E26 | Anna Craig & Clint Martin: Practical Approaches and Experiences in the College-Setting

E26 | Anna Craig & Clint Martin: Practical Approaches and Experiences in the College-Setting
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[00:00:00] Donnie: Welcome to the team behind the teen podcast. I’m your host, Donnie may. This is the monthly show focused on building conversations around the team-based model approach to ethic, 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, Donnie Mabe and coach Mike Hanson is back in the house. He was out last month, had some, a teen, I think you were training or something. Some recruits back in the house, coach Mike, what’s going on. And they brother,

[00:00:43] Mike: I know I’m I’m irreplaceable, so that’s right.

That’s right. But I know you brought both of his back and you’ll get to that. Well, we

[00:00:50] Donnie: could have you back, Mike and, uh, man, we’re excited about this month, got a special kind of format and episode one have fun with this episode today. You’ll see. In a second, our guest today, we have. Two of our staff, uh, today the format we’re going to do a little back and forth bantering here in comparison to teams and his training style.

It’s just to show you a little bit of what we do at Texas, but coach Anna Craig is here today. Again, coach Craig, how you doing?

[00:01:16] Anna Craig: Hi, Donnie.

[00:01:18] Donnie: Real quick for the listeners. Uh, just briefly what teams you work with here at Texas coach?

[00:01:22] Anna Craig: I work with women’s soccer, women’s tennis and men’s women’s diving.

[00:01:26] Donnie: Awesome.

And does an excellent job in with her today. Coach Clint Martin say hello to everybody. Are we doing people? Coach what teams? You got

[00:01:35] Clint Martin: to work with? All the track and field and men’s swimming and women’s

[00:01:37] Donnie: golf. Awesome, good stuff. It does an excellent job as well. So those are our two guests. Uh, you’ll see here in a second, what kind of ping pong back and forth, but, uh, so far, uh, how’s this semester going for everybody, anybody good semester where we’re in, uh, September, about to be in October soon.

How’s everything Mike being good.

[00:01:56] Mike: Good on my end. Yeah. It’s nice to not be confined to our COVID limitations and be a little bit free of that.

[00:02:03] Donnie: Gonna say post COVID is a little different, right? We’re kind of getting back into some normal, normal, a new normal routine, so know better than

[00:02:10] Clint Martin: last year, for sure.

What didn’t you like about that? It’s just the restrictions and not being able to see all the different faces because of limits on who can be in the room at the same time. If things like that, it’s just good to have a little bit more, I guess in phase

[00:02:23] Mike: it was nice seeing the other teams in the room that like, that we were used to seeing.

And then for sure, a year without absolutely my divers or any of the track and field kids

[00:02:32] Clint Martin: and, you know, you’d see, it’s fun to, it’s fun to have some fans back. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:02:36] Donnie: Good luck. Good luck. Energy on campus. What about you coach Craig? You liked the beam back

[00:02:39] Anna Craig: a little bit. I’m excited to be back. I like the fans.

I’m excited for college football to be back. I don’t know if you guys watched the Wisconsin game, but it was it last weekend, jump around and jump around. And the crowd went nuts and you just felt it. You felt you were like we’re back. College football

[00:02:58] Mike: is back.

[00:02:59] Donnie: I love it. Well, good stuff. Well, Hey, good, good episode a day.

Let’s kick it off with the first question. Um, coach Craig, I’m gonna let you lead us off on this one. Just how did you get into strength and conditioning and then click your go right after her.

[00:03:13] Anna Craig: Yeah. I was always interested in the training aspect of sport. So through high school, I was volleyball and lacrosse.

And even, even in high school and middle school, I always gravitated towards anatomy and physiology and just the training aspect. But I didn’t honestly even know strength conditioning was a profession until I got to college. I didn’t, I didn’t know that it existed. And so, um, for me, that aha moment was, um, I was actually watching ESPN and I saw a, this was before when I was in high school, before I went into college and I saw a special on a string, the initial in coach, I don’t even remember what team it was, but it was football, strength conditioning.

And I thought, that’s what I want to do with the rest of my life. That looks like the coolest job ever, because for me it blends this mixture of the art of people and coaching with the science of physiology and performing.

[00:04:08] Donnie: It’s tough stuff. What about your coat?

[00:04:10] Clint Martin: I’d say for me, I always knew I wanted to coach.

I say always like probably when I was in high school, I knew I wanted to coach. I didn’t necessarily know I wanted it to be a performance coach. I’d say that kind of took the light. I’m going to say my sophomore year in college, um, I was a track athlete in college and I just had some stuff going off on my knees that the doctors couldn’t figure out eighties couldn’t figure it out.

Right. So I went, I actually went up to Canada and met with the specialist. His name is at T and Dan tank, shout out to him. Um, but he brought me in and in 15 minutes he had diagnosed. And I was like, dude, you’re not even looking at what I told you hurt. And he, he had diagnosed me and it made me completely think differently about the body.

And I was like, wow, the body is really, really cool. And that’s what I knew I wanted to be in performance and help athletes.

[00:04:51] Mike: That’s awesome. Yeah. Um, so again, coach, Craigie said you love the blend about the art of coaching, the art of people, and blending that with like your classes of physiology and anatomy.

And so with both of you, I’d like to ask, um, a few questions related to the art of coaching, so to speak, uh, qualities like interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence. The really spoken of coming up through school through college courses, certainly not in high school. And they’re definitely absent in popular training texts that get passed around, but it’s undeniably a huge part.

The art of coaching is. Right. Just coaching people, as you said, and it’s a vital part that gets overlooked, especially by younger coaches. But what I want to ask both of you is you guys have developed these positive relationships with all of these coaches you have, right? Like Clint you’re with all of track and field that’s five or six different coaches in itself.

Um, in both, you’ve been doing this for quite a while at this point. Um, so between all of those different personalities that you get in those different approaches to training, uh, how do you guys go about successfully working with all of those different personalities, all of those different approaches. Um,

[00:05:56] Clint Martin: Clint, you want to start a song?

Yeah, I started off, I think at the end of the day, we’re all here for a goal, right? Each coach might be here for a different goal, but I think the first thing you need to understand is we’re support staff and we need to understand what their goal is. Um, everyone wants something. They want an outcome. If you listen, they’ll usually tell you.

So if you ask the right questions and figure out what it is that they’re trying to achieve and then do your best to help them achieve those things, usually everything will work out for themselves. I make sure not to go in with any agenda other than helping my coach get done, what they need to get done.

And then usually things will work out from there. And every everybody’s different, like I said, so it might be a different approach with everybody, but if you know what they want to get done, you know, their goal, their end goal, and you can help them get there. Whatever that might look. Usually the relationship will grow from there.

[00:06:41] Donnie: I mean, real quick, uh, how have you built good relationships with, I mean, I know you had a big transition with, uh, with track and field not too long ago. Right? How did you go from working for one head coach and transition and kind of build that bridge with somebody that you didn’t even really have report?

[00:06:59] Clint Martin: Yeah, I mean, very different philosophies. I’d say from our old staff to the new staff, but same thing, I had to understand what it was they wanted to get done. And also I could have gone in and led with, well, coach I’ve been working in track for a while. I ran track. It doesn’t matter. That’s not my agenda.

My agenda is to help you get to where you need to be. Um, but I couldn’t do that until I understand what that was. So I, I was patient, I’m going to be really honest. I was really patient and I wanted to make sure that, um, the things that they wanted to accomplish, we could get those things done. And then usually when you get to that point, then you can start to add a little bit more feedback and you get to build a little bit more trust.

Um, but as long as they understand, like your agenda is also there. That’s kind of how I start for like building those relationships.

[00:07:43] Anna Craig: Yeah. From the time that I started in string finishing. So my first internship opportunity was with Texas tech football and it was with a strength coach. Who’s now the head strength coach at OU football, Bennie Wiley.

And I had the art of coaching model to me from the beginning. One thing that I picked up on with him is he was so hard on his players. He demanded a lot. He demanded excellence from them. I don’t know if you know the history of Texas tech football, but recruiting in Lubbock. Texas is difficult. And we were a top 10 program.

I mean, um, we were good when I was there and he was so demanding of his players, but he loved his players and his players loved him. And it always fascinated me that he was able to get people to run through a brick wall for him, but then he could turn around and. Give them a, uh, undesirable consequence for one of their actions.

And, and that fascinated me. And I learned that it’s a lot more about caring about the person and them knowing your motives before you are able to implement what you want to implement. They have to know that you’re going to run through a brick wall for them, and that goes for coaches and that goes for athletes.

And so one thing that I hope that my coaches know, and I believe that they do is I will do anything for their program. So if, if they need something from me, I’m there, I’m on board, I’m on the bus and we’re rolling in the same direction. And I care about them as a person and as a coach. And so I think developing a relationship with your head coaches and them believing that you have their best interests at heart, whether that be as a person or as a coach, and then therefore.

They know your motives going forward. If you make mistakes, they know that your mistakes were out of, you know, just growing and learning. Not because you’re trying to go in a different direction from them, or you’re trying to counteract them. They know that your motives when helping an athlete or for them, they know that anything that you do, I think there’s just a basis of understanding there if you grow that relationship first.

And so I think I’ve been able to develop success with a variety of personalities because I get to know the personalities, you know, I get to know, um, who they are as a, as a person and coach and, and how they tick. And then ultimately I’m just there to support them. I want to be on the bus and I want to be driving in the same direction.

And I think cleanse is actually really good at that as

[00:10:18] Clint Martin: well. I think, kind of to touch off that you were like, what you’re saying, like, if you make a mistake, they understand that it was out of whether it was out of growth or love or whatever it may be. But you have to be able to have those conversations.

Um, and I think that’s how you really build relationships is you have to be able to have conversations. Um, and like I said, and listen to those conversations and understand where they’re coming from. And then also try to give them the them your authentic self

[00:10:42] Donnie: question. I think, uh, great information. Just thinking like what in you, you guys, what’s more important winning over and training a team heart or winning over a head coach.

What’s more

[00:10:54] Anna Craig: important. I think the elements are the same. I think that, I think that ultimately you can’t fake caring about people. You either care. Or you don’t care. And if you care about coaches and you care about athletes, that’s going to shine through. And I think about, I am to my head coach, as my athletes are to me.

Right. How do I want them to talk to me? How do I want them to respond to me? How do I want them to go about implementing my program? And I think about that with my coaches. And I’m like, okay, how do they want me to talk to them? How do they want me to give them information? How do they want me to operate within their program?

And I think relationships are relationships. I think if you’re good at one, you’re probably going to be good at the other.

[00:11:37] Clint Martin: Yeah. I agree with that. And it’s, I don’t necessarily think I’m as one that’s more important. I think they’re kind of independent of each other. Um, but I think also if you do one that might bridge over and carry it to the other, but it all comes back to people.

Like if you can deal with the people, whether it’s an athlete or it’s a coach, um, if you can build that relationship, you should be able to hopefully build it in the other direction as well.

[00:11:57] Anna Craig: But you gotta be loyal. You gotta be loyal to your head coaches. So there’s never. You’re on the head coach’s side, I

[00:12:04] Mike: think.

Yeah. I think a lot about what you guys said is so valuable because, and like, Clint, you mentioned like you need to ask questions and your big themes, like you need to care about people and both of you are getting at, you need to have a flexible agenda, not this rigid, like, Hey, I’m going to step into this team and have, you know, the direction I want it to go because it’s not your team.

Right. So I think, you know, you guys did some great things there that I’ve seen get missed that in my personal experiences, I’ve maybe forgotten at different times, but the flip side to that. So again, we kind of alluded a little bit to. Maybe what can, what can help us navigate those relationships? But the flip side is like, what are a few traits and behaviors that would maybe give younger coaches or any coach trouble?

Um, when collaborating with the sport coach,

[00:12:48] Clint Martin: I can take that one. Yeah, you can go quick. Yeah. Um, I think there’s probably a few, but the one that sticks out to me the most would definitely gonna be ego. Um, it’s really, especially in, in our, in our space and it all spaces I feel are not just ours. Um, but there’s a lot of egos and egos can be bruised and very fragile sometimes.

Um, if you can re, remove the ego and sit back and like I said, figure out what it is you need to do to get your job done, whatever that may look like. Even if it might not be exactly what you want. Hence the ego. If you take the ego out of it, Everything will usually work out. Okay. And I mean, it goes back to having conversations and doing those different things, but ego I’ve seen get so many coaches in trouble when things aren’t really a problem, but they take things personally that maybe shouldn’t have been personal.

Um, or they maybe think a little bit more highly of what they’re doing than what it actually could be. Cause even from an X’s and O’s, or a technical tactical standpoint, say you’re training your athletes in college, we get them three hours, maybe some teams, more, three hours of their 20 Kountable hours a week.

You’re looking at what, 15% of their time, just from like a technical tactical standpoint of their actual training load. So like how important is that? You got to cut your ego down a little bit and realize we’re not the whole piece of the puzzle and we’re not the whole slice of the pie.

[00:14:04] Anna Craig: Yeah. I agree with the ego statement.

I don’t, I don’t know what it is about our profession that promotes ego, but some, sometimes I think that. It may be is because we are, we are a support staff member. And so sometimes when, when people are used to being a supportive role, they feel like they need to elevate self because you don’t feel elevated in general by your position.

But the truth of the matter is we are important. And so we have a right to be secure, but we don’t have a right to feel egotistical. And we’re a support staff. We, we make a difference, but we are not the sport coach. We are going in alignment with what they want. And so I think just understanding what our actual job is and being secure in what your job is and the impact that you

[00:14:59] Clint Martin: make and knowing that it might take time.

Like it might not happen right away. If you’re new in a position you’re new in a role you’re new with a new coach, a new team. It might take time and that’s just kind of getting over your ego and on, you got to put in

the

[00:15:11] Mike: work, right? You can’t just walk up on the street and shake someone’s hand and expect them to just

[00:15:16] Clint Martin: right.

You could be the best coach in the world. Like the highest, most decorated coach in the entire world. You take over a new team, you got to start over. Right. It’s

[00:15:23] Donnie: just the way it’s kind of like, it’s funny, right? You guys made me think of an analogy. Like we, in our kind of space or area, we don’t always get a head coach that maybe doesn’t want to work with us at first.

But like, would you go, like, let’s say you want to go get your hair, cut you and just go to any barber until you like talk to some people, do a little homework, maybe do some Google reviews. Right, right. You wouldn’t do that with your car either. You ain’t just going to drop your car off with somebody that’s going to.

You know, maybe not fix it the way they’re going to charge you a lot, not fix it right. And not run. Right. It puts you at risk. How much more? So I had coached with our team, like who they’re going to let kind of get their hands on, so to speak. That’s really good. Cause they can, they can, they can ruin a team.

I mean, it happens every day. Unfortunately our profession, they don’t, people don’t know what they’re doing. I put them at risk or, or even, even this sometimes. Right. I think that as strength coaches, right, we have a lot of influence with our players, coach Craig, you just mentioned that, that that head coach, a new head coach may want to really establish their trust and rapport with him at first.

And you maybe take a little bit more of a back seat until they get there and you may not have the influence at first. So it may take a little while. So being patient,

[00:16:35] Mike: you know, are very related and in practical note, I’m speaking of challenges that maybe performance coaches deal with with sport coaches and I’m feeling some of this, answer’s going to be carried over.

I have some crossover, but it’s inevitable that sport coaches. Are going to have input at some point down the line. If you’re in our profession, sport coach, you’re going to input on what you’re doing via your programming, your philosophy, and at least have some influence and rightfully so as Clint was alluding to.

Um, but how have you guys both gone about navigating those circumstances? When you do have a sport coach who wants to be heavily involved in what’s going on in the weight room, you don’t go head coach.

[00:17:11] Anna Craig: I kind of have a philosophy of, did I do my due diligence? So let’s say that me and a head sport coach disagree on a method of training as an area that I am supposed to be the expert in.

Right. I take whatever it is that issue is we have built the rapport at this point. So I have a private conversation and I say, here’s why I want to implement this. And I explain the science behind that. I explained why I believe it’s a good idea. If that sport coach comes back and says, maybe they’re going to say, wow, that’s great.

I’m glad you educated me on that. Let’s implement it. I can see the why behind what, what you want to do. Let’s go for it. But if they come back and they say, no, we’re not going to do that. I understand the science behind it. I understand what you’re trying to say. Here’s why I want to do something different than I say.

Okay. You know, I, I did my due diligence. I educated them in my field of expertise, but ultimately then my supportive role kicks in and I say, okay, if, if I’ve done my due diligence in this topic, now I’m going to ultimately be on board with what you want.

[00:18:19] Mike: You’re the copilot, not the pilot. Right. We’re support staff, as he said, yeah.

[00:18:24] Clint Martin: Going at that from a different lens. Um, so rather than like maybe a differing opinion, um, just realizing and knowing that your coach should have some sort of input. Um, because at the end of the day, like I said, 17 of those 20 hours are probably going to be playing their sport. So if you’re not taking that into account, I thoroughly think you’re not doing your job.

And that’s just how I feel about it. Um, so like when I took over women’s golf, I had no idea what was going on. I was like, let me go. First thing I did, when you told me I was taking women’s golf, I took golf lessons. I went and took golf lessons. Then I went and sat at the course before I started doing any kind of programming.

I think I can train anybody, but I don’t understand the sport and how it carries. I can’t help this person. Right. So understanding what they’re doing outside, or whether it’s at the track and basketball court, what that looks like and how you can affect that and affect change in the weight room, it’s going to be important.

So therefore you have to take an account what they’re doing. They should have input in what you’re doing. I had to rewrite a trading program the other day because, um, the track workout was going to look a little different than I had expected it to. So I rewrote a program. It wasn’t what I was expecting to do what I wanted to do, but I had to make that change.

And that coach didn’t talk to me. He just sent me his workouts. I said, okay, now I need to make the change. So that’s input to me so that I call it the autonomy fallacy, think string coaches. We always look for autonomy. We want to do those things, but then yeah. And you can’t have full autonomy because you need to understand that what you do is going to affect what’s going on in sport, in

[00:19:46] Anna Craig: practice.

Yeah. And I think humility that’s the humility part too, is a lot of us are working with, you know, we can read books and science all day, but we’re working with coaches at Texas who have been successful for 20 plus years, whether it be this university or others. So you have to assume that they know things and they know the larger picture and portions of things that you don’t know.

So I totally agree with you that ultimately there’s a flexibility there and sport always comes first has to come first.

[00:20:15] Mike: Would you say it largely strength and conditioning is, is basically taking the information that you know, are seemingly know, you know, what you’ve learned and doing your best to fit that within the context or philosophy of your sport coach, what they want to see.

Absolutely. Yeah. Essentially, that’s kind of what it boils down to, right? Yep. Well, they want

[00:20:33] Clint Martin: to see. What can we give them the outcomes that they want at the end of the day when we get to your competition?

[00:20:38] Mike: Oh, that’s good. Uh, just pivoting, um, like the potential impact. We’ve talked about this in the office before, but the potential impact of performance coaches goes well beyond coaching on the floor.

And I think we all know that here, but can both of you speak to how you guys have made an impact on athletes beyond training, beyond coaching on the floor, if you want to kick it off Clint.

[00:20:58] Clint Martin: Okay. I’ll keep it kind of close to home. Keep it recent. Um, so last year, obviously there was a lot going on, like in the U S like just outside in the world, uh, specifically, um, like the social justice things, the amount of conversations I had last year about social justice.

Was actually amazing. And it was really a lot of athletes asking me my perspective, because I might be the only person who looks like me, that they really come across. And even like for my, my black athletes or my, uh, athletes of color, um, they don’t have a ton of coaches that necessarily look like them.

So for them to have a place to go and feel a little bit more confident or comfortable speaking about things that they may not, in other cases, like that’s been a really cool piece for me that I didn’t even realize I’d be able to have a great impact in, um, the conversations we had. I remember we sat down with him.

Uh, one of my teams and we did a zoom call and we just had a conversation and it’s nothing like, I, like, I’m not going to go into detail, but it’s nothing like I ever expected to do in this role. But I think it was so impactful. Um, and I think it, at the end of the day, it’s bigger than sports. We all know that right.

It’s about people and how you can help, help people grow, help people make change, help people see different things from a different light, but it’s been really impactful from just like an informational standpoint for character building and just, just growth, I think.

[00:22:17] Anna Craig: Yeah. Well, I mean, it has to be one of, all of our favorite parts of our jobs, you know, it’s just the ability to impact people, even beyond the playing field or pool or, you know, whatever surface it might be.

And I think that not every, not every athlete needs a little bit more, some athletes are pretty good, you know, they can, they, I think it’s just a matter of finding the athletes and discerning the athletes that are in a space where they need a little bit more from you and then being willing to give that little bit more.

And, um, that’s where we all say, you know, we need to refill our own cup in order to be able to pour out to others. And I think that that goes into play when it comes to kind of discerning those individual athletes that need a little bit more from you. And one specific instance I can think of is, um, a couple of years ago I had an athlete that had a season-ending injury and also was wasn’t a place where there was some.

Uncertainty and change and other portions of their life. And knowing that about their life was important. First of all, number two, that person gets injured. And so for the next eight months of that player’s life, I did one V1 workouts with them, rehabilitating them back from their injury. And through that, I also learned that that person was dealing with more than just what was happening in their sport.

So we started doing lunches once a month together, like off, off, you know, athletic dining hall. Like we will go somewhere else on campus and we would just talk and we would just have lunches and fast forward, they, they were healthy then went back to the playing field. And then, um, at their senior dinner speech, they looked over to me and they said, thank you for what you did.

That’s even like, kind of chokes me up, sorry. Um, they looked over and they said, thank you for what you did. Um, you have no idea how much it meant that you spent so much time rehabilitating me. But then also I was in a season of my life where I considered taking my own life. And you ate lunch with me once a month and you, you, you helped me and you paid attention to me when I didn’t feel seen by anyone else.

And you can’t do that with everyone, but you can find those individual athletes that maybe need a little bit more from you and being able to, to help those athletes. I think the best part of our job. And if you want to get into the performance side of that, that does trickle into performance. A happy, healthy person creates a better, more motivated athlete.

And so that’s not even separate from the field that contributes to the field.

[00:25:03] Donnie: Oh, that’s good. Thanks for sharing it. I know it goes back to what you’re saying about, do you really care about people? And I think this is a another topic, but you know, the whole mental health piece, that’s huge today. I mean, you think about professional sport.

Um, right now you’re, you’re doing, you’re getting paid a certain amount of money to do their job, but like what’s the staff like around. Are they just doing it for the money or are they emotionally in relation invested like you were with that athlete so that you didn’t know maybe their mental health was in that state, but then you get past that and look back and like you brought that athlete through that season and help them, you know, it’s, I think a big part, sometimes the mental health is just slowing down disconnecting and being closer to some of your athletes.

So thanks for sharing that. A little change of topic here. Look, career path for each of you and, um, Clint, we’ll let you kick this one off. So both of you have been successful in this profession, very successful, in my opinion. Um, how have you been able to advance in your careers, especially. Having a unique perspective as a minority in this field.

Can you kick us off?

[00:26:16] Clint Martin: That’s good. Um, I think especially in a field where I think, um, it’s kind of dominated by, I’d say, man, coach gray, you can go a little bit deeper than that later. Um, but even like, I’d say white men, right? So like I do stand out and have a little bit of a unique personality and unique experiences and track background, different things like that.

I do think I’ve actually been able to leverage that, um, because I don’t look and sound the same as most people who may interview. Um, and I think I do give a different perspective to my athletes that they may not be able to get from someone else because of kind of my personality, where I’m from, how I grew up different things like that.

So I do think like, Differences. I look at them as powerful. So I see my differences as making me stronger because I can bring something different to the table. So I think that’s definitely helped me, um, and my progression as a strength coach.

[00:27:16] Anna Craig: So when I, uh, circling back to my, my first experience at Texas tech, so my very first day as an intern, so I was the only female with about a hundred guys.

I think it was the, a team workout that. And afterwards, my Bennie Wiley came up to me. He said, today’s the last day that you’re going to think of yourself as a female in a man’s world. And he said, you are a coach. That’s all you are. You’re not a female coach, a male coach, your coach, everybody’s a coach.

You operate the same way. You have the same expectations. You do the same things. And most of the way that I viewed myself and the confidence that I viewed myself in was because he set that tone and he set that tone with me and he set that tone with his players and he never viewed me as any different.

And I think that being a minority in any setting or breaking through, if you will, in a setting where, where you’re not, you know, you are the minority, it takes people. On your team, helping you out in that setting and giving you a successful platform, right? Giving you an opportunity to be successful. And we’ve all had mentors who have, who have fought for us and who have helped us succeed.

And for me, it was, I’ll never forget that moment. And it gave me a sense of confidence for the rest of my time in a man’s world that I am competent. I am supposed to be here. And oddly enough, it was never the athletes that had the mindset that I didn’t deserve to be there. It was always coaches here and there.

And I think that that’s kind of what we’re going on. What’s going on with social injustice and racism in America right now, too. It’s taught. It’s not, it’s not innate, right? Like, like we are taught to view other people differently. The athletes are malleable. The athletes are no that you’re there to help them be successful.

It’s it’s the other people in the field that need to be taught, right? It’s the, it’s the administrators that need to see you as an equal. It’s the, it’s the coaches that need to see you as an equal it’s. And so I think it’s number one, people helping you along the way and helping you with your successes.

And then it’s also just education, you know, having the confidence in yourself to prove that you can do the job and you can be competent in doing that job and a. I mean skill versus luck, right? Like we all need that little bit of help. We all need that little bit of luck, no matter how good you are of a coach, or no matter how competent you are, like, we all need that little boost to get to where we are.

And I’m sure we could all go around the room and name who that person or who those people were that gave you kind of that first break. And, um, I think that’s what it takes for me as a female in the field was other people being willing to fight for me and then me being willing to fight and be, be confident in myself.

[00:30:02] Donnie: And I think to add to both of you, you made me think of the, like the word mosaic, right? Like it’s, if you know what a mosaic is, it’s a beautiful piece of artwork, different colors, shapes, sizes that basically you, when you look at it just, it takes, you know, just takes your eyes. And if you look in, I remember one of our, one of our head coaches years ago saying like, when you look at your staff, Right in a, in a, in a college setting or wherever, if in whatever setting, uh, you look, especially in college athletes, you look at the, our athletes are different, different ethnicities, different cultures and backgrounds.

You’d also want your staff to be very diverse like that too. So may I think, you know, I think I feel fortunate and blessed in, uh, to work with you have, I felt like we’re pretty diverse staff, so, and you guys, you guys are great, but

[00:30:49] Anna Craig: I mean, to a Testament to you, you’re, you’re the person that’s the higher up that is helping promote diversity.

That’s helping promote minorities, you know, is you have, at one point we had three females on our Olympic staff and that’s gotta be more than any other program in the country. And you hired those females. You hired that black man, you, you know, and so it takes those people being willing to, to give us an opportunity,

[00:31:16] Clint Martin: the thought process standpoint, if you hire people that think like, you sound like you look like you, it becomes an echo chamber.

When that happens, you lose growth. Right. So I think you’re doing a really good job

[00:31:26] Donnie: and it’s just comfortable. Yeah. Good stuff. Next question for you career path. Um, and I have a little, little different take on this one, coach Hanson. What advice would you give to the listeners to help them stand out in such a competitive profession in a real quick little caveat to this one?

Cause I get two sides of this and I hear, or you’re not supposed to self promote in, you know, you gotta, you just need to go over and do your job and kind of not be seen. So speak to that. Self-promotion like, how do you stand out in a profession? Uh, coach Craig with that, you kinda take that one first.

[00:32:11] Clint Martin: I kind of look at it from a couple of different perspectives. So say it’s a young coach. I think the best way to stand out is to be seen, right? Like if the first time somebody sees you is your resume. One of 100 jobs that you applied for and you look like everybody else, that’s kind of hard for you to stand out.

But if you’ve reached out to coaches, people understand who you are. Like the amount of I respond to anybody. If you send me an email, I’m gonna respond to you. If you call me, I’m gonna respond to you. I just, when I get calls, I’ll pick them up. I feel like so many more people could do that and build relationships, but they don’t.

For whatever reason, I’m on the opposite side. If you’re a coach and you want to stand out, if you’re already in the profession, I think it goes back to relationships. Everybody’s resume. Whether you win championships, whatever that stuff’s all cool. But I think it comes back to who’s vouching for you.

Who’s talking about you. Who’s going to promote you like those people. Like if you’ve done a good job and you’ve built really good relationships, they’ll help you stand out. They’re going to call somebody who, Hey, you’ve seen this guy’s body of work. What do you think? Like if you’ve built those relationships and you’ve been about your business, like coach was saying like skill versus luck.

Have you been about your business? Have you handled everything in a competent fashion? Have you built good relationship? That’ll help you stand out.

[00:33:23] Anna Craig: I think about what are the qualities that I love in an intern. So we, we get contacted pretty often about entry-level positions and people we can recommend for entry level positions and the qualities that I feel like stand out to me in an intern are being proactive.

So identifying something needs to be done before it’s asked of you, um, being on time. So just being a disciplined person, having that attitude of wanting to be there. So being passionate about your field and then also resiliency. So are you adaptable in that field? Can you weather some of the challenges that we have with a positive attitude?

And I don’t think that those qualities. Go away as far as like needing the, the needs in our field. So those, those would be what I think would make somebody stand out to me as someone who would be up for a job. And, um, Alison think Clint’s absolutely right. Just developing relationships. And, and that would be the way that I would think that you would do it is have the qualities that you need connect with people.

And then from there, hopefully you’re going to get that break from that person that you developed a relationship with

[00:34:34] Clint Martin: and making a relationship and fostering relationship with different things. I think you can make a relationship, but how many interns do you see do a really great job? And then you don’t hear from them for three years until all of a sudden, until they want a reference.

Right? So it’s like, it’s like you have to build the relationship, but then you also have to foster and maintain that relationship like that, that stands out. Like we’ve worked with how many interns since we’ve been here and the amount, the amount that I talked to on a consistent basis, I can count on probably two hands.

[00:35:00] Mike: So I talked about yesterday. Um, I’m going to take that a step further. What do you to think about. Standing out via social media presence. Is that important? Is it not important? Um, certainly there’s caveats to that, but what are your guys’ thoughts and social media presence, whether it’s a young coach or maybe an established coach?

[00:35:20] Clint Martin: I don’t think it’s necessarily important or not important, but I think it can be impact. I think you can sign yourself in a really good light if you’re putting out good content and you’re showing that you care about your athletes, but you can also be doing too much right there. I think it’s a fine line.

Um, knowing your lane is probably a big piece. If you’re posting all these other things about all these athletes that you train and this and that and this and that, but Hey, who are you as a coach? All I see is you fly in your athletes. I don’t really care about any of that. That’s how that’s what some coaches might think.

Some other coaches might love it, but you have to realize that you’re going to have people on both sides of the spectrum. So you have to be really careful about the content you put out, especially when you don’t have a reputation, cause that will become your reputation. Like I said, you have to be seen, you want to make sure you’re being seen in the right light.

So you’re saying

[00:36:04] Mike: it’s tool, it’s a tool. It’s a tool like you can just use it or you can use it absolutely wisely.

[00:36:10] Anna Craig: Yeah. I agree with Glen on that authenticity, right? Is, is your social media presence. Professional. Is it educational? Is it who you authentically are? There’s a lot of accounts that I love and I learned a lot from, and I’m so glad that they have a social media account.

And then, uh, and in that case, you know, are you promoting the field or you promoting yourself and all the big time athletes that you train, you know? And so I think that there’s definitely a right way to do it. And there’s definitely a way that would make someone stand out to me, you know? Um, I mean, what’s the first thing, what’s the first thing you do nowadays, when you see a resume come across your desk, you look up for them on social media, right?

Yeah. And, uh, it can make you stand out in a really positive light or it can, it can be something that hurts you in some cases

[00:36:58] Donnie: know, I think, you know, the term I’ve been, and I can’t remember, I’ve heard this coach Craig, but. It’s called a digital handshake. You know, today you meet somebody in person. They may act a certain way, but man, when you Google somebody, like that’s where the resumes are at.

Like when I go type in Clint Martin or Mike Hanson or Anna Craig, like what’s the first people may go two pages deep on a Google search. But mostly that first page, what, yeah. What pops up on those first kind of tabs? I mean, that’s kind of who you are. They’ll scroll

[00:37:32] Mike: for 10 minutes, right. And Twitter, when

[00:37:34] Donnie: you find you.

Right. And so I think that’s, you know, there’s, this matches message of don’t sell promote, but you know what, there is this new kind of laying we’re running in, in our industry of like, you need to have a very professional presence online, whether that’s social media, LinkedIn, your Facebook, whatever you use, you know?

And I think that that’s gotta be. Pretty professional high and tight because that’s what people, if they’ve never met you in person, that’s what they think of you. So yeah, you guys

[00:38:03] Clint Martin: both use the same word. I think professional is a good way to put it. And there are places for your personal things that may not be professional, but you might not want to show that to the whole world.

[00:38:12] Anna Craig: Yeah. W if whatever it is is public. If Chris Del Conte scrolled through my Instagram account or what’s, what’s, what’s Chris Del Conte thinking about my Instagram posts and if it’s great. Great. So you probably have a decent, either personal or professional social media account, but if you’re out on sixth street, if you’re showing you find yourself thrown in back on sixth street, maybe

[00:38:35] Clint Martin: it’s maybe you should have I kind of private

[00:38:40] Mike: coach.

Maybe I got one for you. Yes, sir. So would you, would you advise, we could say younger coaches maybe to try to narrow it down. Would you advise neuron coaches to have. Online, have a digital presence.

[00:38:53] Donnie: Yeah. Thought of this. I, I do 100% believe they need to. I think they need to, they need to hire, uh, get a professional photographer and get your pictures made professionally.

Don’t get your girlfriend or boyfriend or best friend talking about a LinkedIn, right? Whatever pictures, you know, get something that’s really sharp that, cause I always feel like what’s the job you want. Like you need to start acting, dressing, carrying yourself online and often. Like that position, whatever that is.

Um, so I do believe you need one, but also need to, I think you need to believe, or I believe one of the big things, like, why are you posting like D are you desperate for attention or are you trying to help and add value to people? So I think sometimes. Uh, when I’ll see different posts or some people just like to be confrontational on Twitter or whatever they like to kind of stirred up trolls.

I don’t think that that’s very professional either, even how you reply to things on there. Um, cause you wouldn’t. Cause here’s my deal on that. And I could, this is my little rant

[00:39:58] Mike: for a second. I got another one

[00:40:00] Donnie: coming for you, but you would not say that to my face in person. Why are you saying that online and being like that very, very unprofessional in many ways, right?

You wouldn’t when I meet you in personnel or you’re real timid and you won’t even bring up the topic, but you’re, you’re on the little keyboard warrior, you know, saying things you shouldn’t be saying, so you need to be, you need to be authentic and I totally believe you need to be. There should be. There should be some similarities in the core values of how you post things online and how you coach and how you are in person.

There should be some, some connections there.

[00:40:33] Mike: I’m gonna keep Brian go ahead. Uh, so you’re, let’s say you’re going through resumes. I don’t care if it’s an intern or if it’s you’re hiring an entry level position, we can make that list. Let’s say you’re down to three, five, whatever it is, small number, if you don’t find any online presence, is that like a red flag to you?

Or is it like, oh, you just kind of dismiss

[00:40:52] Donnie: it? No, not a red flag, but if the resume looks really good, I need to talk to somebody about, who’s worked up close with them. I need to do a little bit dig a little deeper because they don’t have anything online. And then I would, you know, and then I would be, I probably would be one of my questions, like, um, you know, this is like 2021, like where’s your LinkedIn account?

Minimally, maybe, you know, I mean, I just had this conversation like two years ago with a coach from Australia, he had nothing online. Like you’re wanting to move up in this industry, but nobody can find. That’s not gonna work very well because now only the little people in your little world know who you are.

And you’re trying to, you’re trying to globally try to connect with people and everything. I mean, you know, we live in the age of speed right now. People can learn more about you and know more about you before they even meet you in person. If you handle your social media and your online presence. Right.

So, yeah, I think you’d need to have one, but if you don’t, uh, it’s going to not maybe raise a red flag, but it’s going to make me be a little bit more curious to know more about you and dig a little deeper. Yeah.

[00:42:00] Mike: You’ll be disappointed to hear,

[00:42:02] Donnie: um, what are you hiding? It may make, like what what’s, why are you not putting anything out there?

So

[00:42:07] Anna Craig: it’s kind of this interesting point that we’re at, where you kind of have this like collision of self. Like I think that you used to be able to have a personal presence and you used to be able to have a professional work presence. And I feel like now you just. Presence like you just kind of, it’s almost like you’re your worlds kind of collide a little bit because of the social media era and you just kind of have to authentically be you in both settings.

And I think there’s an expectation for that. Now, I think the age of the athlete, not knowing anything about you and not feeling like they connect to you as a person is kind of over and they like kind of ask questions and they kind of want to know who you are and they love it when you post your baby on social media.

You know what I mean? I don’t have one of those, but, but they love it when you, when you become a person to them. And I think that that can help. Actually connect with them in a very positive way, but you still have to be very professional. So, I mean, it’s, it’s fascinating to my athletes to like that we have friends, right.

That we’re even friends with each other. Like we have the best time in the office and they’re like, oh, like

[00:43:12] Mike: you’re in public.

[00:43:14] Anna Craig: Um, but they like it and I think it makes them connect more with you. So if you do it the right way, I think it can actually help with buy-in. I think it can

[00:43:22] Donnie: help. Yeah. A hundred percent agree.

That’s good. Yeah. That’s

[00:43:25] Mike: perfect. Coach Craig, you go to pint house. You’re not just to live in the

[00:43:30] Clint Martin: weight room and it’s on my phone. Something’s not in sweats. I can just get bombarded by math. Oh, you dress, you wear pants. I wear sweats every day, a single day. And while it’s hilarious

[00:43:40] Mike: and they love it. I love it.

Well, I’ll cap that conversation by saying coach, maybe you’re gonna be disappointed to know. My passport photo was 100% of the selfie, which they, they specifically like do not take a selfie, but I just did the old, long arm, big round room for improvement, coach, no professional

[00:43:59] Anna Craig: photography, not also your LinkedIn profile

[00:44:03] Mike: to be, to be checked

[00:44:05] Donnie: out, go check it out, go check it out.

[00:44:08] Mike: Um, I want to talk about training. I think a lot of people are obviously interested in training. It’s a big part of what we do. Um, so again, pulling back the curtain to hear your guys’ approach on training and hope. Uh, get a few practical examples that I myself can reference down the road. I’m going to start with Clint.

Uh, you have a background in spring mechanics, you were a collegiate sprinter. Um, you worked with track and field quite a bit, and I’ve heard you make the argument for spending time developing acceleration and sprinting mechanics for field sports, not just track specifically. I’ve heard you talk about basketball, which is a sport that I would, you know, I don’t know, but I’m going to imagine they don’t ever reach maximum velocity.

Um, what we were saying, the courts 90, 94 feet. Thank you. It’s not 91. It’s not 93, 94 feet. Um, but so can you explain the importance to me of investing in sprinting mechanics for field sports, especially these ones where maybe you don’t reach maximum

[00:44:59] Clint Martin: velocity? Sure. I think first off, I’ll start at the four end of that, the amount of collegiate level athletes and most people would regard them to be division one athletes as an elite level athlete, elite level mover that haven’t been taught, how to sprint is astounding.

Like basic sprint mechanics. It’s actually astounding to

[00:45:18] Mike: me. Do you think there’s this huge number in our field that it’s like,

[00:45:21] Clint Martin: they just, I just, the amount of athletes, even track athletes that I get, who’ve never been taught like proper positioning. They’re just been kind of running. And I was the same way when I got to college, I got to college in my, my high school track coach.

He told me, as soon as I got on stage, he was like, Hey, I knew your form. Wasn’t good. I just didn’t know what would happen if I changed it. I didn’t know if you get slow. I don’t know. But the amount of coaches that haven’t just taken the time to do any kind of sprint mechanic work, I think like kind of blows my mind a little bit.

And so my first two jobs were men’s hoops. Um, and I was very, very into teaching them sprint mechanics and men’s hoops. Big thought process for me was we were on an NBA style offense where they were running 72 to 78, plays a game, and I’m like, yo, they’re running. Two and a half miles a game I’m like at the end of the game, we’re going to be tired.

If I can make tips, teach them be a little bit more efficient. Hopefully we’ll take less steps. We’ll have a little bit more than take the end of the game. That was kinda my thought process. When I started as a young coach. Um, now I would say, cause you said, what’d you say top end or you said acceleration and sprint mechanics.

I’d also say top end is important just from a speed reserve standpoint. So say I’m playing soccer or whatever it may be say the game is played at a level of six to eight meters per second. But my cap is, we’ll say my cap is nine, right? So we’re playing at six to eight meters per second. During the game cap is nine, take another athlete.

Their cap is 10 or 11, obviously that’s fast, but their cap is 10 or 11. This game still played at the same speed. They’re using a lot less. Right? So just from an efficiency standpoint and just from a movement standpoint, at the end of the game, I should have a lot more in the tank because I’m not trying as hard.

I’m not running as hard. I’m not moving as hard. Um, the amount of athletes, my whole. Hey man. I’m I feel myself on that first step. I feel myself taken off on that first step and getting up the court. I was counting their steps up the court. They’re taking one or two less steps, every possession at the end of the game.

That matters. That starts to add up. So I think that’s just low hanging.

[00:47:16] Anna Craig: I have something to add on what you just said. So I have a very good friend. Who’s a professional sprinter. And, um, do you know what her PR is in the hundreds?

[00:47:26] Clint Martin: Yeah, she’s been 10 92. Okay.

[00:47:28] Anna Craig: I was going to say 10 low 10 nines. Right. And she trained, she runs one mile a year.

She runs one mile a year. That mile she can get right at six minutes or I think she barely just got under six minutes, but she never trains distance. And so when you were saying, if you can increase your hundred percent, so if you can increase your max speed, your efficiency in every speed below that is better.

Like she never trains the mile, but her mild. Kicks most people’s mild, mild times in the butt, right? Because she’s so fast. So I agree with you on the fact that like, even in sports like basketball and things like that, where you’re not going to hit top end speed. It also affects every speed below a hundred percent and every effort blow a hundred

[00:48:13] Clint Martin: percent.

And at the end of the day, if you’re not teaching it, you’re saying that you can train every quality that you need. From an acceleration standpoint, in the weight room, I disagree, I disagree. You’re telling me he can max out everything. Everything is all potential. As person can add from an excellent exploration standpoint from being strong pass disagree.

[00:48:32] Mike: You want to keep expounding on that. So we know the word of the day, that’s our buzzword.

[00:48:42] Clint Martin: So the closer we are to that first step or our implement. So when in sprinting that first step, the implement is going to be the ground. So the closer we are to that first step, the more max strength comes into play.

The more it’s important. So step two, Max strength, less important. Step three, less important. If you’re more efficient, they can be more important. So that, so if you can put yourself in better positions, you can use better strength, right? You can hold better angles. You can stay in your acceleration phase longer.

Well, you don’t need to reach a top speed. So if you’re going to say that, yeah, we need to get super strong, but then we can’t hold positions or we don’t even know what positions to be in. What is my first step look like? What could it look like then? I think you’re missing a big

[00:49:19] Mike: piece. Yeah. I would even venture to guess.

It’s like, we talk about speed reserve and so everything else can be more efficient, but I would also argue like probably if you’re coaching or teaching someone’s body to move, will I guess qualitative qualitatively say like in a more efficient way, right? That your heart rates probably not going to rise as much if the body’s moving better.

Right. So even in that sense, Russia, which is kind of an indirect, maybe I’m an indirect attribute from it.

[00:49:47] Clint Martin: I mean, everyone’s seen somebody who’s really fast run and yeah. Oh, it looks like they’re floating. It looks effortless. And you see people who are running as hard as they can. Right. I always say sprinting as I skill running, anybody can run.

Sprinting is a skill and it needs to be taught.

[00:50:05] Anna Craig: I also think about pelvic stability. So the idea of being able to control your core while you’re sprinting is that’s an element that every, every sport and every athlete can use. Right.

I don’t know if you want to sprint a swimmer. Almost every sport divers in the swimmers are not doing too much sprinting.

[00:50:27] Clint Martin: I mean, leaving in a sport. So technical light track, right. They’d do it better than the majority of non track athletes. Right. And there’s still tons of things they can work on.

Obviously it’s a little bit more important because that’s the things that they need to do to be better at their sport. But if there’s big things that they can fix, why would we not think that these lesser athletes at it from a technical standpoint at least could work on some things that might benefit their game?

And that’s just from a sagittal standpoint, changing directions is a

[00:50:54] Donnie: whole different ball game. But yeah, but going back to swimming though, you would want to do some locomotion like dry land, obviously locomotion. Sure.

[00:51:00] Mike: Sprint does have some observation versus sprinting. I don’t know about

[00:51:03] Anna Craig: Springs.

[00:51:07] Mike: No, sir. You don’t want to switch it to you, coach Craig. And I’m going to ask, um, probably for you to chime in if you’re able to Donnie on this one. Um, but we’re talking about overhead sports, quote, unquote, overhead sports. So number of sports get classified that way, volleyball, tennis, diving. Um, those are three sports that you both work with.

Um, and that’s not to be confused with those sports all have similar demands or approaches in training. So coach Craig, having spent years training those two sports, tennis and diving, how do those overhead sports differ in demands? And how do you differ your approach in training to training those two?

[00:51:41] Anna Craig: So with diving, I want to clarify diving is an overhead sport, but it is a collision sport.

So it is not an overhead sport in the same way that tennis is an overhead sport they’re collisions. When they enter the water from three meters, they’re actually about 17 miles per hour when entering the water and they’re entering hands first. Right? And then when they’re up at 10 meters, they’re entering the water at 35 miles per hour.

And so they need to be able to first and foremost withstand the impact of hitting the water. So one of the biggest questions I get when people reach out to me about training diving is do they do overhead. Exercises did they do overhead activities? And nothing that I do in the weight room is going to mimic 35 miles per hour of ripping into the water.

Right. They need to be able to withstand that though. Cause what happens if they over-rotate under rotate hands, get slightly separated if they’re not used to bracing and a collision type manner. Cause that’s a, I mean 35 miles per hour. Imagine being in a car accident at 35 miles per hour, you know, your whole body is going to be sourced.

So that goes all the way down the chain. They have to be able to have, um, strength all the way from their fingers to their toes, literally to embrace that impact. So for them I’ll do, you know, I’ll work my way up. So maybe we’ll do single arm waiters caries just to be able to brace over. And be able to keep posture overhead.

We want to make sure that we’re maintaining thoracic mobility, right? If you don’t have thoracic mobility, arms are not going to enter streamline shoulders, not going to enter the streamline. You’re going to actually try and correct the dive through your lower back, so that can enhance lower back injuries.

If you don’t have good enough thoracic spine mobility and shoulder mobility. So we’re going to work on mobility. We’re going to work on overhead stability and we work our way all the way up into being able to barbell snatch. So our guys are able to barbell snatch 60 kilos overhead. I mean, that doesn’t, that doesn’t happen overnight, but we build our way up to that.

I mean, we have some freak beast women on our team that are snatching 50 K you know, working their way up to 55 K. So, um, for them it’s all about being able to brace and withstand the impact and that’s through gradual progression, right? They’re not doing that overnight. They’re working with. And making sure that we’re also paying attention to the actual things that are, um, that, that are prone to injury.

So keeping wrist injuries into consideration, making sure we are keeping previous shoulder injuries into consideration, back injuries, things like that. But as long as you progressively overload, it’s going to help and enhance their ability to perform their sport. And, um, and then with tennis, tennis is overhead, but it’s a rotational overhead and I’ll, I’ll pull it, pull Donnie into this one.

But, um, for them, when they’re going overhead and they’re serving, it’s their whole anterior chain shortening. And so you need power through your anterior chain, but you’re also trying to simultaneously. Counteracts the fact that all of those muscles are constantly shortening, constantly shortening. So it’s opening up that posterior chain strengthening that posterior chain, but also learning how to, uh, enhance the ability to generate force through their anterior chain and the rotational ability.

So it was

[00:54:57] Mike: one almost like diving withstanding force to an extent. And then tennis is generating bores. I would say in the, over, in the context of overhead, I would

[00:55:06] Anna Craig: say

[00:55:06] Mike: so can I, can I quickly add context before you add to that coach context, new and not familiar? When you say 60 kilos snatch for a male diver 50 kilo for a female, and these aren’t offensive linemen football players, right?

These

[00:55:19] Anna Craig: are, there are, females are five, two to five, six kind of max, you know, our, our male divers. Five five to, some of them are, are coming up on six foot, but they’re, I mean, they’re the throwing body weight

[00:55:33] Mike: overhead. Oh yeah. Yeah. Sorry to interrupt. No,

[00:55:37] Donnie: yeah, I think, no, I, I agree with Anne. I think, I think it was, there’s a couple of things here.

I’ve had some training in massage therapy. That’s kind of given me a little insight on just shoulder health. Um, I think one thing, especially with tennis and, uh, you’ve seen this in your girls. I know anybody that’s ever trained in overhead sport. There’s different types of scoliosis, right? We typically your traditional type of scoliosis.

Scoliosis is as pattern. You can see the, when they, if they’re, you know, their back, you can see the, the shape of an S and their rectors and then their spots. That’s one. Uh, another one is called a wage where, you know, one shoulders down on one side and one hips up. And so that’s a typical one or a polo collar, like the parallelogram where they’re kind of tilted shoulders and hips are on the same angles.

Now with tennis. What I, what I’ve learned with tennis, those guys have the weirdest asymmetries than I’ve ever seen from. Right. You know, right. Trap left erector, right. QL right. Glued, left hamstring like zigzag. And what I learned from taking neuromuscular therapy was there’s this scoliosis called rotational scoliosis.

So the spy can actually be straight, but the, the vertebrae are slightly because of the sport. And the reps have slightly over the years have adapted to their swing. Whether that’s a form of forehand, backhand, they’re served, they got a big surf and you would literally on their backs, they’re erectors will be super big on one side raised.

If you lay them down on a table or the floor, you can see that a rector raise compared to the other. You’re not going to fix it, but context that goes into your exercise selection for me, I like to do a little bit more, um, unilateral training overhead, like you mentioned carries, I like carries or even just dumbbell, snatches where the bar is not connected up top.

I think it probably would divers you’d probably get a little bit more, uh, even when they enter the water liberal, even though I’m sure one hand is in front, right. More than the other, but with tennis you’re always or volleyball. You’re always getting one hand that’s leading in that creating force. So that’s one.

Secondly, going back to Anna’s point, this is my last thing on this one, but I remember taking, we had a Dr. Keith pine. He was one of the first kind of pioneers, uh, under mark Lahey with, uh, art active release therapy. And he was telling me we were sitting one day just talking shop. Uh, he was working on athletes at Texas back when I first got here in the, in the late nineties.

And he was talking about snacks. And basically internal internal rocks, the rotation in the shoulder. And he said, really, the only way you can, you can strengthen the anterior shoulder is by the, by building up the middle of the trap is it’s the only way you get a full, like strong contraction in that middle trap is by doing something overhead or they’re actually rotating out overhead.

Whether that he said snatch. And when he said it like clicked for me. And he said that he mentioned some research article at the time that some of the healthiest shoulders I’ve seen his athletes actually snatch and do that. Whereas it’s kind of gotten a bad rap because different coaches have used them at poor times of the season.

Right. That’s probably not the best time to be snatching. Right. I like to pick different seasons and times of the year of doing it. And there may be improper teaching of mechanics to snatch right. Or going to heavy. Cause I think, again, this is another kind of ramp of mine, but there’s a difference between being an Olympic lifter, snatching and training for sport and using that, I think that’s where.

Get lost. Can’t see the forest for the trees. So hopefully I answered your question, rotational scoliosis overhead in the, in the, their rector or the trap, the mid trap. Instachat how that helps the shoulder over at strength with over athletes. That makes sense.

[00:59:35] Mike: Oh, it does. You got my wheels turning. I’m trying to pick from two questions.

I have like, which way we want to go. Um, so you talked about like, again, rotational scoliosis, or even in the matter of a shoulder raised versus another, there’s a, there’s something with the tensegrity of the tissue going on. Right? There’s and then there’s there’s tissue locked long, locked short. Is this something that you choose to address?

Like do you try to. Balanced that asymmetry, not completely. You acknowledged that you can’t do that, but is that something you try to manage or is it something that you’re like, ah, nature of the beast. That’s how it’s going to

[01:00:06] Donnie: be. So two things to this one. If it’s cry, if it’s, if it’s acute, that keeps kind of popping up on me quick.

I got to address it. If it’s chronic, I address it with some fascial stuff release, but also address it with programming. Maybe do more contralateral will help clean some of that up because I don’t think you always want to remove that gap. I think there’s a range in there that helps them perform at a high level.

So you don’t get rid of it completely, but how do you manage it? And I think getting away from bilateral exercises with somebody who’s really got loaded up on one side, maybe in a cross pattern like that think, uh, Cal talks about the lateral sling a lot in sprinters, but you have it in, you have an overhead athletes just as well.

So how do you kind of, how do you kind of fix some of those sequential firing patterns in training too? So I think there’s two ways. I think that it goes through therapy, but if that’s the only way you do it, you’ll, you’re always going to keep chasing your tail. You’ve got to change some things on the floor with programming too.

If you wanted to go long-term.

[01:01:09] Mike: We’re starting to run a little long. Yeah. Can I go rogue or should we

[01:01:13] Donnie: yeah, no, go, go, go road. What’s you got?

[01:01:16] Mike: I don’t know. So again, this is just cause you got my wheels turning. So I don’t know if I have my thoughts organized, but we’re talking about tennis in rotational on 10 Segretti and it just makes me think.

So I guess my rant that I would get on is, is to me, it’s frustrating because there’s ambiguous terms that we throw around, like shoulder work or shoulder care. And to me I’m like, well, what does that mean? And so too, but I see a lot of is, oh, you need to do more external rotation. You know, bands, face poles, you know, different things at the shoulder.

But what has always made me think is like, I’ve just, I rarely see that solve anything. So I don’t know what your experiences, both of you working with volleyball and tennis is like, if someone’s having trouble getting overhead or if there is a difference, you know, balance between shoulder to shoulder, something posturally that you deem, Hey, I don’t know if this is necessarily a good thing.

This bam working to solve it. Cause I feel like the shoulder blades way too complex. You know, say, Hey, an external rotation doing three sets of 10, three days a week, that’s gonna fix. You know what I mean? So I don’t know what you guys have

[01:02:15] Donnie: done. So I think first thing for me, this is just me, again, give credit to the, my neuromuscular therapy, but I’m going to check scapular health first.

Like you can do internal, external, you won’t, but if they’re frozen, like it’s just going to Jack it up more frozen them away. So if that scapula, if I can, like, I’ll, I’ll literally do some testing on them where I’ll I’ll have them face me first and look and see where they’re rotated a little bit. Right.

And if one shoulders forward, if that maybe the humorous has rotated in and kind of impinged. Yeah. That’s that’s like that. Then go wait a minute. Uh, I’ll check the trap. Levator a little bit, just do some muscle testing and then I’ll check. Uh, I’ll take my fingers and go under the scapula on both sides.

And man, if I can’t get under that scapula on the side, that’s really dysfunctional. Like I might want to start with that first. We need to release and open that. So it’s moving better. And then see kind of what kind of go through Dan path used to always talk about. This is the way he would use these kind of funny analogies.

We all know Dan, but Dan would say, when it, like, when a city falls like this building falls, this building falls, we always go back to just treating where it hurts, but there’s actually a sequential pattern of why that, that building fail. So you kind of got to unlock that pattern of why that fell go back and address and fix those different areas.

And now that building that fail was staying just fine versus just putting like, I hate to say it like stim and ice or whatever I want to do. And like internal, external, like bandaid exercises. So that’s my thoughts. I don’t know what coach Craig probably got something a

[01:03:50] Anna Craig: little different. No, I, I agree with you too.

Coach Hanson. I think. As I’ve developed more as a stream nation coach, I look to some of those, what we would label prehab exercises. And it’s like, okay, we’re doing three sets of 15 every day on bandit, external rotations, but I’m not seeing any progress from these, these external rotations or, you know, whatever this kind of supplementary work that we might be doing.

I agree with Dani that you, you try to address whatever the root problem is, gain mobility in that, in that specific area or address that specific problem, maybe it’s, um, you know, doing some isometric holds to elongate the tissue at the beginning of a session. And then you go into whatever your strength building exercises for that day, but a lot of those strength, but a lot of those more core strength building movements will address some of those smaller problems, as long as you gain some of that mobility at the beginning of the session, and then leading into the actual exercise.

So that’s how I address some of that stuff is I don’t necessarily break it down into every single muscle group of the rotator cuff, but I’m more say, you know, what’s, what’s not moving correctly. So if it’s scapular mobility, okay, how can we gain scapular mobility at the beginning of the session through a couple of.

You know, your entry-level exercises or your intro exercises. And then now we can properly load the movement within the session. And hopefully we’ll actually see some progress there.

[01:05:19] Clint Martin: Otherwise you’re just loading dysfunction. It’s already a dysfunctional pattern and you’re doing the same thing over and over and over in a dysfunctional pattern.

You’re not making it better. You’re exacerbating it. Right.

[01:05:29] Anna Craig: And so how, I mean for warmups, for me, it’s what am I actually doing in the session that day? So if I’m doing an overhead movement, I’m going to have an overhead mobility warmup. If I’m doing, you know, lower body, knee, extension, knee dominant than am I making sure that I’m actually implementing some of those movements within the warmup?

Am I doing an isometric split stance? You know, um, things that are going to actually contribute to this session?

[01:05:53] Mike: Yes. I mean, like you’re saying Clint, it’s like if, if a pec minor’s pulling on a scab and keeping your shoulders rounded while we deem. It’s like doing some band external rotation and ain’t changing the pec minor.

No. So again, we’re just, you know, we may make the best external rotators in the world in the world, but I don’t know if it’s going to necessarily change postural things that we’re looking for. But yeah. Thanks for opening up on that. It’s just something that I’ve always, that’s still grinds my gears a little bit, that I

[01:06:21] Donnie: just continued that it comes back to mastery in our profession.

Like you really need to study more than just sets around. But like, how does, you know, anatomy, insertion, origin function, how things work then? How does their body respond to the sport they’re playing? If it’s a lot of chronic use or reps of what they do and how that impacts their body and then training, you should come just prescribed.

It kind of helps correct some of that too. I think so. Anyway, I think

[01:06:44] Anna Craig: some of the, if I can continue on the subject for a second. So both of you, both of you guys work with swimming and pecs, lats tight, right? You get those rounded shoulders. And so for you guys, using those muscles are used in pulling the water and the ability to actually pull in your, in your stroke.

But also you have to be able to release those muscles and gain posterior chain strength, be able to elongate the fibers of the, of the PEX and the lights. Make sure they’re not too tight in order to not have overuse injuries. So it’s kind of this. This fine balance of how do I work the muscles that actually contribute to sport, but how do I also simultaneously counteract what the overworked muscles are that contribute to that sport?

[01:07:35] Mike: Right? That’s it for almost every sport I want to add to what they do, but not add so much so that we continue to add dysfunction. Right. I’m going to ask one last question before I let Donnie wrap us up here. Um, but the integration of tech and performance, um, as you said, coach Craig is usually spoken about from an aerial view.

And so with you guys, I’d like to zoom in a little bit and ask how specifically. Um, do you guys utilize tech to influence your training decisions? So how do you use technology to influence, you know, what you’re doing with athletes in the weight room or on the field?

[01:08:10] Clint Martin: I can say that one real quick and not to get long-winded, but I use a, I use a lot of data to help me make my, my decisions.

The nice thing about track specifically is it’s very objective. So I try to train my athletes in a very objective fashion as well. So specifically with elite forum and. Testing speed and power and looking how fast the barbell moves and specific lifts, whether they’re specific to what they’re doing for the day or whether it’s just training for power overall.

Like when athletes can’t produce power in the weight room, that’s an easy thing. That’s my job, right? If I’m, if I S if I have levels of, I need this 100 meter sprinter to be X, and he’s not there, that’s my job. If I have an athlete right here, who’s where they need to be from a force production standpoint, bilaterally through a power clean, but they can’t transfer that outside.

I can talk to the coach and he sees that as well as, Hey, they have the below, they got the power, they can’t transfer it. So that’s maybe where I might start doing more technical work, or they might do more technical work with their coach. So that’s one way to look at data and technology. Another thing for us is we have a lot of very high level sprinters, right?

So when we get to. Um, champion ship season. We need to see their expression of force on the right curve. We need to see that we’re trending in the right direction and producing more force than they may have been. Um, at this time last year, going into champs, when you just see that power going up, if it’s not, now we have an objective point to say, Hey, something’s going on?

We need to figure out what’s going on in the chain and figure out where the disconnect is. Same thing on ground contacts outside. If I have a. 1,090 something, female sprinter. I need to see her ground contacts under 0.90. Or at 0.9. Oh. So those are different ways. So, Hey, she’s not there. We need to do more reflexive words.

We need to do more reactive work in the weight room. That’s something that we can work on. So we’ll take the data to make sure we’re in the right place at the right time

[01:09:50] Mike: 0.09. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:09:53] Anna Craig: The majority of the sports science that we use is particularly with soccer. So we use catapult. And the thing that we find really useful is acute versus chronic load.

So progressive increases in chronic load are beneficial to the athlete and that’s how performance is enhanced in soccer, right? But acute drastic increases in acute load is what’s going to push people into injury. And so we’re always looking at acute versus chronic load within the players and regularly achieving.

Close to peak intensities in velocity. So 90, 95% of sprint velocity is going to help promote hamstring health and, and avoid hamstring strains. Right. And so we’re able to look at some of these data points and we’re able to see. From acute versus chronic workload, are we progressing them gradually through chronic workloads or are we creating massive jumps in acute training volume or increase acute training intensity?

And if we are, let’s say we have a huge job and it’s unavoidable. It’s a match day. We just know that there are some recovery protocols that we’re going to need to go through in the subsequent days in order to recover from that acute jump, right. Or it’s going to increase our risk of injury and, um, and even being able to hit.

Those 90, 95% intensities when it comes to sprint velocity for X amount of repetition. So looking at how many sprints does, does athlete a typically hit in a match at what percentage of their peak velocity are they hitting? This will now, also in the off season, that gives me a tangible number to work towards for our first match of the season, our first camp, in order to make sure that we’re building up in volume and intensity to be able to handle what’s actually happening in a match.

And if we’re not hitting that for some of our reserve players. So if you’re a player that’s maybe, you know, subbing in for 20, 30 minutes, you’re not hitting those loans that a player who’s playing 60 to 90 minutes is so what we’ll do what are called top-ups. And I’m able to actually look at their overall volume and intensity and things like change of direction, total distance, high speed, distance, um, max velocity.

And I’m able to top up in those areas to get them to where they need to be, to be to where if they are to be thrown into 60 to 90 minutes of the match. They’re not seeing that massive increase in acute load and intensity.

[01:12:28] Donnie: It’s kind of cool. Yeah. It’s bridging the gap, right. Bridging the gap of where, where things are missing and not making these huge swings.

Yeah. It’s pretty cool. It just quantifying stress today. Uh, what you can see. That’s good stuff. Thank you, both for sharing. So. We’re going to land the plane coach Hanson. We, I know we’ve gone a little longer. What’s that? Let’s take her down, take her down. So thanks for being patient with us today on this episode, it’s it’s definitely been a fun one rapid round, kind of close us out here.

I’m going to call out a number and we’ll, we’ll let Anna kind of, we’ll go Ana Clint and a client like that. Some will say a number. Give me your exercise selection with that number of reps. When I say it and just have fun with it. Let’s just see the differences here. First thing that comes to mind. Yep.

First thing that comes to mind.

[01:13:16] Mike: Okay. You ready? So

[01:13:18] Donnie: again, there’s not right or wrong movement. Exercise, exercise. You ready? Ready? 20 reps. What’s the first exercise that you would use that comes to mind for 20 reps. Polka jumps, poker jumps. I like it. Coats, Clint,

[01:13:38] Clint Martin: some sort of core exercise, whatever. Pick one.

Come on now. Um, toe touches.

[01:13:45] Donnie: I like dumped 12 reps. Coach Crick. Well, you got for 12.

[01:13:50] Anna Craig: Oh, my mind goes rotational plate rotations. What? Shoppers.

[01:13:53] Donnie: Okay. TRX baseball, baseball, baseball, blowing them up. Coach. I like it. I’m come train. You gotta ride five reps, coach,

[01:14:03] Anna Craig: a trap bar. Deadlift.

[01:14:06] Clint Martin: The vertical job, like a rocket jump.

[01:14:09] Donnie: Okay. Rocket three reps.

[01:14:12] Anna Craig: I’m deadlifting you on triples?

[01:14:15] Donnie: Oh, here we go. Here we go. Singles heavy singles

[01:14:19] Anna Craig: for me, I’m dead lifting again. Keep it clean

[01:14:23] Donnie: power, clean Marvell girl, different, different, good stuff. Well, anyway, thank you for sharing. Um, just wanting to see kind of your thought process, as we all think a little different, do things differently.

So thank you for doing that. Where can our listeners find you coach Craig? If they want to connect with you later on and shoot you an email or they want to reach out on social media, what’s the best way to reach out

[01:14:43] Anna Craig: to you? My email is Anna dot Craig at U Texas at EDU, and I’m the most active on my Instagram, which is an E Craig

[01:14:54] Donnie: stuff.

Coach clip.

[01:14:55] Clint Martin: My email is clinton.Martin@utexas.edu. I’m really not sure what my Instagram. I think it’s like Clint Maher number 10 or something like that. But yeah, you’ll find me.

[01:15:06] Mike: If you look up Clint ward, and if listeners want a meal, you Clint, what’s your address?

[01:15:09] Clint Martin: They can’t eat. I’ll pick up, you send me an email,

[01:15:14] Mike: write

[01:15:15] Clint Martin: you a letter.

Don’t do it. Don’t even do anything about it.

[01:15:18] Donnie: Good stuff. Hey coach Craig, coach Clint. Thanks for making time. Coach Hanson. Awesome job leading us today. I appreciate you always pleasure. That’s it from the team behind the team here in Austin, Texas. Hope everybody’s doing great. Hey, let’s finish this semester strong.

You have a good one hook ’em horns.

Thanks so much for tuning in. You’re listening to this episode of the team behind the teen podcast for future episodes, go to iTunes, Spotify, Google podcast, or Stitcher. We definitely want to keep having great guests on the show and great. 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 Donnie Mae. And thanks so much for tuning in.