August 12, 2025 • 27 mins
The transition from summer to fall brings new challenges for gymnasts as they balance back-to-school demands with increased training loads, requiring careful planning to prevent injuries and build a foundation for competition season. We discuss how to create a training plan that accommodates the physiological, mental, and lifestyle changes that occur during this critical period.
• Four key "buckets" for successful preseason training: strength/conditioning, metabolic capacity, gymnastics progressions, and physical preparation/education
• Why traditional cardio methods like long runs and endless panel mat jumps qualify as "junk mileage" that doesn't effectively prepare athletes for the demands of competition
• Difference between aerobic conditioning (not sport-specific) and the 60-90 second anaerobic bursts needed for gymnastics routines
• Sport-specific cardio progressions that build capacity while minimizing injury risk
• Why recovery between sessions is where actual improvement happens, not during the training itself
• Importance of proactively educating athletes and parents about sleep, nutrition, hydration and stress management
• Creating gym cultures that normalize recovery practices rather than only addressing them when problems arise
• Simple, practical ways coaches can incorporate education about recovery into daily practice
Try collecting high-quality, evidence-based resources on sleep, nutrition, hydration, and stress management to create simple one-page PDFs for parents and athletes as part of your welcome packet or regular communications.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
every day.
You essentially pay your duesby doing the harder thing when
it's the right thing to do.
Let's go.
Macro bar oatmeal chocolatechip.
What do you think the title isfor this?
It has a another title above ita heartwarming retreat.
My macro bar is a heartwarmingretreat of oatmeal chocolate
(00:26):
chip.
I was just so shook I just tookthe box out and I was like what
?
I just want a bar, not aheartwarming retreat.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
I mean I'm gonna make you think it tastes better
because of your heartwarmingexperience that you might know
you had it view my macro I'm now.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
I'm very curious of what the other flavors are.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
If like there's like another there are other cute
little titles.
Yeah, right, like uh thereshould be like a.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Like.
A fuzzy journey is like mintchocolate chip or something um
anywho, all right, back inaction for this week so what you
gotta report back next weekwith the new one, oh yeah
every week we need a new flavoryeah, I will be chomping during
the podcast.
I'm starving.
But the last two weeks havebeen pretty thick medical things
, back pain, labor repairs, allthat kind of jazz.
(01:08):
But zoom out a bit and kind ofget to something that is not as
nerdy and dense.
But the time that this comes outis going to be like end of
August and we're going into fall, which is typically when, like,
school starts, people go backand it's just like I don't know
my opinion when I was coachingand you know now cause you're
still coached, but like I feellike this is like gray area
where I don't really think aboutlike routines or like all that
(01:30):
kind of stuff.
And then, like you snap yourfingers and the first week it's
like two weeks away and you'relike, oh crap, I have to do
routines.
You know, I always find thatthat like lack of awareness
maybe all of a sudden creeps upon you and then people just like
ramp up super hard and they get, uh, unfortunate workload
related shin splints, back pain,knee pain, wrist stuff.
So, um, yeah, we just want tochat about you know how do we
transition?
(01:50):
You hear that hail outside mywindow.
Yeah, that's a golf ball ad,it's finest right now.
Um, just want to chat aboutlike, how do you prep for the
next eight weeks?
So like going from the lastweek of the last month of summer
to the first month of fall,which for us in the states is
like end of off season, into thepre-season, which eventually
(02:11):
becomes beats in season.
So, yeah, we'll let you gofirst because you're still in
the trenches a bit coaching, butwhat are your thoughts?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I think the most important thing probably is just
making sure that you're notoverloading them like too much
at the beginning, because notonly are they ramping back up to
they're getting ready for theirmeat schedule, but they're also
like back in school and they'relike not going to be sleeping
and their eating schedule isgoing to be different and
they're also probably sadbecause they have to go back to
school.
So I feel like there's justlike a lot of other things that
(02:39):
are going on in their life.
So just like making sure thatyou're there for them from a
support standpoint and notpushing them too hard past their
limits If they are reallyexhausted and tired in those
like first couple of weeks wherethey're like transitioning back
to their normal schedule.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Totally agree.
I think Eva, who ran theprogramming and one of my
friends, was always very smartthat the first week back to
school was like our week off.
So she knew that, like classwas starting, sleep schedule was
not going to be the same.
Parents are trying to figureout a new schedule going back to
work or whatever, along withdropping their kids off.
Practice times are different.
There's a lot of hurricane typemoments that go through that
first week.
(03:12):
I was laughing as you weresaying that, because when I hear
that I treat Maya, she'll be asenior next year and the
temperature was like 90 aroundhere and it dropped to like 82
or like 80 last week and she wassad and I was like why are you
sad?
She's like it's getting colder.
I had to wear a sweatshirt,which means it's going to be
fall soon.
I have to go back to school andI was like what in your brain
(03:34):
says that 82 and breezy is cold?
but she said colder, so she'slike ready for the yeah, uv
index of 11 needs a peak tan isthe mode of maya right now.
But I was just likehysterically laughing.
I was like how did your braingo to like school and sleep, not
being able to sleep after likea five degree weather shift?
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Man 82 sounds nice, it has been 80 and breezy
Gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, I've ducked so many people.
I have my Wrangler back now.
I've ducked so many people,okay.
So I view this as three months.
The preseason is three months.
If you account for two weeks oflike adjusting to school,
you're kind of left with twofive-week cycles.
So I generally would programlike this is you think about all
right, once we get back afterthe end of August, start of
(04:19):
September, for maybe the middleof September, october, november,
you know you probably havearound three months before in
the club side they start doinglike their first meet.
Generally there's like an innersquad for college teams, elites,
a little bit different, butgenerally you're going to have
like 10 weeks to work with whereyou're going to ramp somebody
up from the point of they'vedone zero routine like things to
(04:39):
somebody who can do a basic setin front of a judge.
So I kind of few.
I have like four buckets I tendto look at when I consult with
people.
So one is going to be like thestrength and conditioning side
of like what are you trainingfor?
You're training for strength,power, speed, whatever the
summer really should be your,your 12 weeks of summer is
majority focused on gettingreally strong.
(05:00):
The only time you're going tohave to like get your legs
stronger, get your arms stronger, really build up your overall
like strength capacity is inthose eight weeks.
So hopefully that has been doneand it's going to continue to
be done for a little bit longer.
But generally speaking, youstart to move your focus more
towards like explosive bodyweight power, so like probably
still doing some cross training,but much more of it is focused
on like three to fiverepetitions, maximal effort,
(05:23):
broad jumps, box jumps, sledpushes, med ball slams, you know
like plyos, like getting theirbody ready to handle explosive
bouts.
You want to move from thatstrength to that power bucket
right.
Similarly, the second bucket Itend to look at is like their
cardio programming and liketheir metabolic capacity is like
in the summer it's pretty muchmore aerobic general base, just
kind of getting somebody overallfitter.
You know in the cross trainingit's like a zone two, but then
(05:46):
in somebody who's doingconditioning and stuff it's
generally these longer circuitsof 20 minutes or so.
But you also want to putsomebody into the 60 to 90
second.
You know kind of face meltingoh my God, I'm dying.
Bucket.
I strongly encourage people dothat with non-gymnastic settings
first, so like a bike or a sledor a med ball or some sort of
non uh dangerous um, itshouldn't be tumbling, shouldn't
(06:09):
be doing like endurance sets onbars just yet, because if
someone's not readymetabolically it's very easy for
an accident to happen wheresomebody does like someone's
doing a tumble down or somethingand land short and rolls her
ankle or bust her ankle.
They're out for a month.
So I tend to do it with likesleds, bikes, uh, med balls,
just generalized cardio to getsomebody ready for that interval
before regular um skills uhobviously would go towards
(06:30):
combinations which then becomelike basic sets alongside
endurance sets.
And then the fourth bucket isthat's the third bucket is like
gymnastic stuff.
The third bucket is generallyyou want to get somebody
over-prepared on a prehab andkind of physical preparation
side.
So trying to ramp up like theirprehab, trying to ramp up a lot
of their education on how muchdo I sleep, how much do I fuel,
hydration, all that kind ofstuff.
(06:50):
Um, that's generally the fourbuckets that I approach.
I'm not sure if you have anydifferent there.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Not really.
No, I feel like I have likePTSD from like first started,
like getting ready for routinesand we would do like sprint
routines routines so sprintroutines.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Like on your last pass, of being like you just
take the wheel.
There's no amount of cardio youcan do.
That prepares you for a floorteam.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
No, I agree.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
It is funny.
I was talking to somebody lastyear about, like, what types of
endurance is the most relevant?
What matters and it seems asthough the research supports
that to get somebody ready for asuccessful season, a high
chronic workload of floorroutines is really the most
important right, because flooris the most metabolically
demanding and it takes the mostout of you.
But when you train for it itobviously bleeds over a bit
(07:39):
positively to other areas of you.
Know the sport.
So like, if your overallendurance is high enough to
tolerate floor routines, twofloor routines, you know the
sport.
So like, if your overallendurance is high enough to
tolerate floor routines, twofloor routines, you're probably
okay to do a beam routine or a,you know, palm horse team.
The only caveat I would saythere is that the context,
specific nature of gymnastics isthat upper body events are
upper body medically demanding.
So like you can't only do lowerbody leg circuits of you know
(08:02):
plyos and stuff like that andleg circuits, and expect
someone's bar routine to getbetter.
You have to sometimes put inproper dosage of like jump, cast
hands on the floor or push-upsor handstand holds or stuff to
help their upper body be thething that's working while the
rest of their body is bufferingfatigue.
You know?
I mean, I think I didn't reallyum appreciate that when I was
growing up.
I just always just do like legtype stuff and hope that it
(08:23):
transferred over.
And floor was good, vault wasgood, but palm walls, p bars,
high bar, not so much yeah,definitely, especially for men's
gymnastics because, it's somuch more upper body focused yep
.
What did you guys do for cardiogrowing up?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
what was like the most basic cardio you could
think of you're doing a lot ofmat pushes but like a lot of
like jumps up and down.
Oh my god, jumping on the resimat was the worst one they'd
like for like a minute.
You would like jump down on theresume.
My legs would be burning so badyeah we did like sprint
routines, we did like suicidesquite a lot too um, I think I
(09:03):
was saying yeah, I would generalI think I don't know if we did.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
We talk about this in the episode about like running
versus plyos and my cardio wasthat with you?
No no I'm aware somewhere Italked about this but yeah I
would strongly discourage peoplefrom doing running as their
main form of cardio,particularly long distance
running.
So outdoor long distancerunning or running around the
floor here and there for a romp,I make sense.
(09:28):
But if that is your mainapproach to cardio, like run and
sprint, run and sprint, that isaerobic conditioning.
It is very much aerobicconditioning and um, that um
you're trying to think about,like what are you trying to get
somebody ready for, is like a 60to 90 second maximal effort
burst with maybe some pauses inbetween, but like that does not
really condition somebody forthat.
(09:49):
On the other side of that, Istrongly discourage using like
the classic plyo panel mat linesor like the plyo circuits,
because that also is notanaerobic at all.
That is aerobic long distance,you know, like slow, like
someone's hot and sweaty, butthey're not really getting
metabolic efficiency.
Oh, I talked about this withDuesch the week that you were
away.
That's what it is there.
Yeah, that's, duesch came onand talked about this, so
(10:11):
reference that episode.
But um, plyos have a veryspecific prescription they
should be doing which is likethree to five up to 10 of like
explosive bouts and veryspecific context.
Settings of like broad jumpsand box jumps or polo hops or
single leg balance or stuff likethat.
Up and down panel mats for 10minutes is not really getting a
(10:32):
plyo workout and it's also notreally getting a good cardio
workout.
So it's kind of what we referto as just junk mileage.
I don't mean that to hurtsomeone's feelings, because I
literally did that my entirelife growing up, coaching, um.
But when you get into the worldof learning about cardio and
learning about power andlearning about plyos, um,
there's different buckets thatare required to train those
things properly.
So, yeah, please do not do justendless 20 minute panel mat
lines or jogging, you know.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yeah, I think.
Um, I don't.
I'm trying to think about whatmy gyms had.
I know the gyms that I coachedat in North Carolina didn't have
any like bikes or likeellipticals or like anything
that could have been like asecond form of cardio.
Like, I feel like if you hadthe like, if a gym had a
financial capability of likebuying other cardio equipment,
that could be really helpful,cause you can do like, even if
(11:14):
it was like a rower or like abike or a good address.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Bikes are amazing, bro Right.
Bikes are so useful becausethey have upper body component
too.
That's why a lot of bikes cando like assault bikes yeah, ski
erg.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Like I feel like there's so many like other
options that you could have, butI've I've never had any of that
stuff growing up and I didn'thave it in the gyms I coached in
either to be fair, I think theeducation was lacking.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
You know the research and education that was lacking,
so I'm not going to fault mycoach, but there's definitely a
time and a place for sprints.
I think sprints are veryrelevant sometimes if you want
to get somebody faster, to runbetter for a ball or whatever.
But we used to do sets of 10sprints or no.
Yeah, we would do sets of 10sprints down this like 50 yard
patch, and then we would also,on alternating days, do like a
(12:01):
long 20 minute run or 30 minuterun.
So I think the intentions weregood, but the needs analysis was
lacking.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Yeah, I think we're.
I was kind of on the same boatwith, like the coaching that I
got and it's.
It is challenging if you don'thave the education behind it to
understand like what you'retraining for.
I mean, I don't hold it againstany of my coaches or anything,
but in addition to like therunning, like if that's what
you're doing for your cardio andit's all like running or
sprinting, and then you're doinglike a bunch of flyers, like
(12:31):
the impact that you're puttingon these kids in addition to all
of their like tumbling anddrills is so great, like where,
if you could give them theoption of doing like a bike or a
different type of cardio, thenthat would be a good option and
it would decrease the impactthat they're getting, which
would hopefully decrease, likesome of those overuse injuries
that you're getting.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Yeah, running is just hopping on one leg.
Right, you're literally jumpingon one leg and oftentimes be
doing it like on concrete orasphalt.
It's putting a lot of stress ontheir already kind of
overworked whatever shin backpatellar tendon, like you said.
And the other thing I think toois, you know, offering some
alternative solutions, of course, but the approach that I think
you should take is that I thinkif you're in the gym, you know
(13:10):
two days you should do strengthboth days.
Gym three days should be liketwo hard days, one light day.
If you're in the gym, four daysmaybe it's like three, one and
then one, I don't know.
But like, generally speaking,if you're in the two to three
days per week bucket, it'scompulsory, it's a little like
not as competitive, so like youcan condition every day and it's
totally fine.
But once you get into like fourdays, five days, six days, you
(13:30):
have to be very intelligentabout, like, what you're doing
and on what days.
And I would encourage people totry to go for the four days per
week and have two days that aremore cross-training effort and
two days that are a bit moregymnastic specific.
So cross training can be alittle bit of power work a
little bit of like dumbbell typestuff, a little bit of like
more general plyometrics andkind of like core shaping and
stuff.
But then also, maybe that's theday that you do some like
(13:52):
explosive, like 10 minutes oflike 60 to 90 seconds.
You know, the most classic one Iused to use was like uh, 30
seconds of um med ball slams, 30seconds of jump, cast
handstands on the floor and then30 seconds of max effort sled,
uh, pushing, and if you'rereally selling your soul, that
is a hard 90 seconds to gothrough.
And then you rest while threeteammates go.
(14:13):
So it's a one to four ratio andyou do five rounds of that.
It's a pretty good 90.
Most people can do that if theyhave access to a floor and a
couple like blocks.
So I would do that.
And then on um bars we would dolike bardio, which is like
spotted kip kassian stands forthree plus or minus in bars and
then jump the high bar, lowerlevels would tap, swing to a
dismount, or higher levels wouldkip kassian stand giants to a
(14:33):
dismount.
And then they would go do um,10 push-ups, 10 med ball slams,
three max effort, vault, runwaysprints and it kind of mimics a
whole body demand.
You go and you chalk up and youknow, slowly die inside between
the nine you have to get backup and do it again.
But that's like a good event,specific way to get cardio after
you've laid that base down andI found that a few weeks of
those was super duper helpful tohelp somebody get, uh, mentally
(14:53):
ready to do gymnastics whenthey're tired.
But it's all basics and thenphysically ready, um, to kind of
do like the lower extremitystuff, the floor equivalent of
bardia.
When you're done is liketumbling into a rod strip, into
a pit, front tumbling pass, runback back, tumbling pass and
then do broad jumps down oneside of the floor, handstand
walks down one side of the floorand then walking lunges back
until you get into line.
If you have that available, setup for space, that's a great
(15:15):
way to get really tired and getexhausted and then start doing
tumbling while you're tired intoa safe spot or a pit and then
eventually that becomes a onepass routine, a two pass routine
, a sprint down or somethinglike that.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
I found that's a much safer progression and gave kids
a lot of confidence versus likeone pass then two passes, then
back-to-back tumbling yeah, yeah, I did a lot of those types of
like routines to build up cardiotoo, and I like that because it
also doesn't make me feel likethey're gonna hurt themselves.
If you're like right, the lastcouple of things that they're
doing is like more tumblingpasses on the spring floor.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Yeah, so, yeah, and in that situation, right, think
about like god forbid, someone'sreally tired, they balk at the
end of the you know tumble stripor whatever.
If the first exposure to thatis on a hard floor, that person
balks, goes to their head andgets a mental block, versus if
it's like someone tumbling anddoing something in the pit, they
balk, they just flop to thephone, pit and then life goes on
.
Generally it's a lot easier tohandle.
Um, the other thing that cameto mind that I was thinking
(16:08):
about too is a lot of my nerddeep dive work right now is on
like stress, neuro technologyand like workload management for
like papers that we're writingand stuff.
And it's just really importantto remember that all we're doing
in preseason and like season topreseason is trying to slowly
apply stress and then allow themto recover.
Slowly apply stress and recoverthat is all we do.
It's literally all ofgymnastics is like the slow
(16:30):
exposure of mental, physical andemotional stress and then you
do whatever and then you recoverand it allows you to get
stronger, faster, learn thingsand all that kind of stuff.
So in that scenario, none of thethings that you probably want
to happen in the athletes you'reworking with is going to happen
during the actual workout.
So when they do pull-upsthey're not getting stronger.
When they do sprint routines,they're not getting more
metabolically fit.
When they do all these thingsthey're not getting, like you
(16:52):
know, more confident mentally intheir skills.
All of that stuff happens whenthey go home and they have
enough time between workouts torecover.
They fuel themselves well, theydrink enough water, fuel
themselves well, they drinkenough water to take their mind
off gymnastics and they're notthinking about the stressful
event of routines and they go tobed like that, like sleep, fuel
, hydration and proper stressmanagement or schedule
management, to have time to dothings that are relaxing and
(17:13):
have fun and not think about gym.
That is literally where all ofthe best things that you want to
be stronger, faster, you know,remember your routines, mentally
toughness all that stuff comesin the off, not on the on.
And the more and more that Iread about a lot of these things
and like allostatic load andstuff, it really makes me
realize how important properwork rest ratios are and proper
environments for recovery.
(17:33):
But how does that person knowwhat to do?
How do the parents know what todo If no one ever teaches them.
You know easy to use strategiesabout sleeping and snacks and
you know hydration and stressmanagement stuff like that.
I think that that that part ofeducation for me was completely
not even on the radar when I wasgrowing up and if I had a
little bit of that I think Iwould have killed for a little
bit better education stories.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Me too.
I completely agree.
I didn't get any of that.
I feel like the way that I waslike fueling even was just so
bad, like before and afterpractice, and then I mean I was
not sleeping much either.
In high school I was practicingso long and I had an hour drive
from my gym, I was getting homeand had homework and then, yeah
, I think and there there wasn'treally an emphasis when I was a
(18:15):
gymnast about like recoveringlike I feel like everything is
like you should be sore andhurting and you're not.
You're not working hard enough.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Right, right, yeah, the proper dosage of stress and
the proper dosage of recovery ishow adaptation occurs, not just
like the proper dosage ofstress, then you work, then you
work, then you work, then youwork, then you work, then you
die.
That's just not exactly howthese things work.
I think my Achilles heel was, Ithink, nutrition for sure.
Feeling properly because againI we're talking about this in
the clinic is like my parents'generation and age, the, the
(18:44):
knowledge about what to eat andhow to eat and where to eat, was
terrible, terrible, right.
So like they, unfortunatelywe're not getting the best
message about proper feeling.
And of course, you know that waskind of my collateral whiplash,
um, but even when I was olderand I started to kind of get
more informed about fueling andstuff, mine was sleep man, mine
was sleep on the back of a lackof a like a proper schedule and
stress management.
(19:05):
You know, I'd never really useda calendar, I didn't plan stuff
in advance.
I was very much like I wake up,I go to school, I go to the gym
, I do my homework, I go to bed,but like, I think kids really
need to learn the skill of likebasic schedule management and
like understanding how to try tostay ahead of some of their
biggest like assignments orissues, and I think, if they
realize the importance of sleep,they might be more prone to not
tick, tock, scroll late atnight, but I think they they
(19:28):
don't care unless it matters totheir goals, and that's just the
reality for most people.
So, like telling someone getoff your phone, go to bed,
because you won't be tired isone thing, but when you ask them
, like what do you care about?
Like well, I want to make leveleight, it's like okay, like
what do you get that?
Like well, I have to.
We have good energy at practice.
Like all right, cool, well, thatprobably requires 30 minutes
(19:49):
earlier of bed and gettingsnacks prepped the week of to
make sure that between this busyschool to gym transition in the
car, you can eat something andyou can have it.
So like let's, let's find a wayto do this, cause that's what
matters to you, not me as yourdad or your mom barking at you
that like, oh, you should go tobed earlier.
So I think, like I wish I don'tknow, maybe I had these
resources and I was being adingo and I just wasn't
listening to people who weretrying to help me, but I feel
like I didn't have someone likereally presenting those things
(20:12):
to me in a way that mattered tome.
It was more about like I'mdoing this because this is the
right thing to do.
The research says this.
We should tell you to do this,but it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yeah, I feel like I was similar like where I got.
I felt like I just got talkedat like you get told to sleep
because it's important, butyou're like you don't really
think about it too much furtherthan that.
And I feel like I got older andstarted to understand and maybe
that's an age thing but likeyou start to really understand,
like how sleep impacts you andhow much better you can feel if
you do sleep consistently or eatwell consistently, or like
(20:47):
having the right mentors.
That kind of show you the wayis really helpful.
And I don't know how much ofthat it is an age thing or an
education thing.
It'll be interesting to see,kind of with the generation
that's coming up now becausethey have so much access to
information.
Sure, they're like the rightpeople or have the right like
mentorship or influences intheir space.
I feel like that could bereally helpful for some of the
(21:08):
younger kids and it's kind ofcrazy how little I feel like
there is education on it becausewhen you're growing,
particularly, it's so important.
That's half the equation,literally half the equation to
like with like any sort of likebone stress injury too.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yes, yeah and that was what came to mind, for me
too, is there's two.
One is that unfortunately, inmost situations sleeping,
fueling water, stress managementonly gets talked about when it
becomes a problem.
So when someone's injured, whenthey're not doing well at me,
it's when things are reallystruggling someone has some
mental health type things Thenthe conversation swoops in about
like, are you sleeping anddoing whatever?
And that kind of generally putsthings in the bucket of like
(21:49):
injuries and like kind of likemore pathology, they would say.
But I think the best thing youcan do is not make it weird and
not only talk about it whensomething's wrong, but make it a
normal, proactive part of yourculture on the performance side
of things.
And so if you kind of havethese you know annual or
biannual meetings about what areyour goals, what do you want to
accomplish, what level do youwant to do, what skills, blah,
blah, blah and your parents areinvolved in this you should use
(22:10):
all of those things as positivekind of like you know power
boosters to get those goals.
So you know, the joke in themedical community is like if you
could take a pill that wouldmake you faster, stronger,
smarter and also be able toperform at your highest level.
Would you take it?
It's like, yeah, it's like okay, well, that's sleeping for
eight hours every night.
You know it doesn't look as funas taking a pill and it's not
as easy, but a lot of thestudies show that like sleep
(22:31):
fuel, stress management,hydration is like 80% of good
recovery and good performanceand along with like workloads
and like actually doing stuff.
But I think, if you, my bestadvice to people which is my
second point is there's so manygood sources of information for
you know, sleep, nutrition,whatever you have to collect
those resources as a gym or asparents or whatever, and make
sure it's high quality,evidence-based.
If, like we've had enormousamounts of people on the podcast
(22:53):
talking about fueling andsleeping and all the important
science about it, just take likethe best of the best hits, make
a one page PDF on sleep, a onepage PDF on great snacks, a one
page PDF on hydration, a onepage PDF on stress management
and schedule managing techniquesand just put it in a binder and
just like, or like, put it inlike you know an email
newsletter and send it to yourparents, give it as a welcome
packet and they're welcomepacket, it's like there.
(23:14):
Here's the rules of the gym.
Here's the things that we agreewith when you're coming to
competitive team.
Here's the meet schedule.
Here's the Leo's.
And then here's this thing onthe back.
Gymnastics is about.
Never did gymnastics no clue.
Maybe they did it in highschool and, like their kids, are
(23:35):
now obsessed with it, like fromwhatever they're doing.
But they're just trying to takecare of their kid and make them
happy.
But oh, I have a job.
But oh, I have a partner.
But oh, I have two more kids.
But oh I, absolute hurricanefor a family of four to manage a
competitive season and try tomake sure that someone's
sleeping, eating well, as happyas doing well.
So try to try to cut out somelegwork for them and give them
(23:57):
stuff in advance, proactively,not wait till like someone's
dying and they're, you know,exhausted all the time before
you talk about these things,cause that's awkward, that's
weird, like they can single out.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Yeah, I think the gym culture around it too is really
helpful, just like yeah ifyou're I mean we I think we
talked about this in one of thelike when you're being like a
mentor or leader in the gym,like if you're living that life
like they're going to see thatand you're going to try to
replicate it.
So, even if it's it's hardsometimes to control things
going on at home and control,like you know, what the parents
(24:26):
are feeding the kid or like howthey're treating their, like
sleep hygiene and like stufflike that, it's good to educate
those things.
But it's hard to control thosethings sometimes.
But if you are living that lifeand like you're doing all those
things too and you're seeingthem four hours a day for five
to six days a week, like you'reprobably one of the best people
to like show that those thingsare working or helpful or just
(24:48):
like continuing to educate thosekids every day on that kind of
stuff.
So and I think the bite-sizedthings like you were talking
about for the parents, cause Ithink it's just super
overwhelming, especially ifeverything is true, like what
you're saying they've got otherkids and lives and work and all
the things.
Yeah, and I think small withlike the little things, like oh,
they should eat this beforepractice and they should eat
this after practice.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Like, yeah, yeah To your point like make it an
educational system.
Like we used to have like quoteof the week, tip of the day.
You know we'd always gettogether and be around the
whiteboard for lineup orwhatever.
So it was like on thewhiteboard there was also like
so many bringing a quote thatyou put top right, we'll talk
about it, it's cool.
But then, like tip of the day,like I don't should shut your
screen off, 15 minutes for bed,30 minutes for bed, or like just
(25:29):
random stuff that we would putabout like tip of the day and it
just passively gets absorbedone by one, by one that someone
does it.
And then, um, we had a publiclibrary to like books that would
people could take out and readand stuff that had cool stuff
like mind you and whatever.
So there's lots of very smallways to of the people in the
sport or the field who are liketheir heroes and they talk about
(25:51):
these things like maybe the tipof the day is something Jordan
Childs said about, you know,snacking or fueling or sleeping
or stress management or whateverSimone said about mental health
, like little things like thatwith the people they look up to,
I think are really good ways tokind of hack the system,
because a lot of times parentsand coaches are a tough, tough
delivery vehicle.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Cool man.
All right, we'll leave it there.
Keep it on 30 minutes.
People bite size.
Pun intended to our jokeearlier.
Um, but yeah, I think, uh, thepodcast submissions have been
really good.
We'll definitely do one.
We have a couple of ideas onhip stuff and whatever, but
there are other things you wantto learn about.
Um, try to comment on theSpotify podcast, the iTunes
Spotify.
Whether they have comments now,dm us on Instagram and we'll
get some more on there.
But, uh, I think this is a coollittle like routine to have
(26:30):
stuff that is useful for people.
20, 30 minutes, very basic.
It's the way to do it.
All right, have a good weekendeverybody.
Bye.
every day.
You essentially pay your duesby doing the harder thing when
it's the right thing to do.
Let's go.
Macro bar oatmeal chocolatechip.
What do you think the title isfor this?
It has a another title above ita heartwarming retreat.
My macro bar is a heartwarmingretreat of oatmeal chocolate
(00:26):
chip.
I was just so shook I just tookthe box out and I was like what
?
I just want a bar, not aheartwarming retreat.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
I mean I'm gonna make you think it tastes better
because of your heartwarmingexperience that you might know
you had it view my macro I'm now.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
I'm very curious of what the other flavors are.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
If like there's like another there are other cute
little titles.
Yeah, right, like uh thereshould be like a.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Like.
A fuzzy journey is like mintchocolate chip or something um
anywho, all right, back inaction for this week so what you
gotta report back next weekwith the new one, oh yeah
every week we need a new flavoryeah, I will be chomping during
the podcast.
I'm starving.
But the last two weeks havebeen pretty thick medical things
, back pain, labor repairs, allthat kind of jazz.
(01:08):
But zoom out a bit and kind ofget to something that is not as
nerdy and dense.
But the time that this comes outis going to be like end of
August and we're going into fall, which is typically when, like,
school starts, people go backand it's just like I don't know
my opinion when I was coachingand you know now cause you're
still coached, but like I feellike this is like gray area
where I don't really think aboutlike routines or like all that
(01:30):
kind of stuff.
And then, like you snap yourfingers and the first week it's
like two weeks away and you'relike, oh crap, I have to do
routines.
You know, I always find thatthat like lack of awareness
maybe all of a sudden creeps upon you and then people just like
ramp up super hard and they get, uh, unfortunate workload
related shin splints, back pain,knee pain, wrist stuff.
So, um, yeah, we just want tochat about you know how do we
transition?
(01:50):
You hear that hail outside mywindow.
Yeah, that's a golf ball ad,it's finest right now.
Um, just want to chat aboutlike, how do you prep for the
next eight weeks?
So like going from the lastweek of the last month of summer
to the first month of fall,which for us in the states is
like end of off season, into thepre-season, which eventually
(02:11):
becomes beats in season.
So, yeah, we'll let you gofirst because you're still in
the trenches a bit coaching, butwhat are your thoughts?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I think the most important thing probably is just
making sure that you're notoverloading them like too much
at the beginning, because notonly are they ramping back up to
they're getting ready for theirmeat schedule, but they're also
like back in school and they'relike not going to be sleeping
and their eating schedule isgoing to be different and
they're also probably sadbecause they have to go back to
school.
So I feel like there's justlike a lot of other things that
(02:39):
are going on in their life.
So just like making sure thatyou're there for them from a
support standpoint and notpushing them too hard past their
limits If they are reallyexhausted and tired in those
like first couple of weeks wherethey're like transitioning back
to their normal schedule.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Totally agree.
I think Eva, who ran theprogramming and one of my
friends, was always very smartthat the first week back to
school was like our week off.
So she knew that, like classwas starting, sleep schedule was
not going to be the same.
Parents are trying to figureout a new schedule going back to
work or whatever, along withdropping their kids off.
Practice times are different.
There's a lot of hurricane typemoments that go through that
first week.
(03:12):
I was laughing as you weresaying that, because when I hear
that I treat Maya, she'll be asenior next year and the
temperature was like 90 aroundhere and it dropped to like 82
or like 80 last week and she wassad and I was like why are you
sad?
She's like it's getting colder.
I had to wear a sweatshirt,which means it's going to be
fall soon.
I have to go back to school andI was like what in your brain
(03:34):
says that 82 and breezy is cold?
but she said colder, so she'slike ready for the yeah, uv
index of 11 needs a peak tan isthe mode of maya right now.
But I was just likehysterically laughing.
I was like how did your braingo to like school and sleep, not
being able to sleep after likea five degree weather shift?
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Man 82 sounds nice, it has been 80 and breezy
Gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, I've ducked so many people.
I have my Wrangler back now.
I've ducked so many people,okay.
So I view this as three months.
The preseason is three months.
If you account for two weeks oflike adjusting to school,
you're kind of left with twofive-week cycles.
So I generally would programlike this is you think about all
right, once we get back afterthe end of August, start of
(04:19):
September, for maybe the middleof September, october, november,
you know you probably havearound three months before in
the club side they start doinglike their first meet.
Generally there's like an innersquad for college teams, elites,
a little bit different, butgenerally you're going to have
like 10 weeks to work with whereyou're going to ramp somebody
up from the point of they'vedone zero routine like things to
(04:39):
somebody who can do a basic setin front of a judge.
So I kind of few.
I have like four buckets I tendto look at when I consult with
people.
So one is going to be like thestrength and conditioning side
of like what are you trainingfor?
You're training for strength,power, speed, whatever the
summer really should be your,your 12 weeks of summer is
majority focused on gettingreally strong.
(05:00):
The only time you're going tohave to like get your legs
stronger, get your arms stronger, really build up your overall
like strength capacity is inthose eight weeks.
So hopefully that has been doneand it's going to continue to
be done for a little bit longer.
But generally speaking, youstart to move your focus more
towards like explosive bodyweight power, so like probably
still doing some cross training,but much more of it is focused
on like three to fiverepetitions, maximal effort,
(05:23):
broad jumps, box jumps, sledpushes, med ball slams, you know
like plyos, like getting theirbody ready to handle explosive
bouts.
You want to move from thatstrength to that power bucket
right.
Similarly, the second bucket Itend to look at is like their
cardio programming and liketheir metabolic capacity is like
in the summer it's pretty muchmore aerobic general base, just
kind of getting somebody overallfitter.
You know in the cross trainingit's like a zone two, but then
(05:46):
in somebody who's doingconditioning and stuff it's
generally these longer circuitsof 20 minutes or so.
But you also want to putsomebody into the 60 to 90
second.
You know kind of face meltingoh my God, I'm dying.
Bucket.
I strongly encourage people dothat with non-gymnastic settings
first, so like a bike or a sledor a med ball or some sort of
non uh dangerous um, itshouldn't be tumbling, shouldn't
(06:09):
be doing like endurance sets onbars just yet, because if
someone's not readymetabolically it's very easy for
an accident to happen wheresomebody does like someone's
doing a tumble down or somethingand land short and rolls her
ankle or bust her ankle.
They're out for a month.
So I tend to do it with likesleds, bikes, uh, med balls,
just generalized cardio to getsomebody ready for that interval
before regular um skills uhobviously would go towards
(06:30):
combinations which then becomelike basic sets alongside
endurance sets.
And then the fourth bucket isthat's the third bucket is like
gymnastic stuff.
The third bucket is generallyyou want to get somebody
over-prepared on a prehab andkind of physical preparation
side.
So trying to ramp up like theirprehab, trying to ramp up a lot
of their education on how muchdo I sleep, how much do I fuel,
hydration, all that kind ofstuff.
(06:50):
Um, that's generally the fourbuckets that I approach.
I'm not sure if you have anydifferent there.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Not really.
No, I feel like I have likePTSD from like first started,
like getting ready for routinesand we would do like sprint
routines routines so sprintroutines.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Like on your last pass, of being like you just
take the wheel.
There's no amount of cardio youcan do.
That prepares you for a floorteam.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
No, I agree.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
It is funny.
I was talking to somebody lastyear about, like, what types of
endurance is the most relevant?
What matters and it seems asthough the research supports
that to get somebody ready for asuccessful season, a high
chronic workload of floorroutines is really the most
important right, because flooris the most metabolically
demanding and it takes the mostout of you.
But when you train for it itobviously bleeds over a bit
(07:39):
positively to other areas of you.
Know the sport.
So like, if your overallendurance is high enough to
tolerate floor routines, twofloor routines, you know the
sport.
So like, if your overallendurance is high enough to
tolerate floor routines, twofloor routines, you're probably
okay to do a beam routine or a,you know, palm horse team.
The only caveat I would saythere is that the context,
specific nature of gymnastics isthat upper body events are
upper body medically demanding.
So like you can't only do lowerbody leg circuits of you know
(08:02):
plyos and stuff like that andleg circuits, and expect
someone's bar routine to getbetter.
You have to sometimes put inproper dosage of like jump, cast
hands on the floor or push-upsor handstand holds or stuff to
help their upper body be thething that's working while the
rest of their body is bufferingfatigue.
You know?
I mean, I think I didn't reallyum appreciate that when I was
growing up.
I just always just do like legtype stuff and hope that it
(08:23):
transferred over.
And floor was good, vault wasgood, but palm walls, p bars,
high bar, not so much yeah,definitely, especially for men's
gymnastics because, it's somuch more upper body focused yep
.
What did you guys do for cardiogrowing up?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
what was like the most basic cardio you could
think of you're doing a lot ofmat pushes but like a lot of
like jumps up and down.
Oh my god, jumping on the resimat was the worst one they'd
like for like a minute.
You would like jump down on theresume.
My legs would be burning so badyeah we did like sprint
routines, we did like suicidesquite a lot too um, I think I
(09:03):
was saying yeah, I would generalI think I don't know if we did.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
We talk about this in the episode about like running
versus plyos and my cardio wasthat with you?
No no I'm aware somewhere Italked about this but yeah I
would strongly discourage peoplefrom doing running as their
main form of cardio,particularly long distance
running.
So outdoor long distancerunning or running around the
floor here and there for a romp,I make sense.
(09:28):
But if that is your mainapproach to cardio, like run and
sprint, run and sprint, that isaerobic conditioning.
It is very much aerobicconditioning and um, that um
you're trying to think about,like what are you trying to get
somebody ready for, is like a 60to 90 second maximal effort
burst with maybe some pauses inbetween, but like that does not
really condition somebody forthat.
(09:49):
On the other side of that, Istrongly discourage using like
the classic plyo panel mat linesor like the plyo circuits,
because that also is notanaerobic at all.
That is aerobic long distance,you know, like slow, like
someone's hot and sweaty, butthey're not really getting
metabolic efficiency.
Oh, I talked about this withDuesch the week that you were
away.
That's what it is there.
Yeah, that's, duesch came onand talked about this, so
(10:11):
reference that episode.
But um, plyos have a veryspecific prescription they
should be doing which is likethree to five up to 10 of like
explosive bouts and veryspecific context.
Settings of like broad jumpsand box jumps or polo hops or
single leg balance or stuff likethat.
Up and down panel mats for 10minutes is not really getting a
(10:32):
plyo workout and it's also notreally getting a good cardio
workout.
So it's kind of what we referto as just junk mileage.
I don't mean that to hurtsomeone's feelings, because I
literally did that my entirelife growing up, coaching, um.
But when you get into the worldof learning about cardio and
learning about power andlearning about plyos, um,
there's different buckets thatare required to train those
things properly.
So, yeah, please do not do justendless 20 minute panel mat
lines or jogging, you know.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yeah, I think.
Um, I don't.
I'm trying to think about whatmy gyms had.
I know the gyms that I coachedat in North Carolina didn't have
any like bikes or likeellipticals or like anything
that could have been like asecond form of cardio.
Like, I feel like if you hadthe like, if a gym had a
financial capability of likebuying other cardio equipment,
that could be really helpful,cause you can do like, even if
(11:14):
it was like a rower or like abike or a good address.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Bikes are amazing, bro Right.
Bikes are so useful becausethey have upper body component
too.
That's why a lot of bikes cando like assault bikes yeah, ski
erg.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Like I feel like there's so many like other
options that you could have, butI've I've never had any of that
stuff growing up and I didn'thave it in the gyms I coached in
either to be fair, I think theeducation was lacking.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
You know the research and education that was lacking,
so I'm not going to fault mycoach, but there's definitely a
time and a place for sprints.
I think sprints are veryrelevant sometimes if you want
to get somebody faster, to runbetter for a ball or whatever.
But we used to do sets of 10sprints or no.
Yeah, we would do sets of 10sprints down this like 50 yard
patch, and then we would also,on alternating days, do like a
(12:01):
long 20 minute run or 30 minuterun.
So I think the intentions weregood, but the needs analysis was
lacking.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Yeah, I think we're.
I was kind of on the same boatwith, like the coaching that I
got and it's.
It is challenging if you don'thave the education behind it to
understand like what you'retraining for.
I mean, I don't hold it againstany of my coaches or anything,
but in addition to like therunning, like if that's what
you're doing for your cardio andit's all like running or
sprinting, and then you're doinglike a bunch of flyers, like
(12:31):
the impact that you're puttingon these kids in addition to all
of their like tumbling anddrills is so great, like where,
if you could give them theoption of doing like a bike or a
different type of cardio, thenthat would be a good option and
it would decrease the impactthat they're getting, which
would hopefully decrease, likesome of those overuse injuries
that you're getting.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Yeah, running is just hopping on one leg.
Right, you're literally jumpingon one leg and oftentimes be
doing it like on concrete orasphalt.
It's putting a lot of stress ontheir already kind of
overworked whatever shin backpatellar tendon, like you said.
And the other thing I think toois, you know, offering some
alternative solutions, of course, but the approach that I think
you should take is that I thinkif you're in the gym, you know
(13:10):
two days you should do strengthboth days.
Gym three days should be liketwo hard days, one light day.
If you're in the gym, four daysmaybe it's like three, one and
then one, I don't know.
But like, generally speaking,if you're in the two to three
days per week bucket, it'scompulsory, it's a little like
not as competitive, so like youcan condition every day and it's
totally fine.
But once you get into like fourdays, five days, six days, you
(13:30):
have to be very intelligentabout, like, what you're doing
and on what days.
And I would encourage people totry to go for the four days per
week and have two days that aremore cross-training effort and
two days that are a bit moregymnastic specific.
So cross training can be alittle bit of power work a
little bit of like dumbbell typestuff, a little bit of like
more general plyometrics andkind of like core shaping and
stuff.
But then also, maybe that's theday that you do some like
(13:52):
explosive, like 10 minutes oflike 60 to 90 seconds.
You know, the most classic one Iused to use was like uh, 30
seconds of um med ball slams, 30seconds of jump, cast
handstands on the floor and then30 seconds of max effort sled,
uh, pushing, and if you'rereally selling your soul, that
is a hard 90 seconds to gothrough.
And then you rest while threeteammates go.
(14:13):
So it's a one to four ratio andyou do five rounds of that.
It's a pretty good 90.
Most people can do that if theyhave access to a floor and a
couple like blocks.
So I would do that.
And then on um bars we would dolike bardio, which is like
spotted kip kassian stands forthree plus or minus in bars and
then jump the high bar, lowerlevels would tap, swing to a
dismount, or higher levels wouldkip kassian stand giants to a
(14:33):
dismount.
And then they would go do um,10 push-ups, 10 med ball slams,
three max effort, vault, runwaysprints and it kind of mimics a
whole body demand.
You go and you chalk up and youknow, slowly die inside between
the nine you have to get backup and do it again.
But that's like a good event,specific way to get cardio after
you've laid that base down andI found that a few weeks of
those was super duper helpful tohelp somebody get, uh, mentally
(14:53):
ready to do gymnastics whenthey're tired.
But it's all basics and thenphysically ready, um, to kind of
do like the lower extremitystuff, the floor equivalent of
bardia.
When you're done is liketumbling into a rod strip, into
a pit, front tumbling pass, runback back, tumbling pass and
then do broad jumps down oneside of the floor, handstand
walks down one side of the floorand then walking lunges back
until you get into line.
If you have that available, setup for space, that's a great
(15:15):
way to get really tired and getexhausted and then start doing
tumbling while you're tired intoa safe spot or a pit and then
eventually that becomes a onepass routine, a two pass routine
, a sprint down or somethinglike that.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
I found that's a much safer progression and gave kids
a lot of confidence versus likeone pass then two passes, then
back-to-back tumbling yeah, yeah, I did a lot of those types of
like routines to build up cardiotoo, and I like that because it
also doesn't make me feel likethey're gonna hurt themselves.
If you're like right, the lastcouple of things that they're
doing is like more tumblingpasses on the spring floor.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Yeah, so, yeah, and in that situation, right, think
about like god forbid, someone'sreally tired, they balk at the
end of the you know tumble stripor whatever.
If the first exposure to thatis on a hard floor, that person
balks, goes to their head andgets a mental block, versus if
it's like someone tumbling anddoing something in the pit, they
balk, they just flop to thephone, pit and then life goes on
.
Generally it's a lot easier tohandle.
Um, the other thing that cameto mind that I was thinking
(16:08):
about too is a lot of my nerddeep dive work right now is on
like stress, neuro technologyand like workload management for
like papers that we're writingand stuff.
And it's just really importantto remember that all we're doing
in preseason and like season topreseason is trying to slowly
apply stress and then allow themto recover.
Slowly apply stress and recoverthat is all we do.
It's literally all ofgymnastics is like the slow
(16:30):
exposure of mental, physical andemotional stress and then you
do whatever and then you recoverand it allows you to get
stronger, faster, learn thingsand all that kind of stuff.
So in that scenario, none of thethings that you probably want
to happen in the athletes you'reworking with is going to happen
during the actual workout.
So when they do pull-upsthey're not getting stronger.
When they do sprint routines,they're not getting more
metabolically fit.
When they do all these thingsthey're not getting, like you
(16:52):
know, more confident mentally intheir skills.
All of that stuff happens whenthey go home and they have
enough time between workouts torecover.
They fuel themselves well, theydrink enough water, fuel
themselves well, they drinkenough water to take their mind
off gymnastics and they're notthinking about the stressful
event of routines and they go tobed like that, like sleep, fuel
, hydration and proper stressmanagement or schedule
management, to have time to dothings that are relaxing and
(17:13):
have fun and not think about gym.
That is literally where all ofthe best things that you want to
be stronger, faster, you know,remember your routines, mentally
toughness all that stuff comesin the off, not on the on.
And the more and more that Iread about a lot of these things
and like allostatic load andstuff, it really makes me
realize how important properwork rest ratios are and proper
environments for recovery.
(17:33):
But how does that person knowwhat to do?
How do the parents know what todo If no one ever teaches them.
You know easy to use strategiesabout sleeping and snacks and
you know hydration and stressmanagement stuff like that.
I think that that that part ofeducation for me was completely
not even on the radar when I wasgrowing up and if I had a
little bit of that I think Iwould have killed for a little
bit better education stories.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Me too.
I completely agree.
I didn't get any of that.
I feel like the way that I waslike fueling even was just so
bad, like before and afterpractice, and then I mean I was
not sleeping much either.
In high school I was practicingso long and I had an hour drive
from my gym, I was getting homeand had homework and then, yeah
, I think and there there wasn'treally an emphasis when I was a
(18:15):
gymnast about like recoveringlike I feel like everything is
like you should be sore andhurting and you're not.
You're not working hard enough.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Right, right, yeah, the proper dosage of stress and
the proper dosage of recovery ishow adaptation occurs, not just
like the proper dosage ofstress, then you work, then you
work, then you work, then youwork, then you work, then you
die.
That's just not exactly howthese things work.
I think my Achilles heel was, Ithink, nutrition for sure.
Feeling properly because againI we're talking about this in
the clinic is like my parents'generation and age, the, the
(18:44):
knowledge about what to eat andhow to eat and where to eat, was
terrible, terrible, right.
So like they, unfortunatelywe're not getting the best
message about proper feeling.
And of course, you know that waskind of my collateral whiplash,
um, but even when I was olderand I started to kind of get
more informed about fueling andstuff, mine was sleep man, mine
was sleep on the back of a lackof a like a proper schedule and
stress management.
(19:05):
You know, I'd never really useda calendar, I didn't plan stuff
in advance.
I was very much like I wake up,I go to school, I go to the gym
, I do my homework, I go to bed,but like, I think kids really
need to learn the skill of likebasic schedule management and
like understanding how to try tostay ahead of some of their
biggest like assignments orissues, and I think, if they
realize the importance of sleep,they might be more prone to not
tick, tock, scroll late atnight, but I think they they
(19:28):
don't care unless it matters totheir goals, and that's just the
reality for most people.
So, like telling someone getoff your phone, go to bed,
because you won't be tired isone thing, but when you ask them
, like what do you care about?
Like well, I want to make leveleight, it's like okay, like
what do you get that?
Like well, I have to.
We have good energy at practice.
Like all right, cool, well, thatprobably requires 30 minutes
(19:49):
earlier of bed and gettingsnacks prepped the week of to
make sure that between this busyschool to gym transition in the
car, you can eat something andyou can have it.
So like let's, let's find a wayto do this, cause that's what
matters to you, not me as yourdad or your mom barking at you
that like, oh, you should go tobed earlier.
So I think, like I wish I don'tknow, maybe I had these
resources and I was being adingo and I just wasn't
listening to people who weretrying to help me, but I feel
like I didn't have someone likereally presenting those things
(20:12):
to me in a way that mattered tome.
It was more about like I'mdoing this because this is the
right thing to do.
The research says this.
We should tell you to do this,but it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yeah, I feel like I was similar like where I got.
I felt like I just got talkedat like you get told to sleep
because it's important, butyou're like you don't really
think about it too much furtherthan that.
And I feel like I got older andstarted to understand and maybe
that's an age thing but likeyou start to really understand,
like how sleep impacts you andhow much better you can feel if
you do sleep consistently or eatwell consistently, or like
(20:47):
having the right mentors.
That kind of show you the wayis really helpful.
And I don't know how much ofthat it is an age thing or an
education thing.
It'll be interesting to see,kind of with the generation
that's coming up now becausethey have so much access to
information.
Sure, they're like the rightpeople or have the right like
mentorship or influences intheir space.
I feel like that could bereally helpful for some of the
(21:08):
younger kids and it's kind ofcrazy how little I feel like
there is education on it becausewhen you're growing,
particularly, it's so important.
That's half the equation,literally half the equation to
like with like any sort of likebone stress injury too.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yes, yeah and that was what came to mind, for me
too, is there's two.
One is that unfortunately, inmost situations sleeping,
fueling water, stress managementonly gets talked about when it
becomes a problem.
So when someone's injured, whenthey're not doing well at me,
it's when things are reallystruggling someone has some
mental health type things Thenthe conversation swoops in about
like, are you sleeping anddoing whatever?
And that kind of generally putsthings in the bucket of like
(21:49):
injuries and like kind of likemore pathology, they would say.
But I think the best thing youcan do is not make it weird and
not only talk about it whensomething's wrong, but make it a
normal, proactive part of yourculture on the performance side
of things.
And so if you kind of havethese you know annual or
biannual meetings about what areyour goals, what do you want to
accomplish, what level do youwant to do, what skills, blah,
blah, blah and your parents areinvolved in this you should use
(22:10):
all of those things as positivekind of like you know power
boosters to get those goals.
So you know, the joke in themedical community is like if you
could take a pill that wouldmake you faster, stronger,
smarter and also be able toperform at your highest level.
Would you take it?
It's like, yeah, it's like okay, well, that's sleeping for
eight hours every night.
You know it doesn't look as funas taking a pill and it's not
as easy, but a lot of thestudies show that like sleep
(22:31):
fuel, stress management,hydration is like 80% of good
recovery and good performanceand along with like workloads
and like actually doing stuff.
But I think, if you, my bestadvice to people which is my
second point is there's so manygood sources of information for
you know, sleep, nutrition,whatever you have to collect
those resources as a gym or asparents or whatever, and make
sure it's high quality,evidence-based.
If, like we've had enormousamounts of people on the podcast
(22:53):
talking about fueling andsleeping and all the important
science about it, just take likethe best of the best hits, make
a one page PDF on sleep, a onepage PDF on great snacks, a one
page PDF on hydration, a onepage PDF on stress management
and schedule managing techniquesand just put it in a binder and
just like, or like, put it inlike you know an email
newsletter and send it to yourparents, give it as a welcome
packet and they're welcomepacket, it's like there.
(23:14):
Here's the rules of the gym.
Here's the things that we agreewith when you're coming to
competitive team.
Here's the meet schedule.
Here's the Leo's.
And then here's this thing onthe back.
Gymnastics is about.
Never did gymnastics no clue.
Maybe they did it in highschool and, like their kids, are
(23:35):
now obsessed with it, like fromwhatever they're doing.
But they're just trying to takecare of their kid and make them
happy.
But oh, I have a job.
But oh, I have a partner.
But oh, I have two more kids.
But oh I, absolute hurricanefor a family of four to manage a
competitive season and try tomake sure that someone's
sleeping, eating well, as happyas doing well.
So try to try to cut out somelegwork for them and give them
(23:57):
stuff in advance, proactively,not wait till like someone's
dying and they're, you know,exhausted all the time before
you talk about these things,cause that's awkward, that's
weird, like they can single out.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Yeah, I think the gym culture around it too is really
helpful, just like yeah ifyou're I mean we I think we
talked about this in one of thelike when you're being like a
mentor or leader in the gym,like if you're living that life
like they're going to see thatand you're going to try to
replicate it.
So, even if it's it's hardsometimes to control things
going on at home and control,like you know, what the parents
(24:26):
are feeding the kid or like howthey're treating their, like
sleep hygiene and like stufflike that, it's good to educate
those things.
But it's hard to control thosethings sometimes.
But if you are living that lifeand like you're doing all those
things too and you're seeingthem four hours a day for five
to six days a week, like you'reprobably one of the best people
to like show that those thingsare working or helpful or just
(24:48):
like continuing to educate thosekids every day on that kind of
stuff.
So and I think the bite-sizedthings like you were talking
about for the parents, cause Ithink it's just super
overwhelming, especially ifeverything is true, like what
you're saying they've got otherkids and lives and work and all
the things.
Yeah, and I think small withlike the little things, like oh,
they should eat this beforepractice and they should eat
this after practice.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Like, yeah, yeah To your point like make it an
educational system.
Like we used to have like quoteof the week, tip of the day.
You know we'd always gettogether and be around the
whiteboard for lineup orwhatever.
So it was like on thewhiteboard there was also like
so many bringing a quote thatyou put top right, we'll talk
about it, it's cool.
But then, like tip of the day,like I don't should shut your
screen off, 15 minutes for bed,30 minutes for bed, or like just
(25:29):
random stuff that we would putabout like tip of the day and it
just passively gets absorbedone by one, by one that someone
does it.
And then, um, we had a publiclibrary to like books that would
people could take out and readand stuff that had cool stuff
like mind you and whatever.
So there's lots of very smallways to of the people in the
sport or the field who are liketheir heroes and they talk about
(25:51):
these things like maybe the tipof the day is something Jordan
Childs said about, you know,snacking or fueling or sleeping
or stress management or whateverSimone said about mental health
, like little things like thatwith the people they look up to,
I think are really good ways tokind of hack the system,
because a lot of times parentsand coaches are a tough, tough
delivery vehicle.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Cool man.
All right, we'll leave it there.
Keep it on 30 minutes.
People bite size.
Pun intended to our jokeearlier.
Um, but yeah, I think, uh, thepodcast submissions have been
really good.
We'll definitely do one.
We have a couple of ideas onhip stuff and whatever, but
there are other things you wantto learn about.
Um, try to comment on theSpotify podcast, the iTunes
Spotify.
Whether they have comments now,dm us on Instagram and we'll
get some more on there.
But, uh, I think this is a coollittle like routine to have
(26:30):
stuff that is useful for people.
20, 30 minutes, very basic.
It's the way to do it.
All right, have a good weekendeverybody.
Bye.
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