Optimal Gymnastics Season - Stress, Recovery & Injury Management

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What if the secret to unlocking peak gymnastics performance lies not in more training, but in mastering the balance between stress and recovery? Through our comprehensive four-part lecture series on season management strategies, explore the nuanced techniques that ensure gymnasts are physically and mentally equipped to handle competitive pressures. Drawing from over a decade of experience, I intertwine my unique insights from coaching, medical, and strength conditioning backgrounds, bringing you a treasure trove of strategies backed by cutting-edge research and expert opinions.

Discover how to create a central resource for gymnastics coaching that integrates diverse experiences from various competitive levels, both in the U.S. and globally. By blending scientific evidence with the wisdom of successful coaches, our lecture series offers a structured approach to the competitive year, from preseason groundwork to in-season finesse. We delve into the art of optimal workload planning and stress management, emphasizing the role of effective communication and feedback in preventing athlete burnout and enhancing performance.

Highlighting the critical roles of recovery and sleep, learn from the insights of experts like Dr. Matthew Walker and Andrew Huberman, who reveal essentials for optimizing sleep patterns and the balance between exertion and rest. Whether you're preparing for a major competition or a local showcase, our practical guidance on sleep, nutrition, and stress management will serve as your compass. Engage with our exploration of the gymnastics training timeline, and equip yourself with the knowledge to navigate each phase, ensuring athlete health and achievement of performance goals.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode
of the Shift Show, where mynumber one goal is to give you
the tools, ideas and the latestscience to help you change your
dimmest lives.
Today in the podcast, bringingyou part one and part two kind

(00:22):
of this week and next week ofjust some more ways to help
people with kind of seasonmanagement, preseason prep,
trying to think your way throughwhat is the competitive year
look like.
And I did a lecture series thatwas very popular around the
overall nuts and bolts of how Ithink about preseason in season,
off season and then kind of bigpicture stuff.
That was very popular, justkind of like summarizing 10

(00:44):
years worth of work that I'vedone, putting into a lecture
series of like, okay, here'swhat I would do differently With
all that I know.
Now, 10 years later, after youknow, 10 years ago, I kind of
just went through the typicalapproach to season, which was
just you get skills, then youget to routines and then you
just push as hard as you canthroughout the six months.
Man, there's so much more thatI've learned around workloads,
planning, strength, conditioning, flexibility, how do you

(01:07):
properly get somebody ready forroutines, things like that.
So I figured what I would do isover the next few weeks I would
offer people each of thosepieces of the lecture series
because this first week is moreof an introductory concepts,
talking about what does theresearch say of workloads and
planning and how do we make surewe get the most out of somebody
throughout the entire year withrecovery and kind of hit those
big meets that they're ready for.
And then next week we'll talkabout preseason of you know what

(01:28):
do we do to optimize thepreseason?
What does that schedule looklike?
I know many people are inpreseason right now and then it
will actually work out perfectlywhere the third piece of this
lecture on in-season competitivemanagement around tapering and
around peaking and around how doyou keep kids healthy in season
with injuries and mental healthand kind of keeping them fueled
very well, that is all going tobe inside the third piece,
which will be that more you know, inside season meet prep, that

(01:50):
kind of stuff.
So the timing of this workedout really well, where this week
we'll talk about some bigpicture concepts, next week
we'll kind of give everyone thepreseason memo and then the next
week after that will be a lotof in season management, which
obviously we have a little bitof time to prep for.
So my hope again is that, basedon feedback I've gotten, is
that people really like these.
You know, in the moment I'mworking on stuff right now what
am I doing, and so I figuredthis would be a good opportunity

(02:12):
to share with people what thesethings are, how they're helping
me and then hopefully, you know, pass on some of the knowledge
that I've learned too as well.
So if you guys are looking formore to get ready for season for
, you know, lectures, ideas,updates, whatever we do have the
hero lab, which has about 60plus lectures right now
flexibility, strength, cardio,all that kind of stuff in season
management lots of good advicethere.
That would be my recommendationto kind of dig in more so you

(02:32):
guys can check out the show.
No show notes links below hasour link to the hero lab and
we'd love to see you in there.
And, with that said, I hope youguys enjoy this wonderful
episode on pre concepts and thenin-season management.
Hey everybody, welcome to thefirst part in this four-part
very highly anticipated and veryhard-worked on lecture series
here on the competitive year.

(02:52):
So this is something that I'vebeen working my butt off because
I think it's really, reallyimportant that we are all on the
same page for trying tounderstand, maybe, what the
changes are for science you knowscience, or expert coaching
opinion or the different kind oflike you know disciplines that
are now working a lot more withgymnastics on the competitive
level, about how do we all geton the same page and really help

(03:14):
the athletes.
I think this topic is super,super important.
It's been something a lot ofpeople have been asking me to
kind of share my thoughts on andit's something that I've been
wanting to really take my timeon and do really really well
because, in my opinion, makingsure we're all talking about the
same thing or having the sameideas, and kind of being updated
with what the science saysabout the competitive year and

(03:34):
how we best approach thecompetitive year, the different
phases of the competitive yearand kind of what we do during
training, what we do duringrecovery periods, the science
behind sets and reps and kind ofhow to know how to train to not
overtrain but get ready formeets I think that the more we
can all share the same ideashere, I think the better the
athlete is right, and when I saythat, I mean one in terms of
performance.

(03:54):
I mean they can optimize theirperformance, whether their goal
is to do an end of the year shownever step floor in a
competitive arena and get ascore but their competition is
an end of the year show becausethey want to show off how hard
they're working in gymnasticsfor fun, all the way to the
elite international peopletrying to get through world
championships and the Olympics.
I think that the concepts inthis lecture both are really

(04:17):
really oriented towardsperformance at any level, and so
that's kind of.
The first thing is that weobviously want to get the most
out of the athletes reaching fortheir goals.
But more importantly for me is,I think when I say the best out
of the athlete, I mean mentallyand emotionally and physically
trying to keep them as safe aspossible.
I think that we want to keepthe athletes in the best you
know headspace and also wellnesscomponent we can, while still

(04:39):
trying to minimize the risk ofcollateral damage.
Right, collateral damage couldbe injuries, it could be overuse
and burnout, it could be mentalunwellness A lot of different
things could go into there.
So my approach with thislecture, and why I've taken so
long to work on it, is becausemy hope is that by sharing my
experiences, what I feel thescience is pretty solid about
and what I think a lot of expertcoaches have shared with me, we

(05:01):
can maximize the performances,we can minimize the unnecessary
struggle or suffering thatpeople might have with injuries,
overuse of types of like that.
So that's kind of where we'regoing.
We I wanted to do this nowbecause I think a lot of people
have been asking for this and Ithink now we're seeing the
landscape of gymnastic shiftswhere maybe 10 years ago, this
conversation about changing someof the things we've done for
multiple decades it was not evenon the table.

(05:22):
I think the last five to 10years has really really opened
up a lot of people's eyes tosome things that maybe could be
optimized or changed.
And we've seen this huge, hugeinflux of new information, new
ideas, new training methods, newapproaches, which is amazing.
But at the same time, that'sreally really overwhelming for
most people I know every day.
You know coaches, medicalproviders, strength conditioning

(05:43):
coaches, parents, gymnasts,people trying to help the
athletes get better, or theathletes themselves are really,
really overwhelmed by how muchinformation is out there and
they really don't understand.
Okay, I see all thisinformation.
But what does this meanpractically for me?
What does this mean when I'm inthe gym with a group of 12
athletes and I have 45 minutesto do an event, or I'm working
with an an athlete for medicalcare and they're trying to get

(06:05):
back to the competitive season,or I'm just sitting at home with
my son or daughter trying tohave a conversation about what
they want out of gymnastics andtheir goals?
I think most people are alittle overwhelmed with how do
they take that information andput that into something they can
actually use to help theathlete.
So that's kind of.
The first step is to try to getthis all in one place.
I have always wanted to takeall of my ideas that I am lucky

(06:26):
to share with people who Iconsult with, whether that's in
the college setting or whetherthat's on the club level, the
elite level, traveling aroundthe world they're doing stuff
here in the States.
I've always wanted to takeeverything that I've been lucky
to learn and gather and put itinto one spot.
When it comes to you know, whatmodel do I believe is helpful
and effective in optimizing theperformance, like I said, but

(06:47):
it's also realistically doablefor people.
So I've always wanted to get itall in one spot and I think
again, as I made this lectureseries over multiple months,
I've realized that a lot of thethings that I've really really
wanted to share are now in onespot and I wanted to have
something that people could keepcoming back to and referencing
when maybe they're going throughdifferent phases of the
competitive year.
So this lecture series, as we'lltalk about, is broken up into
the intro section, which we'lltalk about now, and then we're

(07:09):
actually going to start in thein-season, even though it's not
typically, or sorry, start inthe pre-season, even though
typically that's not how youplan a calendar year.
But for people's help we'll gopre-season, then in-season, then
out of season.
I want people to get to inseason and be like Hmm, you know
, like what, what do I need tobe thinking about to keep the
athletes healthy during the year?
Let me go back to this lecture,let me review some of the notes

(07:29):
that I had, let me just mayberewatch the lecture, kind of get
some ideas and just hopefullyhelp spark some ideas for people
about what they can do everyday in the gym.
So I've always wanted to havethis kind of like, you know,
central place for people to goback to and reference.
But I've also always wanted tohave a place where I can kind of
put all of my ideas as theystand right now and then
hopefully update them, evolvethem and kind of grow more as I
learn about the science or I getmore practical experience and
things like that.

(07:50):
Okay, this is going to beblended and I think this is a
really important approach hereis blended based on what the
current scientific and medicaland strength and conditioning or
biomechanical evidence says,and take that and pair it with
people who are expert coachesright, there are so many amazing
coaches out there that haveknowledge that we need to learn
from and need to kind of thinkabout athletes or coaches that

(08:11):
have had athletes who have madeit to the, you know, all levels
of the sport, all disciplines,but been successful in terms of
keeping athletes healthy andsafe but then also trying to
really make sure theirperformance goals are met as
well.
So my hope is that through thislecture series we can kind of
combine all those thingstogether.
Okay, this lecture series isgoing to be mainly based, again,
on my experiences, right?

(08:32):
So I am a unique person.
I have my own experiences fromdoing gymnastics, competing
gymnastics, then working inmultiple areas of the sport, but
they're my experiences, right,I don't have the experience of
working, you know, with anOlympic gold medalist to the
highest level.
I haven't trained an Olympicgold medalist up to the highest
level.
I'm fortunate that I havefriends that are either Olympic
gold medalists themselvesgymnasts, or that also were

(08:54):
people who have worked withmedalists, and so I think I can
appreciate their experiences andkind of blend them into mine.
But, again, there's certainthings that I just have never
experienced, right, I was neveran elite level trampolinist, I
was never, you know, running agym.
Right, there are things thatare kind of uh kind of gaps in
my knowledge.
However, um, I do feel asthough I have a lot of, uh
different experience, with lotsof consulting and medical work

(09:15):
and research and travelingaround the world.
Uh and I mean this in the leastuh egotistical way possible at
this point in the last 10 years,I've been really fortunate to
work with probably thousands andthousands of gymnasts and
coaches and parents for avariety of problems at multiple
levels, across multipledisciplines and across the
entire world, right, so, again,I mean that very, very humbly,
but I think that that allows meto see a big pattern of things.

(09:38):
You know, when you look at 10to 15 different club programs
and look at their strengthprograms and look at how they're
trying to run their gyms andsee the ones that are doing
really, really well versus theones that are maybe not doing as
well as they had hoped, you canmaybe pull out some information
that can be shared with otherpeople about what to do there
right.
Same thing with the NCAA or theelite season the elite scene
kind of here in the States, butthen also people who are coming
to the college level from otherareas is I've looked at a lot of

(10:02):
different programs.
I've looked at a lot ofdifferent things and I can maybe
understand things thateverybody would appreciate the
information about, becauseeverybody struggles with those
problems.
So it's a pro and a con right.
I don't have, obviously, all theexperiences of all the things,
but I do have some experiencesthat are very unique, which is
kind of being in multipledifferent areas of the sport.
The other thing that I have abenefit of is that obviously
I've spent a lot of timecoaching at the club level.

(10:24):
I also spend a lot of time inthe medical and the strength
conditioning world as well, andI also have quite an active role
in research.
So those things together, whenyou put all those hats on at
once, it allows you to maybeblend some ideas that have not
previously been seen or kind ofshare some bridges between
different people.
Right, I might talk to astrength conditioning coach at a
university for an hour one day,the next day talk to their
medical staff and the next daytalk to their coaching staff and

(10:47):
try to pair a lot of the ideasthat they're struggling with.
So I think that's helpful.
I think that's helpful to seethings in a bigger picture
sometimes and be like okay, whatcan everybody benefit from?
But I want to be really, reallyhonest here and that I'm lucky
that I've had people who havehelped me along the way.
I'm lucky that a lot of coacheshave shared their information
with me, as I've shared withthem, and that a lot of friends
of mine are very, very highlevel gymnasts or were currently

(11:07):
or are retired high levelgymnasts and I can share from
them as well.
I also have a lot of friendswho don't work specifically in
gymnastics, but they're expertsin their field, whether it's
medical or strength conditioningor research, right.
So I think that I can share alot of those things inside and
outside.
Try to think about this assomething that you are going to
take.
The principles are really,really important.
I will share tons and tons ofpractical examples and advice.

(11:29):
I think that's really reallyvaluable for someone to say,
okay, I heard the lecture, butwhat do I do on bars when I have
45 minutes and I'm trying toget a group of kids to get their
cash handstands right, stufflike that.
But I also think it's reallyimportant to remember that this
is not going to be, you know,just whatever I say you can use
which leads to the next slideright.
This is not a control pace,right, kind of approach that you

(11:49):
can't just like take it and putit into your gym and hope that
it works well.
The reason that doesn't work isbecause my experiences are
based on the athletes that Iwork with, that I coach, their
specific problems, theirspecific strengths and
weaknesses, and then myexperience level and my
equipment right.
There's so many factors thatare going to change how you
approach these things.

(12:11):
So, while I will give you lotsof examples and things that I
think are really, reallyvaluable, I don't think it's
going to be wise for you to justtry and take what I share in
these lecture series and justautomatically implement them in
your gym.
Take them, consider them, talkwith your coaching staff, talk
with your parents, talk, talkwith the athletes, talk with
everybody else involved and say,hey, would this make sense if
we tried this or if we did thisdrill, or if we approach the
pre-season this way for fourweeks, versus what we maybe

(12:33):
sometimes do?
Okay, so anything that you arethinking it might be like easy
to do that with, I can I cautionyou to just pause and think
about what you can do.
And the other thing it will notbe.
It's impossible to do thisright.
It will not be.
It's impossible to do thisright.
It will not be comprehensive toevery single age group, every
single level, every singlesetting and every discipline or
goal that gymnasts and coacheshave.
That would be ludicrous, right?

(12:54):
It's not possible.
So what I'm trying to do here isshare with you what I think is
really really valuable for thelens that I have on and then
give you guys some examples touse from so that you can then
spark those ideas.
I hope you take a ton ofinformation away from the
lectures and it really reallydoes help you right.
But at the same time I'mrealistic in the fact that
there's no way that we can geteverybody you know everyone's

(13:14):
possible scenarios under theirbelt.
So with that in mind, Iintentionally did not make this
like the deep dive rabbit holescientific evidence approach.
Right, I have some blogs andstuff on line that are very,
very geeky.
And go down those rabbit holesIf you're interested.
We have other lectures insideof the hero lab that, if you're
interested, you can check thoseout too.
But I didn't want to do that inthis one because I think if we,

(13:37):
if we go all the way downrattling off scientific research
and evidence and talking aboutall the geekiest stuff, we're
going to, yeah, people's eyesare gonna glaze over and they're
gonna really miss the forestfor the trees here, right, we're
just gonna see the one or twothings, but it's not gonna be
big picture, it's not gonna makesense to people.
So I'm gonna kind of take offthe mega geeky research hat for
these four lectures and try toput on the hey, what can we do

(13:57):
at a practical level here?
So we'll share lots of ideasfrom no-transcript asking me

(14:45):
about help.
That's why I'm doing this.
We're going to start with thepreseason and then we'll talk
about the in-season kind of thesplit beginning of the in-season
, the end of the in-season howyou can really do the best
possible job for meets.
And then we'll round things outby coming back around and
talking about the off season, sothat people who are then
approaching the next year canthink about okay, it makes sense
.
What do I do right now to getthe athletes ready for the meets
that I'm coming up for orthings that are going on?

(15:07):
And then what do I do to getready for the end season, of how
to make sure they stay healthyand have the best possible meats
ever?
And then I can put some thingson the top shelf.
For what could we change nextoff season if we'd like to make
things happen differently?
Okay, so with that in mind,let's dig right into it here.
So we're going to start withsome background ideas.
The first thing we have toremember and this is absolutely
essential everything in thelecture series for the next four

(15:29):
you know however many hoursthis ends up being, but
everything that comes forwardafter this is based on this
simple equation.
Okay, the proper dosage ofstress added to the proper
dosage of recovery is how humansadapt, right.
So whether that adaption meansjumping higher, whether that
means running faster, whetherthat means getting a new skill,

(15:49):
whether that means hitting aroutine that you need the cardio
endurance for, whether thatmeans learning something new in
school, whether that meansmentally being ready for a meet
and managing some anxiety thatcomes with the pressure of
competition, adapting your brainto deal with coping strategies,
every single thing we do comesdown to this proper dosage of
stress and recovery.
Whether that's learning,whether that's working out,

(16:10):
whether that's having a hardconversation, it all is based on
this equation.
Okay, now, that being said, Ilike this analogy here that you
know, aspirin is really, reallyhelpful for a headache, unless
you don't take any or less.
You take 40, right?
If you have too much or toolittle sorry there's not going
to be an adaptation.
Right?
If you don't do anything tostress the body to get ready,

(16:31):
you're not going to be prepared.
Right?
If you don't take any aspirin,it's never going to help your
headache, right?
So you actually do need totrain hard and you need to train
intelligently to make sure thatyou're getting prepared for the
thing that's coming up right.
Whether that's skills, a newskill, you need to be properly
stressed with strengthconditioning to be prepared to
do those skills and handle thoseforces right.
You need to be mentallyprepared and do your work and do

(16:53):
your homework to know theinformation to take a test right
.
It's the exact same thing Ifyou don't do enough, you won't
be prepared.
Vice versa, if you do too much,you're probably gonna have a
poor performance because you'renot going to have the readiness
that you need.
But there's also an elevatedrisk of injury and burnout and
emotional problems like eitherhigh degrees of anxiety or

(17:13):
burnout and depression.
That's very, very common, right?
So problems can happen on bothsides of the coin and I think
that's so.
So key to remember foreverything we talk about moving
forward is that we're trying tofind that nice sweet spot, that
middle balance between notcrushing people but not doing
nothing and not being ready forthe thing that we want to
compete in or do.
Or you know, some people don'tcompete, some people just they
want to get new skills.
That's totally fine, but westill need to be prepared

(17:35):
adequately for those kind ofthings that we're going to do.
Okay, and this is really a nicesummary that I think I've used
in a couple other lectures andpeople really enjoyed this when
I was traveling.
So this is how we approach theentire kind of work to rest
ratio thing.
So on the bottom there, thecultures and the values and the
habits that your gym establishescreate the possibility to have
nice hard workouts, to recoverwell and to kind of be

(17:55):
communicating about what needsto change.
So people are constantly goingthrough the proper doses of
stress and recovery.
Okay, so you will plan thoseworkouts right in the top here.
You will come over here to theright side, you will stress
yourself, you'll work out,you'll do something, you'll
recover, you'll go home, you'lleat.
You'll eat well, you'll go goto bed, you'll, you'll take some
time off, right, you'll getyour body ready for the next day
.
And then as you come back, yougauge kind of like okay, was

(18:17):
that over the course of a day ora week or a month?
You say okay, like, was thatgood?
Was that not?
Did we not do enough?
Do we do too much?
And you tinker with thesethings and then you come back up
here and you start over again.
Okay, monitoring, it goes around.
This entire thing iscommunication.
It's about like how'd you feellast week?
How'd you feel your routines?
Did you feel prepared?
Did you not feel prepared?
Monitoring also means lookingobjectively at performances and
saying like, did we do well, didwe not do well?

(18:38):
Did we hit our routines?
Did we not?
Did we feel ready?
Did we not Right?
So it's this constant, fluid,dynamic, circular process of
evaluating how you're doing.
But again it all comes down tothese basic loops of stressing
the athletes and stressing thesystem, recovering themselves,
they grow and they adapt andthey kind of tinker with those
things to figure out how it went.
You get back to the top.

(18:59):
Okay, so the stress is prettystraightforward, right?
A lot of people are familiarwith this.
I want to make sure that peopleknow stress is a good thing,
right, and the right dosage inthe right context.
Stress is a good thing, right.
So it's called eustress.
Right, there's maladaptivestress, which again is doing too
much at once or doing too muchfor a short, a long period of
time.
But essentially that's what wethink about in gymnastics.
Is your day-to-day workoutsright?
Your, your workout plans, yourweekly assignments, your event

(19:22):
assignments, your strength, yourcardio?
You know studying, for you knowhard material when you're
trying to learn something inschool, interacting with
difficult conversations and kindof having a hard conversation
about something going on.
Those are all just differentforms of mini stress and in the
proper dosage, with the properamount of time recovered, you
can do great things right.
This is exactly what we knowabout, which is just daily

(19:43):
gymnastics training doing thepull-ups, doing the rope climbs,
doing the five passes, catchingthe five releases, doing the
seven vaults right.
The actual work done is thestress Okay.
So how do you find this optimaldose right that I just talked
about?
What do we do to make surewe're not going too far off the
rails?
But we're also stressing themenough that we're ready.
So number one by far and away iscommunication right.

(20:04):
And I think there's a lot offriends of mine who are really
really high level scientists inthe workload world and in the
research of stress and theywould tell you that you know,
even though you have the bestcomplicated data worksheet and
you look at the numbers and youhave all the perfect gymnastics
techniques, communicating withyour athlete about how they're
feeling and how they're copingis really far and away one of
the best things you can do.
So I'm a huge geek.

(20:26):
I love looking at you knowstrategies and tools and
research.
But even with coaching, evenwith everything I do PT, medical
strength conditioning justsaying, hey, how are you feeling
, how are things going, what arewe feeling like today?
You know that's the mostimportant thing that you can do.
Not having that fluid dialogueor conversation can really make
things fall apart quick.
Which is why I said basing thefoundation on trust and values

(20:47):
in your gym culture is soimportant, because if you don't
have a great gym culture and youcan't communicate about these
things or you get defensive whensomebody says something, you
know you're never going to havea nice conversation.
Okay, so number two you need tohave a logical plan of
progression.
You need to be thinking far inadvance about what you're doing
day to day, week to week, monthto month.
You can't just fly by thewhiteboard, as I used to call it

(21:10):
right.
You can't do that right.
It's impossible.
It's not going to make alogical progression towards
goals.
It's going to be confusing,it's going to be stressful for
you as someone who's doing that,whether you're a coach or a PT
or a medical provider.
It's going to be really, reallyhard for you to live that way.

(21:36):
No-transcript you can have anice little scaffolding for how
you're going to approach theblock which then becomes the
year.
Okay, you have to have a decentbase of science behind what
you're doing, kind of being inline with the current scientific
evidence.
Take those and blend it withmaybe some things that you've
learned as a coach or a medicalprovider, as a strength coach,

(21:57):
as a parent, that are reallyreally important to do.
But also kind of blend thatwith what other people feel are
valuable too.
Right, you don't want to justbe doing some really, really,
really far off the rabbit holecrazy training technique that's
never been even suggested byscience.
That might be a way somethingcreative starts, but it's
definitely not the best way toapproach all your training
practices.
Okay, other things that you wantto make sure you're tailoring

(22:17):
the assignments to theindividuals that you need.
Some days you'll feel like theassignment you give someone is
perfect and it's going to bereally really easy for them.
You might need to tune it up alittle bit, right?
Sometimes you'll give theassignment to somebody like, oh,
it should be no problem and itjust buries the athlete right,
and you're like, okay, well,maybe that was too much right.
So if someone comes in withreally really sore legs or is
not really having the bestmental headspace.
You do want to change that alittle bit.
That's called auto regulationfor the geeks out there, but

(22:39):
just getting a metric of howsomeone's feeling and being able
to change things as needed.
There are certainly times whenyou just got to push through and
say, hey, I know you're tired,but you know we see someone's
just really really strugglingand say, hey, you know what,
let's just hang this up fortoday.
Let's go to another event,we'll come back tomorrow, we'll

(22:59):
try it again.
Okay, so the rest and recoveryis really uh, I think what's
what's more so sometimes hardfor people to grasp, right?
So this is kind of the time inbetween.
Right, this is what we're doingbetween the actual dosages of
workouts or what we're doing inbetween times of turns, and try
to make sure that we're gettingpeople to recover to what we're
stressing them with.
Okay, recovery is not a justwait around and oh my God, this
is so annoying.

(23:20):
I can't believe we have to rest.
We should be doing two a day,every single day, all the time.
These kids aren't tough enough.
They should be able to go hardevery single day Like that brute
force mentality is not in linewith scientific evidence.
Brute force mentality is not inline with scientific evidence.
And I think if you talk toreally great coaches, really
really high level coaches whohave multiple years of success,
and the athletes who have gonethrough that process of making

(23:41):
it to the highest level, eventhe most high caliber, best of
all time, olympian, amazing,incredible in every single sport
does not just go hard everysingle day, all the time, with a
brute force mentality.
I can promise you that right.
They're not doing 20 hours aday of just constant stress and
killing.
Does not just go hard everysingle day, all the time, with a
brute force mentality.
I can promise you that right.
They're not doing 20 hours aday of just constant stress and
killing themselves and barelysleeping and going hard,
grinding.
That's not how it works,because they burn out.

(24:02):
They don't last, right.
They either get hurt, somethingfalls apart, right.
They follow a logical,systematic progression of stress
and recovery.
So it's unrealistic to thinkthat kids can just crush
themselves every single day andbe tougher and deal with it,
right.
That's not how things work,okay.
So the time off, the things youdo between training sessions, is
really, really important.
It's essential, right.
Like I said, it's 50%, it'shalf the equation of making

(24:25):
adaptations.
So if you're only worried aboutthe stress part of really
really hard workouts and reallyreally designing, but you never
talk about sleep or time off orresting or have proper time
intervals between your practices, it's never going to go well.
You're just going to kind ofrun people into the ground and
people are going to get burntout.
Okay, when you look at thehonest truth about the order of

(24:46):
things that are important in theresearch, okay, one of the
number one things is just time.
It's time and good programming,right?
If you do a super hard trainingsession on, you know, monday,
and then you come back the nextday and you're like, all right,
we're gonna get it again.
You do a super hard trainingsession the next day and then
you come in the next day andyou're like you know what.
You just can't do, that youcan't just keep going.
Right, you have to think abouthow much time somebody has

(25:08):
between intervals to actuallyrecover and make it work, right?
So say, for example, the waythat your gym is worked out is
maybe you have a Fridayafternoon practice and the only
time that you can get back intothe gym is a Saturday morning,
that time interval between 7pmon Friday and 9am on Saturday is
not going to be a long time forsomeone to recover.
They're going to maybe feelexhausted the next day.

(25:29):
So maybe, knowing that youintentionally have to plan more
of a lighter day or a basic stayon Saturday and do your harder
work earlier in the week.
Everyone is very, verydifferent with how they respond,
but generally speaking, 10 to12 hours is not a long time to
recover.
Right, you might get a lot moreout of the tank and you can get
some sleep and stuff, but you'renot going to have that
wonderful fresh, you knowrecovery mode that you might

(25:49):
have.
You had like a full 24 hourcycle off or two days off after
a weekend or something like that.
So there's no amount of youknow, ice baths and fancy stuff
and massage guns and stretchesor all that kind of stuff you
can do to replace that.
It's just reality.
It's just a.
It's just a honest, brutalreality of being a human,
especially with kids.
So I think, unfortunately,sometimes when I work with

(26:11):
programs they're asking me hey,what's, what's the best exercise
to get their legs less sore?
What's the best?
You know, you know, drill thatI can do to make their back not
hurt in, your chain goes andit's like well, unfortunately,
you know, doing 500 your chaingoes multiple days in a row is
going to catch up to you.
So you have to be realisticabout what you're doing, respect
the biology and make sure youhave a nice patience oriented
mindset with a really, reallygood plan.

(26:33):
I am a huge fan of intelligent,challenging training and I want
to say that very, very early andvery, very honestly.
I believe in hard work.
I believe in workingchallenging workouts to the
right dosage for the rightamount of athletes, pushing the
athletes to prepare them forwhat they're going to do, but
also just that's what sport ispart of the design for is to
teach you work ethic, to teachyou discipline, to teach you

(26:59):
commitment.
Right, that is not the same ascrushing people and borderline
abuse and doing what I saybecause I said so.
I'm not a fan of that, but I ama fan of working really, really
hard and doing things that arechallenging.
So hopefully, with that in mind, I can share this study with
you, which actually is a reallycool study.
So this was 15 level seven to 10gymnasts.
I think this was in 2017.
They did this.
So essentially what they did isthey took a group of gymnasts
and they tested them on theirphysical abilities tests, right.

(27:20):
So leg lifts, pushups, box jump, pull-ups, like all sorts of
very gymnastic, specific bodyweight things and they
essentially did the testing andthey did what they would
consider a very hard workout.
So their hardest day of theweek, they went really, really
crazy.
I'm not sure what they weredoing routines or whether
they're doing just a lot ofvolume of skill work, but they
were doing everything right.
And then they did their normalconditioning, their normal

(27:40):
warmups, everything and theymeasured how many days it took
them to fully recover from thathard workout.
And the metric was when youreturn to baseline, of how many
pull-ups and push-ups and stuffyou can do.
That's probably a good proxy ofyou know your physical ability
and your ability to recover.
Okay, and the interestingfinding here was that the
majority of the people in thisgroup again, it's only 15 kids.

(28:01):
It's one small little gym, butit took the majority of the kids
two to three days to fullyrecover, I mean like completely
get back to their baseline.
And now what this means is it'svery unique to this group of
athletes right, where maybe theydon't have maybe they have the
worst recovery methods of alltimes.
Maybe they don't sleep, theydon't do any stress management
techniques, they don't feelthemselves for performance,

(28:22):
maybe they're just like theworst recoverers of all time,
who knows?
But essentially, what you needto take away is that it needs
time right.
You cannot expect someone to befresh as a daisy and max, have
all their power and all theirspeed and all their energy after
a really, really hard workout,right?
So it doesn't mean you can'ttrain hard, doesn't mean you
can't train back to back days.
It just means that we have tobe intelligent, we have to

(28:43):
respect biology, like I said,and think logically about maybe
alternating light days withmedium days, with heavy days,
with off days, to get the mostnet equation of the athlete's
performance.
Okay, and now, with this in mind, I think you can specifically
train blocks that are really,really hard, so you can do two
really hard days in a row, orthree really hard days in a row,
or really hard week whereeverything's really challenging.

(29:04):
But it has to be intentionallydone, it has to be in
communication with how they'refeeling and you have to really
make sure that you're going tobalance that side of the coin
with an appropriate and a smartamount of recovery.
Five days really, really hard,with one day off.
They're not going to recoverfully for the next one, I
promise you that.
So maybe you take a rollingstart into the next day.
Maybe you have Saturday andSunday is off and Monday is a

(29:26):
medium day where you slowly rampback into things after a super
duper hard training week to tryto make sure you give them a
full, nice, smooth on-ramp tothe next week that they're
coming for okay, and we have toreally think about these things,
which is why this lecture is soimportant.
It's talking about what's theentire block of training goal?
Is the goal to get stronger?
Is the goal to get faster?
Is the goal to pull back onstrength and conditioning to hit

(29:47):
routines for meets, if you havethose no-transcript up over

(30:31):
here?
So now you're either you'remore fit, or you're maybe
stronger, or you're moreintelligent, or you have more
mental confidence.
You're more emotionally, youknow, resilient.
The next time that stressor isapplied, it dips you down, but
it does not dip you down belowthe baseline you were before.
You can supercompete again.
Right, this is the basics ofgetting stronger and fitter and
new skills and learning and kindof growing and stuff like that.

(30:53):
However, as you can see here, ifwe apply a load too soon or if
we don't allow a proper recoveryenvironment or we are just
chronically stressing someonetoo much multiple days in a row,
we will continue to go downhilland we'll spiral kind of where
we're not recovered enough andwe constantly run down the road,
which is you can't deal withthe training load but also your

(31:13):
risk elevates of injury andillness and burnout, right.
So this is overtraining, right.
There's a functionalovertraining, which is where you
intelligently plan those blocksof when you want to make
someone get, you know, really,really tired and you get them
stronger.
There's non-functionaloverreaching, which is what this
is, which is where you're kindof just applying load after load
after load and you're kind ofburning somebody out, okay.
Another really helpful graph ishere.
So in this window where you dogo through that load and

(31:36):
recovery cycle, you are at areduced capacity.
You can't do as much as youpossibly could because you're
recovering, you're kind of taxed, you're stressed out, your
body's using its resources torecover.
If you go through that periodof recovery, when you get to
that load application of thenext time again, that doesn't
drop down so low, but that loadis then applied in the next one
and you continuously increaseover time to get a better

(31:57):
capacity.
It's in the short term you havea reduced capacity, which is
kind of also called the fitnessfatigue model.
But as you get better and youget stronger, over the course of
multiple days, multiple weeks,multiple cycles of stressing and
recovering, you do getincreased capacity.
Right, that's, that's what weall want to see.
So just two visualrepresentations that I think are
really, really helpful there.
Okay, sleep is by far and awayone of the most important things

(32:20):
to recovery, after we talkabout time and good programming.
Okay, it is super, superimportant that people have high
quality in the right amount ofsleep, and I know this opens a
bag of worms with school andfamily life and practice times
and traveling, and I get it.
I've lived it as an athlete,I've lived it as a coach, I've
lived it as someone trying tohelp on medical side of things
and consulting work.
But the brutal reality is thatif everybody could just focus a

(32:43):
little bit more on gettingpossibly one more hour of high
quality sleep per night, theywould probably feel and perform
significantly better.
Okay, and you have to thinkabout this, is that you don't
get stronger while you're doingthe work.
You don't get faster whileyou're doing the work.
While you're doing the ropeclimbs, you get stronger or
faster, or you learn things whenyou do the work, you stress
yourself, and then you have thatsleep environment with proper

(33:05):
fuel, proper setting for yourbody to turn down and repair
itself and kind of get strongeror remodel some of the damage
from the proper dose of stress.
It doesn't happen, though, whenyou're doing the pull-ups, and
I think that's a really good,you know, kind of eye opener for
people to think about.
Okay, when you think about sleep, it's really, really
interesting here, but there's alot of great resources from Dr

(33:27):
Matthew Walker, andrew Huberman.
There's a lot of great booksout there that are now sharing
some more ideas here, and I justwant to share with you a list
of things that I think have beenreally, really helpful for me
and athletes that I work with,but then also in consulting work
.
When I share these things withteams or with, you know, staffs,
and they implement them, theydo see a significant difference.
I'm not going to go into thegeekiness of why.
But long story short is that inthe morning, if you can somehow

(33:48):
see the sun horizon, and thenat the evening you can see the
sunset, natural light.
So don't stare at the sun andblind yourself, but taking a
walk for five to 10 minutes andgetting that the horizon light
actually makes a really bigdifference on your body waking
up and going to bed and thenatural circadian rhythm of
melatonin release.
So you know the body ability tosay hey, it's, you know,
morning, I got to wake up, I gotto get going here.

(34:09):
That morning light does thatquite a bit, and then also the
intake of food.
But then also on the eveningtime, when you see that sunset
or when you see the light goingdown, that's a signal to your
body and the cells in your body,in the area of your brain that
controls melatonin release, likehey, sun's going down, going to
get dark soon, I should start,you know, ramping things down a
little bit and kind of gettingtired.
So obviously it's tough withscreens and we'll talk about

(34:29):
that next, but those two thingsalone are super duper helpful
for people.
A consistent sleep and wakeschedule massively important as
well.
Okay, so if athletes are wakingup at you know six or seven for
school every day of the weekand they sleep until two on
Saturday and Sunday.
That's going to be a hard, it'sgoing to throw you off quite a
bit.
I think the reason this comesup a lot is with competition
schedules, whereas they will,you know, spend multiple

(34:50):
weekends in a row not reallywaking up early or traveling,
but then the meet comes and theyhave a 9am session, right, or
they have like a, an eveningsession they have to stay later
up for and they're not used todoing gymnastics at 4pm or 5pm
or 6pm, when maybe they used todo it in a morning practice, or
vice versa.
They're not used to doinggymnastics at 10 in the morning.
So if you know the session ofyour time or you know the meat
coming up, you can try multipleweeks in a row to set yourself

(35:13):
up for waking up at that time ortraining at that time to kind
of mimic what's going on.
Okay, number three a coolertemperature does help your body
kind of recover and sleep better.
So under 68 degrees Fahrenheitis kind of what a lot of people
suggest, and I might seem alittle chilly to people, but
it's doable.
But that cooler bodytemperature is easier for your
body to fall into a nice,restful sleep.
Okay, number four is a darkroom.

(35:34):
So blocking out your curtains,trying to get no neon lights,
taking your phone not allowingthat to be in your bedroom,
wearing an eye mask and doingwhatever you can to get no neon
lights, taking your phone, notallowing that to be in your
bedroom, wearing an eye mask anddoing whatever you can to get a
really, really nice dark roomsthat you're not constantly, like
you know, seeing lightsflashing by on the on the street
or you're not seeing blinkinglights with, you know, air
conditioner or stuff like that.
Whatever else you need, okay,no blue light or screens, but
the hour before bed.

(35:55):
So trying to wear blue lightblocking glasses is really
important, but also trying tojust limit screen intake for
that hour or two before bed.
I know with athletes in schooland stuff, this is really
challenging.
But one thing that's beenhelpful is to try and do all of
the computer work or the thingsthat do require technology, as
soon as you get home afterpractice and then that way, when
you're doing later evening work, maybe you're only doing book

(36:16):
work, right, so you're wearingblue light blocking glasses and
you're just reading or you'rejust kind of writing and stuff,
so it's not as much strain onyour eyes, versus the other way
it would be, you know, savingall your computer work for the
end.
It's 11 o'clock at night andyou're staring at a screen and
your brain is kind of stayinghigh wired awake because you're
seeing all that blue light.
So trying to do that as well,and then not really applicable
to many athletes that areyounger, but older athletes,

(36:37):
particularly in a club orcollege trying to be very
careful about not havingafternoon caffeine within six
hours of bed and then limitinghow much food you're intaking if
you can, three to four hours,so maybe trying to have snacks
in the car when you come homefrom practice and then eat as
soon as you're home, versus youknow rushing home doing your
homework, showering all thatkind of stuff, and it's nine, 10
, 11 o'clock when you're eatingwhile you're doing your homework

(36:57):
or something like that.
Okay, so just some helpful tipsthere that I think again super
duper important for the rest ofthe stuff we talk about in the
next four lectures.
If we don't talk about thisstuff first, it's kind of a
waste of time.
Okay, fueling for performancethis is a no brainer right, but
we realize that you need to haveproper fuel for your workouts.
So we have to get enoughcalories.
We also need to get veryno-transcript to lose some

(37:51):
weight and is 50 years old andit's just trying to stay healthy
Very, very different than theadvice we give to an elite level
, you know gymnast or someonewho's working four hours a day
at the gym completely differentprofile.
So you can't just take what yousee in a magazine and apply
that to gymnastics.
You have to work with expertnutritionists who are medically
licensed and are very, veryfamiliar with the pros and cons

(38:11):
of different types of foodgroups and things they work on,
but also have experience workingwith gymnasts, right.
And the first thing that alwayscomes up is people being scared
about carbs and fats.
But carbs fuel you forgymnastics.
It's an anaerobic sport, right,which is primarily running off
of the substrate ofcarbohydrates, but also faster.
What make up your nervoussystem?
So essential fatty acids and,you know, structural fats that

(38:33):
makes up the wiring of yournerves.
If you look at how your nervesare insulated and how your brain
is insulated, it's with fattissue, right.
So there's obviously better orworse choices that you can make
around, maybe the optimal dosefor your workout.
I'm a huge fan.
I'm enjoying fun foods anddoing things that people want to
do and enjoying those things.
They're not the devil, butobviously you want to make sure
that you're trying to feelyourself for performance as well

(38:54):
as possible around the timeswhen you're working out.
Okay, okay, hydration is alsothe same kind of idea.
Is getting enough throughoutthe day.
We're trying to encourageathletes to sip throughout a
water bottle all day long, notjust chug, you know, like 16
ounces of water on the in thecar ride over to you know,
practice, trying to make surethat electrolytes are replaced
when the sweat rate is high.
So potassium and sodium,whether people drink coconut

(39:14):
water or they put tablets in orthey try to do something else.
It's personal preference and,like I said not a nutritionist
you got to work with thoseexperts for that but trying to
have a good electrolytereplacement and then also
encouraging a mid-workout snack,which is an absolute must have.
If someone's working out two tothree hours or more, you must
have some sort of good carbintake to make sure that they're
staying, you know, fueledthroughout practice, versus

(39:36):
using up all your fuel sourcesin the first two hours.
In the next two hours you'redragging.
So just some ideas to thinkabout.
But fuel is super, duperimportant to make sure that
we're getting someone through aworkout safely and getting the
most out of these.
You know, not only the workingpart of the equation, because
you need the proper fuel to dothe hard work that I think we
all just talked about is really,really important, but also to
recover from that work and toget food in that gives you the

(39:58):
substrates.
The proteins, the carbs, thefats are building blocks to
build new tissue, to adapt right.
Where do you think thatadaptation fuel comes from?
It's coming from the thingsthat you intake.
Okay, another rest and recoverything here too, I think I'm a
huge fan of and then it'susually talking to gymnasts that
are a little bit more type A isyou absolutely must take time
to do things that are notrelated to gymnastics and that

(40:21):
are not related to school,because that's usually the two
biggest stressors for athletesin competitive season, right Is
school and gymnastics.
So, having time to do thingsthat you enjoy hanging out with
your friends, journaling, goingwith your family, seeing a movie
, meditating, like whatever itis right, whatever you want to
work on.
It's so, so important and thisis the scientific reason why.
Okay, we all may know there aretwo sides to our nervous system

(40:47):
, right, so we have the kind ofon, which is the sympathetic
nervous system, which is aboutlike fight or flight, or freeze
you guys have probably all heardthis before.
You know you, you think about apresentation and you're about
to do a routine, you are aboutto take a really hard test,
right, your heart rate goes up,your palms sweat a little bit,
you start to get, your alertnessis open.
That's the sympathetic nervoussystem ramping you up for
something.
Okay, that happens every singletime.

(41:08):
We do a hard workout, or we'redoing a skill or a turn, or
we're trying to have a hardconversation.
That's what we're designed todo.
That is the stressor system,kind of helping us up.
The other half of that, wherethe recovery and the adaptation
occurs, is called ourparasympathetic nervous system,
which is more the rest anddigest side.
Okay, so that is where, again,your body adapts.
That's where your body repairsitself from a hard workout.

(41:28):
It's where your body, you know,rests and it kind of processes
the things that you've learned.
And during your sleep cycles orwhen you're relaxing when your
mind is wandering a little bit.
It kind of makes theconnections and builds new
building blocks for those things.
So we need balance here, right?
If we go all on all the time,that's never going to get
adaptation.
We're going to burn somebodyout.
If we're all off all the time,we're never working hard, we're
never going to get to our goals,right.

(41:49):
So you have to have thisflip-flop back and forth.
Our body is designed for thisrapid onset, deal with the
stressor and cope, and then itrapid down, deal and now shift
into more of like a relaxedposition.
Right, think about betweenturns.
Right, you do a really hardturn, you do something and then
you rest and you just chill fora second, go, do a drill, then
you get back up and try it again.
Same thing with really reallyhard training weeks or really
really hard training months Getramped up, do the meet and come

(42:10):
down, relax, get your body tochill.
Okay.
So by intelligently andspecifically planning times when
we can recover and do things weenjoy, it keeps the mental and
emotional burden lower onathletes, but it also
physiologically helps them adaptas best as possible and, you
know, make sense of the hardstressor they did to get
stronger, to get fitter, tolearn new skills, all that kind

(42:32):
of stuff.
Okay, it's absolutely essentialthat we do this.
Like, I can't stress thisenough.
I think that so many gymnaststhink that work plus work, plus
work plus work is the onlyanswer to get their things done.
And it's just not true.
Right, you have to do that work, you have to be willing to, you
know, grind and do all thatkind of stuff.
Again, I'm a fan of that.
But if you never have time toturn your brain off and do

(42:52):
things you enjoy and relax andget yourself to actually chill,
you never get the adaptationright.
You never get the adaptation.
You're always pushing the gaspedal super, super hard.
Okay, so when you think aboutwhere does our body recover and
where does it get stronger orrepair broken down tissue or
actually get less, you know,soreness to kind of replenish

(43:13):
itself.
It gets their brain to calmdown, be more emotionally stable
and more mentally.
Well, it's during these timesof recovery, okay.
So that's why sleep is soimportant.
That's why having things thatyou love to do that are not
related to gymnastics or schoolare so important.
So, as a coach, if you'retrying to get the most out of an
athlete.
You should encourage this.
You should say yes, go to that,go to that family function that

(43:33):
you love with your grandma andspend time with your friends and
make sure you go watch thatmovie you want to watch after
Saturday practice, like, planthese times to do it.
Don't just obsess nonstop 24seven about gymnastics in school
Okay, so I can't stress thatenough about how important that
is.
Okay.
Then you look at the scientificliterature.
All the rest of the stuff,right, everything else you might
see is as tools and gimmicksand all that kind of jazz.

(43:54):
So a dynamic compression andbrutes or massage foam rolling,
um, you know all sorts of other.
Uh, you know self massage, heat, hot tub, sauna.
All that stuff is what comesafter that.
If you don't have those thingsthat I just mentioned, those
first four or five categoriesreally, uh, firing on all
cylinders.
First, the rest of this stuffis is really not going to make a
difference, right?

(44:14):
I don't care how many times youfoam roll or how many times you
use normatech boots.
If you're sleeping five hours anight, you're not feeling
yourself enough, not drinkingwater, and you have zero time to
yourself to do something youenjoy, it's not going to work
well.
Okay, and this is coming fromsomeone who literally prescribes
this for a living right.
Like, I do soft tissue work, Ido different recovery modalities
to help people, I lecture and Italk about getting the most out

(44:34):
of some of these tools, butthey're only as good as the base
layer you build it on.
So I just want to say that,because I think, unfortunately,
the opposite comes around, wherefancy new toy, fancy new trick,
new technology, which isfantastic.
I love massage guns.
They're cool in the rightsetting, but people
unfortunately sometimes arereally not having their
priorities straight.
Okay, so now that we're movingon, after this first section,

(44:56):
we're going to start talkingabout, in the next three
lectures, the main categoriesthat we're dealing with every
year.
That was just the baselinestuff.
The rest of it's all going to beyou know, what actually do we
do every single day in theseblocks?
Okay, the four things that I'malways juggling with, and I
think a lot of people are alwaysjuggling with, are these four
things.
Number one thegymnastics-specific work, right,
the drills, the skills, howmany reps, how many routines,

(45:18):
how many things should we do forgetting ready for the meets,
all that kind of stuff?
Okay, so that's one thing we'realways dealing with.
Number two is the strength andthe physical preparation.
Okay, how many squats should wedo?
How many days a week should wedo strength training?
What are the right exercises?
How many sets and reps are wegetting stronger?
How do we get stronger?
How do we get faster?
Like all the nitty gritty ofphysical preparation,
flexibility included.
That is another category we'reconstantly looking at through

(45:41):
the entire year.
Okay, number three will becardio or energy systems.
Training is how do we make surethat the athletes are healthy
and fit enough to do thetraining that's two or three or
four hours long.
But also, how do we then buildthe engine to get through a 60
to 90 second, you know, barroutine or floor routine or
pommel horse routine ortrampoline routine, right, how
do we actually get their cardioup in a smart and intelligent

(46:03):
way to get them prepared to dowell at meets they want to do?
Number four how do we make surethe athlete wellness is kept at
a high priority at all times?
Okay, so again, physicalwellness would just be overuse,
injuries, keeping pain low,trying to not have any injuries
at all, right, and mental andemotional.
How do we make sure athletesare not dealing with anxiety or

(46:23):
depression issues or body imageissues or competition anxiety.
That's crippling for them,right?
How do we make sure that we'retaking care of the athletes at
all times is the fourth categorythat's equally as important as
the squats you do, or how manyroutines you're going to do, or
learning a new skill right?
That is just as important asthe rest of it.
So, by constantly keeping thesefour categories in mind and

(46:44):
that's exactly how we're goingto frame up the next four, three
lectures is going, you know,blow by blow, on what I think is
really important here.
We're going to talk about thesethings, but always having these
four things in mind is howyou're going to have a really,
really good chance of beingsuccessful during the
competitive year.
Okay, so we're going to startthere and then we'll move our
way through it.
Okay, when you look at it on apractical level, this is these
are literally the templates thatI take from when I consult with

(47:05):
people, when I make my ownprograms, when I teach athletes
on the medical side aboutgetting back to gymnastics.
It's these exact templates ishaving these four categories
here and then having differentmonths and I write okay, what's
the focus of this month.
No-transcript stress.

(47:28):
There's only so much space inthe class.
You can't just keep pouringwater and pouring water and
pouring water and you're goingto have to pull back and kind of
add on more as you go.
So if you're going reallyreally hard in strength
conditioning in the off season,well, you can't also expect
someone to be doing routines,right.
It's just not really going tomake really good sense, right?
Vice versa, when you get topreseason, you're towards the

(47:50):
end of your preseason, startingwith in season approaching, and
you're going really hard onroutines, you're doing a lot of
meat prep.
You can't also be crushing theathletes in physical preparation
and strength and flexibilityand doing super duper hard
cardio workouts the week leadingup to a meet because you're
going to kill somebody, right,you're going to have too much on
their on their plate andthey're not going to be able to
handle it.
So you got to kind of pull andpush back on each category and
have some give and take there,okay.

(48:10):
So next, what we're going to dois we're going to actually get
cracking on the year.
So now that we have this littlework with a program, when I work
with a gymnast and I'm tryingto help them understand how to
how to get the most out of theiryear and what they're going to
do.
You know for how many pushupsthey're going to do and why it
makes sense.
Typically, you start with thehardest event of the season.

(48:32):
You work your way backwards andyou start with like, okay,
what's the, what's the smallbreak going to be, what's the
off-season look like?
Then, what's the pre-seasonlook like?
Then, in that in-season, when'sthe really, really important
meet?
So when the ones that are notas important, how do you make
sure you peak for those?
Then you go back through it.
So it goes to a cyclical ofoff-season, pre-season,

(48:53):
in-season A, in-season B, andthen rest.
For the sake of this lecture, tohelp people better understand
where we're going and what I'mkind of sharing, we're going to
actually start with thepreseason one, because I think
it logically makes more sensefor people who are new to this,
but also that's clearly where weare right now, like I said when
I'm recording this lecture.
So we'll start with preseason,then we'll talk about the in
season a, then we'll talk aboutthe in season B, then we'll talk

(49:16):
about the rest or the periodthat's off following the
competitive season.
That's really, reallychallenging than the actual
off-season training or thegetting new skills and stuff
like that.
Okay, so hopefully, though,that was helpful for people and
then we will move on right.
Just to kind of look at this aswe just visualize, what I just
said is starting from theoff-season here in the green.
So these three months thatwe'll see come in where I'm at

(49:39):
it's the summer for the type ofprogram that I work with, or
types of programs that we workwith too, consulting wise then
the pre-season, then thein-season A, then the in-season
B okay, with an off month builtin there too as well.
But hopefully that's a visuallearner for people.
All right, sounds good.