E8 | Travis Vlantes: Sport Science

Welcome to the team behind the teen podcast. I am your host, Donny Mae. This is the monthly
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show Focus on Building Conversations around the teen base model approach to ethic, performance,
strength and conditioning. Sports Medicine. Sports Science. Mental Health and wellness.
And Sports nutrition.
All right. I want to welcome our guests to the show, Travis Volunteers,
who is currently the director of Applied Sports Science at the University of Texas. Travis,
how you doing today? I’m doing great. Coach, thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure to have you on the show.
I know this is a project that we’ve been working on for a while and the park is going and you’ve got so much
to give and share with so many people. So we appreciate you making time to have this this
the show today and meeting. Yeah. I’m honored to be a guest on here and really appreciate you
putting this together. I think the way we work here at the University of Texas within our performance
team is is a great story worth telling. And I think we’re going to be able to help a lot of people
and kind of pull back the curtain and show what we do here. Well, some good stuff. Let’s just jump
right in. I think before we go too far, Travis, it’d be great just to
take a moment and introduce yourself for those who don’t know who you are. Tell us a little bit about yourself,
where you got your start and kind of how you ended up along your career path here at the University of Texas.
Sure. I played Division Three football at a small school in Iowa called
Wartburg College. I grew up not far from there. My undergraduate degree
is in biology. So I originally started off wanting to be a physical therapist. And
as I explored that path and and started moving in that direction, I decided that I
really wanted to work in athletics, but maybe more on the athletic development. And
so that kind of led me more towards the strength and conditioning path. So after I
finished my undergrad in biology, I went on to grad school. I was a graduate
assistant strength conditioning coach at West Texas A&M, ended up spending
four years total there where I worked in strength and conditioning and then also taught undergraduate
courses in kinesiology and health and performance. So that was a great
experience. I think my view of coaching has always been it’s it’s a teaching profession.
So being able actually teach in the classroom, you sure. As well as in the weight room
was a great experience for me. And then after grad school
and working for a few years in the field, I moved to the University of Wyoming. So I
spent three years there and that was really where I started. My journey towards
more of the sports science side of things gradually transitioned out
of the weight room, although I was still the string coach for for a few sports and really started looking
more in depth that the athlete monitoring side of things with doing some wellness questionnaires,
some things with heart rate variability more closely, tracking performance in the weight room with
bar speed, things like that. And then that led me to the position here at the University
of Texas, where I just completed the transition out of the weight room and just
over to the sports science side. So it’s a little bit of a unique journey,
but I wouldn’t trade it for anything because I think it’s given me the perspective that’s
helped me contribute here at the University of Texas. Thanks for sharing it. I did want to kind
of. One thing I remember and actually read your paper that you did a whole research
paper for volleyball. And know I work with volleyball. Currently, you help us with lineball for sure.
Can you talk about where did that? I’m just curious, where did that the interest in that kind of.
Was that something that maybe kind of was like a domino that kind of got to go in or. Yeah,
absolutely. That that was something that I kind of stumbled into early on
when I was at Wyoming. So we had started doing wellness questionnaires and
R.P. questionnaires with our volleyball program. And through the football program,
we were able to get some caterwaul units. And so I was able to kind
of work a deal with them where volleyball would practice in the morning and I would take some of the football caterwaul
units and put them on our volleyball players. And then I would rush them back
over and get them charged back up before they had to go out, back out for football practice in the afternoon.
And it’s just sort of that relationship of monitoring what was actually going on in terms
of mechanical workload and then how how the student athletes felt during practice. And looking at the changes
in those relationships that really got a lot of this going for me. You know, the one thing I remember stood out was just
the number of jumps that you were tracking on different positions and things like that. The
coaches don’t I mean, a sport coach will play another practice. Right. But to see that number,
those numbers of jumps and quantify practice, that was definitely something that was was pretty eye
opening. Yeah. Who? Absolutely. I think a lot of times coaches are are so used
to the routine of their practice and and you get so close to it that sometimes when when you’re able to put
an objective number on exactly how much they’re doing each day, it really is.
It’s a surprise for a lot of them. It’s good stuff, coach. With
sports science being pretty new here in the U.S., I know they’ve done it for years
in Australia and other countries, but it’s pretty new. When you say here, especially collegiately in the
U.S., there’s a lot of interest and I’ve had even more conversations
over the past year and a half of strength. In addition, coach or professionals that they’re looking at
this as a career path choice. You obviously know a made that
that switch in your career and you’re doing it being very successful at it here. Texas
is doing a phenomenal job. What advice would you give for any
young professionals out there that maybe like, hey, this is something I may be interested in? What would you say to
somebody like that, coach? Yeah, I think one of the biggest lessons and something that
that I was kind of fortunate to learn early is keep your horizons broad. So
if you are looking to get into the athletic performance world and maybe you want to be an
athletic trainer or a nutritionist or a strength conditioning coach, learn about the other
areas that are that are gonna be associated with that area and make sure that you have a good
working understanding of all those other areas, because you may find out that
maybe the strength conditioning side is not what you want to get into you. And maybe it’s more of the rehab and athlete
care side of things and you and you end up going down a path of sports medicine. So there are a lot
of interwoven, interconnected professions that that deal with athletes.
And so I think the more you have a better understanding of exactly what each role is, the
more you can make a decision about which path you want to go down.
I would also say learning underlying principles will serve you no matter
what you choose. So from the physiology side of things to the psychology
of sport and athletics, you know, whether be like biomechanics or kinesiology,
learning those underlying human development principles is is really important
to be able to have that flexibility to go across disciplines. I think being able
to understand thing concepts like volume, intensity density and be able
to translate those things into things that coaches can understand,
other practitioners can understand, I think is huge. Again, I talked about
kind of being collaborative and being interdisciplinary. So understanding that
when when you work within a performance team, it’s it’s not a zero sum game. When when you win in the weight room,
I win as sports science and our nutritionist wins as well. So
understanding that we’re all here to help each other and to help our student athletes grow and
that when one of us gets a victory, that’s that’s a victory for all of us. And then just
continually ask questions, you know, why? Why are things done this way? Is there a
better way that we could be doing things that that we’re not doing or that we haven’t explored? So I think all
of those things are important as you look at what career path you want to go down,
what as it relates to athletics and working in sport performance. I appreciate you
saying that. I think, you know, from the time I’ve worked with you, Travis, you
have just such an ability to get on that whatever level. You know, if somebody can’t.
Maybe they’ll have the depth of understanding on a topic or subject. You’re able to break that down in a way that
we all can understand. But you also can take it up high, too, if you need to. And I like that you have
a feel like you’ve got that that relate ability to connect with people. And
I feel like, you know, because you were strength conditioned coach before. So you’ve worked with all the different
support groups around an athlete that you understand what we’re dealing with. And so you have
more patience, understanding and emotional intelligence. I feel like know how to read the situation
and adjust that. And I feel like that’s definitely made you who you are today at Texas. So
it’s great advice. Yeah. Thank you. Now, just change gears a little bit.
Kind of walk us through what’s a typical day or week for you. And I know you’re a busy man.
I do know this because it’s hard to catch you sometimes. That’s a good thing. It means you’ve got a lot
on your plate. But somebody maybe that’s never does have a clue
of what your role is like. What’s a typical day or we kind of share with us some insights? Yeah,
I think in the applied sports science setting, it’s it’s very much
interactions with our coaches and our student athletes. I think a lot of people have this idea that
you’re behind a desk or behind a computer crunching numbers all the time. And while certainly that’s
an important part of the job and something that it requires, you know, I
like to try and spend as much of the normal daily hours as I can
going to practices, you know, meeting with our student athletes, meeting with our coaches, finding
out what their needs are, what’s going well, what’s not going well, because that’s. That’s how you really build
an effective department and how you find out what type of information they need.
So in a typical day or sports science department is broken down
into three key areas to help support student-athlete growth and development. So we look at assessments,
monitoring and education. So that’s how I spend most of my days. Assessments would be
any sort of athlete testing that we do in our Center for Applied Sports Science. That could be anything
from body composition on the DEXA to strength and power testing on a force plate
to a movement screen to any sort of metabolic assessment resting metabolic rate
or type of conditioning test. We also do some some sensory motor
assessments as well. So we may be taking athletes through that on
a given day and and trying to inform decisions about, OK. I was there taper or they’re peaking going
or they are returned to play individual. And so how is their progress going in their rehab
and things like that? So we use USAns assessments to inform those decisions
from the monitoring side of things. So we have seven teams across our campus
that we daily monitor their workload through some sort of device that they wear
at practice and in competition. So that takes a big chunk of time. So a lot
of it is. Thankfully, we have a great staff of athletic trainers and strength conditioning
coaches who can be the ones who are at every practice, every day making sure that we’re collecting
quality information to base those decisions upon. And then my job is sort of break
it down on the back end form. But I rely on those people heavily to to make sure that
I can sort of be at all places at all times without actually having to be there.
And then we we also do some other monitoring in terms of we may look at sleep or
some other physiological variables with heart rate variability or direct current potential
and then education, which again I think is still the most important part, even
though I’m I’m not technically a coach anymore, I still put more stock in that education piece.
So whether that’s meeting with other members of our performance team and showing them
the feedback of the information we’re collecting and figuring out how are we going to move forward
or whether it’s giving a team presentation or meeting one on one with our student athletes. But it’s figuring
out a way to take all of that information we’re collecting and feed it back to the people that matter the most.
Yeah, that’s pretty powerful. I know. Just. I’ve even witnessed how
you’ve worked with with our teams and you get really does educating all of us, taking
some of those assessments and give us a clear snapshot of what’s actually going on.
I think it’s one thing to go to use your coach and I haven’t talked to athletes. But another thing to have
data to actually look at raw data and go, here’s what you’re looking at. And give us a clear picture of that. So
I know it’s been it’s been a huge help. That makes sense. Yeah. I think, you know, really all it
is is is putting a value that we can track over time to get to that coaching. I. And again,
I would say most of my experience here has been, you know, sort of reaffirming or just quantifying
what our sport coaches, what our strength coaches, what our athletic trainers are already seeing on a day to day basis
with their interactions. So it’s it’s really just about giving them a clear cut way to
track that over time as opposed to, you know, really disputing a lot of the things that they see,
because we’ve got great people who have really good, really good coaching eyes. Good
kind of that. To add on to that, you talked a little bit about the different
support groups, the different areas that surround a student athlete.
And this is kind of what the podcast is geared towards, this performance team model approach.
How would you describe the performance team model and then kind of what are the benefits you see from this type
of approach? Sure. I I would describe our our performance team model as
just a way to foster cross collaboration and ultimately just to provide
the best care for our student athletes possible. And so I think when
you have that as your end goal and everybody starts with the same goal in mind, which is
we all want to make sure that our our student athletes are as successful as they can be, that they reach
peak performance and that they stay healthy while they’re here doing it. I think
everything else falls into place after that. So starting with that end goal in mind. But for
us, that model really looks like making sure that we connect regularly with the people who have
impact and influence on the day to day interaction with our student athletes
and making sure that they have the best information possible to do their job. So
we already know we have we have great coaches, we have great trainers. And so it’s just
a matter of. Putting the best information in their hands to help make the hundreds of
decisions a day that they make about what goes on with training, performance, health, recovery,
all of those decisions are already being made. How can we better inform those decisions to make sure that
we’re getting the outcomes that we want and that we’re continuing down the path that’s going to lead
them to success? Yeah, and I kind of want to add to that. I think that’s a great way to explain
it in. You’ve been in coaching long enough, you worked and you’ve been in
sports, that oftentimes people with something so new as sports science
can be almost there can be pushback, right? People can be skeptical. And it takes
time to kind of get, you know, to build the model that you’ve really. I feel like
you’ve been very just complimentary in bringing the pieces together, because a lot of times you
can have the pieces, but there’s always great synergy and they don’t work well together.
So I would say to add to that talk about kind of what has been your mentality
approach on starting something so new at Texas and in all these different pieces,
you’ve done just that, almost like an orchestra. And I know every
every sport coach is different and every team is different. And we’ve talked about this, you kind of
move the needle, so to speak, as far as like just trust and buy. What have you done kind of in
your own own way approach to do that, make it successful? Absolutely. I think
connecting an orchestras is a great way to put it. You know, I think
it starts with one being present with all of those people. So
making sure that you have those regular interactions with them and that they understand that ultimately
you’re you’re there to serve their best interest. I think this is I see this position very
much as a as a servant leader type position, where it is my job to
provide them with any information that they feel is going to help them do their job better
and to just kind of guide them along that path. And so for for me to try and
dictate what a sport coach of 20 years needs to do their job better
is not something that’s going to make sports science very successful. And it’s not something that’s going to
foster a collaborative relationship. So I’m just being president and kind of listening to their needs
and the things that they feel like are going well, the things that they’re kind of struggling with day to day
and then trying to figure out where you can help in that is is really all I’ve I’ve been
trying to do. You know, I think presenting men viable solutions
with some of the things that you see that they’re struggling with again. So we may have some great
sort of pie in the sky ideas, but if it doesn’t work within our practice schedules and
within the time constraints that we operate with in the collegiate environment, then again, ultimately I’m
just going to be setting myself up for empty promises that I can’t deliver on. As always,
trying to make sure it’s it’s going to be a practical, viable solution. And then no matter
how many great relationships you build, no matter how present you are, all of those things,
ultimately we have to provide results. That’s kind of what we’re all here to do
is provide results. And so I have to show them value in what we’re doing and how we’re
spending and thinking through the value. Absolutely. So being able to show that we can
track performance and progress over time and really again being
able to affirm some of the things that they’re seeing in practice. You know, if if a coach says, man, I really
feel like retired or were struggling, you know, being able to affirm some
of those things with, well, coach, this is this is what we saw in some of the information that we’ve collected.
So if that is the case now, how do we move forward? What’s the best way? So just creating buy-in
by almost just affirming their coaches, I and some of the things that they’re seeing with
their years of experience, because there’s there’s no way that I’m going to be able to tell them,
you know, through through the small amount of experience that I have, that a you know, you’re doing this wrong
or we should be doing this another way. That’s going to burn up a lot of my time and energy, and it’s
not going to foster a collaborative relationship. Yeah. I think you just you nailed it on the head when
you said add value. I think first when you see or
you feel any kind of pushback or skepticism. Once a coach kind of a light
bulb goes off like, hey, I’m here to help you win. Now here to make the, you know,
to to keep the athletes from getting in great shape or not perform. Well, I’m here
and oftentimes. Would you agree? It’s sometimes it’s not really a big change. It’s just a tweak here.
They’re what they’re doing is already working. But if they can adjust it again, that one percent
like we we talk about all time as like that can be a difference maker and win or loss. Absolutely. And that’s
you know, I think if if there was one major message that I have learned here, it’s not
that we’re not trying to reinvent sport or or reinvent the things that
a coach has done for years and years where we’re just trying to move that needle a little bit
each and every day. And the way that we move that needle is we inform the
decisions that are already going on and and we help make better decisions
just based off of the information that we’re collecting. And so if we can get those small
wins day to day where we can help a student athlete recover a little bit faster,
feel a little bit fresher before the next competition, train a little bit harder
today. All of those things just slowly move that needle. And then by the time
we get to championship season, the end of the semester, when when things matter most.
We’ve already done all of that work to make sure that we’re going to be successful in those times.
It’s good stuff. Let’s talk a little bit now about athlete monitoring.
You have to do a lot of that with the athletes. Texas kind of explain to us
what is athlete monitoring and how does it benefit performance today? And then maybe
you have an example where you again off to keep it confidential, but just
maybe an example, a general example you’ve seen that’s made a difference. Mm hmm.
So in terms of athlete monitoring, we would look at evaluating workload and recovery
through objective and subjective means, preferably both at the same
time. So, well, we have found here is that we get the most amount of buy-in from
our student athletes and from our coaches. When we can tell a story about
explaining how they feel and how they’re how they’re performing. And the best way to tell that story
is by having both objective and subjective information. So that’s a great.
Daniel counterman quote that I keep on my office wall all the time is no one ever made a decision
based on numbers. They need a story. So like I’ve never heard that one. Absent a great
quote. Yeah. And so constructing that story from from the
daily monitoring information that we get becomes really, really important.
So in terms of how it benefits our student athletes performance
in a lot of our sports now, we have several years of data that we’ve collected
for what practice looks like, what competition looks like. And so
we’re really just able to work backwards and say these are the demands of competition. How can we make
sure that our practice, our training sessions are preparing us for those
demands of competition to meet and exceed those demands? And so that’s,
I think, feel like where we’ve been the most successful is using those competitions
as a model and figuring out when in practice where we’re able to really push and replicate
some of those game situations. And when our days where the athletes are experiencing
a lot of fatigue and we’re not going to be able to get the game intensity out of them. So then maybe we
we break it up and we work on things like volume and capacity, things that
that maybe don’t require some of those high intensity outputs. So there’s
a lot of different ways that that we can do that depending on the sport. And I think
for from my job, from the athlete monitoring standpoint, is to be able to give the coach more of
that 10000 foot view. So the sport coaches always worried about the next game.
You know what’s happening this week? How is the team looking this week? My job is to be able to step
back and say, how does this week fit with what we’ve done the previous two weeks and what we’re
going to do the next three or four weeks. So I get to keep my eye on the overall picture.
How are workloads are trending over time and are we going to make sure that we’re tapering
appropriately for the championship part of the season while still holding on to do enough fitness
to be able to make it through, you know, any calendar congestion or dense competition periods that
may occur postseason? Yeah, because when you mention a good part there about when coaches
when you’re in the heat of the battle, you’re in season and the emotion of,
you know, wins or losses and you’re trying to prepare a team to do well, not just now,
but get them ready for the end of the year. That athlete monitoring helps you provide a snapshot
like coach, here’s what you’ve done. Here’s where you’re at and here’s what I suggest going
forward. I think that’s been priceless. So I know that’s that’s kind of what
you’re talking about there. Absolutely. And I would say than the number one variable that affects
workload in in the collegiate setting is the calendar. So how many
off days do you have to have this week? How many competitions do we have that
in and of itself creates large swings in workload where some weeks you have
a lot of opportunity to accumulate load. And so that ends up being a high workload week
and then other weeks with travel, with off days, maybe with more limited competition. We have very
little opportunity to accumulate workload, so we end up really sort of dropping down
in our workload. And and so what we try and do is make sure that the calendar does
not dictate to us what we’re able to do, what we’re able to achieve that week and that
we’re going to hit our workload marks, whether it be OK, we need to be more aggressive because we don’t
have many opportunities to get load this week or whether we’re going to be more conservative because we have a
number of opportunities to get load this week. You know, you mentioned something else on add to that because
I’ve heard you say it even recently. You’ve mentioned it again about having
a database of numbers of previous practice sessions from last year, a
year before. How important is that to have layers of years behind you
to compare for team kind of where they are right now compared to last year? Etc.
Absolutely. I think that’s that’s crucial. Having consistency
both from a sport coach all the way on down is is hugely important
because now we have that historical record to be able to say, okay, well in
previous years, this is where our fitness level has been. This is where our fatigue level
has been and this is how we performed. And so that’s really we use that
as a as a guiding principle to what we want to do this year and the things we want to achieve.
And so I think having that historical information has been priceless
for us both on a team level and then on an individual level. So understanding
the demands that a student athlete faced when they were a freshman and sophomore and now
all of a sudden maybe they’ve moved up to a starting or contributing role when their junior and senior
year. A lot more volume. Exactly. And really understanding that wear and tear on their body
and how they maybe haven’t experienced that before and the things that we need to do as a performance
team to make sure that they’re gonna be able to stay healthy and continue to perform at a high level. That
makes sense. If a freshman practiced, a lot more of them play as much. Now they’re playing more. You may want to look
at how much the training load is in practice as a sophomore junior going into that,
though. Absolutely. It’s a huge paradigm shift. Good stuff.
Talking about sports science again, where do you see the future of sports
science heading? Is there any innovations or advances that will impact athletes,
how they’re performing now, how coaches make decisions? Any thoughts on that kind of words that now where you see it going?
Yeah, I think coaches now have more information at their fingertips
than than they’ve ever had. And I think as we move forward. Coaches
are going to get better and better at utilizing that information. I think
from a specific sports science standpoint, activities like
monitoring, collecting information from athletes is going to become less and less invasive.
So the more information that we can gather in a passive manner where we don’t have to disturb
what’s going on in an athlete’s normal day, those are gonna be the things
that really take off. Nobody wants to have to wear two or three sensors. Nobody
wants to have to, you know, wear something while they go to sleep or have something bothering them during a game.
So the less invasive we can be, I think the better. And the technology will
take us in that direction. I think there’s gonna be more integration with actual
sport. So we’re already seeing this with some of the wearables in integrating with things like game
film. So now we’re able to see, you know, an athlete is running
a sprint on the field. You’re watching that on game film and then we can get how fast they’re running
that sprint has the coaches watching the game films. So now you can do things like show
if an athlete’s letting off early or truly sprinting, giving a maximal leftward
during certain times. You know, when when I played college football, it was always the old
saying the eye in the sky doesn’t lie. That’s true. Yeah. And rurally going to add to that and make
that even more prevalent. Yeah. There’s really not. I mean there’s really not much today from switched
to like you said, your heart rate fatigue levels that you can’t monitor today and
get some kind of data and read out kind of what’s going on in an athlete. I think
the the true test is going to be the people who
can filter through. You know, we can measure so much because of technology now.
And the people who are going to be truly successful are the ones who can filter out the things that we
do and do not need to be measuring what adds value and what is worth measuring and
what really is not adding value and helping our our athletes progress. So
that’s that’s gonna be a key moving forward. And why I think the sports science role, particularly
in the collegiate environment, I think is where nutrition was four or five years ago,
where, you know, it maybe used to be a strength conditioning coach was in charge of
making peanut butter sandwiches and making sure that they had bagels and fruit. Out
to now where you see we have whole nutrition departments with full staffs of dietitians
available to be able to give that individual work. Sports science is going to have to move
along that realm. There are a lot of places spending a lot of money on technology to be able
to monitor these things. But the return on the investment is very low because you don’t have a specific
staff member whose entire job it is to make sure that, OK, we sift
through what is important, what is adding value to our program and what is not. So that’s
where we’re going to see the growth in sports science in terms of personnel as people who are able to interpret this
huge influx of information that we’re getting from from all of this technology. I know it’s
kind of. Who? As you know, I was able to go to Australia last year for a little bit and see
kind of how they run their sports science. And we’re definitely doing some of what they’re doing, but they’re probably, what,
maybe five, 10? Yeah. And to see how they’re kind of running their teams. It was kind
of cool. And that’s just over there. It’s their lane, which is just different. And
I would say over there, they’re definitely data driven. Lot of data over there in Australia. But here we’re more
it’s a little bit more practical on the coaching side. But you’re starting to see, like you said, the innovations come
in technology here in the US and start to really influence and drive some decisions
with the coaches. What not. So it’s pretty cool to see. I definitely think that goes back to that integrated
approach. So now, you know, the strength coach has access to all of this information
and they they understand exactly what the information means because they have a sports
scientist on their team that’s kind of showing them what to look for, you know, letting them know,
hey, this is the threshold that we’re looking for. This is when things are going really well. This is when things
are not going well. So, again, just having people on staff that are able to communicate
and sort of translate, that just allows everybody to collaborate
in a much more efficient way. What about let’s talk a little bit about here, because we get we get near
the end of our show. What do you do for professional development to make
sure you consistently grow? I know you’re a big reader, but maybe share with with
with the audience. What do you do to stay sharp? I think podcasts
are terrific. One of the reasons why I was I was so glad to hear
about this opportunity and jump at it and thankful for you for getting this off the ground.
I think podcasts are a way to make use of a lot of dead
time that maybe we wouldn’t normally be able to have a chance to grow and improve. So
on things like the wonderful commute that we have here in Austin or even times
where I’m at my desk just doing some of the number crunching and stuff, that’s part
of the job just to have that on in the background. I can’t tell you how many ideas that
have that have sparked during times like that by by listening to podcasts. A
lot of of that type of information that I like to listen to are things that deal
with interacting with with other people and and figuring out how other people learn and absorb
information. So I’m a huge fan of the behavioral economics field right now.
I listen to a lot of podcasts that deal with that and with human behavior.
Our our team physician is kind of my podcast guru. He always points me in
in the direction of what’s the latest and greatest podcast or did you hear this episode or that? Because
there’s fundamentally if all of this information is great, but if you can’t communicate it
in a way, then that other people can understand it’s not really worth anything.
And so I spend a lot of my time trying to figure out how do I send the best message
to the people that I work with day in and day out with. You go to show you
the you are not so smart. Podcast is great. I haven’t listened to that
effort. Effort you about to break talk about it. Yeah, that’s that’s definitely one of my favorites. I’m also
a big Freakonomics fan. So again, being able to look at, you know, a
set of data where a specific problem and kind of turn it on its head by looking
at really some some objective information, I think a lot of what they do is pretty fascinating as well.
And then from from a books and you know, I try and read
a book a month if I can. You’ve you’ve kept me on track with that. And
we’ve kind of kept each other. You kept me come, as you said.
But I definitely enjoy. You know, you selecting books for us and me being
able to point out a book or two, that that’s been good for our development again, because
I think always approaching something from the same angle
doesn’t allow you to truly grow and advance in what you’re doing. And so things
like that where having you pick a book for me that I may not have picked for myself and suggests
something I think is that’s invaluable for my personal growth.
And then, you know, journal articles staying trying to stay current on on everything that’s changing
in the field. Absolutely. And and so much of what we do
here is based off of the great work that other people have done so high,
don’t have to reinvent the wheel and start from ground zero in order to help our student
athletes. I can go off of a lot of the published research, a lot of the great work that’s been done by
others and then expand on that and very quickly sort of figure out.
Were we able to replicate that with the data we collected? OK, great. How do we move forward for the next step
or a maybe maybe this isn’t a great approach for us because we’re not
really seeing those same patterns in the data we collected that they saw in the published research.
Talking about to kind of last thing on just want to love to hear from
you about maybe on the developmental side as we kind of wrap up here as mentoring
been a big thing, is it been something that’s impacted you? Have you had a mentor
or coach or somebody is really like poured into it, maybe just impacted how you
you think can carry yourself? Is there anybody out there? You know, I
I would probably be remiss if if there weren’t half a dozen to a dozen people
I didn’t mention I. Every place I’ve been I think I have I’ve
been exposed to people who, you know, have been great at what they do and maybe present
things in a in a different way that have helped me grow and help me change. So I think to mention any one
person probably wouldn’t be it wouldn’t be fair.
But yeah, every place I’ve been I’ve had some people growing. That’s influenced me.
And that’s been a big part. I know being a coach and being in sports, having people around
you that you just learned from other years has been it’s been huge for me as well. So.
Well, cool, Travis. I think that’s it for today. As people listen to the show, where
can people find more out about you? If they want to reach out to you, connect with you. How can
a how can I do that, Coach? Absolutely. So I’m I try and be pretty active
on Twitter. So my handle’s app, platform warrior from my Olympic weightlifting
days. And then from there you can direct message me or through
my university email. I’m always happy to reach out and help. I think
I am a big believer that the entire field grows as more and more people
gather information and and gonna figure this out. So I was jumped
at the opportunity to be on this podcast with you because I feel like we do a lot
of great things here in the collaboration with the people here at the University of Texas.
And that the more we can get that message out there that, hey, you’re your performance team
should be people that you lean on and people that you learn from and grow with, not
people to, you know, fight with and and try and claim credit from and things like that.
I think the more that we can get that message out there, the more student athletes we help along
the way and the more we can grow and advance the profession a lot quicker, which is the biggest thing I’m interested in.
So, yes, if you have any questions about some of the things that we do
here, I’m always happy to to have a talk with it. Well, Travis, we appreciate your time.
And again, anybody interested? Connect with Travis. Don’t hesitate to reach out to
him through the handles he gave you. He is definitely a game changer for us
here at Texas. I know kind of on our street circle we we call he’s a rock star
in our in our area. And so he brings a lot of value, has had a big impact
here. And we’ll continue to with our athletics teams, our coaches and administration
over the years. And I look forward to continue working with him. So, Travis, thank you for your time. We appreciate
you, man. Thanks for having me on. All right. We’ll catch you guys next time.
Thanks so much for tuning in and listening to this episode. The team behind the team podcast
for future episodes go to i-Tunes Spotify, Google Podcast or
Stitcher. We definitely want to keep having great guest on the show and great content.
So if you have a moment, please go to i-Tunes, leave a rating and review and let us know how we’re
doing. I’m Don Hemade. Thanks so much for tuning in.