E24 | Nicolai Morris: Exploring Movement through Gymnastics

[0:00:01 Speaker 1] Welcome to the Team Behind the Team podcast. I’m your host, Don? T Made. This is the monthly show focused on building conversations around the team based model approach to ethics, performance, strength and conditioning, sports medicine, sports science, mental health and wellness and sports nutrition. Hello and welcome back to the Team Behind the Team podcast. I’m your host, Ronnie Made and we are into our next month episode and coach Mike Hansen is in the house. Coach Mike, what’s going on today baby,

[0:00:39 Speaker 2] you know, excited to be back. Um our guests, our third one that we just, we just talked about from Australia. So it’s always exciting hence why we’re back on zoom. Um, but are you excited for the school year starts right around the corner. You ready?

[0:00:52 Speaker 1] I am. It’s uh it’s been today. We’re always starting to feel the craziness of of kids coming back but I’m ready. The summer is flown by but I’m ready but excited to do this podcast. They with our guests so cool. I’ll jump in and introduce our guests real quick, kind of a little context kind of give him, give the listeners a little hint. But our guest today comes from Australia. She is currently in New Zealand I had the distinct honor of meeting our guests. I think it was 2,017. I was able to go out to the, the S. E. A, the Australian strength Coaches Association, their national international conference, which was a dream come true for me and I met Coach Nikolai Morris there who’s our guests. A coach. Nick. What’s going on over there in new Zealand?

[0:01:42 Speaker 0] Not much. Thanks guys so much for having me on.

[0:01:45 Speaker 1] Yeah, you do. You holding up in this, this uh Covid area. You’re making it through coach

[0:01:50 Speaker 0] Yeah, we’re really lucky over here. We haven’t had a case of Covid in a couple of months, so we’re living it up. Things are pretty normal. I

[0:01:58 Speaker 1] think the US, we could learn a little something for me.

[0:02:01 Speaker 0] Yeah,

[0:02:04 Speaker 2] yeah.

[0:02:05 Speaker 0] Your vaccination rates are killing our, so hopefully we can get out.

[0:02:09 Speaker 1] Everybody calls you Nick, You said so, Nick, thank you so much for being on again from when I met you out there. Just, I don’t know, just came off. You know, the brief time that I got to talk to you meet you just super professional, very approachable and friendly and just was I feel like people just drawn to you. I know you’re kind of an outgoing person, but I think that’s a big piece of what we do in our profession and you definitely you’ve got that down. So it was great to meet you. Great. Thank you for being on the show. We look forward to this uh kind of interview today. So good stuff. Uh, one quick fun question before we get into the deal. So you guys are doing pretty good. Huh? And, and medals over there in Australia. Right, New Zealand,

[0:02:52 Speaker 0] Yeah, really good. Both Australia and new Zealand, I think are having some of the best olympics ever.

[0:02:57 Speaker 1] Now. I know we’re gonna get into the show, but you guys got some high pressure on you. Right, correct me from different colleagues. I’ve talked to write, you guys get a lot of pressure to do well over there, correct?

[0:03:08 Speaker 0] Yeah, I think this olympics has been a little bit different. Um, usually I think Covid maybe helped with that. Usually the media are pretty brutal. Um, there was, are not acceptable in certain sports, like swimming in Australia, but um, this time they haven’t put the pressure of how many medals we need to achieve and they’ve taken the pressure off hammering some of our best athletes and it’s working. We’re performing.

[0:03:33 Speaker 1] Hey, that’s a point. I know that we’re all script little bit here, but we’ve had this topic throughout. I’ve been coaching a long time to, but when you don’t have pressure on everybody just seems to do better, you know, and but if you, the pressure hits, it’s like everybody tightens up and you don’t get that, you know, you don’t reach that level. But anyway, that’s a, that’s another episode. Sometimes we have to get you back sure. But hey, first question, we’ll get you rolling here. Kind of what sparked your interest in becoming a performance coach kinda maybe give us a little bit of your history and kind of where you’re at, give us kind of lead us into that.

[0:04:09 Speaker 0] Yes sir, When I was younger I was a swimmer and I love sport and I love movement. Um I was that weird kid who would watch movies or watch everyone else and just assess their movement, which I don’t think is normal for like a 1213 year old girl just staring intently at people how they move. Um And being a summer, I thought I loved coaching and I loved kind of taking the youngest winners under my wing and teaching them certain things. So I thought maybe swimming coaching was where I’d end up, but it wasn’t super interesting and I liked movement in general, not just movement in the pool. So When I was about 14, I was introduced by a classmate of mine to strengthen conditioning um and being a female, it wasn’t, it wasn’t an industry I really ever heard of or was aware of because we didn’t have it in any of our schools, so I was in a private company and I trained out of them and I was really lucky after I finished school to be able to get an internship with them and start basically when I started university and start working as an SNC from then on. And I just loved it. I loved being able to work with people, being able to coach, being able to coach people who weren’t with their heads under the water 90% of the time, so I could actually have a chat as well, which which is always good. Um and just keep on that um, obsession with which watching movement and assessing movement, I guess

[0:05:36 Speaker 2] that’s awesome. Uh Speaking of like you’re passionate movement because you highlighted that a few times, How is that reflected? Um kind of in your training program and your training philosophy? How do you go about integrating movement within your programs?

[0:05:51 Speaker 0] Yeah, I think um and it does depend on the sport where the movements are kind of focused, but if we can move well as a whole, it’s going to lend itself to being able to get stronger, to be able to get faster, to be able to get more powerful. So it just limit, it doesn’t limit that ceiling we put on people by trying to progress them too quickly. So being able to move well in a variety of different ways in all planes of movement, I think, yeah, really essential for all athletes too to discover and especially those who are just starting in the gym on the field. So I think it’s an area that we, yeah, that I really like to focus on

[0:06:31 Speaker 2] and you talked before this again, you just highlighted your experience as a swimmer and you’ve worked with rowing before, which will touch on again later on. Um, but those are two sports that I work with as well. I’m kind of like you and that philosophy and that like if you can increase, you know, if you want to call it kinesthetic awareness or even like you can call, I guess, you know, you’re appropriate receptive system, Your vestibular system. Like if you can get those things going, it just feels like it does translate to an extent into the pool or under the water. Um is that kind of how you see it too?

[0:07:05 Speaker 0] Yeah, absolutely. One of the, one of the athletes are currently work with them, you are so lucky to work with, she’s over in Tokyo competing at the moment and she’s a high jumper, so she’s an absolute specialist at what she does, but she wasn’t, she was a great mover in the high jump area, but needed a lot of work with movement in all other areas. So since we started working on her overall movement, not just her specific movement, she’s come so far and yeah, she’s hopefully a really good shot for a medal on saturday, on saturday.

[0:07:43 Speaker 2] So it’s happening right now. That’s awesome.

[0:07:45 Speaker 0] What, what’s

[0:07:47 Speaker 1] her name again? I saw that post you, I thought that was, I was kind of, I was creeping on her a little bit. She looks like I stud

[0:07:54 Speaker 0] Nicola. So she’s an Australian high jumper and she’s, she’s amazing. She’s been with her coach since she was 10 years old and equaled or pBde every single year since she was 10, which I don’t think many elite athletes can say. Um and yeah, she’s just the most lovely person you’ll ever meet. She’s great.

[0:08:14 Speaker 1] Yeah. She’s, she’s fairly young too, right,

[0:08:17 Speaker 0] 24, yeah, that’s

[0:08:18 Speaker 1] why I couldn’t believe I saw your post kind of looked her up and just saw some of the her jumps and just she looks so young to be jumping that high anyway, kudos to you.

[0:08:29 Speaker 0] Hopefully we can push her onto uh 11 more years of Olympics and get it to Brisbane in 2032. I’m not sure about that

[0:08:37 Speaker 2] smoke. So I’ve also heard through the grapevine um that you implement gymnastics quite frequently with a variety of sports, is that correct?

[0:08:48 Speaker 0] Yeah, yeah, I love using gymnastics. It’s

[0:08:50 Speaker 2] yeah, yeah. Could you speak to that? Like what are some ways that you’ve used gymnastics um whether that be maybe the entire training session, whether it be a warm up cool that you like, what have you done? Is it tumbling, what does it look like?

[0:09:03 Speaker 0] Um It varies sport to sport. So for example, uh with sports like rugby and contact sports where you can end up in any position. Um And especially with female athletes that maybe answers used to contact being in those positions can become really dangerous if you don’t know where you are in space. So we do a lot of tumbling, work with them um with my swimmers and water polo athletes, we did a lot of work on hanging in handstands, a lot of work through the shoulder as I spoke to before being a swimmer Doing that work myself has been the only way my shoulder was pain free in 15 years, so I think it’s an area that’s, it’s really cool um and yeah, it just use it in warm ups to keep it exciting sometimes if you’re with the same team years on end, they get a little bit sick of you, so changing it up and getting into, explore movement again. Can only be a good thing in my mind. Yeah,

[0:10:04 Speaker 2] that’s, I just think that’s so cool. I’ve heard of so many different pros to using gymnastics again, like whether it be a warm up or you know, kind of in the meat of your training session. I’ve heard like her coaches used like hanging as a way to stimulate your nervous system. Um like we spoke to where I spoke to you earlier is like I’ve seen coaches used tumbling for your vestibular system and then kind of like you’re saying just that kinesthetic awareness, um I just think it’s really cool and kind of like you’re saying you said it’s a cool area, I think that might be an untapped area largely speaking. So I just, that’s a really cool thing that you utilize

[0:10:38 Speaker 1] had a question. So uh nick, could you give us like a, just give us an example of how you would integrate that with the sport er team and then how often would you use it? And what part of the workout? Give us an example.

[0:10:51 Speaker 0] All right, so I worked with female rugby team and like I said before most of them were quite used to the contact area. So we use a combination of tumbling and grappling style work and we trained in the gym twice a week and one session a week at the end of the session was purely developed was purely um designed to develop um basically motor control and a special awareness and be fun. It’s exploration of movement one oh one. So we went from doing things like headstands, learning how to do that into handstands into tumbling like forward rolls. We got the crash mat out, we’re doing dive rolls. Um we’re doing flips and basically allowing them to be more and more aware of where they are. So if they get flipped in a tackle they’re not going to be breaking the neck, it’s just gonna be a lot safer for them. And also got a lot of fun, we added games in there as well and it just allowed them to bring so much joy into their training which is really hard especially for a team that trains to like 99 30 at night the night before and has to be in the gym at six a.m. The next day. Like not many people wanted me up at six a.m. The next day before a full day of work. So it just allowed us to really bond his group. It allowed us to have a lot of fun and it really um improved attendance because it wasn’t a compulsory session either, it was completely optional, so we got we’re getting up to Getting between 12 and 20 most most days for a squad of rugby, so that was pretty cool.

[0:12:31 Speaker 2] Yeah that makes that makes me think of um So over here in the States but the popular sport is american football um and so I talked, you know whether it’s coaches or honestly even my friends all the time because I grew up playing football is there’s I don’t have the research behind it, there’s definitely something to knowing how to take a hit, knowing how to go to the ground, knowing how to absorb contact in those collision sports like rugby or ice hockey. Um Like I guess I just want to add that there’s definitely something to that and learning that skill um because there’s that debate in american football is like when should, you know, kids start these collision sports and pros and cons of course, but hopefully you like to think in a good system Um they have the opportunity where they can learn how to absorb contact before you put them there when they’re able to all of a sudden, you know, run 15 mph and kind of run head to head because then you’re gonna run into issues if they don’t know how to produce and absorb contact.

[0:13:25 Speaker 0] Yeah, I don’t know if either of you guys have ever had a an ex gymnast joined, whatever sport, but like I’ve had a few times where I’ve been lucky enough to have it, next gymnast has changed sports. So one was in women’s rugby, she just moved better than everyone else. She was stronger, she was, she was our halfback, so usually the smallest player on the field And she was lifting with the biggest players she could still, after retiring from gymnastics probably 15 years earlier, maybe longer, she could still flip, she could still move and you can just see those skills how much robustness they have in those athletes.

[0:14:05 Speaker 1] Yeah. No, yeah, we’ve had uh you made me think coach, we we’ve had some interns I know one year, a friend of mine, Jason Kwan, he was an ex like very competitive gymnast gymnast when he was younger. And so we have definitely, we’ve done some tumbling before. So I’ve definitely seen there’s a lot of like you said, a lot of benefits from doing tumbling and um I’ve seen I’ve seen it with some sports definitely swimming before. Some of the gymnastic more Isil holds different positions and kids just kids about like you said, body control is just so so needed. I remember even I’m dating myself a little bit here but I played football at Georgia and herschel walker back then was Back in the 80s Mike & Nick, he was taking ballet and dance, which back then was a little edgy, you know because people just didn’t understand like way that’s football, like what’s

[0:15:03 Speaker 2] the big tough guy

[0:15:04 Speaker 1] taking dance, but he was ahead of, like he was already so strong that he needed to explore, like you said kind of develop his movement and finesse skills more and he just thought outside he was just very innovative and his thought and approach to performance, but even back then, so it’s cool to hear you, it’s all coming back around full circle. So

[0:15:22 Speaker 2] yeah, like transfers to multiple sports. So Valerie Almond, someone who’s been training at the University of texas, she just won the gold in the discus and I believe she came up as a ballet dancer before she was a discus thrower which probably played a big role and you know how well she can control her body. I know it’s popular with you know hockey goalies and you know, so there’s there’s definitely a component that transfers over to all these sports where there is a lot of movement

[0:15:49 Speaker 0] imagine in discus with all the spinning, like she just so much better awareness than everyone else of where she is.

[0:15:57 Speaker 2] Right energy when yeah, when she’s producing all that tour

[0:16:01 Speaker 1] so smooth in great, great, great graceful too. Um All right, I got a, I got a little change of topic here for you, nick uh this this is one of my passions to can’t wait to hear. Um So just kind of looking at your resume and experience and education. You do have a background in multiple practices and modalities. I saw you’ve got a little bit of athletic training, um massage and Pilates. Now, question how is that experience in dealing with some of that in those areas influenced your lens to prescribing performance in developing athletes?

[0:16:39 Speaker 0] I think um the biggest thing is that allows you to have a greater understanding of all the areas you commonly work with, so it allows you to understand what the physio or the Pilates instructor want out of their athletes. So you can collaborate in a greater sense of a deeper understanding with what they need from you and how you can link in with them. Um Again it comes back to being able to have more tools, like it allowed me to have more tools in my toolbox. Um It allows me to work in teams really effectively. Sometimes we don’t have a great um Amount of resources. So I went away with the 10 2 years ago to a really cool um It’s technically an international olympic committee event called the World Beach Games working with a team called team of Australian beach handles, which is a really cool sport if you haven’t seen it. And they got taken as a manager as the S. And C. As the massage therapist, as the second physio, as we only had to staff, the head coach who was also a physio, so if anything really went wrong it would go to him and and myself, so you get to play a number of different roles and it just allows you to be, um, a little bit more uh, over all those different areas, if you do get caught up on to do things.

[0:18:13 Speaker 1] So hey, that, that’s got, you just got me fired up right there when you, you just listed all those roles you played because I just think, um, I think definitely, I think mike would maybe agree. Maybe not, but over the, over in America we have, everybody has like their, I’m just a string coach or I’m just a trainer. I’m just, everybody’s got their, their little hat on of what they do and I think sometimes there can be some, some silo kind of friction there. Well that’s not your, you know, but I just feel like where we’re headed in sport and performance, you’ve got to be, we were, I was talking to somebody about this so that you’ve got to be, not a specialist, but you gotta be a generalist to keep moving. You got to know a lot about, you can do a little bit of, a lot, a lot of different areas and I mean, so question for you on that, what you just said, have you ever ran into where somebody was a little bit territorial? Like, hey, you state your strength coach, you ever got any of that before. I don’t wanna throw anybody under the bus, but if you have to deal with

[0:19:11 Speaker 0] that. Yes. Yes, very much so. Um it’s the words stay in your lane gets thrown around a lot. Um I think working in sport um and I uh people take that, that phrase in many different ways. I don’t enjoy it. I think it should be stay within your scope of practice. The lines are going to be, the lines are gonna be blown no matter what, if you’re rehabbing an athlete you’re working with, especially in the elite level, we’re working with a multitude of people who are trying to get this person back the athlete back to the above where they were previously. So at the start the medical team, so the physio, the doctor are going to have the most say in what’s needed. And as it comes through the continuum, the S and C. Is probably gonna head coach, you’re gonna have more and more of a say, um you’re linking with the dietician psychologist etcetera all the way through and if you’re working in a silo, the athletes not going to be back to performance. Not at all. So you really need to have those blurred lines, You stay with them. What you are actually qualified to do. Try I’m snc I should never try and be an actual physio unless you’re on a team and you have to be um like I’m never going to diagnose an injury that’s not my area, but at the same time, you need to understand the injury and need to understand the rates of healing all of all the stuff embedded in there and be able to work with those other collaborators and support staff to get them back. And yet it’s just about being all not continuing way you sit and how you can help.

[0:20:52 Speaker 1] Yeah, I know just even here and you talk one of the it’s been with Kobe, there’s definitely been challenges, but I’ve had to wear more hats because I’ve got a little background and massage. I’m not like a I don’t have my own practice and moan, moan building and all that. But um massage changed my life. You know, I had a lot of back problems coming out of college. I’m just being banged up and so I had to figure out not only for me, but for my athletes, like there’s got to be a different lens in a way to to understand the body of how it responds to to distress, right? Because at the end of the day, you’re trying to get kids to adapt and if certain stressors are making them worse. It’s what’s the ways around that. You can can use different training implements your devices in addition to some soft tissue things or corrective exercises that’s gonna help kind of build them and move them along and be better. So, I mean, little things like fashion lines and how tissue responds to overtraining and looking at a symmetries and how can you fix that, manage that better that I’ve learned. I’ve learned more from probably massage and studying. Being around that group of people that have most shrink coaches. So it’s cool. That’s so awesome. You do that. So good stuff.

[0:22:09 Speaker 0] I love I love your response then because I think it shows um to take the ego out of it right? We as strength coaches sometimes get in our own little world and think where we know everything and we’re the best at everything. And we don’t look at where other practitioners even if they aren’t the norm, even though massage basically is. But um if they aren’t the normal way of doing things, looking at their experiences and background, like when you massage your hands are on the other person and you can feel what their body is doing, you can feel what the muscle is doing and it just gives you a different insight. And I think that’s really cool that you you looked into all of that and you learn from from others that shows yeah, how awesome you are gone.

[0:22:55 Speaker 2] It’s funny like to hear stay in your lane um like if that were the case right? If we were just, you know, quote unquote, stay in our lane, then that means I would try to solve every problem has a strength conditioning coach with trying to build strength or trying to build power and speed right? Whereas a lot of times that’s just not like not every problem needs to be solved that way. Sometimes you need to go to the dietician, sometimes it’s a sports psychologist. Like and so here’s stay in your lane. Like I think of course we we need to learn to collaborate with the experts as you were saying, you know, who, you know, if it is the athletic trainer in sport med, of course they’re going to be the one diagnosed the injury, but we should have at least some scope of understanding because there is crossover when it comes to performance. We’re all just kind of pieces to a bigger puzzle.

[0:23:41 Speaker 0] Absolutely

[0:23:43 Speaker 1] stuff.

[0:23:43 Speaker 2] But yeah, so Donnie’s referencing that diverse background. Um We’re also like not only may you be in multiple lanes have experienced multiple lanes, but you’ve also worked with a variety of sports. Um and their contrasting sports with regards to demand. So you have track and field and swimming which are way different, you know, field hockey and rowing are completely different demands with regards to their sports. So with that where in your programs, whether it’s in the past or the present, where are there um maybe some major similarities. And then where are their their differences within programming for those different sports with different demands?

[0:24:21 Speaker 0] Yeah. So, so the main similarities um at least in my my philosophy is treat the person first, so you may get a track and field athlete that’s completely different to all of the track and field athletes and how they respond. And you may need to treat them like a role, which is really weird, but it just you’ve got to treat them as what they are in front of you and how they respond first. Um And at the end of the day like I spoke about first, uh if they move well then we can start going on to more specific sport um areas we need to fix and challenge, but if they move Pauling we gotta we gotta know that on the head first and all sports and increases strength is going to be a benefit up to a certain ceiling. Um And most of the athletes I’ve worked with haven’t hit that ceiling. There’s not many who do at least in my experience probably a few more in America. Um The lifting culture is still a lot stronger. Um And then working yeah, working on where we can progress them, which is where the differences start to come on, which is when we start looking at the needs analysis of each sport. So in swimming being able to hold posture in the water um If you’ve got, even in swimming it’s completely different stroke two stroke distance sprints. So sprinters, you may actually train them a lot more like like a runner and you’re doing a lot more plyometric work because the dive is so important. You’re doing a lot more power based and strength based work. Um Whereas this distance athlete needs to be like a cork in the water and any excess muscle mass can actually have problems further down the track when it comes to their fluidity and their ability. Um To to not feel that against this that sometimes the muscle mass can bring. And it’s it’s a weird one. Um Sometimes talk about the fields definitely. Um But if if it affects their feel of the water or they feel a little bit fatigued from it, you can really put off some distance runners. So they’re they’re a touchy one. Um Rowing is, in my eyes one of the very strength based sports. We we’ve got to do a lot to get them strong and powerful and be able to have that strength endurance as well. So you’ve got to be powerful out of the star, you’ve got to be able to hold that strength endurance for two kilometers. Um Some of the most hardworking, ridiculous athletes uh in the world, but they they also um in my experience with rollers compared to your team sports and your land sports in general, they don’t need variety. They don’t really want variety too much. They’re happy doing the same thing over and over to an extent. Um So that that tends to be um really important and then you’ve got to look at as well between sport to sport what the injury risks are. So swimming, you’re gonna have shoulders pretty much every summer has a shoulder issue with your rowers, you’re gonna have ribs and back with hockey, field hockey, sorry, you’re probably gonna have backs and hamstrings, uh with athletics, you’re looking at stress injuries and hamstrings and most common, so looking at those injuries and how to do our best to manage um and where possible reduce any risk of injury that we can have.

[0:27:52 Speaker 2] Yeah, I’m glad you brought up growing. Um it’s like I’ve always kind of viewed those cyclical sports, the repetitive sports, like cross country rowing, even swimming to an extent of, you know, at the end of the day, there’s only so much movement demand. It’s not like a softball or lacrosse where there’s, you know, it’s an open skilled sport where kind of anything can happen, you have to prepare them for that so you can kind of break down the movement and like you said, how we do it here at texas in season with rowing. It’s essentially the same movement for almost an entire semester that we do. Um it’s just different varieties of it within the movement itself. Right? So I’m switching them up, back squat to a front squat or dumbbells split squad, to maybe a contra lateral split squad. Um somebody you brought that up, but then another thing is you were talking about swimming um and as someone who has competed as a competitive swimmer, I think that’s a pretty rare thing, at least in my experiences to meet a shrink coach or performance coach who does that or who was a competitive swimmer. So I’m curious for you because there are a lot of strength coaches out there who have never competitively swam, maybe in one of them. What would be some advice or considerations that you would share with strength coaches or other professionals who never swam competitively, what would you tell them that would maybe hopefully bridge the gap a little bit between actually feeling the water versus kind of just being in the weight room

[0:29:14 Speaker 0] firstly. Um, we’re weird. That’s, that’s normal. You’re gonna be working with a weird sport, like, like every sport, it has their own language, get to know the language, go spend some time with the head coach. Um, depending on who you’ve got your, you could have an old school or a new school style of coach, but like any sport, if you lose the coach, you’re going to have problems. So chapter the coach, see what’s key for them. The last coach I worked with was was really great and really open to learning. He wanted to um, he, he had a very strong sprinters crude, they all lifted, but as soon as comp came in the distance one is had to really back off and it worked for them as well. So I get to know um, the language like feel of the water, It is a thing, some pools have fast water, some have slow, it feels heavy or light, I don’t know how to better understand it. It’s just, it’s just a thing, it’s real to us.

[0:30:15 Speaker 2] Uh,

[0:30:16 Speaker 0] but understand the fact that it doesn’t respond like a land sport. Typically how you move in water is not the same as under gravity. So understanding that is probably the biggest key um, the main improvements that we can have, the swimming in SNC is decreasing injury risk uh, of the world and shoulders um, mike were talking earlier about how swimmers tend to injure themselves, not in the pool. They tend to injure themselves like walking. Yeah, there’s a really funny article, which I still can’t find. I think it may have been taken down, but it was a swim swam article on Ryan Lochte and it talked about, I think about 10 injuries he had from things like dislocating these break dancing or grabbing a phone out of the back seat and hurting himself. Like the kind of injury swimmers do. It’s just a thing. Um, so protecting them from the world is one and the shoulders. Uh, so injury prevention is probably The # 1 2nd is the main gains you can make is in their body control and off the diving turns. So jump, especially in your sprinters dive and the turns make up a fair amount of the race and if you can make effect on that, you’re going to have a really, really good go at it. So then the main things, I would look at

[0:31:49 Speaker 2] that kind of, I mean that piggybacks, the same thing I’ve read from Friends bosch where he’s a whole book on specificity and transfer of training. And the one thing he always ends with, which is frustrating as a swim strength coach because you want to make as big of a difference is you can use at the end of the day, the stimulus of swimming against water resistance is just almost like you’re like, you can’t replicate that on land or especially in the weight room no matter how hard you try. So, um, that’s where you’re kind of limited and probably what we’re referencing together earlier about, it’s just a weird sport that, you know, you can affect certain things that you pointed out and I appreciate that. But at the end of the day, it’s, it’s not like a land sports. So

[0:32:28 Speaker 0] yeah, shouldn’t be treated in such a big thing for anyone who’s never worked in swimming, like you said, definitely don’t try and replicate the movement, It doesn’t work. It will at all. If anything, it’ll, it’ll affect their stroke and make it worse. So I think there’s

[0:32:46 Speaker 2] a lot of that from what I’ve seen going on in Dryland is a lot of people trying to replicate, but like you said, sometimes that can affect the neuro muscular component of what’s happening and so on and so forth.

[0:32:56 Speaker 1] Good stuff. I’ll go change gears on both of you here just for a second, Another just uh hot topic here. So, nick you are a successful female strength condition coach for sure in this profession. Can you share, what have you done that has helped you progress and move up in your career as a female, what have you done?

[0:33:22 Speaker 0] I think the biggest thing is um I don’t know if it’s pride, ego or just perseverance. Um there are times where I probably, if I was uh less of any of those things um I probably would have left the industry that and also I loved it um but I just, I loved it and I wanted to keep going and I was very lucky to come from a background that allowed me to put a lot of hours in, unpaid, a lot of um time and effort where some, some people from different socioeconomic backgrounds may not have been able to do what I was able to do um because I was earning almost no money for a very long time, so I was very lucky to be supported by my family, but I I never thought I couldn’t do it, I think I was about five years in the industry before that even kind of entered my head, but I always thought I was onto something, I thought that I had something to give and that it would be worthwhile. Um and I was very lucky to have um gotten my break, completely different from most people where it didn’t come from anyone, I knew my first full time job, I didn’t know anyone on the interview panel, I didn’t know anyone related to the job um and I was very lucky to have had the skills which was rugby and swimming that they wanted, but yeah, I think the main thing for for young coaches, more coaches is don’t listen to anyone who tells you can’t females coaches, a coach, female or male, you don’t, you don’t have to be now to be a coach. Your agenda doesn’t make you a better coach and just because there is more male doesn’t mean that men are better at coaching where all people um approaches a coach, so the main thing is just just keep working on it um and I say all young coaches now, it’s a really hard industry to break into, so find a good mentor, I didn’t have good mentor at the start, I made a lot of mistakes, um I was what I would call the peak of stupidity on the dunning Kruger curve, um I was, I thought I was really good, um I thought I knew all this stuff and I didn’t, I was terrible and that brought me down to Earth and it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me because I put myself back in that learning um mindset and became open to learning from others, became open to not thinking that I knew everything and allowed me to become a better coach and allowed me to have the opportunities I have, and then um you know, having mentors throughout that also, um didn’t think that I couldn’t because I was female really helped as well, and they gave me every opportunity and and open doors for me as well and gave me the confidence and also skills to progress

[0:36:36 Speaker 1] you guys have, correct me if I’m wrong, is it is it women in sport? You have a group of female strength coaches there that you got your your helping comment with that lead some of it. Can you can you just share what that’s all about? Like, I’m this really intrigued me when I heard about, I would love to hear more share with the listeners.

[0:36:54 Speaker 0] Yes, sir, um we’re lucky in the A. C a to have a women’s advisory committee which has progressed so much in the last couple of years, they’ve done such a great job um and is really promoting, aiming to promote and give opportunities female coaches. Um A couple of my friends and I decided at one point that we wanted to progress that little further on a less um unless uh professional area a lot more casual, a lot more chats basically. And we started Women in Sport, which essentially started off as just an instagram page that still we probably don’t put enough effort into. Um But during covid a couple of the girls that I had helped out and who were young coaches that I I chatted with often wanted to catch up and I was like, why don’t we just open it up? Let’s let’s make it like everyone is in lockdown. No one’s enjoying selves at the moment. Let’s really make a proper um forum. So we started the women in sport forums, which is just a zoom call and it’s completely open to everyone. It’s completely free and it’s completely informal. So it’s usually once a month I’ve been a little psycho recently with the olympics. Um but we try and keep it at once a month where we, yeah, just anyone comes. We do, we’ve had a couple of americans, even though it’s usually an awful time zone shout out to D who usually wakes up at one a.m. To join us, which is ridiculous

[0:38:34 Speaker 1] because it’s

[0:38:35 Speaker 0] just not something I would do. Um and we have people who will come from europe a lot from Australia, new Zealand and it’s just allows people have a really safe space, really open space to chat about any issues about any challenges to share, any accomplishments to be proud. Um Sometimes we go on random tangents about nothing to do with sport. Sometimes we have people in to present, we’ve had people in, we had chris things, talking to us about emotional intelligence, We’ve had people in the group present on different areas, they’re fascinated about to get more confident and comfortable in their presenting experience. So it’s just, it’s just a really nice group and everyone in, it is awesome and it’s just a really cool way to network when there’s not a natural network for most female coaches,

[0:39:30 Speaker 1] that’s all. Yeah, I didn’t know that it had progressed that far. That is so cool. You guys gotta keep building that, that’s so important.

[0:39:39 Speaker 0] Yeah, we’ve got to anyone who has any ideas on how to progress it. We love it very again, it’s not a, there’s no dictatorship, it’s completely, everyone has their own say

[0:39:51 Speaker 1] that’s awesome. Um, we’re getting kind of near the end, but I gotta maybe one or two more questions. I noticed you got your degree from Edith cowan, right, is that your best? Uh, definitely that seems like a, just phenomenal um university, I know we interviewed Daniel Martinez who’s down the street here, he got his masters from there as well, Coach doc so far, you know, I don’t know her at all, I’m sure you probably know her, would love to have her at some point on, but just, man, it seems like a great institution. So with that, I think your educational background seems very high level, who’s been you, I think you mentioned uh, when your podcast, it was a grant Jenkins, is that correct? Has been a mentor for you. Any other mentors, it’s really influence kind of, your, your career thought process, who you are as a coach, anybody comes to mind.

[0:40:45 Speaker 0] Yeah, probably the biggest over the last six years has been chris spinks um is actually not technically coaching as an SNC anymore, but he is working in the leadership and coach development space um but he has helped me so much um he teaches both business professionals and um people involved in sports on emotional intelligence and has just really helped me so much develop myself, not just as a coach and I just can’t speak more highly of him. Um And over in New Zealand, I’ve had some, some really great people to work with and work around all the coaches who I was involved with, the rowing. New Zealand were unbelievable. There are some of the new Zealand, SNC’s are people who are so humble, have very little presence because they don’t want it, they don’t need it um there, but they just get on with their job and they’re just so good at what they do. Um And then we have uh the two that I have been with, who have been helping me so much in the last year, Emily Nolan and scot Logan, who scott’s the men’s black sticks, hockey SNC and has been for about 10 years and m no one is working in the professional basketball with the breakers and both of them have really helped me in the last year and yeah, great, great people,

[0:42:15 Speaker 1] yeah, that’s the one thing I’m definitely being over there, just you guys are so supportive of each other, you know, I think little bit of a rain here mike and I ran on this, but I feel like sometimes SNC coaches we like critical and tear each other down because I didn’t, I don’t, maybe you all do that somewhere, but I didn’t pick up on that culturally when I was there, I felt like you guys are pretty supportive and like trying to help each other advance and grow. So anyway, that’s a, that’s a cool thing. What you, what you might, we need to get you over there to the rolling, uh, we need to get you on that flight mike.

[0:42:52 Speaker 2] Yeah, no doubt I’m in. You just let me know when

[0:42:55 Speaker 1] that’s good stuff. Um okay, some fun questions. Okay, I want to have some, I got some fun ones for you. What do you like to do in your spare time? What are your hobbies

[0:43:07 Speaker 0] coach? I’m pretty lucky. I love usual things like the beach and hanging out with friends and watching tv, like a big tv fan. Netflix is dangerous for me. Um, but I also love continuing my sport. I’ve been learning pole vault for the last, probably. That’s amazing. That’s so fun. That’s

[0:43:31 Speaker 2] the one you wanted to learn. You wanted to pick up me. It’s crazy.

[0:43:36 Speaker 1] I don’t be it very well more

[0:43:39 Speaker 0] have such a great coach. Next Southgate who was a new Zealand pole vault champion here’s, there’s a brilliant coach, really young, really, really knowledgeable and what he’s doing and it’s just such a fun sport, like it’s just really cool feeling like you’re flying even though I’m barely jumping anything as my high jumper can basically jump the same height as me and I’ve got a poll so that’s slightly concerning, but I’m looking forward to progressing with it and picking a sport that not everyone does, which is enjoyable. And then yeah, I still, I still swim and run for masters masters levels, which is great fun. I love still competing. Um it allows you to still have that empathy and understanding of what the athletes go through. So yeah, I’m pretty lucky that my

[0:44:27 Speaker 1] call, that means that’s code for don’t make her mad. That’s really what that means. That

[0:44:34 Speaker 2] is so cool that I’ve never heard of someone picking up pole vault like that,

[0:44:38 Speaker 1] I would never enter my brain ever.

[0:44:41 Speaker 0] That’s in question going training. Uh We started learning at 50, so I’ve got no excuse like, and she’s awesome. Like there’s there’s no excuse when I trained with people who have picked it up later in life and I think that’s the cool thing about doing masters sport. I’ve had swimmers come to me and be like, oh yeah, I learned to swim, like had never swum learned to swim at 60 and now I’m swimming at Nationals, like it’s just really cool

[0:45:05 Speaker 2] for sure a couple of years ago, I had always talked about it because I always thought it was such a cool field event in track and field and that’s the javelin so I got to go out kind of you know in the back of our track record throwing pit um went through a whole warm up through a hole, like couple drills through a practice and it was like kind of your go time at the end like how far can might throw it. And uh I remember like feeling like I hit all the positions I was supposed to and then like just absolutely letting loose and I couldn’t get it to spiral so I don’t even know if it made it 20 m but kind of like you’re saying like it gives you empathy because you’re you’re in it and you’re like this is the most technical sport when just on tv sometimes we just take it for granted thinking oh yeah, you just you know, sprint as fast as you can and stick the pole in the ground and hop over. But typically not the case for just about every sport.

[0:45:53 Speaker 0] Yeah, it’s just it puts you in that learning, learning one set again and I think it’s an snc it’s really frustrating when you are relearning because you know what the movement should look like, you know the position you should be in but your body doesn’t do it.

[0:46:07 Speaker 2] It’s humbling. It’s it’s good for us to probably go through that

[0:46:11 Speaker 1] all right coach, best beach in Australia. I want to get you in trouble here, but I went to Bondi and I forget that I went to a couple of beaches out there and the best beach. I know you got, no, you’ve got at least one or two. I don’t wanna put you in a, in a bad spot over there, but we, I want to know.

[0:46:30 Speaker 0] Well, that’s such a challenge alone. I’m gonna give you two because they’re in different states that, that’s allowed. Um, I really love, even though it’s not what I would call your beach beach, but I love your, your sunshine coast beaches of like Noosa Coolum area depends on what you want. If you want to chill Noosa, if you want big waves. Cool. Um, and then I do love, even though Bondi is a tourist place and there’s always so many people on the beach. I do love it. I also love further along into like bronte beach. Um, that’s pretty cool too. All of the east. I love the eastern beaches. They’re so pretty. Best cycle go there. If you get to Sydney.

[0:47:16 Speaker 1] All right. Uh, one more question. Best food in Australia

[0:47:22 Speaker 0] cheese. That’s so challenging. I don’t even know.

[0:47:28 Speaker 1] They’ve got the best food. They, I’ve never had a flat white, like out to Australia and I’m ruined. Like, like

[0:47:35 Speaker 2] America

[0:47:36 Speaker 1] is terrible. Now.

[0:47:37 Speaker 2] Are you talking about like a type of food or like a, like a place. Yeah, I mean

[0:47:40 Speaker 1] it could be, you know, meat, seafood. I don’t, I think they do a lot of uh, I think you guys do meet a lot over there from what I remember.

[0:47:50 Speaker 0] Yeah. It depends on what I moved to new Zealand and show both have great food and great coffee, recommend them for both. The meat is I think really great over in both. Um, but I also love the Vietnamese in the italian food as well. I

[0:48:10 Speaker 1] Don’t know. I think I put on £20 when I was out there nick, I couldn’t stop eating food and drinking their flat whites anyway.

[0:48:17 Speaker 0] So yeah, I mean you got to do it. It’s

[0:48:21 Speaker 1] good. Right. Yeah. Well, good stuff. Anything else to add coach Hansen or nick, anything to add before we wrap up here.

[0:48:30 Speaker 2] You know, I just appreciate Nick taking the time and making time halfway across the world, especially if you have athletes in the olympics. Um, and as like any essence. Yeah, I know you have a busy schedule, so thanks for carving out time. I appreciate it.

[0:48:43 Speaker 0] No, I thank you guys so much for coming on and hopefully when Covid finally uh, is less problem, hopefully I can come over. I’d love to get over to texas. It’s one of my,

[0:48:55 Speaker 1] that’s why I was about to say if there’s any way we can ever get you to Austin, we would love to just have you in for however long we can get you to just hang out train, go see our facility. We’ll take you out. I

[0:49:07 Speaker 2] think I think pike stayed for like a whole week when he came, he didn’t want

[0:49:10 Speaker 1] to leave. Yeah, I was like, dude, like just move over here. So

[0:49:14 Speaker 0] I would be on the next 100%. And yeah, same guys, if you’re ever in the same, same town his name I’ll take you guys out

[0:49:22 Speaker 1] man. My, my wife was ready to move when we were out there. Nick, my wife’s ready to move to Australia. So I was like, whoa, pump the brakes there babe. So anyway, yes, I wouldn’t come back. Right, right, okay, Well that’s all I got Coach Hansen, that’s all you got Nick, you’ve been awesome. A K A Coach Nikolai Morris, so thank you so much. You’re a rock star and uh, I appreciate you sharing your time and expertise with all our listeners on the team. Behind the team. This has been great. That’s all we got. Hey, that’s it from Austin texas. How do we say goodbye in Australia? You give us a little Australian goodbye. Is it cheers? What is it?

[0:50:01 Speaker 0] See you later.

[0:50:02 Speaker 1] See you later. There it is. There it is from Coach Nick’s mouth. That’s how you saying, Hey, you guys have a great month, we’ll catch you on the next episode on the team. Behind the team.

[0:50:13 Speaker 2] Thanks Nick.

[0:50:15 Speaker 0] Thanks guys

[0:50:16 Speaker 2] appreciate you, thanks

[0:50:21 Speaker 1] so much for tuning in and listening to this episode of the team Behind the Team podcast. For future episodes, Go to Itunes, Spotify, google podcast or stitcher. We definitely want to keep having great guests on the show in great content. So if you have a moment, please go to Itunes, leave a rating and review and let us know how we’re doing. I’m Donny Made and thanks so much for tuning in