Tex McQuilkin: Ballin’ on a Budget: Delivering High Quality Sessions with Minimal Equipment

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the Brown Performance and
Rehab Podcast, powered by Isofit and Firefly Recovery. Isofit is
my go to for all things isometric strength training. For
more on Isofit, be sure to check out isofit dot com.
Episodes like this are made possible by Firefly, the official
recovery provider of the Brown Performance and Rehab Podcast. For

(00:22):
more on Firefly, be sure to check out Recovery firefly
dot com. This episode is powered by doctor Ray Gorman,
founder of Engage Movement. Learn how to boost your income
without relying on sessions. Get a free training on the
Blended practice model by following at Ray Gorman DPT on Instagram.
Joining me today on the podcast is text McQuilkin, tax

(00:44):
and I are going to dive into what we're calling
Ballin' on a budget. How to make it work as
a strength and conditioning professional when you might have limited
access or no access to equipment, maybe your time with
your team is very very limited, and how are you
going to make that work when you have a very
short amount of time, maybe even just fifteen minutes to
work with your athletes that way? This was an incredible

(01:06):
episode and I really appreciated Texas insights in this episode.
Be sure to catch both of us at the NSCA
conference in Kansas City later this week. We're both going
to be there. We're both recording podcasts for our shows
as well. Be sure to stop by and say hello
to both of us that way. Enjoy Thanks, welcome to
the podcast. I'm super excited to work with you today.

(01:26):
Big fan of the work you're doing on your own
podcast and within the strength and conditioning space that way.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
For people who aren't familiar with you, or maybe they
haven't listened to the Captains and Coaches podcast yet, would
you mind fellam in a little bit about who you
are and all the great stuff you're doing.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
It's been a long road coaching for sixteen years over
six continents, so very very fortunate had a lot of
great mentors along the way that really poured into me
and put me in a position to not only understand
movement and then this scope of programming and long term
athletic development, so standing and presenting. So I'm an introvert

(02:04):
by nature, but a learned extrovert. Public speaking is the
number one fear in the world, more than dying, which
is wild. So they threw me out to the Wolves early,
and I was not good for a long time until
I was And I remember the moment it clicked for
me to really just feel the energy in the room

(02:24):
and own a full seminar and clinic, and that was
a big moment for me. So if we're very fortunate
to travel the world teaching people how to teach people
to lift weights and run fast, and then I stay
connected to the sport. So I grew up playing football,
but then was high school lacrosse player into college Division
III all start, and that opened up my first coaching

(02:47):
opportunity as a graduate assistant coach for the team that
I played for. And then I was team captain for
three years and stepped into a coaching role. And these
were my friends, they were my teammates, but now they
were my athletes and battling that diconomy of hey, how
do I walk the line between being a good friend

(03:08):
and then being a coach and a leader because I
know what they did on weekends. So there's a lot
of self discovery in that first couple of years. Is
that grad assistant coach and a lot of the lessons
that I teach now to captains and coaches. Is that
entry level leadership, that first time that I'm handed responsibility,
whether it's as a team captain or my first time coaching,

(03:32):
and that's going to be your greatest growth year. You're
going to make every mistake that's going to be a
future lesson. So the bottom of the barrel of that
conference we had even less So. Now I took over
the strength and conditioning responsibilities on my team. That first
training session we needed upper body strength. I asked the
dudes to kick up into a handstand against this giant

(03:55):
wall that we have for Waball lacrosse practice. And our
number one dude, he like kicks down. He falls down
from the wall and I run up and I try
to mf him right Texas football coach style, and his
arm is just dangling there. He couldn't move it, and
I tore his rotator cuff because I didn't know what

(04:15):
the hell I was doing. So I had to just
take responsibility for that. And I've found mentors. I've found
people to dive into to learn how to be a coach,
and there's a lot of lessons with that. There's the
IQ of Okay, here's the program, here's what we do.
Here's the long term development. Now, how do I change
pass and trajectories because of missteps, because of stress from relationships,

(04:41):
et cetera. So I have to understand what to do,
but then there's this eq side, this emotional quotion of
how to do it right. I have this perfect theory
of what to do, but then I got to remember
these are people. So a lot of lessons within that
first few years, and from mary University, my alma mater,

(05:01):
to coaching, I realized I was a hell of a
better strength coach than I was a sport coach. So
I jumped over to the cross the river to Georgetown University,
still working with lacrosse men's and women's at this stage,
and then it was an even bigger jump because I
had imposter syndrome. I was a D three guy stepping
into a D one now working with scholarship athletes, and

(05:21):
I assumed that they wanted to work hard, like, oh,
they're so happy to be there. No, they are really talented,
and they just they don't want to work. They don't
want to lift weights. Why should they lift that? It's heavy?
They can shoot the ball faster than f right, So
it's now finding ways to buy in. I had buy
in from my D three teammates because they saw the

(05:43):
sacrifice and everything I did. But now I really had
to lean in and understand the EQ side of things,
and I picked up a whole bunch of sports, right, crew,
anyone that's been at the Olympic side of strengthen additioning
at the college level, there's a sport you want to
work with, and then all the other sports you work with.
So I had to take this idea of Okay, training

(06:04):
for lacrosse, don't scratch that, we're now training for athleticism
and developing all this different stuff. And I had a
great relationship with the crew coach, the women's crew coach,
and she let me do whatever I wanted. So it
was interesting to truly learn how to coach. I had
those D three guys who were not athletic, and I
could learn how to communicate because everything I threw with them,

(06:27):
they weren't strong enough to get hurt. Now I had
my scholarship athletes, and I was responsible for their performance,
and I needed to protect them from themselves often right,
the amount of volume of sport practice and running and
grinding and lack of sleep from extracurricular activities. At that level,

(06:48):
you got to take all these things into consideration and
you're not going to be appreciated, so you got to
find appreciation where it counts. During that time at Georgetown,
was very fortunate at the time this is twenty ten,
this is twenty twelve, but the twenty tens fitness space
was wild CrossFit had taken over like wildfire, and they
had a particular seminar for sports specific application aka CrossFit football.

(07:14):
So I was fortunate on weekends to travel the world
and teach this sports performance seminar to new coaches. Right,
they're getting into the fitness space and they're learning how
to lift for something versus the sport of fitness, which
is the sport. Now I have to learn how to
lift weights for a sport, for football, for lacrosse, for basketball,

(07:37):
whatever it may be. Right, it was all over the world.
For Korea, it was baseball theme. For Australia and South
Africa it was rugby themed. So now I'm learning as
a presenter to take this base level of athletic development
knowledge and tailor it to their specific goals as coaches,
to help them tailor it to their specific athletes goals.

(07:58):
So dude's super fun in that first phase, and so
many lessons that I'm aiming to highlight here. And as
mentioned with the captains and coaches like leaning heavy into
EQ and I'm calling it social emotional leadership, and there's
a ton of lessons, and every coach that I interviewed
within the podcast is highlighting that that first year, that

(08:20):
entry level leadership where you made every mistake you're going
to make, and it's now these future lessons that you
hand off as a mentor text.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
You have such a wealth of knowledge and experience in
the space that way, and as you mentioned, we all
have a tendency to make mistakes. And I certainly feel
like my own philosophies and frameworks about the work that
I do changed a lot compared from year one to
where I'm at today that way. And one of the
things that I think I made the mistake of thinking
year one out from school that way was I thought

(08:50):
it was more about the equipment that you had access to.
You know, I was in a pt clinic space, it
didn't have a whole lot. It was one of those
very stereotypical ones that I probably make memes of about
now that had nothing heavier than the ten pound med ball.
I was like, well, what can I do in here?
You know, I don't have a power rack, I don't
have a bar bell, I don't have heavy dumbbells or
kettle bells. I just don't have any of the equipment

(09:12):
that I wanted. And I felt like I was set
up for failure because I didn't have access to the
things that I wanted. However, I ended up kind of
reframing my approach and my mindset and making the most
out of nothing or what I felt like was nothing,
you know, a ten pound medicine ball table, some of
those typical theraband type things, you know, nothing crazy, But

(09:34):
we got creative and crafting. We were able to make
it work. I find talking with coaches a lot of
times they feel like they're in similar situations where unfortunately
they're not able to get access to all of the
equipment they want to have from a budgetary standpoint, remembe
it's a space standpoint or whatever it is. You know,
they don't have access to everything that they want. However,

(09:55):
they still need to get it done. And I know,
in particular around your recent way work on the strength
and conditioning side, you've been able to get really crafty
and creative. I love the way you've implemented things like
manual resistant exercises for example that way. So I'd love
to hear your thoughts and framework around how you go
about programming for the athletes that you work with when

(10:16):
maybe equipment access isn't necessarily in the picture.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
Yeah, this is where I take a lot of pride
and have a lot of fun with it because it's
so much fun for me to lead the teams and teach. Right,
I'm not sitting on my high horse and saying this
is in a perfect world, here's how it should be.
I'm with dudes. I'm aiming to build buy in every
single day and applying these different tools and seeing what

(10:42):
works both from their performance perspective but also their engagement
their buy in. So at the middle school it's a
little bit more easier, you just got to keep their attention.
At the high school, now we start to see a
world where trying is not cool. So keeping all of
this in mind and using my body language my enthusiasm

(11:05):
to show my excitement for certain stuff that truly does
excite me, that's going to be number one is bringing
your enthusiasm to this stuff and be excited versus frustrating
when guys are looking away, or they zone out, or
they're just not interested for one reason or another. So
step one is enthusiasm. From there, just a simple perspective,

(11:27):
break it into movement patterns, muscle contractions, and then muscle action.
I'll explain all of these. We all know the muscle
contractions concentric, eccentric, isometric, So within that realm, I have
different phases that I want to develop guys throughout my season.
How I accomplish this is the warm up. So the

(11:49):
warm up is the one consistent thing that I have
before practice, before games, before the training specific sessions, whether
that's weight, sprint, speed, or just sports stuff. So it's
the one consistent that every coach, every athlete has. What
we normally see is the same dynamic warm up routine.

(12:10):
Just going through the motions. You get the yappers that
just find each other, they talk and they do a lunge,
walk five yards, do lunge number two, walk five yards
and no, I'm at fifteen yards. So I did my lunges,
but I just did two. So that day's over. Now
I'm leading this and I'll speak through the phases here,

(12:34):
so the action is reps, not steps. Right, I'm dealing
with a lot of Texas football players that just again
go through the motions within their football warm up, and
so it's taking control of that. How I organize this though,
is keep it exciting and keep it interesting. So each
day I introduce two new movements. So the purpose here,

(12:57):
they do their full warm up lap and they meet
me at the fifty yard line at the lacrosse X
and then I pick one two guys to introduce two
different movements to. So this could be some pillar, some rotation,
some form of step, squat variation, et cetera. Whatever it
may be. I put those guys on the spot. So

(13:18):
now the spotlight's on them, whether you're a freshman or
a senior, and they're going to make mistakes. They're going
to do their best to coordinate, and I give them
a little ribbing, put them in a position to experience
failure early, but then coach them up in the right
position so they're seeing that everyone's eyes are on them. Now,
this is what it actually feels like versus what I

(13:40):
think it feels like when I'm making a movement mistake.
Even though I'm technically managing thirty dudes like they think
that somebody's watching them, they're gonna be embarrassed whatever. So
now I put them in that actually embarrassing situation, but
then lead them through it in a constructive manner. So
it's movement patterned squat step lunge variation different pillars side pillars,

(14:05):
so frontal plane saggital plane of course, and then our
transverse plane, so just pillars squat step in lunge, introduce
two variations of the movement. From there, they break off
fifteen yards apart at the forty five and the thirty
yard line, and then they're in motion. If it's a
pillar work, we're right at our station. And then I
tell them what movement could be inch worms could be

(14:28):
heiny lunged lunge with a step up, and then we
just rotate through there and we're staying even on our reps.
So we go back to our sticks and our equipment. Football.
You can just do this. You don't have to stay even.
I put my sticks down, so I have to have
an even number of exercises. So then this is where
I introduce skips as well speed work, so it gradually

(14:49):
ramps up into more dynamic stuff, and then I have
straight ahead speed days that are focused, and then a
change a direction a cod day focused and it's just
taking those move movements and really chunking them down and
developing it. So then each day those get faster, they
get more difficult, and it pieces together. So I just

(15:13):
have three phases throughout the season. Lacrosse runs from January
up until till May here, so now I have three
phases over those different times, and by the end of
it as a coach, I do handoff responsibility to the
captains and fade to the back. By then they have
the full movement playbook and I hand it off. So

(15:34):
that's just the warm up ten minutes. Now I have
four minutes of either conditioning, speed conditioning, or a strength segment.
So this is where the muscle actions come into play.
So we've already established muscle contractions. Now different muscle actions,
so focusing on force reduction, force production, isometric force, our

(15:56):
protective force, and then are true eccentrics, which you got
to experience at the next level conference in Knoxville. So
true eccentric this is our manual resistance. Where Dan and
I were partners a couple of my favorite ones. If
I'm laying down on my side thinking sexy pose, Dan
takes a knee behind my hip and then from here

(16:17):
I have both straight legs. Knees are stacked, heels are stacked,
and then I just raise one leg up into think
athletic position. But I'm laying on my side, toes are
pointing forward. I try to hold that up leg position.
For this instance, I'm laying on my left raise my
right leg up. I'm trying to hold that universal athletic
position with that right leg, and then Dan provides ninety

(16:39):
percent resistance on the top of my knee, ten percent
resistance on my foot to make sure I don't externally rotate.
We want to keep it in our pair of formist there.
So now I'm resisting and he's taking that away. So
we do four right, four left, and after any true
eccentric we need something dynamic, so explosive lunge umps, explosive

(17:00):
squat jumps with a rotation, whatever it may be. It's
just going back to those foundational movement patterns of squat
step in lunch with some explosivity. So four minutes that's
Dan getting a set. He's captain there resisting me. I'm
the athlete, and then we just switch rolls and I'm
trying to keep the intensity and the intent up, and

(17:23):
then I hand them off the coach and we start
our skill work. So that four minute block could also
be tempo runs. If we're coming off of a game
and we are sore, we want to stride it out,
so it's as a set percentage, or if we need
intensity we don't have a game that week, then put
in some reactive change in direction drill where I have

(17:45):
a rabbit, or you're chasing somebody, or somebody starts in
push up position, somebody sprints behind them, all the fun
stuff we know. So aiming to give the team what
they need, but keeping in mind my long term season
development to help us ramp up and be one hundred
percent there for playoffs. One thing we did also cover
at the clinic was true Eccentric's manual resistance for our shins.

(18:10):
So this attacked shin splints, and my guys don't have
shin splints. That was a problem until trying to figure
it out and solve it and using all of these
tools within the muscle action to put our guys in
a position literally to prevent shin splints. And I get
these old school football benches right on the sideline, so

(18:30):
usually just bring them out to the fifty yard line,
get some freshmen to carry him up. It's not hazing,
it's just their right of passage to carry stuff onto
the field. Or if a senior shows up late, he's
doing all that, I'll call it gruntwork, aiming to shape
some behaviors as well. So that's it, man, fourteen minutes
to start every single practice or training session that are

(18:53):
very targeted. There's no stick involved, but certainly puts us
in a better position to become better athletes lacrosse players, football, basketball,
whatever it may be.

Speaker 1 (19:04):
And I know someone listening is going to be like, well,
wait a second, there's no weights involved, You've only got
fourteen minutes. But it's one of those things we almost
have to reframe our mindset around exercise. It's not as
simple as just weight on the bar. But as you mentioned,
it gets into one of the movement patterns we want
to train. What are the contraction types we need to train,
and what are the actions of the muscular groups that

(19:26):
we need to train. You know, training doesn't just have
to occur in a weight room. It doesn't have to
just occur in a power rack. You know, if you're
traveling with the team, you might not have access to
half those things. Anyways, You're still going to get some
kind of training stimulus. It just might look a little different.
And I think that one of the things that I've
been really trying to expand in my own kind of

(19:46):
arsenal that way, is how do I make it work
when I don't have anything, Because again, stuff breaks, tech
goes down, and you know, we can't necessarily rely on it,
but we can always rely on our hands. We can
always rely on body weight, we can always rely on isometrics.
There's a lot of things that we always have access to,
and I find the more I lean into those and

(20:07):
get creative with those, the better effect I can have.
And in reality, a lot of these things are largely simple, right.
It goes back to basic anatomy. What does the muscle do,
what contraction type does it need? How can I train that? Cool?
Check the box, move on. It's not over complicated. Yet
for some reason we've kind of abandoned this like fundamental

(20:28):
foundational line of thinking that way. And I think the
other piece that I love about your approach in particular
text is it's a little bit every day. I don't
know if I call it like a true microdosed model,
but it's a little stimulus every single day with progression
and intention, and ultimately that's what we need, you know,
we don't need to smoke the guys twice a week

(20:48):
with like you know, ten thousand set armform, session finisher
and all these different things. Ultimately, a lot of the
athletes that I work with anyways, they really just care
about their sport and looking and feeling decent. If you
can check those two boxes for them, they're good to go.
They don't necessarily need like squatting six hundred pounds, they
don't necessarily want to deadlift eight hundred pounds like they're

(21:11):
in it for sport, not strong men in powerlifting. So
understanding what is your goal, as you mentioned, beginning with
the end in mind, and then kind of reverse engineering
the plan from there if you will, And I think
the way you've kind of thought about putting that together
is just really well put out, really methodical that way.
I'm curious though, you brought up the true eccentrics and
you brought up the pairing with them that way? Why

(21:33):
do you feel like it's so important to pair dynamic
and true eccentric type exercises that way? And within your
own kind of system or framework for thinking about contraction types,
whether that be force production, force reduction, isometrics, true eccentrics.
So are there any other pairings that you like to
put together within them that way?

Speaker 2 (21:55):
With the true eccentric starting there, So where what we're
doing is effectively taking for older athletes, I'll start with us.
So for older athletes like Dan and I, we are
taking our neurological pathways away. We have these these abilities,
these I won't call them compensation patterns. We have these

(22:17):
these neural pathways where stuff just becomes easy for us.
So within true eccentrics, and whether you this is weird,
but whether you believe in the size principle or not,
what we're effectively doing is taking away the ready motor
units that we have. So that way, our way of explosivity,
whatever it may be for explosive lunge jumps or shooting

(22:40):
a basketball or shooting lacrosse, whatever, So we're taking that away.
With the true eccentrics, I'm targeting hamstrings I'm targeting abductors, adductors,
all the different leg muscles out on the field, taking
away your motor units, your neurological pathway to do so,
and then we're asking you to do something dynamic and

(23:01):
athletically creative to then create a compensation pattern for you
to fall to in the third and fourth quarter when
you are taxed. Your body now has more of an opportunity,
more of a motor unit window to tap into. So
this also I've seen from practical experience over years now

(23:24):
applying this that the muscle, strains, tears, all that goes
down because we're creating different pathways. We're targeting abductors and
adductors and increasing their capacity for them to take on
different force. If something at the moment doesn't fire, that's
a major mover, it's not taking in or a minor mover.

(23:45):
It's not taking in all the force that leading to
a strain, a pull, or a tear. So injury risk
reduction one oh one is through that working too, the
true eccentric So I'll work backwards here. So now it's
it's taking its size principle in my mind, how I
would explain it, taking away motor units your ability to

(24:05):
access these and then really diving deep into the envelope
with a safe foundational movement. So that way, when we
do the athletic expression of sport at our maximal velocity,
maximal effort, then I have the resources to tap into
when necessary. So that's why do the dynamic movement is

(24:26):
to create those versus just do the true eccentric and
only take away the motor units. Now rely on the
whole body to find a compensation pattern to fall to,
so that'd be the true eccentrics how I would argue
for protective force. This is now how I'm changing the
setup and this is my favorite thing to do. I

(24:48):
do this on the program that I write for myself
that I also put out there. It's called Old Bull
Training with Wisdom. So this is where I'm manipulating different
foot set up positions. Instead of a neutral squad position,
now I go into a staggered squat with my heels
or excuse me, with my toes in line with my
arch my mid step. So I'm squatting down neutral, but

(25:09):
the force is different. So now I'm squatting into my
back achilles and then relying on my front hamstring to
stabilize my hips and not allowing my body to rotate. Yes,
it shortens my range of motion, but at the same time,
I played collegiate athlete and a bunch of post career
without warming up. My ankles are trash. Kelly Starrett, who's

(25:31):
become a good friend over the years, he calls it
piss poor tissue. I got piss poor left achilles from
breaking my leg and all course sorts of stuff. So
I love the staggered squat too. Target my achilles there
so then I can take it one step backwards literally,
So now my toes are in line with my heels
and I go active backfoot. Called these rocket squats. So

(25:53):
it's still no rotation, no favoring left or right, but
I'm staying active in that back foot throughout. Now I'm
creating and building this tension throughout, so we're escalating and
tapping into the isometric force. So we're holding that good
active foot position throughout the squad. There's no relaxing in
there with the bent knee, so just manipulating. Those are

(26:15):
two examples. I got plenty manipulating our foot position or
hand position in pull ups. It could be a staggered
grip or easy one for people to go try as
is one neutral grip, one pull up, grip right, one
chin up, one pull up. That changes everything, right, I
have to stay active within my bicep. I can't get

(26:36):
my full range of motion and I got to redirect.
So these are examples of protective force. It's changing from
the neutral. Those need to be earned for us in
the weight room. We need it. It's going to help
weight joint all that good longevity long term for my athletes.
Once we establish neutral again, working down and I've worked

(26:59):
through through phase one, then I start to introduce the
productive force setups, the staggered, the rocket, the single leg thinks,
split squad with an active foot and sending the knee
way out over the toes. I know it was just
invented recently burn, but it's still out there within sprint

(27:19):
sprint technique. I don't want to be a bad guy.
So continuing down, we talk about isometric force. It's certainly
a lot of pillar work, but I also work this
into within partners. So now just partners, and this is
connected to force producers. So either isometric force where Dan
and I are just meeting in the middle and we're holding.
I think similar to sumo wrestling, We're just balancing and

(27:43):
I'm working on my anticipatory tuners as an athlete where
I'm matching and reading force. Carry this over to sport.
This is why I love lacrosse is defense and offense.
Dan's gonna run. I play defense. Dan's gonna run full
speed into me, and I need to understand my body
needs to recall how much force is needed to stop

(28:04):
Dan and match him. I can't knock him down because
that's going to be a penalty. I don't want to
give too little because then Dan gets the advantage and
he's going to turn me into a highlight reel. So
how do I read and match force. This is where
we can introduce this into no stick drills, where we're
just starting together in contact and then say go and

(28:25):
pressing to see who it is. Another example of that
would be a tug a war, simple tug of war,
or there used to be this plastic thing you filled
with water that people would grab and be a tug
of war. Well, unfortunately coaches would leave those out in
the sun and the plastic would melt and then they
bring it out six months later with the same water
in there would be all Moldy and Roddy and then

(28:47):
the first drill kids football guys would just rip it
right in half, hilarious every time, like clockwork. So great idea,
but we need to find a product to put it
in place. So now finally breaking down, that'd be switching
from isometric force into force producers. Once we start to move,
I could have them say, hey, we're staying in place,

(29:09):
but I need to find the tug of war with
our feet not moving. Figure it out. Now we're force
pulling and going. And then my favorite is forced reduction,
teaching the guys to slow down within. This is the
first drill I introduced day one with the guys. It's
called motivation drill. And I did this as an athlete,
not knowing anything about strength and conditioning, and I thought

(29:31):
it was the stupidest drill of all time because coach
had to stand ten yards apart and then lines groups
of eight right, four and four, and we just sprint
ten yards and high five our teammate and they would
go and it's just a little relay race going however
long it is. So if I'm not running, I'm cheering
my teammate's name let's go Dan, let's go mat whatever.

(29:54):
So now I thought it was stupid, But what thinking
about the LEPs, the dept and the layers there, I
could say, all right, well, this is Derek Hanson's ten
and ten yeal. I'm sprinting ten yards and I'm going
to decelerate ten yards, get back in line, and I
start to cheer on my teammates so I can take

(30:14):
in strength and conditioning, practical force reduction there and force production. Right,
I get off the ball. I'm sprinting ten yards, slowing
down ten yards. But this is where we put the
social emotional layer on top of it. What happens when
I get tired as a teammate? Do I just disappear?
Do I just think about myself? Do I rest with

(30:35):
my hands on my knees and stop talking to my teammates?
Do I then stand tall? Or notice the energy start
to dip in the drill? Remember thirty forty people are
doing this drill? And do I start to turn around
and elevate it? Guys, let's go, hey, get up, get up. Now,
I'm talking to the whole group, not just my line.
So different, adding layers of leadership into these and all

(30:57):
of these certainly is the opportunity I want to present
to coaches on top of all this stuff. But eventually,
just like we redirected force, reduction, force production and working
all the way to the true eccentric and that's that's
that mindset. Over those one, two, three phases that literally

(31:17):
last five months, it's not the same dynamic warm up
every single day because then routine we get the law
of accommodation. It's gonna stop getting their chili hot, and
then they're gonna stop being interested, and then they're gonna
blame you that they went down three or gave up
a touchdown on the first drive, and it's like, dude,
we warn't up an hour ago. I don't know where
your head is. So uh, just aiming to eliminate all

(31:41):
those excuses that we know are inevitable for our teenage
and our college population and putting them in a position
to take ownership of their their own bodies and their
team's performance.

Speaker 1 (31:53):
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(32:37):
Dan to at ray Gorman DPT on Instagram and receive
your free breakdown on the model. Yeah. I love that,
and I love your focus on versatility as well, and
constantly changing up the mainframe, adding new stimuli in, adding
new different variations in. And just as you started earlier,
you mentioned that you add two new things in your
warm up every single time. It keeps it interesting, it

(32:58):
keeps it entertaining. But it's also the conversation around the
body just not being static, and you know people are
constantly evolving, so as a result, our training stimulus has
to constantly evolve as well. Right, these athletes in sport,
I talk about it all the time, how well they compensate.
You know, they're constantly coming up with new ways to move,
new ways to solve movement problems and movement strategies. And

(33:22):
if we're not giving them more of a movement toolbox,
if you will, putting more tools in it, or giving
them new ways to use the tools that they already have,
then ultimately we're failing to prepare them for what is
the main event, the main thing, right game day, during
the time, end of the season, whatever it is that
we're working towards. We've got to again begin with that

(33:42):
end in mind, understand what actions do we need to
take to get them there, and how can we best
prep them for it? And I think that you know,
again your framework is really well thought out, but I
really appreciate that focus on versatility, focus on moving the
needle forward, and also the focus again on that social,
social emotional element that you brought up. It makes me
think of a lot of the different warm up games

(34:04):
that I pop up all the time on Instagram. You know,
I actually really like them. How it's more gamified then
instead of just like you know, traditional go to the gym, quadpole,
need a chest, three sets of tenness, three sets of
twelve of that. That kind of stuff is not for
every not for everyone. Sometimes people get bored with it,
they find it too basic, they don't find it engauging.

(34:26):
And again, it's one of those things that I always ask,
what could we be doing better? How can I take
my own framework? How can I take the mold that
I built and break it, smash it into pieces, and
build it into something that's better and stronger. And one
of the things that I feel like was missing from
a lot of the traditional strength and conditioning programs, at
least that I was a part of, was this emphasis

(34:47):
on different contraction types and different muscular groups as well. Right,
you know, we would do you know your squad and
your deadlift for the lower body, and that was kind
of our lower body work. We thought we checked all
the boxes, and it's like, well, wait a second. You
mentioned shin splints before. Well, a lot of the kids
at our school struggle with shin splints. You mentioned the
hip before, a lot of kids struggle with hip issues,

(35:08):
And it's one of those things that I've also seen
injury patterns fluctuate. Now that I'm on the physical therapy side,
where you know, there seems to be a season for
knees and a season for hips, And it's one of
those things that I think if we kept a certain
element of the training consistent but ever evolving in the

(35:28):
sense that it's getting progressively more difficult with new stimuli
added under that main umbrella, whether that be force production
or true eccentric force or whatever it is, that way
we could reduce and prevent a lot of those things.
And ultimately, I think, you know, this conversation conversation around
SNC and the role that they can have and sports

(35:49):
performance professionals. You know, again, it's not as simple as
just making someone the best at the squad or the
fastest they've ever been. A lot of these kids are
so gifted and talented anymore, they don't get there naturally
on their own as long as they don't get hurt.
But when they get hurt, when they experience an ACL injury,
or they experience you know, stress fractures or bony fractures

(36:10):
or something like that, that moves them so far back
along that performance continuum, whether it be in the weight
room or in sports. So again, if we can just
work every single day, we're going to add some actionable,
intentional things that don't require a whole lot of time,
that don't require a lot of effort to set up.
You know, it's simple things that we can do repeatedly

(36:31):
and layer them over time. That solves that issue very
very well in my opinion. And I think the other
piece I want to bring up about this is you
don't necessarily have to do everything from your programming standpoint
with the athletes at practice when they're right in front
of you. Just like I give people stuff to do
on the physical therapy side, the same could be done
from a strength and conditioning standpoint as well, right like, Hey,

(36:54):
you know, guys, you love those side pillars that we've
been doing. We've done them for months. I want you
to do those every single day at home. I want
you to do this much YadA, YadA YadA. And we're
going to have an accountability check built in, you know,
whether that's just like your random pop quiz or like
a you know, something along those lines every now and then.
It's just that ability to think outside the box and

(37:14):
get creative and solve problems and even just taking that
a step further for a second. You could use a
lot of those things, is what I would call, you know,
blue collar sports science if you will. So if you
don't have the force place, if you don't have the dynamometer,
if you don't have the VBT, whatever it is that way,
but you want some kind of assessment on your athletes,
you can do rep match right, you can go left

(37:36):
versus right, side side pillar. You can do so many
different things that way and kind of create your own
battery of assessments to get a look at how your
athletes are functioning and then compare that later on the line,
just as a way to have that, you know, again
sports science framework or assessment framework if you will, but
not necessarily need anything fancy or expensive to do so.

Speaker 2 (37:59):
And I got the test, So this was cool, And
I explained this at our next level conference. We had
a couple in there that I was able to reference to.
So I mentioned what a coach will feel if I'm
doing eccentric and Dan and I are the athletes. We're
gonna on Rep one, we are going to fire. It's

(38:20):
going to be a fight, and then by Rep three
or four it's going to fizzle out and we're going
to be like, dude, I'm giving my best with the
younger population, with our high school level athletes or any
college athlete that I mean has not established their base
level of strength. They've just been working out. They haven't

(38:41):
been training for X amount of years. Now, within the
four rep scheme, Rep one, you're gonna be like, dude,
I need you to try. It's going to be like
they're just doing nothing, and you, as a coach will
just be like, I'm literally applying two fingers of pressure here.
That's it. And then Rep three. By that time you

(39:03):
start to feel them switch on and start to recruit,
and Rep four you're like finally, So they have an
unadapted central nervous system. It's gonna take them four reps.
So now within that this becomes my test. So I
take the behavior challenges within the team, and I'm their

(39:24):
hands on partner. I'm their captain for those drills to
make sure that they are feeling and aiming to get
buy in. Because there's a fine line between being a
good teammate and being an asshole. If I'm an asshole
by not truly pushing my athletes, then I'm not being
a good teammate if trying is not cool and I'm
being that guy, well, I'm taking away from the performance

(39:45):
of my teammates when we're partnered up. So now helping
them understand like what it feels like to really like,
oh my god, that is firing. So over time their
whole athletic career, they're gonna switch for that Rep one
is on to Rep four. You're just laughing and you're
doing your best. And it is this this phase developing.

(40:11):
I mean a central nervous system which we would measure
using force plates, which we would measure with all these tools. Well,
I don't need to measure it now, I just put
them into that side pillar. Now instead of straight leg,
we go bent knee. This would be for the glute
more or mr hip for athletic position. Just imagine athletic position,

(40:31):
laying on the ground, bent knee, heels in line with
my hips, my shoulders, and my head and then I
clamshell open heels are staying connected, clamshell open up the knees.
I gotta hold those knees and then coach presses it down.
If if I know, if I've worked with that athlete
enough and they're they're not they're usually on on one
and they're not on on one, then okay, well maybe

(40:54):
we're digging a little too deep. As a lacrosse coach,
I also am competing, you know, in a healthy sense
with these guys in their football training and their football
spring practice. They can't not play spring football because that
will be held against them. They will be frowned down upon,
and the whole Texas high school football political game will

(41:17):
get thrown in their face that they're not going to
get playing time because they play lacrosse or basketball or
baseball whatever, and that's unfortunate. So they have to do both.
So these guys are training at six am weight training,
they're going to school, then they're doing seven on seven
after school, and then they're coming to five point thirty
PM practice. I take that in consideration. Some coaches choose

(41:41):
not to because, oh, I'm going to make them pay
because they are not committed. It's like, no, they're over committed.
And I talked about different tools of discipline, one of
which is balance right sport life balance, and me understanding
and having compassion for them to as a Texas high
school football player, understanding the political side of that game

(42:04):
and being like, dude, well, I'll monitor you're sprinting. I'll
monitor your reps today because you communicated well all of
the hard work that you did. I'm going to need
a copy of that strength training program, and I'm going
to teach you how to manipulate right, push when you're
going to push, and hold back when I need you
to hold back because we've got a big game against
the rival. So I can help manage their poorly designed

(42:29):
high school football program that's percentage based. And I also
know that these guys don't have adapted central nervous system.
So a whole program based off of one rep max
from whenever they finished in January. Football playoffs were lifted
for the first time in January, and now we got
a whole four month program based off of percentage. That's

(42:50):
a lie. Okay. I can teach you how to manipulate
this stuff and put them in a position to succeed,
but it's still in line with the idea of muscle
contraction and muscle action. And then the self awareness, and
I mean, all the warm up is doing is teaching
them self awareness. Hey, dead bugs make me feel good,
or they stretch my calves, the whatever world's greatest man.

(43:16):
That really helps open up my hips. Okay, so when
you communicate to me, hey, my hips are sore, or
you feel my hips are sore, you know what to do.
So it's yes, we're developing the athleticism. We're also creating
self awareness and truly ownership of their performance through this
opportunity in the warm up. So there's a lot of

(43:39):
buy in challenges that we can discuss. It's certainly taking
me years and a lot of confrontation and conflict to
find the best way to apply this stuff and really
introduce it. And I'll call it install to use some
sports speak, Right, I got to install an offense. I
would if we're changing the way you do things, you

(44:00):
need to install this piece by piece. So that's something
we can also cover. But just want to in line
with the you don't need the I mean forgetting the
names the jump pads.

Speaker 1 (44:12):
What are the force blades?

Speaker 2 (44:14):
Force plade? We don't need force plates. Like if I'm
coaching for years and working with those same people and
I get my hands on and feel their ability to resist, like,
then I'm in line. And this is what I call
intent city, right, two words. So if we're moving with
intent what I have on the card. We're going to

(44:34):
hit the progressions that I foresaw for them writing this program.
But if they're going through the motions maybe their body
is fresh, but their mind is off on some relationship
or test or or something, then then we're going to
miss the mark on the training day, which is going
to decrease our trainability long term, especially in this development window.

(44:57):
So it's all connected, and I just strongly feel like
tapping into the EQ side of things will unlock all
the IQ and stuff that we as young coaches value
the most. The perfect program, the awesome tools that we have. Yes,
you are right, but how do you get that athlete
invested to pour and unlock the potential that you see

(45:21):
in them as a coach?

Speaker 1 (45:23):
Right? It's almost like what I would call the strength
and conditioning equivalent of selling me this pen. Right. If
you can get your athletes to buy in and understand
what you're doing, why you're doing it, the importance of
it when you literally have no equipment, then it's easy
when you have access to all the equipment and shining

(45:43):
new toys in the world. Right. It's one of those
things that I think the other piece on the buy
inside at least for me. Like I mentioned before, it's
always how can I make the main frame that I'm
using better? How can I evolve it, how can I
adapt it? And so on that way, that's a never
ending process. The way we've always done things just doesn't work.

(46:05):
We always have to move forward because again, there's new
info coming out every single day, and unfortunately, if you
don't keep up with it, you know a lot of
simple things done well will get you very far. However,
there's always a better way, and we should always be
willing to try something, experiment with something new and see
where it fits. And one of the things that I
appreciate that you brought up was the way that you

(46:27):
approach things like stretching or mobility training right. Like take
the dead bug as an example. You have your guys
do it with straight leg instead of bent leg. Right,
They're not gonna sit there and do two minutes of
hamstring stretching because you've only got four minutes with them.
We're just gonna switch our dead bug to straight leg,
which is now still the same position they'd end up
with for a hamstring stretch, but it's doing so in

(46:49):
a way that checks so many other boxes. Hey, we're
gonna get some core stability. We're gonna get this, We're
gonna get this right. It's more bang for the buck,
so you know, it still accomplishes the same goals. And
I think that's ultimately what gets laid out to the coaches,
the parents and so on, is, hey, look here's our goals.
We're still checking all of those boxes. We're just doing
so in a different way than maybe you thought, or

(47:12):
different way than you intended. But this way is actually
more efficient. It's more effective, and it gets the athlete
more of what they need, not less. It's a more
efficient use of their time, because again we're all pressed
for time with athletes.

Speaker 2 (47:26):
Yeah, and then why I love that variation of the
dead bug. It's the assessment tool as well as the
corrective exercise. And if I got forty dudes doing the
same dead bug, hold, well, I've already expressed I got
ankle issues. Dan, let's just say he's got weak hips.
Just hypothetical. Dan's got weak hips, Matt's got tight hamstrings, whatever.

(47:49):
So we're all working on what we are working on.
But in my lead, my card, my warm up, it's
the same movement. So now it's allowing all of my
teammates to target and create self awareness of oh my calves,
and it changes every single day based off of you know,
football training and weight training or whatever gold gym brow

(48:12):
down they're doing on their own, So all of that changes.
It's not just going to be a label of oh,
this person has this and it's going to be progressing.
Dead bugs do progress. There are very challenging variations that
by the end of it, they lead to. And then
on that note, the different variations when I go back

(48:33):
to two notes on this, when I go back and say, like,
you remember how hard these were, Now they're easy. So
showing them their progression within certain movements is a win.
But also the return to play we mentioned like if
I'm out, I'm shelved for ankles, I still need to
train and prepare, so all of the warm up variations

(48:56):
that then eliminate ankle still know and have knowledge base
or elbow or whatever it may be, so they still
have a toolkit where they can start to practice and
not do nothing right. I'm miss because if they miss
two weeks, four weeks, six weeks, their conditioning, their play,
their speed, their body is six weeks behind the rest

(49:18):
of their team. We cannot afford that maybe two weeks behind,
and we're going to play catch up just with extra work.
This is why I love the bike, right, no eccentric,
no force, and no excuses.

Speaker 1 (49:32):
I like that. I like that a lot. Text and
I realized we could probably keep talking about this all
day long and continuing to peel back the layers that way.
Is there anything we missed or anything else in particular
you want to bring up in relation to how you
approach training without equipment.

Speaker 2 (49:46):
Just the commentary that buy in and install. So I
would not apply a full force change within your warm up.
I would take whatever dynamic warm up they've been doing,
and then, just like I did, I install two new movements.
So let's just say it's ten of the same exercises. Well,

(50:08):
then I introduced two, and then we do the rest
of our ten, and then the next day, okay, we're
gonna do these two new ones and these next two
or this next one, and then I just peel back.
Now we're only going to do eight and so on.
So gradually introduce this and bring enthusiasm and excitement versus

(50:28):
the authoritative leadership where it's do this or else. More
of author authoritarian leading with the excitement and the joy
and the benefits. So it's going to increase performance, it's
going to reduce risk of injuries and call out a
kid of Hey, dude, you remember last season when you
were complaining about shin spins the whole entire time. Well,

(50:50):
while we're doing these cocky walks or these dead bugs
or this menu resistance, shin is going to be so
that six weeks into season you don't have to worry
about shin splints and you can focus on lacrosse, football, whatever.
So start building that buy in from the get go.
This is going to benefit them. And because guards will

(51:12):
be up, it's not going to be easy. The stuff
it's now we're taking that fourteen minutes is going to
be conditioning, it's going to be GPP, it's going to
be athletically challenging, movement patterns. It's not going to be easy.
The fronts will come up, the self defense making, the
self defense mechanisms are going to be there. So preparing

(51:34):
and getting in front of them the best you can
is going to put you in the best position for
establishing that buy in and creating a new way of
doing things. Now I turn it into humor. If we
see another team who's doing static stretching and counting to
ten boom, we got them. This game's already over, so
turning it into a sense of like an air of

(51:55):
confidence and they've put in the work and the preparation
because it wasn't easy and by the time we get
to games, it's going to still continue to progress. But
that's a lot of work. Think about thirty practices we
focused for ten minutes on our warm up times, thirty
play defense. I'm not a math guy, so that's three

(52:16):
hundred minutes of different training that we invested in to
develop ourselves as athletes, to get hard work and be
more hard nosed and prepared for this moment. Or we
could have done the same thing over and over again
for three hundred minutes and not gotten better. Just framing
this they did the work, they earned it, they're invested,

(52:37):
and then always come back to their body. How's your
body feeling, is it banged up? How are shins? And
then as much buying outside, if you can go talk
to the athletic trainers and say like, who's come in
this week, what's going on? And stay in tuned and
then hopefully they remember last year about how the guys

(52:58):
would just be malingerers in the training room the whole
time and then miss a lot. So as building buy in,
it's just it sucks about preventative care. You can't feel it.
It's just something did not happen. You don't know if
it worked or not. But this is a sense of Okay,
how does your body feel, do you feel strong? Do

(53:20):
you feel confident? Let's remember it last year in building
that buy in so you can you can take it
from a like a logos and information based and saying
why this is going to work. That could work for
some guys. Some guys are just not interested. They're just ballplayers.
So now reference back to previous years of pain and

(53:40):
then aim to highlight future performance and and aim to.
I say aim because you know every athlete's different. Some
just they don't care. They would just want to be
there with their boys. So all different things, all different kids,
but doing the same benefit. And eventually hand them the

(54:00):
cards to run this whole thing, and you get to
sit back and do what you want to, which is coach,
fix one or two things and then have a good
time with your team.

Speaker 1 (54:10):
I love that. I love that text. You're incredibly well spoken,
and you've got a really robust framework and method of
thinking for things. For people who want to find out
more about you that way, whether that be online or
on social media or that sort of thing, where can
they find you at?

Speaker 2 (54:24):
The instagram's the best. It's it's my last name at
McQuilkin m c q u I l k I N
So put my training up there and then post the
pod pod clips and then Captains and Coaches handle as
well on Instagram Captains and Coaches dot Com for Yeah, podcast, blogs, information,

(54:46):
et cetera. And aim to roll more and more of
this out, so getting some good speaking opportunities and filming
those as we got the opportunity to at in Knoxville,
and really turning that into some some educational content. Getting
ahead of this and the theme of the Captains and
Coaches is sports don't teach lessons. Captains and coaches do

(55:10):
so like I'm battling that in Texas and football every
single day. You're right, Football taught me this. Football taught
me that you're going to play football. It's like no
football's ball. Football didn't teach you anything. You had a
coach that led you to those lessons, so helping parents, kids,
and coaches understand the responsibility and the power that they

(55:31):
do have through their words.

Speaker 1 (55:34):
I love that. I love that text. We'll link to
all of that in the description below as well. That way,
if you didn't quite catch it, you can just click
there and see everything that Tex is up to. Really
appreciate your time and the insights today, man, Thanks for
being here.

Speaker 2 (55:45):
Thank you for the opportunity. Man, it's great.

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