Bonus Episode: The Next Four Years: Compete, Win & Thrive in College Sports w/ Angelo Gingerelli

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Angelo Gingerelli brings 20 years of collegiate strength coaching wisdom to our first-ever guest episode, offering hard-earned lessons from his time at Seton Hall and beyond. He challenges the constant job-hopping in the industry, emphasizing the value of building roots, relationships, and revenue streams. We dive into early sport specialization, with Angelo dropping gems like, "Everybody wants to sell a single-arm dumbbell bench press on a physio ball to people who can't do push-ups yet." He shares how strength programs should be structured, the role of tech in training, and advice from his book The Next Four Years to help athletes transition to college sports. This episode is packed with insight for coaches, parents, and athletes alike.

Connect with Angelo:

@mr5thround

LinkedIn: Angelo Gingerelli 

Book: The Next Four Years: Compete, Win & Thrive in College Sports

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Welcome to the Lex Talk Strength Podcast, where we
discuss programming, sharecoaching insights and dive deep
into everything.
Strength training.
Today's guest is AngeloGingerelli, known as Mr Fifth
Round on Instagram.
Angelo is a strength andconditioning coach for over 20
years, author, public speakerand the New Jersey NSCA State

(00:49):
Director.
Angelo also is the author ofthe Next Four Years Compete, win
and Thrive in College Sports.
Angelo, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Tony Nate man.
Thank you guys.
I'm super excited about thistoday.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
You are actually the first guest we've had on.
It's only been me, nate andNicky for a while and I think
this is going to be the mostappropriate for bringing the
guest on with your experience,your knowledge and also your
deep dive into becoming anauthor.
For most people that listen tothe podcast, that maybe haven't
come across your page oranything, can you give the

(01:23):
listeners a little bit ofinformation of how you got into
strength training and kind ofwhere you're at today?

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Absolutely so.
I grew up at the Jersey Shore.
If anybody watched that MTVshow, the Jersey Shore, that's
the town I grew up in, so I grewup right at the beach In the
90s.
I just got super lucky.
I went to a public high schoolthat had a strength coach.
That's a rare thing at the time.
It's not super common on theEast Coast now I know some
states it is, but I just luckedout, man.
I went to the weight room to getbetter at sports, like a lot of

(01:50):
kids do, and I just fell inlove with training.
And the strength coach was areally great guy named Ron
DeVito, who I'm still in touchwith about once a month we talk
now and then you know that wasright about the time where
exercise, science, kinesiologyit was kind of major to becoming
more popular and it was justthe right time to jump into the
profession.
And again, now it's much more.
You know it's a billion dollarindustry now, late nineties,

(02:12):
early two thousands.
It was.
It was a thing, but not like itis now and I was lucky enough
to get in pretty early on thatand and be one of the first
people to pursue collegetraining and conditioning as a
as a full-time career.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
So, as you got into this um kind of what was your
first gig coming out intouniversity and things like that
when did you end up first?

Speaker 2 (02:32):
coming out into university and things like that.
Where did you end up first?
Yeah, so I went to undergraduniversity of delaware.
I interned there and then got adegree in exercise science from
there.
I was a grad assistant atvirginia tech uh, two years
working in the weight room, gota master's degree in health
promotions from there.
My first job was north torontostate university for a couple
years and obviously I got superlucky.
Our baseball program just didreally good when I was there,
which led to a job at thePittsburgh Pirates Did that for

(02:54):
one season and then in 2005, Iwas able to move back home to
New Jersey, get a job at SetonHall University and I've been
there for 20 years.
So I don't know if you or thelisteners know, but 20 years in
college athletics isn't a turn.
Nobody does that in one place.
But I just got lucky.
I'm from Jersey.
I had seen all starter jacketsas a kid.
I grew up a fan and got to makethat a big part of my life and
be a part of that, and then kindof stuff you alluded to before

(03:17):
NCA, state director, author, allthat other stuff.
I think one thing our professiondoesn't do well, at least on
the collegiate side of things.
We don't pay coaches enough,right?
So people are always jumpingfrom job to job trying to move
up, make $3,000 more here, butyou're moving five states away
to do it.
Get a better logo on your dryfitter underarm, which I think

(03:37):
is a value to that.
But one thing I would say is bystaying in one place for 20
years I kind of stopped growingup career-wise.
But I definitely grew out anddid a lot more things outside of
the weight room that I don'tthink I'd be able to do if I was
moving from job to job everythree or four years.
So again, I always look at youknow career-wise as a tourist.
Versus the hair.
I took the tourist approach.
But I think I've done some coolthings in the last 20 years

(03:59):
that have worked out pretty goodthat if I just kept bouncing
from job to job trying to make acouple of grand more each place
, I probably wouldn't be able todo and create.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
Yeah, I uh anybody listening to this podcast just
starting to hear you talk.
They're like that guy's fromjersey it's written all over me.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
There's no way I can.
Um.
That's why some people like Imean I got the seat on, I feel
like I was back home.
They're like, oh really likethere's no question about it.
So I just kind of kind of leaninto it at this point me and
nate.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
we go to different.
We do workshops, uh, we'recoaching clients.
I'm a physical educationteacher, that's my main job and
I feel like we're always kind ofbouncing around and doing a
bunch of different things.
Nate, like how is it?
You know for you, because youhave a full time job as well and
you coach on the side.

Speaker 3 (04:46):
Yeah, so it's it's.
It's cool hearing that, angelo,like I, like that.
You said you, you know at leaststicking to a place I wanted
them to see.
Maybe you can elaborate on thata little bit more.
Like, uh, like, what do you?
What do you mean by like, youknow, in 20 years, what did you
get to do there that would youknow?
Kind of expand what expandedyour career there for 20 years?
Right?

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Great question.
So I'd say that right away whenI got there I offered a chance
to do some guest lectures andsome lab instruction which got
me involved in the academic sideof things, which over 20 years
turned into adjunct teaching anddoing a bunch of lectures and
kind of the workshop stuff youdo, which I just didn't I guess.
I knew it was a thing but nevergot invited into that world
until I was at a college for acouple of years, right, and that

(05:29):
I guess kind of big picture ledto writing a couple of books
and doing the book publicitytour stuff and kind of getting
out there as much as I can.
And then I got elected, I guessthree years ago now, to be the
New Jersey State Director of theNSCA, which involves putting on
a couple of big events a yearand being a part of like event
promotion, planning, producingevents, booking speakers stuff
like that.
So again, I think you got toget really good at the weight

(05:53):
room, at coaching and gettingyour clients better and writing
programming.
That's going to be first foreverybody career-wise.
And then once you get good atthat, then you can kind of
branch out into it might bebeing an author, it might be
speaking.
It might be a podcast.
All those things are.
Youtube channel, all goodoptions, right, but I think you
got to take care of the basicsfirst get good at our craft and
then kind of get good at someother things around it.

(06:13):
Because one thing I think, andI'm not sure how you guys deal
with your clients, but we have250 student-athletes at CNY
University.
It's a small athleticdepartment with 13 varsity
sports.
Right, I think I've done a goodjob for a long time with 250
kids a year.
But if you want to amplify yourvoice we live in a great time

(06:36):
right, you can have a day job asa phys ed teacher, strength
coach, whatever you guys aredoing.
But you can have a podcast thatgets a million downloads, you
can have a YouTube channel witha hundred thousand subscribers.
And you know, I think a lot oftimes you keep thinking about
how do you monetize?
How do you monetize?
That's important.
We all got to eat, we got tobuy clothes, pay our bills I'm
the last guy to say money's notimportant.
But then, on our side of thingsand the fitness side of things,
if you're really trying toimpact lives, we've never had a
better time to do that.
Right.
Everybody can have a megaphoneand get good information out

(06:57):
there and help more people thanliterally any other time in
human history.
So again, I think we live in acool time to do stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (07:04):
Money isn't everything, but it's up there
with oxygen.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
You know what?
Actually, the joke I alwaysmake make to people is everybody
that tells you money isn'teverything, is already rich.
Money is not everything.
When you're driving a jaguar,when you're in the nissan like I
am, I'm in nissan maybe moneydoes matter.
You know what I mean.
Hey guys, I really liked yourepisode a while ago on the hot
takes on fitness.
I really enjoyed that.

(07:28):
It actually got me doing somekettlebell front squats again,
which which I haven't done in awhile.
Great exercise, but here's ahot take.
We all agree, recovery isimportant, right, but do you
find that everybody tells you togo to bed and get 12 hours of
sleep at night?
He's already wealthy, right?
Lebron James sleeps 12 hours ina hundred-hour chamber.
He's got $600 billion.

(07:48):
Of course, he's sleeping a lot.
If you're grinding, you'retrying to do something.
If you're sleeping a lot morethan four or five hours a night,
I'll sleep.
When I'm rich, when I have acar with leather interior, I'm
going to bed every night at 8 pm.
Until then, I got to wake up ateight on a Sunday and do this
podcast and sell more books,because my daughter got a little
repayment due next month.
She's making a travel team andshe's starting to get this
before old age.

(08:09):
We're gonna go buy some perfumeand makeup.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
Let's go I think I've heard you say this.
You were saying something alongthe lines of, uh, angelo, about
you know, if I'm, if I'm notwith my family and I'm not at
work, if, if I have thisdowntime, like how am I going?
Like, every, every moment Ithat I have time, I'm going to
figure out a way to make money,whether that's writing books,

(08:33):
whether that's um, programming,private sector things like that.
And that's the reality oftraining and where we're at,
because there are the power fiveschools right, they have some
of those strength coaches are on$500,000 a year contracts,
maybe more.
But then sometimes you havethat one strength coach for that

(08:55):
D3 school or wherever, andthey're making $50,000 a year,
getting up at I don't know, 6 am, maybe earlier, and then they
got every single team and thenthey're not going to bed until
like 10 o'clock at night.
And that's five, six days aweek.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
Yeah, it's hard.
It's a hard profession.
That's why I marvel at guyslike both of you and your other
host that's in Portugal, notwith us today but that you've
made a living out of doing thisand created enough value that
your clients value what you do,enough to consistently pay you.
Listen to your podcast fromyour speaking.
I think it's a great thing.
I think it's awesome.
I think more young coaches needto learn that, because we're

(09:30):
going to be realistic for everypower five school man or woman
making close to a milliondollars, there's literally 50
people scrambling to makeminimum wage in the fitness
industry, right.
So I think you got to be alittle creative more creative
than ever before and find waysto get your voice out there,

(10:11):
build your brand to use a clicheand make some money doing what
we're doing.
Because if you're involved inthis, you love to train, that
should be a given right, but atsome point to monetize that is a
whole different thing and noteverybody's great at it.
So I think you got to put yourtime in and figure out where
your lane is and figure out youknow the combination of what you
love to do and what people willpay you to do, and find that

(10:32):
happy spot in between.
It just seems like you guyshave done a great job at it,
from what I can see.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
Yeah, I think we're living.
We're really lucky.
You know this industry, likeyou said, angela.
I mean you were, you're inthere in the beginning, right,
Like you were in there when thisstuff is starting to pick up.
We're in it.
We're in a spot now where theindustry is growing and there's
just so many ways you can likereally expand this now, right,
there's so many ways we cantouch people and work with
people.
You know, I want to ask youthis.

(10:57):
I'm going to kind of steer thisa little bit what do you think
are the biggest mistakes you seefor high school or even
collegiate athletes making inthe weight room?

Speaker 2 (11:09):
Perfect.
So the biggest thing we see andI think I love being a part of
the fitness industry the onething I see is really early
specialization, right, so thatmight mean a seventh grader
decides he's only a pitcher andnever doing any other sport
again.
But I think one thing ourindustry doesn't do well is we
keep selling that idea ofeverything's got to be high
level ton of equipment, ton oftechnology, baseball pitcher

(11:33):
trains different than ashortstop trains different than
a first baseman, every distancein swimming trains differently.
I think there's a level to thatright.
But I think a lot of timeswe're building the second, third
, fourth house without thefoundation.
And the joke I keep making iseverybody I talk to wants to
sell a dream of you have to do asingle arm dumbbell, bench
press on a physio ball to peoplethat can't do push-ups yet.

(11:54):
So I think there's definitely aplace for kettlebells,
dumbbells, bbt, force plates,all of it's awesome Once we
master the basics and we're fastforwarding that a little bit
too much or too many middleschool and high school kids.
Let's get good at push-ups,pull-ups, bodyweight squats and
then look at everything on topof that.
Would you guys agree with that?

Speaker 3 (12:12):
Dude, we talk about this all the time.
But I say, angela, what I say Itell my client, my students, my
clients.
I say, hey, you're not going tobuild a house on a, on a shitty
foundation, man like, you'renot going to do that.
So that foundation is key andthe wider you build it, the
stronger you build it.
You know you, the sky's thelimit.
When you want to go specialize,at that point it just makes it

(12:35):
a little bit easier.
But you still got to have thoseabs down.
You're not going to get theperson to write cursive without
you know, knowing the alphabet,you know.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
Yeah, I think to double back on the monetization
part we touched on a couple ofminutes ago, I think what makes
our industry challenging to someextent is everybody kind of
knows what you have to do to getstarted.
It's simple, but it's reallyhard to do, right, like us three
guys.
I'm going to guess we all lovetraining.
Right, it's a Sunday morning.
I'm going to go run later.

(13:06):
You guys might go lift, dokettlebell, whatever we do later
on a Sunday, because we have aday off, we get to train.
If you're a person that hates totrain and you're always looking
for the next thing, the nextpill, the next pattern, it's
easy way out.
You're willing to fall for, oh,lose 30 pounds this month, do X
, y, z and then, shocker, itdoesn't work.
When in reality, what works is,in my opinion, simplicity,
consistency and just work ethic,for lack of a better term.

(13:29):
And then I think, once youmaster those things, you know,
get your body weight down, havea solid body composition, you
move well, you're pretty mobile,then it's time to look into
what's the next level.
Right, I'm good at the basics.
How do I progress to step two,three and four?
But we got to get that step onedown first, before we start
looking at step two, three andfour.

Speaker 1 (13:48):
I can contest to this specialization, as I'm in a
school, I'm in physicaleducation and that's all I see
is very, very earlyspecialization.
Not enough free play for thesekids not learning different
movement patterns.
It's getting to the point where, unfortunately, this is a part

(14:08):
of the business, this is a partof where we're at Sport coaches
are getting their claws intofamilies and saying, hey, we got
to be doing, we got spring ball, we got this baseball, we have
that baseball and you're goingto go to the baseball
performance coach and then allof this stuff Very, very costly,
not a lot of big development,and you have the kid doing one

(14:29):
thing all year round.
What would you tell to parentsthat are kind of fixated on?
Well, I have to get my kid intothis one sport early or else
they will not go pro.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
All right, a couple of things on that.
It's an awesome question.
Number one, the genesis of thebook the next four years is
exactly what you said.
I'm not trying to plug it early, I'm just going to throw it out
there.
But the reason why I wrote itwas the way youth, high school
and college sports have gone inthe last, let's say, seven years
.
Right, have gone off the railsin a way where there's a lot of
people making a ton of moneyright, and I've been on a

(15:05):
million podcasts interviewsNobody cares, I think, about the
AAU basketball system, thetravel baseball world.
If Under Armour is making atrillion dollars from AAU
basketball, nobody cares what Ihave to say about it.
So my version was let's stopthrowing out opinions that don't
matter and write a manual forhow to succeed in a world the
way.
It is right.
And when I largely put it, Ithink the balance for parents is

(15:26):
trying to find out yeah, yourson or daughter probably does
need to be at a couple ofshowcase camps a year.
Right, you do need to get seenby college recruiters at some
point.
If we say that that's false orif we say it's not true, we're
lying to people, right, but atsome point where is the line
between?
You know, physical developmentcan actually make us succeed at
the next level and just creatinga hype around ourselves to be

(15:48):
seen and get a look at the nextlevel for lack of a better term,
right, you see it to someextent in the entertainment
industry.
I think is a better example ofthis where somebody gets hot on
YouTube, somebody goes viral.
You know, you see in the comedyworld a lot where somebody has
a hot YouTube clip and nowthey're headlining comedy clubs
but they're getting crushed infront of real crowds because
they didn't do the 10,000 hoursin comedy clubs to know how to

(16:09):
perform next to a master,whoever that means to you I'm
not going to throw names outbecause comedy gets a little
controversial but whoever youlike, you can't.
You know you got the YouTubeviews that tell you should be on
stage with Comedian X, but thenyou open for Comedian X and
it's a disaster, right?
So that's what we see in thecollege world a little bit.
You got the highlight film, yougot the stats, you got all the

(16:29):
travel tournaments under yourbelt and then you show up to
University A and you're notready to compete with those kids
.
So you got to find a mix inbetween of get exposure, get
recruited, but then prepare todo that at the next level.
And that might mean not goingto every showcase, not going to
every travel tournament, takinga final year just to train and
then develop physically and getup to the next level and be

(16:49):
ready when you get there.
And the biggest thing I see iskids are being specialized when
they're physically immatureright, just haven't hit that
growth spurt, that puberty yet.
And then at some point you knowyou're developmentally maybe 13
or 14, but you're playing with16 or 17 year olds and
eventually you're going to getexposed and not be able to
compete at that level or getinjured playing people that are
just much bigger or stronger.

(17:11):
So I think as parents you got tolook for long, longterm.
And really I think one thing wemess up on in sports for a
little bit is everything is nowright, like we can't stop
posting about a 14-year-oldthrows 98 miles an hour.
That's awesome Statistically.
That kid's getting Tommy Johnat some point before he turns 20
.
So let's look at this Do wewant to have a hot YouTube page
and a couple good recruitingletters from the house at 14?

(17:33):
Or do you want to be in a majorleague at 24?
I mean it's and it's a slipperyslope.
It's really hard to say wherewhat part comes and goes and
what's the most important.
But I think as a parent andit's and a coach, you have to
direct these young people tolong-term success, because it's
better for everybody if kidsplay longer uninjured and are
good at a higher level longerlater in life, right?

Speaker 1 (17:55):
absolutely.
And cassine, how doesn't havefootball?
Is that correct?
They don't have no football, nowrestling.

Speaker 2 (18:01):
So our training age is really low.
When we meet our studentathletes, right, our baseball
guys have trained a decentamount and I can say this
because I was them 20 years ago.
They're jersey shore guidomeatheads that want to get
jacked to go to the club on theweekends and that's fine.
I like working with that right.
And then our other kids thatare really not trained at all.
Right, the typical basketballplayer is so busy with AAU ball

(18:25):
all year he or she never reallygoes to a weight room.
Right, they might be reallyvery physically gifted but
they've probably never done abarbell back squat or a
kettlebell swing or anythinglike that.
And then our other sports aretennis or golf or cross country.
Those kids' training age iszero.
So the good and the bad is youget to really teach people the
foundation and really build agood foundation.

(18:45):
The bad is they're 18, 19 yearsold and really behind a lot of
their peers, so you got toreally kind of not hit the fast
forward button, but get themgoing quick and catch up to
everybody else.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
In those sessions.
Right, you know, like, let'sput football aside.
We can touch base on somefootball in a second.
But football aside, what dothose training sessions look
like in terms of like, hey,these are the things that in
every single one of my sessions,all my athletes are getting.
And then do you have some ofthese specific movements that

(19:15):
are kind of tailored just to aspecific team.

Speaker 2 (19:18):
Great.
So normally I and I reallybelieve it at the college level,
at my college level not a powerfor, not a, not a super
football powerhouse school kindof thing 75, 80% of what we're
doing is the same across theboard and not the sports are
different.
They're doing just swimmer,softball player, no question,
right.
But the the training age is solow we're teaching the basics

(19:42):
for so much of the year anywaythat goes across all sports.
So I think it kind of makessense to everybody.
So we'll start out with adynamic warmup, pretty normal
locomotive stuff, jog back pedal, skip backwards, skip, karaoke,
shuffle, all that kind of stuffto get the body moving and
activated right.
Then we'll do our flexibilityand mobility stuff.
So it's always going to be somekind of body weight squat
variation, some kind of lunge,some kind of hip opener, some

(20:06):
kind of just bring all the majorjoints of the body to a good
range of motion.
We'll do some leg swings, someleg overs, stuff like that, and
then we'll go to our lift.
It's not breaking the mold.
I'm sure other people have saidthis to you guys before you're
doing yourself.
We'll do our explosive stuff upup front our med ball throws,
our box jumps, our broad jumps,stuff like that.
Then we're into our power stuff.

(20:27):
It might be a trap bar deadlift, it might be a body weight, a
barbell squat, something likethat.
Then we'll go down to ouraccessory work and then at the
very end we might do somespecialization stuff.
For, say example, our swimmersmight do some extra rotator cuff
stuff because they're justgoing overhand swimming in a
pool of 10,000 yards a day,right, whereas our soccer guys

(20:47):
might do some dorsiflexion, calfraise, lower extremity injury
prevention type stuff like that.
And then we're going to finishwith some core, maybe some
conditioning, depending on theday, and that'll kind of be it.
But again, I think a dynamicwarm-up is super important,
based on the things you want tolearn.
So look, I think most peoplewould say you shouldn't heavy
squat four days a week.
I think that's reasonable.

(21:08):
But I think should we do somekind of squat or warm-up every
day to just keep crushing thatmotor pattern and get good at it
?
I think that's a good idea.
So maybe on Monday we're doingbodyweight squats, slow and
controlled, getting as low as wecan.
On Tuesday in the warm-up we'redoing a PVC pipe overhead squat
, working on posture and hipmobility.
Maybe Wednesday we're off,thursday we're back doing like a

(21:31):
speed drop squat something likethat, and then maybe on a
Friday we're holding a wall sitor something like that, just
kind of get us moving, reallyget that motor pattern down.
And then maybe only one day aweek we're doing a heavy squat
and then we're bouncing on somehamstring work and then kind of
going from there with a lowerexternal development.
But I think you can do a lot ofthese movements, a lot if you're
careful about it.
Then the cliche coaching is anart and a science.

(21:51):
You know the science is yourbody needs X amount of time to
recover.
The art of it is knowing yourathletes and knowing we could
get this amount of working ontuesday based on what we did on
monday, based on what we'replanning on doing on wednesday
and knowing the calendar as goodas you can we're gonna, I'm
gonna touch base about thefootball thing real quick and
then I'm gonna pop into you,nate, for football, right,
because you're gonna get thosemost strength coaches are gonna

(22:12):
be super familiar with football.

Speaker 1 (22:14):
They're gonna be into the weight room with football,
you know.
What do you think if you'retraining football players, do
you think that the necessity ofOlympic lifting needs to be in
there because of that explosionpiece, you know, cleans and
things like that?
Or is it something that needsto be, kind of could be taken
out or could be, across theboard, an okay thing as Olympic

(22:35):
lifting?

Speaker 2 (22:36):
As a person that competed in Olympic lifting back
in my 20s and really, reallylike it, still do it now pretty
good amount of my personaltraining.
I think it's situational andhere's why I think the explosion
, the triple extension of thelower extremity, I think it's
awesome right.
I think for certain body typesand certain, if it's going to
take you four months to teach apower clean safely, maybe you're

(22:58):
better off doing some heavyback squats superset with box
jumps for explosion, right.
Maybe you're better off being alittle bit safer and weighing
risk versus reward.
So I think if you had the rightkids in the right environment
and are picking it up quickly, Ithink it's a great way to train
.
I love it Right.
I think if you're, for whateverreason, really having a hard
time getting kids to do thateffectively, you're probably

(23:24):
better off doing explosivetraining, but doing it maybe a
little bit easier.
Motor patterns not as techniqueintensive.
So, for example, if you're afootball strength coach and you
got three assistants and you putone guy you know one man or
woman on every two platforms andjust coach it up like crazy, I
think Olympic lifting is awesome, right.
If you're one strength coachwith a hundred guys in the
weight room.
Maybe we're better off doingsome other you know, kettlebell
stuff and plyo stuff, stuff likethat for explosion training

(23:47):
where olympic lifting doesn'tnecessarily work for that group,
right?
The other thing I'll say realquick in football particularly
and I've said this publicly abunch of times I think the one
thing that may end olympiclifting at the college level is
the transfer portal.
Right, we live in an era nowwhere men and women are bouncing
from school to school more thanonce a year.

(24:07):
So we'll get a basketballplayer to come in basically
start class September 1st,whenever we're done a tournament
mid-March, he or she might begone to the next school and they
might do that four times, right?

(24:28):
So if you're dealing with astudent athlete that comes to
campus literally a month beforethe first game and they're
leaving the day after the lastgame, how much time are you
going to take teaching them?
Literally the most laborintensive than to teach in a
weight room, right?
So I think if you're in a placewhere kids are staying four
years and you got a lot of timewith them, and you're staying in
the summer and you'rereinforcing the motor patterns
constantly, I think Olympic liftall day or not all day and
mortar patterns constantly.
I think Olympic lift all day ornot all day.
Do it smart, right, but get itin, whereas if you're in a place
like I am, where kids arecoming and going constantly,
it's probably better to err onthe side of caution.
Do some other easier to teachexplosive stuff and leave the

(24:50):
Olympic stuff for people thatare working with kids long term.
As straight to that, if you'rein a high school and you've got
access to student athletes allyear for four years nobody got
access to all year for fouryears nobody transfers, nobody
goes home in the summer I wouldteach that stuff freshman year
and and drill it to deathbecause those kids are going to
really get benefit from it theway they might not at some other
levels.

Speaker 3 (25:06):
That's just my personal opinion, what I've seen
angelo, I like that, you, youknow you, there's that's such an
awesome theme like training.
It seems like you're trainingqualities, right, like, like,
like explosive, right.
Then you got power strength tofollow that up.
That's how I train.
I work with a lot of gen popand I plug that into our
programming sessions.

(25:27):
When I'm working with people,like once or twice a week, I
want to ask you like at that, atthe collegiate level, right,
what are some of the qualitiesthat you see are missing at the
collegiate level when kids comein, right, like, you know you're
seeing them, you know they maybe strong, but are they missing?
Like the mobility piece, theexplosive piece, like, what are

(25:49):
some of those qualities that youthink we can start earlier or
that they're missing?

Speaker 2 (25:55):
The two that come to mind immediately are mobility
Kind of like you led with itbecause it's probably on your
mind too, but the idea of kidsthat are really good at a sports
skill but not good at movementin general.
Right, so you know, we'll get apitcher throw a baseball 90
plus miles an hour, can't do alunge, and that's a real thing
at the college level.
So I think, with the peopleworking with high school kids

(26:15):
and younger, if you can just getreally good at the basic motor
patterns, you're going to putthe kids you work with ahead of
most of their peers immediately,right.
And then, if you're in acollege setting or in a high
school setting, work on thatstuff every day during your
warm-ups, right, every day.
Some kind of mobility trainingEvery day, bringing the body to

(26:36):
the best range of motion we canand getting really good at the
basic movement patterns, andthat's number one.
The other thing we see as anepidemic type problem is just a
lack of work capacity, right.
What I mean by that is we gethigh school kids that come from
great programs.
They think they know how totrain hard, and then they tell
you why you should go to the gymfor three hours a day, but they
were on the phone for two and ahalf hours that they were going
to go in the gym, right andthen.

(26:57):
And then they lift on Monday,recover Tuesday, wednesday, come
back on Thursday.
That's an okay way to train.
Unfortunately, in the collegesetting we're looking for you to
come to the gym and crush itMonday, tuesday, wednesday,
thursday, friday.
So while you're going to schoolfull time, while you're doing
practice, skill sessions, injury, rehab, public community
service, all these other thingsright.
So I think if you can reallywork on building a really high

(27:23):
level of work capacity, just toget as many things done as you
can, you'll be way moresuccessful on a college campus.
Someone who comes here, just Iplay my sport and that's it.
And now all of a sudden youknow you went to high school for
four hours a day and you hadtwo study hall periods.
Now you're in classes with labsand internships and just being,
you know, the campus mightinvolve traveling a three mile
loop all day just to go to yourclasses and the dining hall and
stuff like that.
Just get ready for the workcapacity and for your workload

(27:44):
to be, you know, tripled, if notmore than the first day you get
to college.

Speaker 3 (27:49):
That's awesome Thanks .
Thanks for that.

Speaker 1 (27:51):
The metrics that we see.
Nowadays we have access toeverything GPS, vbt,
velocity-based training, we'relooking at percentages on charts
and things like that.
Do you feel we have to have amarriage of two, of just having
an intuition and also metrics,or do you think that metrics

(28:13):
could be good for a certainamount of time?
But it's really more of the,the movement pattern, because
there's every single digitallittle piece in number you can
collate, calculate.
Where do you feel on that,angelo?

Speaker 2 (28:26):
Okay, I think if anybody in our profession says
the technology, the wearables,the metrics are not here to stay
, or the people at 25 years agothought the internet was going
to be a fad, right, and then 500years ago they thought books
were going to be a fad.
So we're in the world wherethey exist, right, we have to
use them, we have to speak thelanguage, and I think a lot of
them provided a lot of reallygood feedback, a lot of really

(28:49):
good information.
I think where men and womenlike us come into the equation
is how do you interpret that tomean something to your client or
your client's parents, or yoursport coaches, the people
outside of the world?
So the thing I've been sayingfor the last couple of years and
stuff if I could be 20 yearsold again and just break into
this field, the three things Iwould learn, like the back of my

(29:09):
hand or the.
I would learn everything Icould about VBT, right, velocity
based training, how fast we'removing implements in our body.
Number two GPS is a totalground cover, peak speed,
average speed, all stuff likesystems like catapult produce.
And then, last, I would look atforce plates and what we're
learning from that and landingmechanics, everyone for force
plates, and I would get reallygood at interpreting the data

(29:31):
and making it easily understoodto potential clients and
athletes and coaches.
I'm dealing with those threethings the softball change, the
tackle change but I think thosethree measurements are going to
remain kind of the cornerstoneof sports science for the next
maybe 10, 12 years.
It's a reasonable thing the wayI look at it.
Unfortunately, where I am now,we don't use a lot of that stuff

(29:52):
.
I got my hands on some of thatstuff.
We have force plates but we'renot using a ton.
But I think what we need to dois figure out a couple things as
coaches and trainers, a couplethings we're going to take to be
our gold standard and measurethem across the board.
And I think the biggest thingis establishing baselines to
realize that, okay, we'relooking for the board to move,

(30:13):
you know, 0.2, 0.5 meters persecond on a clean pull, and if
you're on the platform orsomebody and they're not getting
close to that, we need to makeadjustments and figure out why
that's happening.
Right, but I think, like a lotof things, that technology, our
expertise and our human factor,with the technology and numbers,
is the future, not one or theother, right?
I think the idea is eyeballingsomebody lifting me like, hey,

(30:35):
put five more pounds on thatlook pretty easy.
That's probably kind of overfor better or worse, right.
And then I think the idea ofjust you only follow what the
iPad tells you is probably notthe best way to go either.
You want to be somewhere in themiddle, right.
The other thing, the joke I makeall the time too is, I think,
whoop straps.
I think every way you canmeasure it is awesome.
I think it's a great thing.
To quantify yourself and yourperformance, I think is great,

(30:57):
right.
But to some extent we stillhaven't found a way to quantify
heart.
We haven't quantified.
I'm going to beat this, nomatter what, right.
Because the joke, I'm from the90s.
If Dennis Rodman had a whoopstrap and load management, he
would have never played an NBAgame, right?
He partied every night for hisentire career and somehow found

(31:18):
a way to lead the league inrebounds and win championships
the bulls and be a monster.
So does that guy not existanymore in the world we live in?
Do we tell a guy now you had acouple beers last night,
definitely sit down tonight.
You can't do anything, becauseI on my team, I want the guy
that goes out as a couple beersand shows up and crushes it the
next day right.
So I think you know I'm notadvocating drinking for, but if

(31:38):
that's the way you want to live,you got to show up and come to
work the next day, and I think alot of technology is telling
people that's not the way to dothings.

Speaker 1 (31:46):
I think in reality we've got to find that balance
Right you were just talkingabout some of the metrics and
the things to really know cominginto that space, the collegiate
space for interns.
Right, hey, I want to do this.
I'm going to go to universityor whatever.

(32:07):
I'm going to get mycertifications walking into um
seaton hall or somewhere elsethat you've seen.
What does an intern you know?
Or what do you look for in anintern and what do they need to
know?
Coming in and like how do youknow if they're going to last?

Speaker 2 (32:22):
Okay.
Number one it's really hard toknow if they're going to last on
an interview or a resume.
It's just really hard.
I think you guys have seen thattoo.
Just even a full-time job, it'sreally hard to tell who's going
to be a good fit for a 10-yearcareer when you with them for 30
minutes, right.
But one thing I look for.
I think this is one place Ithink guys like us get this and
some of the younger kids mightnot to make extreme regeneration

(32:42):
Bare minimum.
You got to love to trainyourself right, you got to be.
If you got a day off, you got alunch hour, you're trying out
new equipment, you're gettingyour.
Whatever it is to you.
You got to love to trainthemselves really have a hard
time staying in this professionfor any amount of time.
They see it and think, oh,that'd be cool to teach people
how to lift, and they don't loveto lift themselves.

(33:03):
And number one they love tolift.
Number two especially early onin your career as an intern be
open-minded, right, like,whatever you did before you met
me is probably great.
There's a million great ways totrain.
Whatever you do after you'reintern-worthy might also be
great, but for right now I needyou to lock in and buy into what
we're doing and this is thegold standard for right now.

(33:24):
Next semester you're somewhereelse.
That's your gold standard.
And I think once you intern abunch of places, read a bunch of
books, try a bunch of thingsyourself, you're mid to late 20s
, you have some experience.
Now you realize this is myphilosophy, this is my theory on
how to do things.
But I think having a philosophyor theory when you're 18 or 19,
you know, freshman sophomore incollege, doesn't make a lot of
sense because you haven't doneenough things yourself or have

(33:45):
been exposed to other things torealize what you like.
Right.
And what I would say is if youintern with me, you're not going
to love everything we do, butif you get two or three things
you take for the rest of yourcareer, combined with two or
three from every other mentoryou had, now you got a
philosophy.
Now you got a training system.
Now you got someone's going towork on their most environments,
right, um?
So be open-minded, love totrain.
And then, I think, number three,realize that the book is

(34:08):
important.
The books are important, thetech is important, but get
really good at the human side ofit right, like if you're in the
weight room in a college andthe only conversation you have
with kids are, well, that 70percent kind of rough.
Let's go down to 68.5% for yournext set of front squats.
Sometimes that conversation'sgot to be how was practice?
Oh, you hit a home runyesterday, great job.

(34:28):
How'd you do on that math testand realize that we live in an
era where, for better or worse,you can get your programming
from AI and never interact witha human and have a good program?
We're going to be honest witheach other, right, but where we
make ourselves valuable andbecome an asset to the
department or clients is thathuman factor and being a real
person they can relate to andand confide in and be their, be

(34:48):
their confidant on campus yeah,I love that.

Speaker 3 (34:51):
I I think that's like really the x factor of coaching
.
And then the other thing I'llsay too um, angela, I don't know
if you're you're familiar Ripto, but like, right in the
beginning of the book, like someof his books, he just talks
about like time with the bar,like time in the gyms time.
There's no amount of reading orexperience you can get without

(35:11):
like spending real time in theroom and I think that, partnered
, kind of like what you weresaying in the last point, with
technology, is just going tolike allow and amplify coaches
to like really hit the nextlevel of what we're going to be
in 10, 20 years.
I do want to segue just withone question.
I know Nikki, our third partner, is not here, but she did like

(35:33):
she's like, hey, you know, withAngela on the podcast we got to
get a nutrition question, and soI'm going to ask a nutrition
based question for Nikki.
You're working with collegiateathletes.
What's one piece of advice youcan give parents or maybe the
athlete themselves on nutrition,right, like?
I feel like maybe that's amissing, a key piece.
It is one of the key pieces tosuccess, I think, in the weight

(35:56):
room, in performance, and youknow what are some pieces of
advice you can give parents andcollegiate athletes.

Speaker 2 (36:04):
All right, this is much easier said than done,
right?
But I think the kind of stuffthat everybody kind of knows if
you can, with younger kids andhigh school kids, limit their
intake of refined sugars to someextent, I think we'll kind of
be a little better off, right?
I have a nine-year-old that'sincredibly active, she gets
training, she loves going to theweight room with me, but if you
leave her in a room with athousand Jolly Ranchers she

(36:27):
might eat 900 by the time I getback from using the restroom.
That's the way kids are.
Right, we're hardwired to lovesugar, fat, salt and calories.
You look at evolutionarily, itmakes sense.
Calories you lookevolutionarily, it makes sense.
The problem now is we haveaccess to too many of those
things that don't do no physicalactivity, right.
So I think if you kind of justdevelop a taste for maybe, maybe
, fruit, just some healthierthings earlier on in life, we're

(36:49):
going to be a little bit betteroff than someone who eats and
drinks, you know, hundreds ofgrams of sugar every day.
I think that's that's a goodthing, right?
Um?
and at the top of that try toget people to know their body a
little bit, that you know astack of pancakes isn't a bad
breakfast if you're going to gorun a marathon that day, right.
If your day involves just aschool day and then six hours of
Netflix, that amount ofcarbohydrate is probably

(37:10):
unnecessary.
Maybe you have eggs thatmorning, maybe you have some
oatmeal, something like that.
But I think just kind ofteaching kids to almost match up
activity and food intakeearlier on is kind of better,
right.
And then exposing kids to newfoods I think is important too.
Right, like maybe maybe yourson or daughter would like
asparagus if they ever had it.
They just never had it in yourhouse.
So maybe try to buy some newfruits, new vegetables, new cuts

(37:33):
of meat.
Exposing the things.
And you know some kids are goingto go to mcdonald's.
That's a real thing, right, acouple of days a week.
But you know, if it wasMcDonald's three days a week,
but it's, you know, grilled beefor chicken or turkey the other
four days or seven days, that'snot a terrible way to live.
So I think you know, realizeit's moderation, but expose kids
to healthy food earlier andthink about just, you know,

(37:54):
burger King some days, good food.
Some days, I think you're goingto be healthy long term in a
good way, real quick.
I don't know if you guys havekids yet or not, but I've
noticed something.
So my daughter's heavilyinvolved in dance, heavily
involved in softball and she'sbusy all the time, right?
So sometimes we have to go toMcDonald's.
I don't like it, I hateadmitting it on shows, but we
have to.
Just the way our days breakdown, go to McDonald's, right,

(38:16):
and this is every single table.
It's kids in sports jerseyssitting with overweight parents.
So then what happens isMcDonald's makes their money on
people that are rushing aroundand can't stop to get better
food, right.
But the kids are so activebecause they're going from, you
know, lacrosse to footballpractice and they're getting Big
Mac in the middle.
They're not seeing a long-termeffect yet right.
Long-term effects yet right.

(38:37):
But the parents that are beingforced to eat at McDonald's with
the kid in the lacrosse jerseyare seeing the hypertension,
high blood pressure, obesity,diabetes all things we see mean
that kind of food.
So again, I'm notanti-McDonald's.
I think I don't love it, but itemploys a lot of people.
It's a good company in oureconomy, but let's be smart
about it.
And if you've got to get it,for your kids are rushing from
practice A to practice B atleast the next night or Sunday

(38:59):
make a family dinner and try toget them something a little bit
healthier.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
Love.
That.
I mean, that's real.
That's real, real life stuff.
You know, now going into yourbook, right, the next four years
, you can't.
You kind of talked aboutearlier of what inspired you to
create the book, but you know Iwant to talk about a couple of
the themes.
You know, one of the themes youhit hard is talent alone is

(39:23):
enough.
Can you speak about mindsetshift of young athletes and what
they need to transition intocollege sports?

Speaker 2 (39:31):
yeah, it's been said a bunch of times.
I think maybe I came out alittle bit differently.
But if you're a college athlete, if you're a division one
college athlete, chances are youare the best player at that
sport in your high school'shistory.
Just statistically, that's theway it works out right, you're
probably the best you know,whatever sport player in a
50-mile radius around your townif you're lucky enough to play
at a Division I level.

(39:51):
And now you get to college andeverybody was the best player at
their high school.
Everybody was on the best AAUteam, the best travel baseball
team, the best travel softballorganization, and now you've got
to try to find ways todifferentiate yourself, right.
So you know, I live in a townwhere if you're 6'5" you're the
center on the basketball team.
Well, that's told to be a pointguard in the Big East.

(40:12):
So what are you going to do tomake?
How are you going to make thattransition?
You're going to go to a smallercollege.
What's that going to mean foryou when you get there, right?
And I think you've got to finda way to really really realize
early on that everybody's goodand the world we live in now,
with the transfer portal, thegrad year, the COVID year.
If you're at eight, say you're a17 to 18 year old freshman,
right, you're a boy or a girl?

(40:33):
You really are right.
You haven't developed your manor woman characteristics yet.
Now you're up on the floor ofthe court or pool with 23 to
24-year-old men and women.
It was hard enough when theRangers 18 to 22.
Now, because of the way we'redoing education in America, it's
17 to 24.
It's a big gap.
It's a big jump, right.
So we've got to find ways to, Ithink, number one make yourself

(40:53):
as physically strong and fastand injury resilient as possible
.
Right, take care of your body.
And then mentality.
Just realize the hardest gameyou played in high school will
be like an average college game.
That might be a practice,depending on where you're going.
You're going to a good programand everybody's big, strong,
fast.
If you're a freshman andthey're juniors, they know the
playbook already.
You don't know that.

(41:14):
Start learning that stuff earlyon and just realize it's going
to be hard.
And to that stuff early on andjust realize it's going to be
hard.
And the mistake we make incollege recruiting is because of
the way it works.
We're telling kids and theirfamilies you're great.
You're going to the Hall ofFame.
We need you to compete.
There's where your jersey isgoing to be.
There's your locker with yournameplate on it.
There's these weights with thelogo embossed on it.

(41:35):
All of that's trueno-transcript.

Speaker 3 (41:56):
Yeah, that's you know .
And, like this next question,you talk a lot about time
management in the book, right?
What are some key habits thatyou think college athletes can
implement to stay ahead of, likeyou know, academics or
athletics?

Speaker 2 (42:20):
it's too expensive, there's too many majors don't
lead the careers.
But one thing I think causesincredibly well is professors
give you a syllabus right andfor the most part you learn to
conduct your affairs around thatsyllabus right.
So if you get the chemistrysyllabus on day one, you realize
I have tests on october 1st,november 1st and december 1st.
They're 33 percent of my gradeeach.
The weeks leading up to thosetests I gotta got to buckle down
and learn the periodic table,whatever it is for chemistry

(42:42):
right.
The week after I could take myfoot off the gas on chemistry
and focus on my psychology class, my whatever class is next
right.
And I think sports to a largeextent have the same thing.
You know your schedule, youknow when the games are right.
You have a rough idea of yourpractice schedule.
Now it might change a littlebit due to weather, travel stuff
like that.
But if you can kind of look atyour life in college, as this is

(43:04):
my school syllabus, this is myathletic syllabus, this is my
kind of social fun time to dothings and plan your life around
that you'll be much better off.
So the joke I always make for 20years seeing old baseball has
lifted weights at 6 am on Monday, wednesday and Friday morning.
It doesn't change, we do it,the coaches like it, I like it,
the play just works right.
So that means for our baseballguys, on Sunday, tuesday and

(43:28):
Thursday you got to be in houseand go to sleep and be ready for
6 am.
If you want to wild out and dothe college thing, that's your
Saturday night.
So, whatever the other nightsof the week, right, because I'm
not delusional, I wouldn't tellpeople or you don't have a good
time, but do it the right way.
Right, and I always make thejoke.
Man, I'm behind the eight ballat that scene.
All because we're in a smalltown in New Jersey.

(43:50):
Down one road is New York City,the best nightlife on the
planet.
Down the other road is Hoboken,probably the fifth best
nightlife on the planet, and thebaseball house is right next
door to the rec center, which isa rager three, four nights a
week.
So I'm just telling people hey,go to bed, eat plenty of
protein, stay hydrated.
And they're like nah, it'squiet for that.
But I think you generally got toteach people to live your life

(44:12):
right the way we do.
If you guys are a public schoolteacher, that's Sunday night
you're in the house getting yourlesson plan ready, going to bed
, packing your lunch.
Friday night, maybe you go outand watch a game with your
friends and you know, have funand cut loose a little bit.
Then Sunday you're back in it.
So I think you know, attacklife like a syllabus and just go
at it the way you can.
I always say the same thing forus as coaches too and teachers.

(44:32):
You know we talk a lot abouthow we periodize our training.
The last 10 years I figured outI got to periodize my life.
What I mean by that is like myin-season at Seton Hall is
basically August.
When our fall sports come back,september, october, november,
the only thing I could be is astrength coach at Seton Hall.
I'm busy nonstop.
All the kids are new.
It's constant coaching.

(44:53):
It's dealing with all the stuffwe do right In December.
That's a lot easier.
I can write a book in December.
That's a lot easier.
I can write a book in December.
I can do a public speaking inDecember.
I can do a bunch of podcasts.
We could come back mid-January.
It's hard again, right?
Baseball is getting ready to go.
Softball is getting ready to go.
Basketball they're wrapping uptheir season.
Biggie's game is Biggie'stournament, stuff like that.
I got to clock back into SetonHall.

(45:14):
We get to May, I can work on mynext project.
I can maybe pick up somepersonal training clients in the
summer that I can't during theyear, and I think that's one.
Two things One by being at oneplace for a while you get good
at that right.
So, like Tony, you said, you'rea phys ed teacher.
You know that schedule right.
You know when September comes,you got to lock into that phys
ed job because that's your mostimportant thing.

(45:34):
You get to May or June whenyour year wraps up.
Now you can do some other stuffright.
And I think I stay at one joblong enough and realize the way
we periodize preach.
You know pre-season versusin-season versus post-season
training.
That's where I look at my yearas a strength coach yeah, love
that.

Speaker 1 (45:49):
I think, yeah, and that's something to also think
about if you are a strengthcoach too, or teacher or
whatever it's like, look at theyear, like you know, like you
said, that's one piece of like,hey, no one special things are
coming.
You know like, oh, it's thisexam week for here and it's this
going to be.
This uh, homecoming is thisweekend, whatever it may be, and

(46:11):
just knowing those, there couldbe some disruptions as well in
the training cycles.
But knowing the, the kiddos,knowing the staff, knowing the
uh schedule of the university orwhatever college or even high
school you're at, you know, onepiece also is and I would love
to hear your take on this isdealing with coaching styles.

(46:32):
As a kid, right, you know youmight come four years from a
high school and then get tocollege and not click with your
coach.
You know how do you see kidsnavigating college and not click
with your coach.
You know.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
You know how do you see kids navigating this with,
not clicking with, a coach?
I think if it does happen,right, it's unfortunate.
When it does, it's a normal one.
Happens too often because ofwhat goes on in the recruiting
process.
Right, when you're beingrecruited, you're seeing your
coach to be the coolest personever and nicest man or woman
will work with your scheduleOnce your parents at the games
and then you get to the firstday of practice and they're not
exactly that right.

(47:05):
So what I always say is I don'twork with any coaches that are
liars I really don't.
But I work with a lot ofcoaches that are really good
salespeople, right, and they'retelling you what you need to
take a car Like.
If a guy tells you somethingabout a car, that's true.
If a guy tells you somethingabout a car, that's true.
But there's probably some otherthings about the car that you
find out when you drive it off.
The lot wasn't exactly whatthey told you and that does

(47:27):
happen, right?
What I say to any young man orwoman with that is number one
realize that in the era we livein now, at least where I am
coaches move on a lot, sothere's some chance you might be
a student athlete at a placelonger than that coaching staff
is there.
There's some chance of thatright.
Number two think long-term.
An example I always gave ifyou're just buried on the depth
chart on the basketball team andyou're never going to get on
the floor, but you're majoringin bio and it's a bio program

(47:48):
that puts a lot of kids intodental school and you want to be
a dentist when you're 35, yougot to stay there and get
through it and gut it out.
I think that that's fair right.
I think if you don't care toomuch about your major and the
NBA is a real option for you andthe coaching staff there is not
showcasing your skills thenit's time to jump in that
transfer portal and see what'sout there and see what your
skill set's worth on the openmarket.
But I think if you look at howmany kids that actually affects,

(48:12):
it's 99% of thesestudent-athletes are getting
jobs in things other than theirsport.
So let's look long term andlook at all.
The other thing I think I lookat tell a young person too is
sometimes the grass is greeneron the other side.
Sometimes it's greener whereyou water it for, to use a
cliche, right.
So look at the things that arereally making you unhappy and
then realize will that change ifyou go somewhere else?

(48:32):
Right, if you just don't like acoach yelling at you for two
hours a day but you like everysingle other thing about that
school, you probably stay right.
If you don't like the coachyelling at you and you don't
have any friends and you hatethe dining hall and your
girlfriend's at home and youmiss her, you don't like the
temp of the climate, then maybeit's time to go right.
I think you got to look at allthings combined.

(48:53):
But yeah, man, a coach has anincredible impact on a person's
life.
A head sport coach you canargue the biggest impact on a
person's life.
A head sport coach you canargue the biggest impact on a
student athlete's life.
And if it's really not workingwell, we live in an era now
where you can move on and givesomebody else a shot, which I
think is a good thing.

Speaker 3 (49:07):
Then, angelo, we're going to ask you you know just
from the book what are some ofthe biggest takeaways you hope
readers remember after finishingit.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
Okay, I think number one when you're picking a school
to play sports at, do yourresearch right, figure out,
listen to the recruiting pitch,have a good time on the trip and
then deep dive into what you'rereally getting into.
Right, that's number one.
Number two once you sign thescholarship offer, it is awesome
, it's a great time in your life.
You're going to be a localcelebrity for a couple days.

(49:36):
Youtube views, instagram likesit's fire right.
Days, youtube views, instagramlikes it's fire right.
The next day or two, wake upand clock in and go to work and
figure out what you need tocompete at that level, and what
I would do is I would contact astrength coach immediately and
find out what's going to beexpected, right?
Do we have a conditioning test?
Do we do Olympic lifts?
Do we do heavy squat, benchdeadlift, whatever it is, and

(49:58):
then start getting ready forthat right away, right?
The one thing I see withfreshmen coming unprepared,
which I've seen constantly, isthey just didn't know what they
were getting into.
Um, and the other thing I sawat the time is you got about 100
days when you sign yourscholarship to show up on campus
, work for one hour a day overthose 100 days and you will show
up better than most of thefreshman class, right, right.
So go to your prom, go on yourfamily vacation, enjoy

(50:22):
graduation all great times inyour life but at some point
figure out all right.
If I got to run a six-minutemile on September 1st, it takes
me nine minutes on June 1st.
I got three months to figurethis out and to show up in shape
and ready to go.
And you just do that.
Because the one mistake I thinka lot of kids make is they show
up we'll call it just quote,unquote out of shape, right, and

(50:43):
they can't pass theconditioning test.
They're throwing up duringpractice, just not ready for
what's coming up.
Then you do that.
You put a bullseye on your backimmediately as someone who
can't help your team from yourteammates and your coaching
staff.
So I think, figure out what youneed to do and be ready to do
that and be at the top of thosedrills, finish stuff early, be
the best player in practice andnot saying you'll play right

(51:04):
away, but you give yourself amuch better chance than if
you're physically at a deficitcompared to everybody else on
the team that's.

Speaker 1 (51:10):
It's such a good point too.
You know, some coaches know thekids aren't going to know how
to lift right, they're not goingto know the movements they know
.
The expectation is like I'mgonna have to coach these
freshmen up.
But if you come in conditionedyou're like, oh okay, this kid
is here and he's ready to workversus.

Speaker 2 (51:27):
You know, the kid hanging over the side of the
garbage can puking after likethe first conditioning set yeah,
yeah, and I think that's onething that the private sector
might drop the ball on a littlebit.
We keep keep hammering on howimportant strength is and very
important.
You can't do things right ifyou're not strong enough.
There's a lot of reasons it'simportant, but I think at some
extent, during those couplemonths before you report to a

(51:49):
college campus, conditioningmight be more important, because
that's the thing that's goingto be apparent to your coaching
staff right away when you getthere.
So if you've got the pivotingstrength or conditioning, I
would pick conditioning duringthose couple months.
And then we all know howimportant strength is on every
other phase of your life.
But conditioning becomes veryimportant during those that
summer before you go away tocollege.

Speaker 1 (52:11):
And I want to kind of end with talking about
continuing education.
You know you are the statedirector for New Jersey for the
NSCA.
I'm going to do a littleselfish plug of the NHSSCA, the
National High School Strengthand Conditioning Association for
Illinois.
I just went to their stateworkshop or clinic at Evanston,

(52:34):
which was awesome.
I never got to be inside theirweight room and see the field
house and things like that.
These types of things, in myopinion, are really what kind of
gets you grounded in this space.
You learn a ton.
Can you talk about kind ofeither New Jersey itself or even
just the NSCA and what you'veprovided for them as the state

(52:56):
director?

Speaker 2 (52:58):
So the NSCA similar to the NHCCA, I think you said
it was.
But they did their New Jerseyevent last month.
I had planned on going and theway my schedule broke down until
the last minute I couldn't doit.
So I really I want to be moreinvolved in that.
So I think high school coachesare doing some great stuff, but
the NSCA deals with all kinds ofstrengthening and distancing.
So, from tactical, college,high school sports, specific

(53:22):
special interest groups, my mainthing as state director is
booking our state clinic, whichI'll do my free plug now, I
guess May 3rd, at MonmouthUniversity at the Jersey Shore.
I book six speakers every time,right, and I try to fill in,
kind of like we talked aboutprogramming earlier, kind of
fill in specific slots, right.
So always try to get a highschool strength coach.

(53:43):
Always try to get a collegestrength coach.
Always try to get a privatesector person to talk about the
business side of it, right.
Like how do you make yourpersonal training studio
generate income every month?
How do you make that work?
And that's super important andignored too much by the NSCA,
not sure about the otherorganizations ignored too much
by the NSCA, not sure about theother organizations.
I try to bring a tacticalperson on because that's a big
part of our profession right nowgoing to work with the military

(54:05):
, police, firefighter industryand then I try to get the
headliner of some kind right.
So I'd like to bring in astrength coach of the Phillies,
the Mets, the Eagles, somethinglike that.
I always joke around, I book itlike a music festival where I
have the headliners name and thebig font and then kind of cycle
down from there.
And I just got to know fromdoing events over the years.
You know you got, you got tofill the room, you got to make

(54:25):
it a good experience foreverybody.
Try to get some sponsors onboard to pay for some stuff and
give people a first classexperience.
And I think that there's twothings Hearing people speak that
do our job in differentenvironments or the same
environment as the differentinstitution, you learn a lot
right.
So you know I'm having aproblem doing X and then
somebody presents on X.
You take that back to yourplace and do it.
I think super valuable.

(54:45):
And then and I think thenetworking side of this is super
important so I think we learnedduring COVID you can get a lot
from a seminar by watching itonline, watching a webinar,
watching a YouTube video,listening to podcasts you can,
there's no doubt about that.
But I think a lot of what youpay for and when you get out of
these events and a lot ofpersons, you're exchanging
business cards, you're talking,you're calling somebody.

(55:07):
Hey, I really liked when youdid the presentation on plyos
for junior high kids.
I'm dealing with even youngerkids.
How would you adapt it for that, whatever it might be?
So I think if you're a youngperson going to conferences, you
know, pay attention to speakers, network as much as you can at
lunch early.
If there's an after partycocktail hour, something like
that, go to that, be a part ofit and then, when it's over and

(55:28):
this might be more importantreach back out.
If I do a presentation at anevent on a Monday and somebody
on a Tuesday hits me with anemail hey, man, I really liked
your presentation, I'm doing X.
Can I come to see you all for aday?
I never say no.
I will always reach back out,try to help somebody out if I
can.
And those are whererelationships really come into

(55:52):
play, because that person, ifthey need a job recommendation
or they're trying to do X downthe line.
I'll definitely help them outif I can.
So here's one example that Ilike to say all the time In 20,
I believe it was 18, I did apresentation at the NSCA state
clinic, way before I was statedirector.
Just presented, right Young mancame up to me, introduced
himself.
The next semester he internedwith me at Seton Hall.

(56:12):
Right Two years after that heopened his own gym.
It's called Mach 1 Barbell.
It's a great company.
They have an Olympic liftingteam.
It's awesome.
Two it's a great company.
They have an Olympic liftingteam it's awesome.
Two years after that, I needed aplace to do my photo shoot for
the next four years.
He let me do a photo shoot forfree in his facility and had his
sister do the photography for avery affordable price.
And that's what our professionreally starts to work.

(56:32):
And that all stemmed from himwalking up to me when he was
like 21 and said, hey, I want tobreak into this thing.
And now he's a business ownerthat provided the photo shoot
and a photographer in my book.
And now we're working together,promoting getting better
together.
So I just think, don't beembarrassed or scared to walk up
to somebody.
And the other thing is man, ifa strength coach, personal
trainer, business teacher,whatever, if they big time, you

(56:55):
that's them Like we're notcelebrities, we're not
billionaires.
I don't understand people likeI can't return your call because
I work for the phillies and youonly work for seat hall.
Your job's making you hot rightnow.
Next year you'll probably befired or have a different job,
and then then I, then you, thenI won't return your call maybe,
but I just don't understand theway that works at all.

(57:15):
So I'm the biggest open book.
Call me, d me, not in a creepyway, but hit me up and we'll
make something happen, if we can.

Speaker 3 (57:23):
Angelo man, that's the best answer you can give, so
thank you.
Thank you so much for being ourfirst interviewee and first
guest on the podcast.
Man, it means the world to us.
Thanks for your insights.
I learned a ton today.
I hope our viewers listened andlearned a ton.
How can our viewers find you,man?

Speaker 2 (57:43):
Yeah, super easy.
Again, email angelogingerelliat gmailcom and then on LinkedIn
it's Angelo Gingerelli and thenFacebook, not Facebook.
How old are we here?

Speaker 1 (57:56):
MySpace MySpace.

Speaker 2 (58:00):
Yeah, hit me up on MySpace, I'll put you in my top
eight, and then on Instagram andYouTube.
It's Mr Fifth Round M-R, thenumber five T-H-R-U-N-D, and the
new book is called the NextFour Years.
It's available on Amazon.
Check that out.
Any questions, please feelright to me, send me a DM.

Speaker 1 (58:21):
We'll me send me a dm , we'll answer whatever you have
.
Yeah, we'll put all the thelinks, everything in the show
notes so people have access tothat spotify, apple, uh, podcast
, youtube, everything but angelo, we really appreciate you
coming on and and taking thetime to share information about
yourself, the book and all theknowledge over the past 20 years
, so we appreciate it this isgreat man.

Speaker 2 (58:39):
Thank you guys so much.
I really appreciate your time.
Best of luck with the show.

Speaker 1 (58:43):
All right, thanks, angelo.
Thanks for everybody listeningto.
Let's Talk Strength.
We'll see you guys on the nextepisode.