,

(19:18):
such a ubiquitous book, I'm sorry, Nick, if I, I think it's the language of coaching.
Um, but anyways, it talks about the different brain networks.
And one of the main ones is the default mode network, which is kind of,
you're just daydreaming, ruminating, like it would be very active if you're
like doing a set of squats and you just sit there before the smartphone era
and people just sit on the bench.

(19:39):
So you do a set of squats, you're sitting there, you're just kind of ruminating,
daydreaming, you're not like necessarily, um, you're not flowing like you would
be like the balls going back and forth in tennis or something like that.
But as soon as there's things flying at you, there's less room for the rumination.
There's less room for that default mode network to mess you up, essentially.

(20:00):
And what's interesting too, is I think, I believe like our sense of self,
the ego is very active in that default mode network.
So that person waiting to pitch that egocentric default mode,
okay, I'm going to do this or waiting to serve, like you said,
that's very active, but then the ball's in play and all of a sudden that can change.

(20:21):
But that's been one of my biggest pieces in studying and both sport and even
just the way we train basic athletic abilities, because I don't think we give it its due credit.
Because like you said, it can definitely, especially people who are over thinkers
and their ego is really tied up in their performance or any combination of those things.

(20:44):
And it's really interesting what you mentioned with the yips too.
I don't come from my baseball background, but I, when you give that,
um, analogy between a pitcher and a quarterback, I was thinking,
oh, that makes perfect sense because I've never heard of a quarterback getting the yips.
I mean, my father-in-law is a Browns fan and, you know, living through the Deshaun
debacle. Maybe there's a lot of that.
I don't know, but, uh, yeah, there's, I, that's such an interesting,

(21:08):
um, this is such an interesting, um, uh, comparison you had there.
Well, I grew up playing quarterback, too, and we didn't throw the ball a ton.
Like, we ran the triple read option. Not the triple read option,
but we ran a read option-based offense. And so, like, we were lucky to throw

(21:28):
the ball more than 10 times a game.
And those times that we did, it would be no issue for me to hit,
you know, a crossing route or, like, a harder route to throw, like, into the defense.
Because I usually had to run for my life because I outweighed four out of the
five offensive linemen.

(21:49):
And that was just kind of the reality of our team. Like, you know,
credits of the guys that were in front of me, they did a great job.
They did the best they could.
But when I'm 180 pounds as a high school quarterback.
And the rest of my linemen are like 165, 170, 172, 175,
whatever, and then we had like one 280-pound behemoth,

(22:11):
you have to be very very reactive to what's
going on around you and so I'm not thinking about like how the
ball is coming out of my hand how I'm gripping it uh you
know what uh obviously with pitching you
have different pitches that you need to throw and counts and the
hitter is going to be reactive to that as well so that's
a that's a secondary element to that but I

(22:33):
think that the simplification aspect as it relates to coaching where we see
a Luke Weaver type eliminate the the leg lift and he has a lot of success guys
kind of like quick pitching and that being some of their best ways that they
can get guys out or like messing with timing or even,
visual focal points to where guys won't even pick up the target until right

(22:56):
before they release the ball and their command goes up so there's a lot of different
like brain and body sort of connections and manipulations that you can make
as far as timing and visual cues and all those sorts of things that can help
give guys solutions if they are dealing with,
the yips or that type of issue, you know?
Yeah. Yeah. So how many times are you allowed to say the word,

(23:18):
the word, if it is a big deal, I'm getting that baseball world,
But start the count.
Yeah. It makes me think about, I've probably mentioned this somewhat recently
in this series as a Darian bar talking about the stumble,
like a Darian bar, one practice he's mentored me in biomechanics and been on
this podcast a lot of times,
but there was a practice where he would like intentional tell

(23:40):
us to intentionally stumble in an acceleration and i
would say there's probably a lot of similarities like that picture who's not
looking till the last second what it does it just makes you more reactive as
soon as you have to react your deep innate systems have to react to something
and you you're basically not allowing your forebrain or the default mode network
to get overly active it's like how can i constantly trick the system to allow

(24:04):
the parts of my human machinery to do the innate job it's supposed to.
Um, I just sent this out. I was digging through, I send out a weekly email and,
uh, the, the last email, a lot of the focus was on like innate,
our innate power, uh, innate power outputs.
And I think there's a lot to be drawn from the animal kingdom.
And so I like watching like, like bears fighting is, is really interesting.

(24:25):
Like they're just kind of like going around each other, like,
and then all of a sudden one just explodes. And And it's so visceral if you watch it.
I'm like, this is insane. Like there's total disinhibition.
You would call it just power of nature.
But that power lies inside of us on a, you know, not like a bare like strength
level, but that basic ability is just we have to shut off.

(24:46):
All the things that are inhibiting that away to allow it to move forward.
So I, I liked, um, yeah, that the one you said about, yeah, the not looking
till the last second, I feel it hit close to me. Cause I was thinking, oh, I would do that.
I would, that's like, that's a trick I would do.
And yeah, I think for people listening, just for the sake of speed and power, I know it myself too.

(25:07):
If I do a sprint from a two point start, three point start, I'm thinking about,
okay, got my knees here, my shin angles here versus just start on your belly,
get up and race somebody.
And everyone starts on your belly. The coach says, go and you'll race.
I was always way better at that. And honestly, I think I was faster and moved
a lot better if it was that type of situation or like a stumble.
So I think that, yeah, this type of principle is universal, whether you're,

(25:31):
you're training something that's more linear speed or more complex.
I think the, I suppose the place you probably wouldn't want to do it necessarily
is squatting 500 pounds.
Hey, hey, drop it. I'm going to push the weight.
Go do that um yeah it's but yeah the innate athletic piece i just think there's
so much there that people don't talk about so often
Or like how many college track coaches

(25:53):
could recruit you know
athletes based on them participating
in some type of debauchery and hearing police sirens go
off and then how quickly they have to get away from whatever whatever they're
doing you know um a reactive piece and it's just something where you're not
thinking about anything besides getting out you know like get get out as fast

(26:17):
as you possibly can and that being the only sole focus yeah.
I love um
Even just having, you know, speaking of distance swimmers, there was in the
off season back training swimmers at Cal, I wouldn't, you mentioned basketball and risk.
And so I would, there was a certain amount of risk I would tolerate once the season got around.
But in the way off season, we would have them do a fair amount of like,

(26:39):
even like chasing drills, like where one guy's lying on their stomach,
the other person's standing a few feet behind him.
And as soon as the person gets up, then that's the trigger and you sprint away
and go. And there's just, it's fun watching athletes, especially the ones who
are running away, you're spinning your wheels and all that type of thing.
Just that reactive ability.

(26:59):
As it pertains to throwing, I heard Dan John once talk about discus and a machine
gun drill where he, I don't know how many discus you have, dis guy.
What's the plural of discus?
How many dis guy you have sitting there to pull up this drill?
But it's basically like throw the disc hand him another one or her
throw the disc hand another one throw the disc hand
another one and i i would imagine that that would stimulate

(27:22):
probably a pretty similar you're not getting
overly hung up on your okay i should have my arm here it's more like you have
to start tying into feeling i was going to ask you jack if you do any or thoughts
on any density like like you know you said 20 seconds between a pitch but is
there any manipulations of density that is anything that people do in training pitching yeah

(27:44):
Not to pull out too many dad jokes but this guy sounds smart um but uh one of
the one of the drills i posted a while back
and i actually saw devin hayes uh do it uh for the first time with an athlete
he was on the mound and basically uh they would make a throw as soon as that
throw was completed he would just they would turn around and he would like toss

(28:06):
them a ball and they had to do like sort of that reactive catch to where it's like, you know,
somebody tosses you something, you hit, you do like the little like stumble,
like two hand kind of like into your stomach type catch.
Um, and then he would have to throw it again, just get rid of the ball as quickly as possible.
And so I've seen Brooks Hall do this as well. And a number of other people just

(28:27):
to clean up arm actions to get you out of the conscious brain as it relates
to just like a specific piece of the skill to where you would have a guy standing
either behind you or to the side.
And you can manipulate the positioning. You do even probably have a guy from
the front if you wanted to include like more of a deeper arm swing from like
the hand starting out in front. and then pulling your way back all the way up into flip up.

(28:52):
But the whole goal is to catch the ball with your throwing hand and then get
it out of your throwing hand as quickly as possible.
So no glove tap, no leg lift, no lower body movement, upper body movement.
It's simply something that's a time constraint for the arm itself.
And I've seen a lot of success with it on numerous occasions.
Now, where I think you aren't always able to mesh that into the actual like

(29:18):
skill of pitching as it relates to like the entire action of the leg lift and
throwing different pitches and the time constraint of the pitch clock and just
the gamesmanship itself,
is going from that into,
okay, you can't do that in game.
You know, like you can't have the third baseman toss you the ball or the shortstop
toss you the ball and then you just make a reactive throw.

(29:39):
Would that be great? Absolutely. Cause I've dealt with the stabby arm action and it's not fun.
Um but at the same time
i think that there are ways that you can manipulate like the time
constraint of just like first move and so it's
like something with your foot or something with your knee or something
with like your front shoulder something with the glove side to where it's like
you're giving yourself that first move that isn't coming from the arm directly

(30:02):
and something that creates that reaction that then allows for you to just like
not have to think about anything other than like get the ball out of your hand
and that being the only focus.
Yeah. Yeah. I've had similar thoughts in the sense of, like I mentioned you
with like the get up start. Okay. Like what, or a stumble start.
Yeah. Obviously if I'm on the starting blocks in my meet, I mean,

(30:24):
I could stumble just for fun in the first meet or something, but yeah.
What do you do to distract your brain to allow a quickness?
And yeah, what's even coming to mind is things. I know a Darian Barr had mentioned,
um, he was talking about like Ben Johnson's start, uh, who Ben Johnson,
one of the most, like, almost like an alien.
And there's one start he's doing a sprinter in the 80s for people who don't know steroids but

(30:47):
lots of guys run steroids at that point yeah and um
yeah he just like just there's one that looks like you
wound up a spring and he just shoots out the starting blocks and adarian
had said something about looking at even like the tension it's almost like the
they're flexing their arms real quick or something their triceps like and he
had us doing that like kind of creating tension in the hands but even just doing
that distracts you in a little bit from whatever else is going on i know yeah

(31:12):
relax, waiting for the gun. I do get that. There's that.
And ultimately, it's probably the best practice, but I like thinking of,
well, what are the little subtle steps that you would take to get from that reactive?
Oh, I felt that thing when it was reacting externally.
Now, how do I make that world internal? How do I do that same thing when I'm

(31:34):
just, it's just me and there's nothing else or, you know, those like little
tricks to do it. And I think that's that approach to mastery.
And same thing with the climbing the ladders, like that guy at the top,
maybe even outside of fast twitch, maybe just being a good athlete,
that person at the top, the guy or the girl, they could just turn it on.
And that's, I think, where they say too, like a lot of the best movers,
I've heard this in parkour,

(31:56):
are not intellectual giants. They're the people who have the least of those
typical tripwires of the, you know, four brain default mode network.
Maybe that part of their brain is just not going.
But I think for the rest of us, especially those of us who really take to that
intellectual side, it's a big deal.
And I was going to ask about baseball, not to, I want to keep a lot of this

(32:17):
very general applicable to whatever your sport is, whatever your training practice,
but it strikes And maybe that's because there's a lot of pauses in baseball.
It seems like baseball and moneyball, right?
Baseball is very data-centric. It can be hyper-cerebral.
And I've heard you talk about a lot of things, basically, to not make it hyper-cerebral.

(32:39):
You mentioned on your Instagram or social media, Twitter was like being sexy, essentially.
That's the opposite of overthinking in so many ways. I'd be curious for you
to explain that one as well.
Yeah it's and i think
for me to go into like a deep tirade on this would be really counterintuitive
to the entire idea behind it because it

(33:00):
really is that simple to where it's just like if that's
your only cue that you can give yourself i think
it's a pretty darn good one because it just allows for you to get back to
whatever is your unique skill set
that allows for you to perform at the highest level and so if that means that
like your version of being sexy is just flipping over like 72 mile an hour sliders

(33:21):
from a low slot like is that from the public perspective not as sexy as throwing
like 100 miles an hour at the top of the zone and blowing a guy's doors off maybe not but,
the fact of the matter is that you can get a lot of guys out and it's also the
difference between like.
You know, them awarding sexiest man alive to some, you know,

(33:44):
big, fat, funny guy versus like the guy with the eight pack,
you know, like they're both sexy in their own unique ways.
Um, and they, they can accomplish the same type of deal, whether it's appeal
or whether it is performance based on their own unique skillsets.
And so that's really what it came down to.
And I got it from Bryce Harper. He did an interview, uh, in one of his earlier years,

(34:08):
nationals talking about how he had a hitting coach who he
was going through this period of cerebral practice and just really kind of struggling
I don't even know if like you can call it the hitting yips or whatever you want
to call it but just like was struggling at the plate and he was just like go
out there and be sexy man and he went out and he was able to kind of break the
rut and break the pattern.

(34:29):
As a result of that and it also made me think back to my own career to where
I was like The times that I was able to break out of a rut or a slump, it was the most mundane,
non-related to the actual physical action things that allowed for me to really
get out of that or find my way back towards the path of elite performance that I wanted to be on.

(34:54):
So it was like something as simple as my mom, like taking me to the driving range and being like,
Oh, try and hit this target with your seven iron, try and hit that target with
your pitching wedge or going out and playing a game of pickup basketball or
just doing something completely unrelated, like eating a different meal,
you know, like those different pattern breaks.

(35:14):
And then from that point, you can just go back into the game and just be like,
go out there and have fun.
I had a college teammate and this is kind of like where I'll wrap up this point, I guess, but like.
He noticed that like I was super distracted, like super over stimulated during
like a pretty important series that we had.
And he's like, you need to lock in. Come here. And so he just like pulls me

(35:36):
over and he was a, he was a GA at the time we had actually played two years together.
And so he comes up to me, he's grabs me by the helmet and he just plants a massive
kiss right on the logo of my helmet.
And, uh, I think like I hit a nuke that I bat like that very soon.
At bat and I look back towards the dugout I point to him he's going nuts he's

(35:57):
going crazy and from that point on for the rest of the season he would do that
before every single at bat,
and I ended up having you know obviously didn't get a hit like every single
time but still was able to go out and just like ball kind of looked like a beach
ball from that point and was able to just go out and enjoy it and,
It was, uh, it was just kind of like a lighthearted thing to do to really just

(36:18):
kind of ease the tension before and at bat.
And I think that more guys need that because they, they take it a little bit
too serious and they do get super overly analytical in a, in a sport to where it's not as reactive.
And so I think that if you can, you know, create those pattern breaks that make
it more of a reactive thing, you can allow for the subconscious to take over

(36:39):
the conscious, uh, which I think is a big issue for a lot of guys.
That's awesome. Um, I, part of me wants to almost get over a technical and be
like, okay, the biopsychosocial, that's right.
But it's just, yeah, putting you at ease. I remember when I was in college track,
um, our head coach was a very analytical person.

(37:00):
Like he was the mastermind behind the workouts and a lot of really good physical
education inspired workouts that were really helpful.
But the assistant coach was very like, kind of like that guy who gave you a kiss on the forehead.
Like he would give us like kind of like a half noogie, like,
and I don't know, it was just this way of physically connecting that puts you
at ease that, I don't know, you just didn't feel like you could go out and have

(37:24):
fun doing like you were going to have fun doing what you were doing.
And yeah i think there's there's so much power to that and i find too that mind
is the trigger that a lot of things happen and that's why i really like that
be sexy analogy and i love that you put the individualized piece behind it because
it does mean something different for everybody but

(37:44):
so much performance before we even get into the subtle biomechanics it just
starts with body language even watching how someone walks around like if i'm
watching a track practice how does someone walk around between sprints?
Like after they finish their one sprint, they walk to the next one.
How do they carry themselves? Do they still have a little bit of side to side
swagger to them? Do they, or do they kind of look uptight or they feel like fearful or nervous?

(38:07):
And, uh, it's something that, you know, like, uh, Simon Cape on neuro-linguistic
programming and a lot of that mind body stuff he talked about.
Like if you are playing tennis, like back to the tennis example,
he talked about a coach who told a player who was, I think, struggling with
nervousness, hey who's your favorite player Nadal okay go be Nadal like imagine what he's doing

(38:27):
And I don't think it's it's not the only thing
you need to do but it's one of the first I
think things that actually starts before a
lot of other things is just how do you carry yourself what's the energy by which
you carry yourself into this practice whatever it is it's whether it's the weight
room or specific skill or more you know speed and power output type things and

(38:50):
yeah that's So I think that was something you said that I think not just baseball,
I think a lot of activities can really benefit from that overall mentality.
Yeah. Nadal, as far as an example for like uniqueness, I think is great because
I saw a clip of him the other day at Roland Garros.
Uh, and it was one of his last major victories of him in the tunnel.

(39:14):
And with tennis, like the two opponents kind of walk out, you know,
one before the other lower seed before the higher seed generally.
And um his opponent is like standing there
super nervous because he's about to play nadal obviously and uh
he's on his home court and he well where he's
had the most success and he's like how much time do we have like what's

(39:35):
what's the count like where are we you know and nadal
comes storming out he's got his full nike sweatsuit on
and he just grabs his racket out of its bag and just
starts like basically shadow boxing you know
and he's like running up and down the tunnel and he's like you
know he's going through like his backhand his forehand just doing
like a bunch of jumps and bunch of sprints and stuff and um

(39:57):
the other guy is just like stunned he's like should
should i be doing that like should i be moving like that should i be should
i be like you know and and i think he i think he got beaten straight sets um
with pitching you're gonna have guys that want to do like dry mechanics work
you know like the kershaw kind of visualizations and then you're gonna have
the Scherzer types that are a little bit more angry,

(40:19):
a little bit more like caged animal types to where then you're also going to
have the Jock Peterson types who's a hitter.
It's not in the pitching sense, but like he's walking around barefoot.
Tristan Casas, who's like walking around barefoot doing yoga shirtless in the
outfield before the games.
And so, yeah, different things are going to work for different people.
And some people are going to be more cerebral than others.

(40:44):
But what it really comes down to, I think, is just being able to find like what's
going to put you and my college coach, to his credit,
talked a ton about like conscious versus subconscious mindsets and states and
how it's like, yeah, when you're doing some form of deliberate practice and
you're trying to work on a skill, you probably want to be a lot more conscious.

(41:05):
And then when you get into the actual performance side, that's where you want
to be completely subconscious and allow for all the work that you put in to
really just showcase itself and
you can bear the fruits of your labor that you've put in on the front end.
And I've always kept that in the mind's eye to where it's just like,
tell yourself a joke, laugh enjoy the competition but then like when it's time
to work that's where you need to be super deliberate and focused and and and

(41:28):
analytical behind what you're doing.
Yeah yeah that's its own area i think of study that's also so important that's
universal and it makes me think back to the the default mode it's that can be
more active when we're you know in very you know very training situations.
But the closer we get to competition, we have to learn to shut that thing down.

(41:53):
And so it's almost like a dial, like how much do you want this on right now?
And within that as well, to my understanding within that network,
there's also the capacity to visualize or to tell yourself to be a thing.
That's where that comes from as well. So if I want to, hey, I'm going to do
this visualization before I pitch or sprint, or I'm going to act like this person,

(42:13):
there is some of that, you know, self-direction, but you don't want to do that
in the middle of the, you shouldn't need to do that.
If I'm in the middle of the basketball game, I shouldn't need to be sitting
there like, oh yeah, I'm going to visualize.
I mean, again, maybe you need to, but like the ultimate, I highly doubt like
Michael Jordan, maybe trash talking was his innate way of doing that.

(42:34):
Maybe that was their innate way of just getting, you know, just getting into
that pure spirit of that competitive nature and what they did.
And yeah, I, I just love that stuff. And I, I think I do because I struggled with that so heavily.
I was always so just disappointed, I think, in what I felt I could have achieved.

(42:55):
And everyone's like, oh yeah, I could have been a better sport athlete.
The coach didn't like me. My coach always said, he, he's like,
there's the Joel who's good.
And then there's the, whatever other, the overthinking Joel that shows up and
I always knew it and it just drove me nuts.
And so, yeah, to think about those individual things that help you bring out
the best in both skill and, you know, for I think for any speed and power outputs,

(43:18):
I think they're also highly, you know, readily applicable.
The text that I shill on a lot of people, if not everyone that I talk to when
we dive into this type of topic, and this is from Ron Sires,
the associate head coach at Salisbury, Dr.
Ron Sires, I apologize, Coach Sires, but How Champions Think by Dr.

(43:39):
Bob Rotella, sports psychologist, has worked with Tiger, has worked with LeBron
as well, but talked in his book about visualization tactics.
And one of them being like making a highlight reel
for a struggling athlete or just an athlete that wants to play better
and having them watch it before competition

(44:00):
so instead of that like visualization piece to
where they have to do the mental gymnastics of being like
oh am i going to take the shot this way or this way or you know
is the puck going to break this way or that way or you know is
the pitch going to move this way or that way they have the
the visual proof that they've
done exactly what they're going to want to

(44:20):
do in competition because it's right in front of them and
he would have them pair like their favorite music behind it
and edit the clips and make it
super tick tocky i'm sure however however you
know the complexity of the edits would work back when
he was actually doing this but it would give them
that subtle boost of confidence and so i've used

(44:41):
that with specific athletes that i've worked with before
like live batting practice sessions or like rehab
guys big piece of rehab in my opinion it's
just like being able to get back to that state of like elite performance
not having to think about the injury obviously i'm sure that's you've talked
to people about that as well but uh actually
seeing yourself do the thing yeah and in more of like a uh out of body way whether

(45:07):
it's just through like the visual um it is a lot more powerful than just like
sitting there and chanting chakras and saying like i'm the best and I'm the greatest.
And like, no, you actually have done it before. Like we have the proof.
Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I like, um, Julian Pinot said something to the tune of
you can't namaste the bear away.

(45:28):
Like you can't sit there and I love that sitting there, visualize,
you know, you have to do something that's like an actual moving identity.
Um, that, that, um, like that track, that visualization tracker reminds me in
the, in the track and speed world,
Chris Corfist, I think it was the last time he was on the podcast said that
there was like an audiovisual kid on the team, or I don't know if he was a manager

(45:49):
or he just loved putting videos together.
So he made each athlete like their highlight reel, essentially.
And I was just thinking, how powerful.
And it takes me back to thinking about when I was in track, so 2002 to 2005,
like it was not like smartphone era.
I mean, if you wanted to get video, it was the camcorder, VHS.
And I didn't start getting videos really that I was watching of my jumping until maybe 2005.

(46:15):
And I, but I remember the, the first videos I was really watching was when I
was finally jumping like six feet, 10 or getting up to seven feet.
And it was like, it was almost like I was watching someone else.
I was like, I can't believe I'm, for me, I mean, there's guys who jump a lot
higher than that, but for me, it was like very empowering to see that.
I was like, oh, I guess I can do this. And so I just, I just remember what I

(46:37):
felt the first time I saw those things.
And yeah, that was, um, that was a question that I was going to ask you as well.
And you addressed already there but your take on the balance
of like self-talk versus those other
levels would you put it as almost like a like a pyramid
or like you can self-talk and that's great but it has to eventually go up into

(46:59):
something that's maybe more comprehensive like it has to go up into the visual
you have of yourself or how would you place that if you had to lay out self-talk
versus other methods in the structure of things
I, that, that bear analogy is great. Um, I think that when it does come to that,
um, the deliberate practice has to kind of come first and you have to like put

(47:21):
the time in, like you have to put the actual hours behind the practice.
And then the, the biggest thing with like confidence is, and just like being
able to gain confidence, I think it's just skill acquisition,
but then also the demonstrated performance behind it.
And so like, if you haven't put in the hours and then also shown that you can
actually do the skill in an environment that's going to be required for you

(47:46):
to do the skill, then you haven't really earned the right to do that visualization.
You know, like you haven't really earned. And frankly, we wouldn't even if we
were to put together one of these videos that we're talking about, right?
Like you wouldn't have any of the proof. You wouldn't have any of the data, you know?
And so that's a good indicator that you probably need to put in more of that
deliberate practice on the front end and identify some of the opportunity areas

(48:10):
that might be preventing you from doing that.
And then having some specific direction as far as like where you can allocate
most of your training volume and where you can allocate most of your hours or
training economy, whatever you want to really call it.
But I do think that sometimes with, especially with guys that are like elite

(48:30):
and have performed at an elite level in the past.
There's a lot more tools that you can have in the
toolbox versus the guy that they might not want to hear it but it's just like
man you got to put in the hours because some guys are going to be more uh quick
dopaminergically motivated to where they're just like i want the thing now like

(48:52):
i want to be at this level now but they look at the.
This massive pile of work behind them. And they're just like,
I don't know if I can do that.
But then it's like, well, that's kind of what's required. Like you kind of have
to do that in order to get there.
And they might not want to hear that. But I think that part of being a good
coach is also being truthful with guys and being transparent.

(49:14):
Yeah, big part of it, you know? And so it's, it's about telling guys what they
need to hear, not what they want to hear necessarily.
And, um, that's not something that you can like force them into.
They kind of have to force themselves into it.
But, uh, that's kind of my take on it. It might be like a tough love approach
or a brute force approach.
Uh, and, and it's counterintuitive to my kind of entire approach to training

(49:39):
as well, because the text that I give to everybody is from a sports psychologist.
So, um, that's where I think like
the mirroring between those two sides really comes in. But I think Dr.
Rotel does a great job talking about how to
get into those states through deliberate practice it's not
like the two are exclusive to one another it's like you can get into those states

(49:59):
and you can have that sort of like mindset shift and the positivity and the
self-talk and all the benefits that come along with those but you have to earn
those through the deliberate practice first and so it's it's the two things
together it's not like one's exclusive from the other.
It makes me think about what can be drawn out from putting the time in,

(50:21):
in the sense of an identity.
Like you put the time in, you spent this time. So show that you're the person who put that time in.
And it makes me think about, and not to say that I think that there's people
who critique the 10,000 hour rule, because if you're 10,000 hours,
it's just kind of ho-hum.
There's not like that real flow state and problem solving and win the workout

(50:44):
or the training session based challenge. it can be a very different experience.
I was thinking about, it might have been a documentary or just something I was
watching on Karsten Warholm, who's a 400 hurdler for Norway, world record holder.
His ability to maintain speed, endurance, and rhythm is absolutely insane.
And the coaching system there in the volume reminds me a little bit of what

(51:07):
I heard about the Bulgarian weightlifting, Abijayev, the butcher,
where they just, I mean, they train hours and hours and hours every day.
And part of what was said, I think, on the documentary is because he trains
so much, he feels that he is, it's like the training, it isn't necessarily,
I mean, what's the extra two hours going to give you, honestly,

(51:27):
if you already trained six hours?
Like, I don't know, probably in my opinion, but it makes you believe that you
are going to be the guy because you can handle that.
And I think that's a tricky area because I think there's a lot of people you
give that volume of training to, and they're going to blow up.
I know a lot of people have blown up on that system and there's only a few champions

(51:48):
that come out of it, but if you can tolerate it, then you can be the dude.
Um, I'm sure there's probably a, yeah, there's probably a lot of genetic factors.
I'm not advocating for training that many hours a day, but it's,
um, I think for those people, and if you can get that mindset off of it,
I think there's a lot of things that connect in that equation to make it, make it work. And so,

(52:08):
Yeah. The, like the, whatever the connection is between, you know,
put in the time to be the guy and then make that part of the identity.
I, yeah, it definitely works if then body perspective more than just,
Hey, just say you are, even though you haven't done it. Right.
Yeah. And I think the common like human reaction is when things aren't going

(52:29):
the way that you want, like doing more.
I get this reaction from athletes a lot. It's like, i got
a text from an athlete a young athlete yesterday he's like hey i have an outing
tomorrow uh is there anything i can do to prepare and i'm like sure yeah you
can get a great night's sleep get a good dinner in you know like go to bed early

(52:50):
wake up early get the body moving get blood flow.
But he's looking for drills he's looking for stretches he's
looking for you know an extra lift it's like
you know i i i'm sure that
we've all went through that period as like a you know a teen or
an adolescent whatever to where like we do
100 push-ups and then like we think that the next day it's going
to help us hit the ball farther or you know we do

(53:13):
an extra set of squats or whatever we think we're going to run faster the
very next day you know and that's where then you
learn about the said principle and you know the adaptation
cycle and all those types of things but um but
yeah so they're always looking for more and like that's
not necessarily a bad thing um but i
do think that it takes away some of like the some of

(53:35):
the actual direction behind the training and as it relates to
throwers especially like guys that
want to make 100 throws a day and then like something
doesn't feel right so they make another 50 and then they make another 75
doing this variation and then like that's where you get the localized stress
in the elbow that's where you get the injuries that's where you get the pitch counts all
these things that are leading into like the tj crisis if you want to call it

(53:56):
that i don't even know if that's really the term that people are using but like
got a lot of arm injuries and a lot of drills being thrown at guys a lot of
different tools a lot of different weighted balls a lot of different uh pseudo
throwing mechanisms that lead into like oblique strains or lower body injuries.
Lumbar fractures just like all the other things that come with
like rotational actions um and so

(54:19):
yeah i think that it's really hard for guys to conceptualize
that like hey if you just focus like and
on on these 30 reps or
these 50 reps it's going to provide you
10x the benefit of gassing yourself
over the next 150 reps um but
it's it's not the it's not the again

(54:41):
the sexy like sweat pouring down
your forehead you know like physically gassed
out of breath like tasting pennies on your tongue type of like work that's been
glorified it's like no like four hour work week you know like be deliberate
about what you're doing and then you can actually reap the benefits of it and

(55:01):
then maybe you can do something else that's going to provide you the uh,
the, the dopaminergic sort of like cortisol raising come down parasympathetic,
uh, decompression that you're looking for as far as like a physical stimulus.
I just threw a lot of big words out there, but that's just kind of like how
my brain's working as I, as, as, uh, as I deal with more of these guys.

(55:25):
So, yeah, that's where I love, um, that Tony Holler's essentialism.
And I know there's probably a lot of people who don't agree with,
you know, the feed the cats mentality and this that.
And there's a lot of ways to look at things, but I think that something that
I really appreciate from Tony is that essentialism and like doing more,
well, what are you going to get out of that?
I think, and I like thinking of, you don't know sometimes until you do less.

(55:50):
And then like, if I was going to do like, um, you mentioned like 50 pitches,
or if I was going to do a tempo sprint workouts, my low day,
and I'm going to do, you know, some two hundreds that essentialist mindset said
almost of, all right, it's your low day.
So you don't want to run too fast on these. How are you going to get the most
out of these four or five 200s?
And I would think, okay, well, if I only get five, I want to hit the time as

(56:14):
effortlessly as possible.
Like everyone is just how effortless can I do this? Can I be more relaxed on the next one?
Can I be more precise on hitting the exact time? There's something that's more
yin in the system on that day that makes each rep better versus,
well, I'll just do more to be better. I'll just do 10 or 12 or whatever.
And I remember when I was coaching my first full-time track coaching job,

(56:38):
I was also in charge of coaching the quarter milers, the 400 meter athletes.
And I ran some four by fours in high school. I didn't train for it.
I was not, and honestly, training, doing typical 400 workouts with a lot of
lactate, my body didn't do that well with, that was more plodding.
And I remember one of the other coaches I was asking about, we had had some

(56:58):
indoor meets and the guys were struggling finishing the races and we didn't
have an indoor track either.
So there was just like, there was a lot of things that a lot of it was racing
yourself into shape or trying to find ways to run outside if you didn't have the indoor track.
But I remember one coach was like, well, he's like, what are your tempo workouts?
Like I was like, well, we run eight or nine, 200s.

(57:19):
He's like, well, you could run 12 and it's like, okay, like,
yeah, but I mean, I think, and maybe that would move the needle a little bit,
but not nearly as much as the more specific pieces.
And it's just the totality of, of doing the most essential work incredibly well
and having that piece of it.
And then the other stuff, but yeah, that's right. I really like that.

(57:40):
You know, that essentialism more if I'm high jumping and I only get six jumps
today, how will I approach each of those jumps.
And that teaches you something that you will never get if it's just only volume, volume, volume.
And that's why I kind of, I would be interested to sit in like,
you know, one of Karsten Warhol's training sessions. I just would be interested
in observing these athletes who do thrive on

(58:03):
That much and and what drives their engine how is their emotional system going
with that versus they probably like it they probably love it honestly yeah versus
a lot of people didn't love it and then therefore yeah we just get crushed um
so yeah it's interesting to think about
Effort feels good you know like effort does
feel good um for most people and i think that like there are going to be the

(58:27):
days where you show up to the gym the track the field whatever and you get moving
and you're like i want to do more now you know it's a feedback loop but what
i tell guys is just like when you cook a piece of chicken if it's underdone
you put it back in the oven,
but like if you overdo that piece of chicken you're gonna know right away and
you're gonna be like this is no good to eat anymore you know um and so it's

(58:51):
like i to simplify training volume and recovery in the same way it's just like
i would start with less because you can always add more.
Um, not saying that that means like, you know, man, I feel really good after 50 pitches.
I'm gonna throw another 50, you know, it's like, okay, like you've got an extra

(59:12):
three days to recover on the backend or, you know, we don't have games this
weekend or you don't have games this weekend.
You're late into an on-ramp period. So you have some volume that you can play with.
Like, yeah, we can work on a secondary pitch or we can make an additional 10
throws using this specific variation at 80% that's working on a,
you know, specific mechanical change or a deliberate change or make it to your arsenal.

(59:35):
That's fine. It's where, and you can relate it to diet.
You can relate it to, you know, leisure, whatever you want to.
It's like, yeah, if you want to eat a couple of cookies after dinner,
you're probably going to be okay. It's where you eat the entire box that you
fall into trouble, you know?
So, yeah, Jack, I wanted to get this, this question.
It's a little bit more of a training question in the sense that I mean, it's all training.

(59:59):
I shouldn't say it like physical exercises is what I mean. I think it's so all related, though.
And you mentioned barefoot and you I've heard you or seen you talk a little
bit about throwing and pitching barefoot and then the impacts or the changes
that can make versus throwing in shoes.
So I'm curious about your approach to barefoot athletics and in the scope of pitching.

(01:00:25):
I think that there is kind of like an over emphasis with younger guys or more
inexperienced guys on the lower half.
They hear the term hip shoulder separation or they hear like hip rotation or
hip drive or lower half drive or lower half stability and they think like,
okay, I have to push harder or I have to rotate my hips better or I have to

(01:00:45):
create a cleaner block on the front side.
But then I show guys examples of like upper 90s throwers throwing like upper
80s or low 90s even in some scenarios like from their knees basically where
like the lower half's not involved,
and i just tell them like the upper half throws the ball like your
arm does throw the ball there are going to be specific things
that you can do with the more proximal structures of the

(01:01:07):
body to influence that but at the end of the day it's
just like you're creating a loop
of energy working from the ground from like a stick stability
point on the ground all the way up through the pelvis the trunk
eventually into the arm the fingers and then
into the ball and so when i
have had some guys throw barefoot it simplifies

(01:01:30):
the lower half because it eliminates a lot of like the driving forces behind
like trying to drive off the mound or basically defy gravity essentially which
is going to be like that fixed point that you're able to create rotation from
and they can create a more efficient upper half that's going to create I appreciate it.
The rotational structure just through the middle of the body. Um,

(01:01:52):
and I've used the analogy of like throwing a phone booth before just to make
it more of like a rotational action rather than like the, the overly linear
component of getting on the slope and gravity kind of pulling you downwards
as well, which I think is where guys kind of fall into traps as well.
Um, and so I think that to really distill it down to a base level without getting too complex behind it,

(01:02:12):
it really just helps guys that have like an overextending lower half or too
much emphasis on their lower half,
just bring things back to being able to create that rotational structure through
the middle and get back to the the emphasis on like efficiency with the upper
half base with the lower half and then making the throw.
Got it do you think that i was thinking about how barefoot impacts just things

(01:02:37):
like if you're just running jumping like playing soccer barefoot or whatever
it is uh jumping is an interesting one barefoot because you can't get quite
that horizontal driving force into the plant, you have to have a little more touch.
Do you feel like with Devin Hayes, like he talks about coil and clear,
like coil being that big windy rotational, like Aroldis Chapman and clear is

(01:03:01):
that over the top, more Justin Verlander.
It would strike me that would a clear, more linear
throw be something that's more related to a fast stop you get from shoes and
then if someone had been over coached into be clear like finishing the c and
and and maybe they needed more coil like would that be a way to kind of a constraint

(01:03:22):
to kind of help them with that yeah
For sure and that's where you get into like javelin training versus like hitting
training like hitters or guys that have like more of a hitting background are
going to favor more the counter rotation,
myself being one of those um so i
like was a turn and burn candidate so i would like for my
over speed or my pull down variation would start away from

(01:03:43):
the target and then turn back foot plants.
Get rid of the ball as quickly as possible other guys that
have more like that linear capacity or that like javelin clear-esque
sure they're going to favor more of like the straight running guns
to where they have more of the linear momentum yeah so it's
it's the it's the difference between like are you going
to be more biased towards the the externally biased or

(01:04:06):
retroverted like hip structure to where you might favor more
of the linear capacity of the throw um or are
you going to be more of the the coil mechanism to where
you need to stay closed a little bit longer in order
to create the gaps between like the lower half rotation the
upper half rotation um justin lazaro
who is the pitching coach at cal state bakersfield

(01:04:27):
he has a great presentation on youtube if you can find it
hopefully you can you just type in his
name but it's about how uh lefties and
righties differ biomechanically just as as far
as like the structure of our bodies the way our organs sit
and why like a lot of righties throw harder than lefties and
the training strategies that you could potentially use if you

(01:04:48):
are a pitching coach behind both of those and
and how a lot of these guys are biased like
righties are going to favor more um abduction for
the arm behind the body uh lefties are going to
favor more adduction as they kind of work across and so
they're going to favor more of like that linear capacity where righties might
favor more of the of the of the coil uh behind it as well so you can get super

(01:05:11):
nuanced with it and uh there's smarter people that can dive into the biomechanics.
Behind it but hopefully that's more of like a simplification of the idea uh
between those two that's.
Really interesting yeah i never really thought about that with lefties versus
righties because everybody's you
know your heart pri your heart's more on your right and you know is and
Exactly one.
Lung is bigger than the other and so yeah structurally it just makes sense like

(01:05:33):
rotating that way so that's interesting yeah um well cool man i i like that
hearing that too because i think a lot of times we get very binary all
Barefoot's the best for everything.
And i feel like for you know an average
athlete a team sport athlete running around i mean i
think it's good to do things both like if you take
your shoes off you have to have more touch it's a little bit more touch with

(01:05:57):
the ground gentleness with the ground and then you put the shoes on and you
feel what the extra being able to push and really drive that extra friction
you wouldn't get now gives you and yeah there's just there's good things for
both but it's interesting to hear that exact here's specifically what that gives you in pitching
Yeah and there's some guys that use the ground exceptionally well and they ask

(01:06:19):
like so does that mean that i should like throw barefoot and I'm like no not
at all and then there's some guys that have zero clue what they're doing with
their lower half and so like the proprioceptive capability of just having them
take their shoes off and eliminate a lot of the things that like,
the stability with the ankle, the foot that like an, an external,
uh, piece, like a shoe could give you depending on what you're wearing.

(01:06:40):
Like that could be super beneficial for them.
I don't like guys throwing in barefoot shoes.
Um, I have like an affiliate with a barefoot shoe company just because I like training in them.
And I think that it's something that helps with, you know, ankle stability,
foot stability, just like the things that kind of work up the chain biomechanically
with that gate, all those good things that, that come along with those.
But as far as it relates to like a skill-based action

(01:07:03):
you do want to have like cleats on your
front leg uh rob hill who's with the dodgers
like he was wearing two shoes back in the day to where it's
like the lead foot's going to provide a
bunch of stability the rear foot's going to provide a lot more like
malleability as far as being able to create eversion so
you can create energy loops working up uh as

(01:07:23):
you as you create more of the linear action of the throw so you can get super
nuanced with it and you can you can get super uh detailed with how you manipulate
that in your training but uh another devin point here because i know you've
spoken to him before that's like level six stuff you know so you can't you can't skip steps there yeah.
100 i see high jumpers in the olympics like world world class sometimes with

(01:07:45):
two different shoes on and it's for that exact reason they feel it like they
it's but that's a level six thing like i'm not gonna you know tell an 11 year
old who's just starting high jump hey let's optimize you what this foot's doing and that foot's doing
Gosh yeah yeah.
Uh yeah too optimal too early type thing let's yeah i got the pyramid we'll

(01:08:07):
get to it you know hopefully someday you can get to it so
Yeah uh.
Jack awesome talking to you man where can people learn more about you and what you're doing
All socials is john b underscore sp
so j-o-h-n underscore uh j-o-h-n
b underscore sp i'm on x i'm on instagram i am on tiktok and that's where i

(01:08:31):
put out all my content that hopefully helps people uh and i'm sure i'll have
some some things that i can expand upon from this conversation as well.
And, uh, I do one-on-one coaching for pitchers and I put out a lot of stuff
relating to nutrition and diet
and sleep and recovery and some of the content center on my dog as well,

(01:08:52):
because I love the heck out of him, uh, and some lifestyle stuff.
And I try to keep things light and entertaining on the, on the flip side of that.
So, uh, if you feel so inclined, follow me and interact and try to get back
to all the comments and messages and everything.
But, uh, yeah, I'm just appreciative of you having me on.
I've been a big fan of yours in the pod for a while. I've been listening and,

(01:09:13):
uh, uh, for years now actually.
Uh, and so this is kind of a cool little full circle moment for myself.
And so I'm just very appreciative of you.