E3 | Andrew Pyke: Strength and Conditioning

Welcome to the team behind the teen podcast. I’m your host, Donny, mate. This is the monthly
show focused on building conversations around the team based model approach to ethic, performance.
Strength, conditioning. Sports Medicine. Sport Science. Mental Health and wellness and
sports nutrition.
Welcome back to the show. This is the team behind the team podcast.
I’m your host, Donny mayb- and man. Today we got a special guest
on the show for you. But before I introduce our guests. Want to give you a little context
of who’s speaking to you, how he got here. Last year, I had the distinct
privilege of traveling overseas to Sydney, Australia, and attended
and presented at the AFC, a strict Australian Strength Coaches Association,
their national world conference. It got to me just some incredible coaches, individuals,
one of our good friends that’s been at Texas a couple of times. And he’s just I’ve gotten
a norm over the years is Julian Jones, who’s won their high level performance. Managers
there in Australia got to know him and got to know Dan Baker a little bit. Meet those guys
while I was over there. And just a wealth of knowledge, high level professionalism, great coaches.
And again, just shows you what an amazing profession we’re working in today. But, hey,
so that kind of gives you the bridge to who you’re gonna talk to. Today we have on the show Andrew
Pike. Andrew, say hello to everybody. Good. Everyone here going. So Andrew’s coming in
from down under. And he is over here, by the way, of the ACA sponsored
and fully funded his trip. And he’s here in Austin, Texas, just visiting with coaches,
looking at facilities, picking brains, trying to see how we do things differently than
they do over and down under in Australia. So it’s been a great visit so far. Would you say, Andrew? It’s been
mindblowing, to say the least. I think, Tony. Yeah. Well, hey, thank you for just taking a moment before
you head back this weekend to go back home. But could you just do us
all a quick little favor and just introduce yourself? Tell us after your name. This is Andrew Pike.
What do you actually live in Australia? Give us your history. A little background. And how did you get to the role you’re
in that gives a little career path to some from the Gold Coast in Australia, which is on
the East Coast, a small town south of the capital city of the state being Brisbane
and the Gold Coast is kind of famous for having good weather. Quokka climate
year round. So it’s really good for swimming. So in that little pocket there, if you go to
a national championships in Australia for swimming, especially, usually you’ll get two or three
clubs from the Gold Coast will finish at the top of the point school or you’ll get another club from Brisbane
or just that actual area there. So it’s it’s a really good place to live if you’re a swimmer.
And I grew up there and started probably like a lot of people doing chinning condition is
as a personal trainer, went to university twice. During
that time, I continued all of my shin and conditioning commitments, mainly through the way of
working in a high school and running the high school program was fantastic for me for a lot of reasons.
The first one being just my coaching of teenagers and and essentially high
school’s been Institute of Sports, a variety of a multitude of different types of sports
that you can tap into. And yet you start to notice the similarities between a lot of sports and then I guess the
the subtle differences that make every sport unique. That led me into swimming
and I was very, very, very fortunate to latch on to a swimming club
in the end of 2014 that was just on the rise.
And that particular swimming club, six of our swimmers
went to Rio and one of them, David Morgan, got a bronze medal. That’s incredible. And since then,
at every world championships, we’ve had multiple swimmers medal. So at the moment,
we’ve got two girls that made the world final. Fifteen hundred and nine hundred. So
they’re behind. Katie Ledecky, who’s obviously a famous US swimmer. We had six on
the national team hoping to get a couple more on the national team for Tokyo. And we also had four
that will world finalists at the university games, which I guess is that next tier down
in some Olympic sports at sort of swimming on a school teacher. That’s my that’s
my main job. And I teach sport coach rugby team. I run our school’s gym. I’m also
the head of training conditioning for the Australian junior team. And I lecture
or I run the level one and two courses as a presenter for our coaching body there, Chuncheon and Conditioning
Association. You’ve got a lot going on. Andrew Yeah, that’s a lot. So that’s
that’s great. You got to come out and to visit. Awesome. First first time to Austin, right? Yeah,
first time. And I guess the way that came about is in a Shi’ah there’s a there’s a fantastic
an initiative by the ISCI where you can apply for funding if you if you have that train triple,
maybe there’s a coach you’ve always wanted to go on scene and learn from. You can apply for that. And
it’s quite popular. I think there’s a couple of hundred applications the year that. I applaud for mine.
And I was just very, very lucky that Julian Jones decided to give me that Granton.
And I wanted to see the college system. I knew how many Olympians the college system produces and and
just how much of a powerhouse it is. And the question I asked was what’s what’s the best college?
What what is America’s best college to visit for sport? And the answer was University
of Texas, Austin. So it’s pretty pretty big brand, huh? Yeah. Thirty eight hours later, door to
door. Thirty eight. Thirty eight hours later. Here I am walking around and. Yeah. Know the
judge this week has been that I’ve got a lot of jetlag, but I’ve probably got even more knowledge lag. It’s
just the things that I’ve seen and experienced so far. I know we have and hopefully disappointed in the food
over here. I know when I was in Australia, the cotton half share with I love coffee and
the flat whites over there to die for. So hopefully you’ve got some good Texas food and
hopefully Hasaan we have put too much weight on. I think you certainly have.
Yeah. So, hey, well, thanks for Syriana, Andrew. And you know, one of the things kind of just
I’ve talked to Julian about this. You know, I’ve kind of briefly touched on it. Go into a little bit
of your certification process, the best you can. And I know in the U.S. collegiately
we have two governing bodies, the CSC, CAA Collegiate Strength Coaches
Association and the NSC, a national strength coach association. Those are the two governing
bodies that all of our college you have to be either certified either under water or both.
So at least one of them. And the interesting thing about the U.S. I found
different when I was in Australia was that it seems like. Your certification
process is a bit more rigorous. Would that be accurate? I believe so. I know in a whole heap
I know from what you’ve told me about your certification process. Yes, I know that in the US
you can there’s so many different certifications out there. You can ask the court said, where’s the standard
of credibility? Where’s the standard of of excellence? You know that this is a great
certification. So I know that’s one thing. Just visit one, Juliane, and now with you and be an over there.
That’s really intrigued me at the process. And I know in the U.S., I know that
I know the CFTC is definitely moving towards a more rigorous. They’re the only certification
where you have to do six hundred forty hours of an internship on the floor while getting before
you can even sit for the exam. And I know the NSC has a great certification as well. So both of those
serve our bodies. We are our coaches. So going through a little bit about how do you get certified
through the ACA in Australia? So there’s four levels
to the certification process and then I guess running laterally so that there’s an
accreditation scheme. So if I start with the levels that the scheme, the scheme will make sense. So
if we’re going at level zero, that’s no prerequisite. You don’t need any prior education.
And I guess the target market there might be you decide that you’re going to coach your son’s
basketball team and you just want to learn a little bit more about speed and agility for your own
coaching. It makes sense. Yep. And that one can be done all online. It’s not very difficult to do.
But I guess as well, it doesn’t give you a whole heap of accreditation. So it’s set up probably more for people
with a genuine interest in learning. Then we get to ISCI level one and that’s aimed
that probably a variety of different sports coaches across all sports. So we offer an Australia
pay teachers or physical education teachers or update their skills and want to be able to
run their school gyms, better university students, personal China’s grip, fitness
instructors, et cetera. And the level one is a two day face to face course content,
And again, that’s that’s a good lead into training conditioning. The level 2 is is probably
where the benchmark starts to get set. It’s a habit to get into your level, too.
You need to have your level one as a minimum. Plus you need to be working with state
and national level athletes or a good high school program. The other way that you can get
into that is to have completed at least two years of your exercise, science
or kinesiology, I think you’d call it here or your physiotherapy degree
started and that’s how you gain entry to your level to. So straight away there’s those people that won’t
actually be able to get into that level too. They’ll have to go back and do the level one or two and reapply another time.
To finish your level two, you need to do 60 hours of supervised prac.
You need to submit a journal article for the Aska Journal. It doesn’t have to be published, but
it needs to be at that standard. And normally that is a literature review of the participants
choice, something that they’re interested in. And there is a substantial workbook, let’s say, from memory.
My my work booklet was was probably in the vicinity of 30000 words and essentially
have to demonstrate there’s a book. Yeah, you can you can period or for a year you
can design an annual plan, you know what you’re doing. And level twos
now, particularly in our rugby codes, are often the minimum requirements. Soffer.
If a job came up in professional rugby and you wanted to apply for that, you would need an exercise
science degree and your level two with the ideal level to you’d have
trouble actually obtaining that job. And then the final level is your level
three and the level three. There’s only an intake once every two
years. And it’s not it’s never been more than 24 people. It gets actually
gets an intake there. So me personally, I did not I did not successfully
get into my first level three and my second attempt to get in as I was accepted, luckily.
And your level three, you stand there in front of your peers who are all working at a similar
level to you and you present on your beliefs on different qualities of strength or speed,
agility, flexibility, athlete monitoring, what have you. And then there’s a a large
amount of time that’s that’s set aside for questions. And also sitting in that room is is
normally the board of the ISCI or some of the master coaches. And so it gives them
an opportunity to to ask you and I guess to really challenge you on on what
you believe and how you go about your practice. So, yes, often at a very,
very useful course that the assessment involves personal reflection. You know, what did you believe before
the course? What have you learnt now? What does current research say? So it’s a great opportunity,
I guess, to to test yourself and. And to be forced to self-evaluate what you do
and you also need to successfully run a seminar for ISCI on a topic of your choice.
So there the levels now running laterally to that as an accreditation scheme.
And again, that’s four different levels, an associate level. You only need your level one.
Then you can be a professional scheme coach. And that means you need
to have worked at least six hundred hours in professional sport, which sounds similar to what you’re saying before
about the certified training conditioning specialist. Are they a late coach? You need
to have done ten thousand eight hundred hours and you need to be working with athletes at
a national level or above all, people that derive their income from sport like a professional
athlete than a master coach. You need to have done that, that across multiple
sports. So you can’t just be, I guess, a one trick pony. You’d need to have
worked in a variety of football codes or in a variety of Olympic sports and achieved success in
in all of that. So I may as a school teacher, I’ll never be able to be a master coach unless I
do become a full time trainer, conditioning coach. Step away. It’s too far a step away, which which I’m comfortable
with. Understand the rationale as to why I’m not disputing it, but it’s, um, it’s very hard. I think there would probably
only be ten or fifteen master coaches in Australia, maybe 40 or so late coaches,
and then maybe 100, 150 pros game coaches now. So
yeah, that’s that’s our accreditation scheme. It’s ah it’s definitely along the traditional
Janni bit up that I believe the the hurdles that you’re overcome to get those awards
and certifications that serve you well in your practice when you’re when you earn it. Yeah. No, I like that.
I appreciate you sharing that. I know me. I think I really feel like that’s where we’re headed.
In the US. I feel like that the future for sure
in accreditation and certification, the standards only gonna get higher.
And I think that’s a good thing because that means we’re going to be have we’ll have better coaches and
which we have better coaches. And that’s that’s going to lower the risk of, you know, whether it’s
malpractise or something, not knowing what they’re doing when they’re working with our young athletes today.
And, you know, sports in general across I know I have
a family of four daughters and I were just seeing the club volleyball scene in the US. It’s blow.
It’s blowing up, soccer’s blowing up. And so you’re starting to see these other women’s
lacrosse, these other sports are starting to just get huge now. And
with that kind of happening, you’re starting to see more opportunities in America for other
other ways to use, you know, your strength, conditioning certifications. And so I think
it’s it’s only a positive thing that you guys definitely have such a rigorous and very difficult
process you’ve got to go through because it’s not for everybody. Knight Yeah, you know, and you won’t, you won’t, you won’t
really good coaches working with your athletes. So that’s incredible. Thanks for sharing that. I think it’s hard
when you’re when you’re looking for a job and you kind of feel that the the process
is unfair. Before I get you on the other side of the fence, when you do have a more secure job, but definitely
been on the other side of it now. I do believe it is fair enough. And I do believe it’s correct and
adjust way to to evaluate a coach’s performance. And yeah, I think there’s just two
ways of looking at it, depending on whether you have a job or not. And I really like the kind as
you get up into your higher levels. With you what you guys do, and we kind of have some of that with the CCC
as well. But you have to stand out from your peers and you’ve got to be able to find your program
and explain why you’re doing what you’re doing. And I mean, just over the last three
to five years, I’ve seen, you know, some young coaches that would, you know,
years and years ago, they would easily get in and get certified. But it’s just it’s not happening again.
I see that as a positive that we just keep raising the bar in our profession. And
again, I think coming coming back from Sydney last year, that really left a really good
impression on me that this made me want to be a better coach. When you get around coaches that are excellent, what they
do is the man the best out of each other. It just makes you wanna become better. So we
appreciate you sharing it. Thank you. Talk a bit for a minute about,
you know, you talked about your kind of what you’re doing now. Now you primarily work with
swimmers and rugby. That’s accurate. Yeah. Talk a
little bit about some of the principles, your beliefs, core values, how you program
and lay out a yearly plan for. Is it the same? You change stuff. You have
different approaches with different personalities, different coaches. Kind of give us a little insight into
how you think. Yeah, sure. So I’ll just be swimming. That’s probably the one people get the
most benefit out of. So swimming is a 12 month of the sport can be
very hard to to period ice for swimmers typically trying anywhere
from eight to 15 times a week. So the loads of volume, they are just too
excessive. Excessive volume. That’s amazing. Yep. Just the human body
is power. Yeah. I have some swimmers that have gone on camps where they’ll do over 100
kilometers per week in the pool alone. So there’s you really do have to take that into
consideration with your your gym programing. Swimmers also have quite unique
physical characteristics. So I guess the most common one that you’d say is a a swimmer with hop, a
mobile knees and then called orthotic shoulders. Yeah. Pretty common,
right? Yeah. Pretty common all day. Or they come in with the the absence of a neck. You know, they put these huge overactive
upper traps like a butterfly or or. Yeah. So there’s this unique physical characteristics
you need to be aware of. But but anyway that that is swordsmen. When you look at a at a swimming year in Australia, similar
to a lot of Olympic sports, there’s a nationals in April
which used to be a selection, but no longer is. Then we have our big selection trial
in June and then that leads onto normally a world championships or a pan
PACs or in this current cycle, it’s going to be the Tokyo Olympic Games in August.
So that’s that’s the big one that you’re going for. So swimmers come back from these
major mates and you’ve got a small block, October, November, December, and
then you really need to start ramping things up for that Tokyo Olympics. So generally when when when I look at it,
the if if I start with the three broadest categories, general preparation, special preparation
and specific preparation, the general preparation for me is I’m really building
work capacity and I’m just making sure that the physiologically that tissue can
handle greater training lives as I as I go on. So if I can make them a little bit stronger
or even better, if I can make them more robust so they don’t break down when these huge training
volumes start coming in, then I believe that I’ve done my job. A degree of athleticism
certainly helps, but it’s not it’s not essential like a done an unnamed Muslim is a fantastic sprinters or to
have really good first up quickness or anything like that. They just need to generally be holistically an athlete
moving forward so that I don’t get injured. So that’s always my first goal. When I get to the
special preparation phase, which is essentially where we are now at a much swimming club,
do try and look at them individually. And I’ve got in a squad of about 30 swimmers,
I’ve got eight or nine of them that I do give individual programs for, and the rest can get a
more a more general style program when I’m programing for them individual. I’m
very eager to get feedback from the coach to buy mckennis the physiologist,
plus what I see in the gym and I’ll construct stopped constructing, I guess a special
program for them based on their strike distance, et cetera. And then finally
their specific preparation, which is when we’re leading into a competition, I guess is when I’ll try and
use the base of exercises that I’ve done with them in that time prior
and really try and put that power and some of that speed shrinked stuff on them. So it’s just just to
give an example, one of awesome is a butterfly, a 200 meter butterfly, and it’s general
preparation phase. I’m just making sure he has a balanced gym program that he’s not getting cooked
when he goes to the pool. And they were building some strength when I get to. Visual preparation
on what start adding in things that I believe he can work on, say, for example, one exercise
it did with him this year was a roll out, probably a familiar exercise. You know, you can do them with a wheel.
We did that with rings instead. So I really wanted to stress him in applying. That was a little
bit more specific to a butterfly. When we get to a specific preparation,
all do a lot of work with contrast training. So he’ll do. For example,
one of his contrasts sets are three heavy weighted chins jumped down tight. The
whites belt off and then do another three. Chin up straight away as quickly as he can,
but just with his own body weight, trying to create that central nervous system stimulus hodiak effect.
Yeah. And then we’ll also do some speech strength work where we might superset, you know, squat,
some throws or bench and throws off the ground. And then finally, the one that
I like and I’m not so popular here because I’ve spoken to on a lot of coaches about it is the French contrast training
method. So for this particular swimmer, we’ll do a heavy weighted chins followed
by medicine bowl slams. But standing on a bench. Then I’ll go round
and do some clap push ups. And then the final one is we put a large band around
the bath and chin up, similar to what you might do if someone was really bad at chin ups. I’m still learning them
and we have the cue. You know, I had hit the ceiling and that’s that supra, you know, beyond maximal
effort where I’m trying to get into just throw himself over that bar and say if
you have speed. Yeah. We’ve done it. Yeah. And I guess my my goal there is if I
if his brain is a computer and his muscles are like the programs in the computer, I’m
just gonna try to increase that warring. So when his brain goes to click on that program, hey, let’s
go fast or we need to turn quicker on or put more pull through the water.
It’s just a quick seamless transition. So because the outside sort of turns and starts,
that’s that’s probably the only other real place you’re gonna get benefit from a swimming gym program.
Yeah, that’s that’s interesting. I wanna you kind of caught my attention.
You were talking about something before that. I want to circle back and just hear a little bit of your
thoughts on. So this podcast is the team behind the team. And we’ve definitely
over the years in Texas. And you’re seeing it across in the college model now,
this performance team model where you have a nutritionist.
We call it sports medicine, rather trend. You guys call it physical therapy. You talk about a biomechanics.
Yeah. That were probably a little bit more here, like applied sports scientists. Those guys
kind of help with some of that. Then we also have a mental health coordinator here. So we have this
team of individuals that kind of are behind the team for performance.
Can you talk a little bit? How do you guys operate? That sounds like a large team.
And so I know you guys have been doing this for a while, kind of share kind of how you operate a little bit
as a performance team behind the scenes. So we have all of our in a Schaer it’s called a categorized
or funded swimmer. And that’s a top eight or nine people. I was telling you about before. That means
that your personal best time or your most recent result would have
placed you in a world championship final or thereabouts. That’s how you get funding for some
of these services that we’re talking about. So all these swimmers, we do it individual performance plan,
and that essentially involves a group of all support staff with the assistance of the
coach to design individual work homes for for a particular swimmer. So
to conceptualize that for you. I’ll just use an example of a 50 made a sprinter that I
work with and I’ll just give you his most recent individual performance plan.
The boy McGinest from filming his swimming, noticed that his
left hip, but not his right hip was dropping. So when an underwater camera was
watching him, we could see that. And whether that’s anterior or lateral sling work
that we needed to do, whether it was basic to correct or shrink to correct it. Yeah, whether
that’s very sweet. Yeah. So so that you know, the message for me there is. And keep in mind, I’m
I’m not here to say that that GM is the thing that makes us swim good. You know, it’s more my work
is to assist the swimmer. It’s not the basis of their of their program. But that’s an example of
a take home that I can take back to the gym. I can use it to start a conversation
with that particular swimmer and then modify an exercise. An exercise we ended up doing was
a plank across two benches. So you’re you know, there’s a gap in the middle
and you’re doing a dumbbell, one arm right in between the benches. And then I could manually
correct his hips if he lost that. Now, I actually saw one of your coaches doing a very similar exercise yesterday with your
with your swimming team. So I that was the ball mechanism put. You know, there’s something that I can improve.
The coach picked up that he could start really well. And the. The part of the rice
that he was fighting in was was the back end and in a 50 meter sprint, you know,
and especially someone like Caleb Driscoll representing Team USA, you really can’t afford
to be dropping off at the end of a race or more come down to point 0 0 1 first to fourth
run. Yes, small margin. So, again, it brings up the conversation. Do we need to look at circuit
work or maybe there’s some stuff we can do on the sleds and just give him that last bit of an extra
boost and whether it’s just really small end zone adaptations in his muscle
that he might get an adaptation from or whether it’s a mental resilience thing or something, they can help him.
Again, that’s feedback I can take to the gym. The physiotherapist did a screening. I’m in a movement
screen and he picked up that he was getting quite taut in his pick Morna and
his getting quite taut in his sub SCAP. So again, for me, when I’m when I’m writing his warm from I’m writing his
activation is mobility work. I can be sure to add those things in
cleaning up a little bit, clean up a little bit. So it’s just a great I mean, I’m very, very fortunate
to work with the people that I do on. I’m certainly very grateful of the collaboration that we have.
And it just informs your practice to make it a little bit better. And I know the things
I’m talking about, you know, that little one percenters. But I think a really good point that was brought up to me a
couple of years ago is 1 percent of it was if it was a scientific study, 1 percent probably
doesn’t mean much at all to that. That wouldn’t get the P value in the statistical analysis to
even get reported. But 1 percent to a professional athlete is a huge, huge
deal, a large margin for them, especially at that level. And it’s so hard to game. So
yeah, that’s that’s how that collaboration process works. And, you know, I’m sorry I’ve missed out on the dietitian
and the psychologists who also, you know, the sprinter wanted to gain weight and had dietician
was essential in helping him do that safely. And we all know like there’s
a there’s a popular view of how you meant to gain weight versus police, scientifically accurate way of how to do
it. And at dietician was essential there and a psychologist was essential in preparing them appropriately for his big
events. So, yeah, everyone everyone had an equal role there in helping and the head
coaches, the one that ultimately gives us feedback and facilitates these meetings. And
yeah, like I said, I’m just very, very grateful to to work in the environment that I do. Yeah. There’s a book I’m
blanking on, author’s name. It’s called The Checklist Manifesto. You know,
you can look it up on Amazon, but there’s a chapter in there and it’s called The Day of the Master Builder.
It’s basically what you’re saying that the back in the old days when they built homes.
The master builder, he did everything. He’d laid the foundation, put up the wood, the sheet rock, the plumbing,
the electrical. Yeah. But today, with technology, with specialties
like what you’re talking about in sport, everybody has a specialized niche that
they can. They’re really good at it and they have to work as a team. Now, if
you had to say what would be some of the traits or qualities you’ve seen for
a performance team to operate really, really well together with good chemistry and synergy,
what would you say those traits would be? Probably the most important one for me would be
things run smoothly when everyone knows their role. I mean, everyone knows their job.
And I think a lot of workplace disruptions in sport come from when
people want to step outside of their job boundary and people on a train micromanage someone
else’s role or people want to be across to different types of job roles. I think
when when everyone knows that job, when everyone does their job well and that’s
that’s when things work seamlessly. A, don’t think you can have an ego, especially
in strength work, because there’s you’re just there’s so many mistakes that you will
learn from and so many decisions that you have to make that sometimes you really do just have to wear it. And to take
the lesson from a program that didn’t quite work or a performance that you didn’t
quite want to happen, that happened. And these are things that are. That’s just part of sport. It’s never linear yet. You
have to be able to to weather a bad night to get to dawn or, you know, there’s always a rainbow at the end of the storm,
whichever analogy you want to use. And I think that probably the two biggest things for me from
a communication perspective. Again, I’m very lucky to the swimming coach shall work for his
ex-military. And he was Marines in the English Navy for
many years. And so he takes his leadership is absolute. But then he’s very,
very good at making sure that everyone has a job role and everyone knows their role that they have to do so
in that regard. He’s a he’s an excellent manager and a good man to work for. And that’s
that’s that’s really good. Good point. I think, because when I hear you saying is.
You’ve got to be it’s like this. This new trend, you’ve got to be really, really good at your job.
But you’ve also got to have. An authentic humility.
And. This kind of core value of being a team player.
So that the team can operate together to keep the athletes. Number one goal and priority
is their best interest to perform, right. And so I think, you know, I think it’s
pretty cool that the air we’re in with this this team stuff is that seeing coaches, seeing these performance
team work together, you see these these just bright minds,
see these bright minds come together and share all their knowledge, information to help, you know, like you said, that
together as a team, that’s going to be a barrier to helping those teams, an athlete. So
thank you for sharing that. Going back to a little bit of your programing
and working with the coaches. Give us a little insight. Owen, I know here
in the U.S., sometimes sport coaches, you know, they have their way, they want things
done. And ultimately we are as were servants and stewards of their program
and their program. Right. And how do you manage? How do you work with
some of your sport coaches that maybe they don’t agree with what you’re doing or
what? How have you kind of have you learned some lessons from that? What have you changed and how do you kind of manage that,
share a little bit that best that you can without, you know, protect them for sure. But
again, with probably a lot of it comes down to your genuine interest as a strength
coach with helping that team or that athlete out and working with those coaches.
So I genuinely we should very interested to learn about the sport of swimming, which means
I wanted to go down and watch them try it. And I wanted to ask questions and I wanted to make time
to do it. And I think that probably helped the coach with the boy in for me, so to speak,
or to or to trust me, because he could see that genuinely I was enthusiastic
and always keen if I’d been there taking photos to put on a personal
Instagram page or, you know, updating my LinkedIn on what on my first day there or whatever, I probably wouldn’t
have got that trust from him. But trust definitely is earned. I don’t I don’t you can’t just get a coach’s
trust. And coaches. Often coaches have maybe had a bad experience with the
chinning conditioning person or, you know, they’ve been there and done that. A lot of coaches are quite knowledgeable
themselves about strength training. And it really needs to be this gradual process where they need
to stop thinking that even if you’re not the best when you start, that you still care. And even
if you’re not the best when you start that, you’re you’re going to learn and you know, you’re not going to make the same mistake twice.
We’re going to learn from that mistake. And I think when you can get through those two hurdles, coaches will start
to buy in with you. But I think what you said there really hit the nail on the head. It’s
it’s the coach’s program. And you need you need to you need to law and your beliefs
up with the beliefs of the coach in Dez. I mean, there’s difficult conversations in
in any workplace. And I guess you need to to tactically choose when you’re going to bring certain
things up if you want to change in in a program. But overall, if if the coach
wants something to be done, you know, you kind of need to fall into line eventually or else you’ll you’ll find that
you don’t have a job anymore because you’ll move on pretty quick. And Lockwood, you said it’s it’s a team mentality
and the coaches like the team captain. And you need to follow the team captain
as well. So I agree with that. I think just over my years, you know, as a
young shrink coach, I was so been on like this is the only way we could do it. But as I’ve gotten older
and I’ve gotten better perspective, you really need to make sure, like you just said,
you want to show that head coach, that man you. You know, I am interested in a program true
invested. And you’re going to go do that. And it’s amazing to me, those little things that go into practice
in watching and just observing and not just sharing your opinion, how over time
you build credibility with that coach in your. You earn their trust in you.
And then they start giving you more bandwidth and more more rope, so to speak, to train
their team. And so I think oftentimes we can have all this knowledge, experience
in this passion to do this. But I think we’ve got to start. We’ve got to pump the brakes. Slow down, back up.
Start with the relationship first. Yeah. And then the rest of it will come, as you said, in time.
And everybody’s different. Every coaches, they they give you their trust at their own time.
And some are a little harder to win over. Some might be a little quicker. And that’s totally up to them. But you can do your part
by by showing that you’re invested and you’re committed to their team. So that’s good stuff. Thanks for
sharing that one. Kind of go to the next question.
In the US, technology is on the rise and we’re really just starting. It’s becoming an age
of data in the US for sure. Every time seems like a turn on a computer or e-mail
we’re getting. So this piece of equipment of this technology is the new thing. This is the new buzz
in everybody. This team’s using the bob, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. Talk about technology.
An athlete monitoring it. Can you kind of just briefly share how you use technology.
Over in Australia with your teams? Yeah. So that the I guess the two main uses of technology
for me and it my boy mckennis the bomb making, I sort of work with all the physiologist that I work
with was here. They’d probably able to speak for a couple of hours about the technology they use. But the
greatest use for me is I guess checking that training loads in IMX,
which is like an athlete monitoring system. And I can also gain access to any physio report
and any feedback from other coaches that can be very, very useful as there’s also a
kind of a comments box as part of the swimmer’s logbook that they’ll fill out as well.
And that can be really useful because you might pick up something in there such as
I was really sore from Wednesdays gym and then you might notice I comment the exact same
or different wording a week later. And again, that’s that’s enough for you to start a conversation with that particular
athlete. Hey, I noticed you were sore two weeks in a row. Is it? Is that an exercises that this rep
scheme, you know what’s happening? What’s the pool like exactly before this? And yeah,
so that’s that’s probably the moment with the training load. So just looking at how many kilometers they’re doing in a way. Cool.
The tops are trying to do it in a way. Can I guess that can inform your practice. It doesn’t mean that you’re
you know, you’re repeat gym program program up and you start again. But it might mean that yet.
Yeah. Understand, if they’re not quite hitting the percentages that you had prescribed or it might mean that you’re
going to drop one exercise or add in an extra mobility, one out in an extra cool one instead just
to give them that active recovery, because like we discussed the most probably the most important
thing in this data age. And to give an example, with swimming
after Rio, there was already times out, maybe a week or two after Rio,
all the Lockley gold medal times for Tokyo had been released. So then you’ve got four
years to to do the math with your swimmers and try an engineer,
a human being that’s capable of hitting that time. Those marks and the high hitting those
mark. Yeah, those marks. And you should win a gold medal or should Michael Faunal at the Olympics. Right.
So it’s very clear swimming can be brutal, brutally, brutally clear what time you need to hit
and it really comes down to your system. And yeah, like I said, our growth here in the state, our
age, where I honestly feel like a lot of performance now is is engineered. And
yeah, there’s still a lot to be said for the art of coaching as well. But but more and more of it seems to be on this
engineering side or hit this time. Hit that time and and you should make it so
the other one that I use, we’ve got a push center push sensor which is similar to thing. You guys had a catapult
one down there and an a Tendo unit. And again, for me, I mean, I’ve been lucky where I’ve
had interns that could do all of the data crunching for me. Give me a report on the tonnage I’ve lifted
and what kind of spade’s I would doing. But now, if in the absence of a of an internal, I’m
a little bit cautious because I don’t want to be looking at a i-Pad if they’re doing a clean
or a squat or even a weighted chin up and miss a a movement fault.
So all all this stuff that we do in the gym with him, it should transfer
to to this swimming. And if I’m training a poor movement pattern and then that
negatively influences a strike, then I’ve really done a disservice to the coach and that particular
swimmer. So in the last corner, two phases before they go to a major competition, like
a strength spade a spade strength or. Right. A force development ballistic power. I’m sure
you’ve all got your different themes. Yes, I’m interested in that. In their boss spade. And that comes
back to that 1 percent thing that I was talking about before, where we’re looking for just one more extra per cent
for them to use. But in the initial phases, I’m I’m not as fussed. So yeah, them are two
different types of data that I’ll use with the swimmers. Yeah, that’s
almost hard to say if we’re not careful with. You didn’t say this the
verbatim, but it can be a bit of a distraction and you can kind of lose your way
because you get attracted with all the bells and whistles and that like you said, that should be
information that allow. I like what you just said. That gives me context to have a conversation.
Yeah. Does it mean then will change anything? But hey, let’s gain more understanding and see if we can figure out
a better way to do this where that’s not become the central point. Do you guys share some of that data
with your coaches or just kind of keep it to the. Yeah, the performance team. How do you do that? We
all share everything with the coaches and definitely in those performance. Use those sorts
of things the way we bring up in. And we have a look at a boy mechanism also tests
swimmers. Maybe once or twice a year just to have a look at their force velocity profile as well. And
again, that can inform your practice to seeing who might be really strong, but a bit slow,
like a big try pulling out of the station. This is who’s maybe a little bit too weight
given the lives at the China lift off. It’s a if it’s a 40 kilo bench pool and someone’s
in that one rep, Max Konda zone on a velocity based training graph. Then you think and
you know, we need to get this person a lot stronger before we introduce anything else. So again, like you’ve said, it informs
practice. Do you share data with your athletes? Yes,
the Bob Velocity stuff they they want to know and some of them in particular
will get quite competitive with one another. Yeah, and that can be a good thing and a bad thing. Yeah.
Good and bad. Yeah. So. Good up performance, upward pressure, bad. If in the classic
example for Mannus Pulo and I realized it was it was time to reconsider my velocity based training was
a touring team from another country, came and did a camp at the Gold Coast. They came into
the gym. We were at this point in time we were measuring the speed of chin ups and we’re looking
at the velocity people going on chin ups. These guys had done this before and they had worked
out that if you throw your chin in the last count, a third of the chin up, you’ll get a faster
bass, speed up, faster speed recorded. So then Margolyes guys can’t work out how
it’s possible that these people from another country that didn’t look like that done as much as this. And China’s us
getting a faster chin up speed and they worked at us from this chin try. So then they’re doing this
chin try to get the faster bass speed to compete with these people from another country. And it’s you know
what the point of a chin up is not to get a fast speed. And it’s definitely not to throw your chin over the bar.
It’s to develop Blatche, strengthen, hopefully power and ride a force development you so you can apply that to your
swimming strike, get more pull through the water. So once the focus had been lost,
that’s really probably made the classic one where I. Yeah. That you bring. I mean, I think that’s a good point. I think,
you know, as we move into the future, you don’t want to just be, oh, just collecting
data and just allowing that drive the training. I mean, there’s a big part of training. Like you
said, it’s internal. It’s motivation is drive. It’s I don’t feel great today. But
you know what? You still got to go compete and win. And that’s just real life. And I think there’s a big part
of training and coaching that that instinct. And yes,
it’s about having conversations about knowing athletes individually and adjusting their plan to
through that relationship and just knowing them, knowing their bodies and educating them. And then you also getting
to know them through relationship and then using some of that data to tweak their program and get it dialed in.
So I think it’s a blend of that. Definitely. I like how you said that. Yeah, I think, ah, you
you can never just park yourself in one camp. That’s ah. That’s not the way to do it. You need to take little bits
and pieces of what you like from something and then just keep building your model of best practice
or think about the constraints you have in your environment and take what you like from a concept and
and apply it there in that way. Gets the. Where
do you see the innovations? Where do you see the future? Let’s say
coming down the pipe in Australia? And I think this is probably
in all honesty, I’d say we’re probably 10 years at a minimum behind the USA in a lot of athletic
development. But the big thing and I’m starting to notice is that strength work
is getting introduced at an earlier an earlier age. And these
age old room is, you know, strength training, stunted growth or, you know, you’re gonna get growth plate injuries if you do resistance
training before the age of 12 or whatever, I think. They’re starting to dissipate. Look, I’m hearing less and less
of that and I’m seeing more and more schools getting high qualified training, conditioning coaches
and full time training conditioning coaches to run their high school gym. And more and more people
are getting access to this service. So I definitely can see in Australian
sport, the next generation that comes through should be much more athletically
developed. I guess you could say the same in swimming and with
the Australian junior team. I’m I’m always a little bit alarmed when I go into camp
with them. And Junior World Junior swimming team is is
defined as under the age of 19. And I’m always shocked when we go to do add
gym sessions there. And I have swimmers representing that country at it at a junior
Olympics or junior Commonwealth Games or junior Pan X Games, 17, 18 years old.
And I’ve never done weights or the only strength training I’ve done for this swimming is
circuits, which, you know, I like burpees, all the rowing machine and and things that. Yeah, you wouldn’t really
associate with with strength work. I just can’t stress enough how important strength
training is for swimmers on on so many fronts, whether it’s a bone mineral density
or that basic coordination or it’s making them more springy and tenderness for those thoughts
and turns, whether it’s improving that power per stroke, whether it’s protecting them from injuries
and making them more robust to handle heavy training loads, or even if you just look at a swimmer,
they’re not always you know, some of the football guys I’ve seen on this trip with some
of the track and field athletes that I’ve seen today, you could tell me that they’re a basketball or a decathlete,
a football player or baseball player or what have you. And I believe you, just because of the athleticism, swimming,
as you normally say, and you think, well, that they’re a swimmer, there’s there’s not transfer to any other
sport or maybe rowing. So they’re still phenomenal athletes placed on tight offensive year from
listening to the spin. No, not definitely. You’re seeing the I know
there’s a new organisation they started here in the US for high school and I know
the guys personally. Gary Schofield and Rich Gray. And basically
it’s a certified governing body for high school shrink coaches. And the other thing
I’d say, right, National High School Strength Coaches Association. And they’re starting to do
certifications and conferences. And so you start to see this, like you just said,
higher quality of coaches at these lower level and middle school and high. It was starting to happen, starting
to blossom. And I think that’s positive. So that’s definitely something we’re seeing
kind of get traction here in the US. And hopefully it’ll be really cool to see at some
point all these these governing bodies really come together and always support each other. But
you unified on a front. I think that’s something that would in the future, I hope to see for for the professionals
coming up in the field. So we’re kind of going near the end here, coach.
And just some couple personal questions here. Harvey, you feel like
what would be your dream job? And if you could do whatever you wanted
and money was not an issue, what would you be doing? Andrew?
Do on what diplomatic CANCELLARA My actual answer. Give us your actual answer. Come on. If
if money was no problem, I think I’d definitely be working out or training for a minimum of two to
three hours a day. And I think I’d be surfing for the rest of it and I’d be completely
uncontactable on an email or find I like it. Not lifting and training.
I feel you surfing. I’m not touching. I’ve had some bad experiences in the
ocean. Yes, men have been taken out my feet by some pretty good size waves. So
you don’t even have to give me some counseling. We have to go see the the sport psych or the mental health coordinator first to get me.
What a night. Not in all honesty. I really enjoy coaching. I think that that’s
that’s probably my calling. And becoming a school teacher has helped my coaching so much as well.
So sorry, I probably can’t really fault any of the experiences that I’ve had because
I’ve led me to such a and awesome job and then to get through. Trips like this and
and what not. I do feel it. I’m on living my mokoena best life and
I’m just eternally grateful and appreciative for the coaches that have taken a chance on men and
allowed me to develop the school. It’s employed me and then people like yourself who have let me in here
and treated me like a guest of honor for a week. It’s been. Yes, it’s unbelievable. I’m still pinching myself.
Yeah, we’re it’s mutual. I definitely enjoy visiting with you. And like I said, Australia, you
guys were so kind and just welcoming and hospitable
ness that you guys provided. When I was there, I was blown away. And I can’t thank you guys enough as well.
It’s definitely open my eyes in our profession. So thank you as well. The feeling is mutual.
If anybody wants to contact you, get in contact. Reach out as questions
or just connect with you. I know you’re not a big social media guy, but how could they reach you, Andrew? Yeah. So
I don’t like social media at all. I don’t have any social media.
But in inside that I am an open book on. I’d never just
brush someone’s email. If someone wants material, I’m never gonna not reply. That’s that’s just normal.
Why? I think that strength coaches need to connect more. That needs to be a much, much more
collaboration and a lot less of this kind of chest beating, you know? I don’t like you because I work for them
so poorly. The best wife. I left my email, my baby right there. And it’s the same when
I when I lecture these courses back in Australia. People say, can you send me an example of an annual plan?
And it’s I mean, so long as the swimming athletes I work for on using it right now,
I’ve got my problem because I didn’t invent an annual plan and I
didn’t invent periodization. I didn’t invent the cycles are all things I learned from others. So there’s no reason
why someone can’t learn from me. And even if I give it to you, you know, you’re in a
different environment, you’ve got different constraints. It’s just food for thought for you
as well. So I’ll definitely blame Alan if you do know if you do want to connect or or
you think that I can help you in some way, please, please do. I’d be happy to help with whatever
I can, especially if you’re from Austin, Texas or Utah. What’s your email? Can you can you give it to us overnight?
It’s Andrew Pork and it’s. Can you spell that out? Yeah. I
n d r e w p y
k e under school s c
at Hotmail dot com. And hopefully my accent’s not to the canyon. Understand. I love it. We love
it. I think I’ve used the word mate. My sweet nonot brekkie.
Yeah. Great. He had three times. That’s breakfast for all the listeners. That’s my new term for breakfast. Is Brekky.
Yep. Well, Andrew, it has been an absolute pleasure and thank you so much for
sharing your knowledge on the team behind the team podcast. I know our staff is enjoy.
Busy with you. Hopefully you’ve had a good experience here and you can throw up the horns over there in
in on the Gold Coast when you get back. And hopefully we’ll we’ll keep this brutal relationship going.
We’ll see each other again. So anything you want to say before we can. I know. Can I just
say one massive thank you to a man back home, Julian Joynes and everyone at ISCI
who supported me to come on this trip? I really hope that I’ve represented you guys as
well. And just secondary to that, could I think everyone, especially you doney at the at the University of
Texas for being so, so welcoming. I’d never heard of the concept of Southern
hospitality, but Boyd on all domains now, so I can’t express my gratitude enough. Thank
you very much and thank you for your time in listening. You’re very welcome. And again, thank you, Julian. I know,
Julian, so we appreciate you, Julian, all you do for the profession. You guys keep raising the bar over there in Australia.
We’ll do the same here in the US. So. We’re out today.
Andrew, great to have you here. Hook them horns and from Down Under, we’re signing off here in Austin, Texas.
We’ll catch on in next week’s show. Hook him.
Thanks so much for tuning in and listening to this episode. The teen behind the Teen podcast
for future episodes go to i-Tunes Spotify, Google Podcast or
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So if you have a moment, please go to i-Tunes, leave a rating and review and let us know how we’re
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