In this episode of The Team Behind The Team, Donnie sits down with the Director of Applied Sport Science at the University of Texas, Travis Vlantes. Donnie and Travis pull back the curtain to discuss a host of topics relating to the emerging field of sport science, including advice for young professionals, a team-first model, collaborating with sport coaches, athlete monitoring, the direction sport science is heading, and professional development.<\/p>\n
Travis Vlantes is a native of Mason City, Iowa. He earned a degree in Biology at Wartburg College, and a master\u2019s degree in exercise science at West Texas A&M. Currently, he is in his fourth-year as the Director of Applied Sport Science at the University of Texas. Prior to Texas, Vlantes served as a sport performance coach at the University of Wyoming where he worked with several Olympic sports implementing athlete monitoring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In this episode of The Team Behind The Team, Donnie sits down with the Director of Applied Sport Science at the University of Texas, Travis Vlantes. Donnie and Travis pull back the curtain to discuss a host of topics relating to the emerging field of sport science, including advice for young professionals, a team-first model, […]","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","episode_type":"audio","audio_file":"http:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/the-team-behind-the-team\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2020\/06\/2020-06-04_The-Team-Behind-The-Team_Episode-8.mp3","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"92.53M","filesize_raw":"97021568","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":""},"tags":[24,27,26,25,23],"series":[2],"class_list":{"0":"post-32","1":"podcast","2":"type-podcast","3":"status-publish","5":"tag-applied-sports-science","6":"tag-athlete","7":"tag-monitoring","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-travis-vlantes","10":"series-the-team-behind-the-team","11":"entry"},"acf":{"related_episodes":"","hosts":[{"ID":113,"post_author":"38","post_date":"2020-11-04 17:27:54","post_date_gmt":"2020-11-04 22:27:54","post_content":"\n
Donnie Maib is the Head Coach for Athletic Performance for Olympic Sports since 2011.\u00a0 Maib oversees all aspects of athletic performance efforts for all sports at the University of Texas with the exception of Men\u2019s\/Women\u2019s Basketball and Football. He directly works with women\u2019s volleyball and men\u2019s tennis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He came to the University of Texas after four years at the University of Colorado at Boulder where he worked as an assistant with all varsity sports. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
From 1998-2007 Maib was an assistant coach at the University of Texas working primarily with football and various other Olympic sports \u2013 Women\u2019s Track & Field, Women\u2019s Golf, Men\u2019s Golf, Men\u2019s Tennis, Soccer, & Volleyball. In 2007 He was promoted to Associate Coach for Football. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maib is certified by the Collegiate Strength & Conditioning Coaches Association. He was honored at 8th Annual National Conference of the Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association in May 2008 with the certification of Master Strength and Conditioning Coach (MSCC), the highest honor for a coach in the strength and conditioning field.<\/p>\n","post_title":"Donnie Maib","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"donnie-maib","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2020-11-04 17:27:55","post_modified_gmt":"2020-11-04 22:27:55","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/the-team-behind-the-team\/?post_type=speaker&p=113","menu_order":0,"post_type":"speaker","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"guests":[{"ID":54,"post_author":"38","post_date":"2020-07-06 18:49:37","post_date_gmt":"2020-07-06 18:49:37","post_content":"\n
Travis Vlantes is a native of Mason City, Iowa. He earned a degree in Biology at Wartburg College, and a Master\u2019s degree in exercise science at West Texas A&M. Currently, he is in his fourth-year as the Director of Applied Sport Science at the University of Texas. Prior to Texas, Vlantes served as a sport performance coach at the University of Wyoming where he worked with several Olympic sports implementing athlete monitoring.<\/p>\n","post_title":"Travis Vlantes","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"travis-vlantes","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2020-11-05 10:28:44","post_modified_gmt":"2020-11-05 15:28:44","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/the-team-behind-the-team\/?post_type=speaker&p=54","menu_order":0,"post_type":"speaker","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"transcript":"
Welcome to the team behind the teen podcast. I am your host, Donny Mae. This is the monthly
\n\ue5d4
\nshow Focus on Building Conversations around the teen base model approach to ethic, performance,
\nstrength and conditioning. Sports Medicine. Sports Science. Mental Health and wellness.
\nAnd Sports nutrition.
\nAll right. I want to welcome our guests to the show, Travis Volunteers,
\nwho is currently the director of Applied Sports Science at the University of Texas. Travis,
\nhow you doing today? I’m doing great. Coach, thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure to have you on the show.
\nI 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
\nto give and share with so many people. So we appreciate you making time to have this this
\nthe show today and meeting. Yeah. I’m honored to be a guest on here and really appreciate you
\nputting this together. I think the way we work here at the University of Texas within our performance
\nteam is is a great story worth telling. And I think we’re going to be able to help a lot of people
\nand kind of pull back the curtain and show what we do here. Well, some good stuff. Let’s just jump
\nright in. I think before we go too far, Travis, it’d be great just to
\ntake a moment and introduce yourself for those who don’t know who you are. Tell us a little bit about yourself,
\nwhere you got your start and kind of how you ended up along your career path here at the University of Texas.
\nSure. I played Division Three football at a small school in Iowa called
\nWartburg College. I grew up not far from there. My undergraduate degree
\nis in biology. So I originally started off wanting to be a physical therapist. And
\nas I explored that path and and started moving in that direction, I decided that I
\nreally wanted to work in athletics, but maybe more on the athletic development. And
\nso that kind of led me more towards the strength and conditioning path. So after I
\nfinished my undergrad in biology, I went on to grad school. I was a graduate
\nassistant strength conditioning coach at West Texas A&M, ended up spending
\nfour years total there where I worked in strength and conditioning and then also taught undergraduate
\ncourses in kinesiology and health and performance. So that was a great
\nexperience. I think my view of coaching has always been it’s it’s a teaching profession.
\nSo being able actually teach in the classroom, you sure. As well as in the weight room
\nwas a great experience for me. And then after grad school
\nand working for a few years in the field, I moved to the University of Wyoming. So I
\nspent three years there and that was really where I started. My journey towards
\nmore of the sports science side of things gradually transitioned out
\nof the weight room, although I was still the string coach for for a few sports and really started looking
\nmore in depth that the athlete monitoring side of things with doing some wellness questionnaires,
\nsome things with heart rate variability more closely, tracking performance in the weight room with
\nbar speed, things like that. And then that led me to the position here at the University
\nof Texas, where I just completed the transition out of the weight room and just
\nover to the sports science side. So it’s a little bit of a unique journey,
\nbut I wouldn’t trade it for anything because I think it’s given me the perspective that’s
\nhelped me contribute here at the University of Texas. Thanks for sharing it. I did want to kind
\nof. One thing I remember and actually read your paper that you did a whole research
\npaper for volleyball. And know I work with volleyball. Currently, you help us with lineball for sure.
\nCan you talk about where did that? I’m just curious, where did that the interest in that kind of.
\nWas that something that maybe kind of was like a domino that kind of got to go in or. Yeah,
\nabsolutely. That that was something that I kind of stumbled into early on
\nwhen I was at Wyoming. So we had started doing wellness questionnaires and
\nR.P. questionnaires with our volleyball program. And through the football program,
\nwe were able to get some caterwaul units. And so I was able to kind
\nof work a deal with them where volleyball would practice in the morning and I would take some of the football caterwaul
\nunits and put them on our volleyball players. And then I would rush them back
\nover and get them charged back up before they had to go out, back out for football practice in the afternoon.
\nAnd it’s just sort of that relationship of monitoring what was actually going on in terms
\nof mechanical workload and then how how the student athletes felt during practice. And looking at the changes
\nin those relationships that really got a lot of this going for me. You know, the one thing I remember stood out was just
\nthe number of jumps that you were tracking on different positions and things like that. The
\ncoaches don’t I mean, a sport coach will play another practice. Right. But to see that number,
\nthose numbers of jumps and quantify practice, that was definitely something that was was pretty eye
\nopening. Yeah. Who? Absolutely. I think a lot of times coaches are are so used
\nto the routine of their practice and and you get so close to it that sometimes when when you’re able to put
\nan objective number on exactly how much they’re doing each day, it really is.
\nIt’s a surprise for a lot of them. It’s good stuff, coach. With
\nsports science being pretty new here in the U.S., I know they’ve done it for years
\nin Australia and other countries, but it’s pretty new. When you say here, especially collegiately in the
\nU.S., there’s a lot of interest and I’ve had even more conversations
\nover the past year and a half of strength. In addition, coach or professionals that they’re looking at
\nthis as a career path choice. You obviously know a made that
\nthat switch in your career and you’re doing it being very successful at it here. Texas
\nis doing a phenomenal job. What advice would you give for any
\nyoung professionals out there that maybe like, hey, this is something I may be interested in? What would you say to
\nsomebody like that, coach? Yeah, I think one of the biggest lessons and something that
\nthat I was kind of fortunate to learn early is keep your horizons broad. So
\nif you are looking to get into the athletic performance world and maybe you want to be an
\nathletic trainer or a nutritionist or a strength conditioning coach, learn about the other
\nareas that are that are gonna be associated with that area and make sure that you have a good
\nworking understanding of all those other areas, because you may find out that
\nmaybe the strength conditioning side is not what you want to get into you. And maybe it’s more of the rehab and athlete
\ncare side of things and you and you end up going down a path of sports medicine. So there are a lot
\nof interwoven, interconnected professions that that deal with athletes.
\nAnd so I think the more you have a better understanding of exactly what each role is, the
\nmore you can make a decision about which path you want to go down.
\nI would also say learning underlying principles will serve you no matter
\nwhat you choose. So from the physiology side of things to the psychology
\nof sport and athletics, you know, whether be like biomechanics or kinesiology,
\nlearning those underlying human development principles is is really important
\nto be able to have that flexibility to go across disciplines. I think being able
\nto understand thing concepts like volume, intensity density and be able
\nto translate those things into things that coaches can understand,
\nother practitioners can understand, I think is huge. Again, I talked about
\nkind of being collaborative and being interdisciplinary. So understanding that
\nwhen when you work within a performance team, it’s it’s not a zero sum game. When when you win in the weight room,
\nI win as sports science and our nutritionist wins as well. So
\nunderstanding that we’re all here to help each other and to help our student athletes grow and
\nthat when one of us gets a victory, that’s that’s a victory for all of us. And then just
\ncontinually ask questions, you know, why? Why are things done this way? Is there a
\nbetter way that we could be doing things that that we’re not doing or that we haven’t explored? So I think all
\nof those things are important as you look at what career path you want to go down,
\nwhat as it relates to athletics and working in sport performance. I appreciate you
\nsaying that. I think, you know, from the time I’ve worked with you, Travis, you
\nhave just such an ability to get on that whatever level. You know, if somebody can’t.
\nMaybe they’ll have the depth of understanding on a topic or subject. You’re able to break that down in a way that
\nwe all can understand. But you also can take it up high, too, if you need to. And I like that you have
\na feel like you’ve got that that relate ability to connect with people. And
\nI feel like, you know, because you were strength conditioned coach before. So you’ve worked with all the different
\nsupport groups around an athlete that you understand what we’re dealing with. And so you have
\nmore patience, understanding and emotional intelligence. I feel like know how to read the situation
\nand adjust that. And I feel like that’s definitely made you who you are today at Texas. So
\nit’s great advice. Yeah. Thank you. Now, just change gears a little bit.
\nKind of walk us through what’s a typical day or week for you. And I know you’re a busy man.
\nI do know this because it’s hard to catch you sometimes. That’s a good thing. It means you’ve got a lot
\non your plate. But somebody maybe that’s never does have a clue
\nof what your role is like. What’s a typical day or we kind of share with us some insights? Yeah,
\nI think in the applied sports science setting, it’s it’s very much
\ninteractions with our coaches and our student athletes. I think a lot of people have this idea that
\nyou’re behind a desk or behind a computer crunching numbers all the time. And while certainly that’s
\nan important part of the job and something that it requires, you know, I
\nlike to try and spend as much of the normal daily hours as I can
\ngoing to practices, you know, meeting with our student athletes, meeting with our coaches, finding
\nout what their needs are, what’s going well, what’s not going well, because that’s. That’s how you really build
\nan effective department and how you find out what type of information they need.
\nSo in a typical day or sports science department is broken down
\ninto three key areas to help support student-athlete growth and development. So we look at assessments,
\nmonitoring and education. So that’s how I spend most of my days. Assessments would be
\nany sort of athlete testing that we do in our Center for Applied Sports Science. That could be anything
\nfrom body composition on the DEXA to strength and power testing on a force plate
\nto a movement screen to any sort of metabolic assessment resting metabolic rate
\nor type of conditioning test. We also do some some sensory motor
\nassessments as well. So we may be taking athletes through that on
\na given day and and trying to inform decisions about, OK. I was there taper or they’re peaking going
\nor they are returned to play individual. And so how is their progress going in their rehab
\nand things like that? So we use USAns assessments to inform those decisions
\nfrom the monitoring side of things. So we have seven teams across our campus
\nthat we daily monitor their workload through some sort of device that they wear
\nat practice and in competition. So that takes a big chunk of time. So a lot
\nof it is. Thankfully, we have a great staff of athletic trainers and strength conditioning
\ncoaches who can be the ones who are at every practice, every day making sure that we’re collecting
\nquality information to base those decisions upon. And then my job is sort of break
\nit down on the back end form. But I rely on those people heavily to to make sure that
\nI can sort of be at all places at all times without actually having to be there.
\nAnd then we we also do some other monitoring in terms of we may look at sleep or
\nsome other physiological variables with heart rate variability or direct current potential
\nand then education, which again I think is still the most important part, even
\nthough I’m I’m not technically a coach anymore, I still put more stock in that education piece.
\nSo whether that’s meeting with other members of our performance team and showing them
\nthe feedback of the information we’re collecting and figuring out how are we going to move forward
\nor whether it’s giving a team presentation or meeting one on one with our student athletes. But it’s figuring
\nout a way to take all of that information we’re collecting and feed it back to the people that matter the most.
\nYeah, that’s pretty powerful. I know. Just. I’ve even witnessed how
\nyou’ve worked with with our teams and you get really does educating all of us, taking
\nsome of those assessments and give us a clear snapshot of what’s actually going on.
\nI think it’s one thing to go to use your coach and I haven’t talked to athletes. But another thing to have
\ndata to actually look at raw data and go, here’s what you’re looking at. And give us a clear picture of that. So
\nI know it’s been it’s been a huge help. That makes sense. Yeah. I think, you know, really all it
\nis is is putting a value that we can track over time to get to that coaching. I. And again,
\nI would say most of my experience here has been, you know, sort of reaffirming or just quantifying
\nwhat our sport coaches, what our strength coaches, what our athletic trainers are already seeing on a day to day basis
\nwith their interactions. So it’s it’s really just about giving them a clear cut way to
\ntrack that over time as opposed to, you know, really disputing a lot of the things that they see,
\nbecause we’ve got great people who have really good, really good coaching eyes. Good
\nkind of that. To add on to that, you talked a little bit about the different
\nsupport groups, the different areas that surround a student athlete.
\nAnd this is kind of what the podcast is geared towards, this performance team model approach.
\nHow would you describe the performance team model and then kind of what are the benefits you see from this type
\nof approach? Sure. I I would describe our our performance team model as
\njust a way to foster cross collaboration and ultimately just to provide
\nthe best care for our student athletes possible. And so I think when
\nyou have that as your end goal and everybody starts with the same goal in mind, which is
\nwe all want to make sure that our our student athletes are as successful as they can be, that they reach
\npeak performance and that they stay healthy while they’re here doing it. I think
\neverything else falls into place after that. So starting with that end goal in mind. But for
\nus, that model really looks like making sure that we connect regularly with the people who have
\nimpact and influence on the day to day interaction with our student athletes
\nand making sure that they have the best information possible to do their job. So
\nwe already know we have we have great coaches, we have great trainers. And so it’s just
\na matter of. Putting the best information in their hands to help make the hundreds of
\ndecisions a day that they make about what goes on with training, performance, health, recovery,
\nall of those decisions are already being made. How can we better inform those decisions to make sure that
\nwe’re getting the outcomes that we want and that we’re continuing down the path that’s going to lead
\nthem to success? Yeah, and I kind of want to add to that. I think that’s a great way to explain
\nit in. You’ve been in coaching long enough, you worked and you’ve been in
\nsports, that oftentimes people with something so new as sports science
\ncan be almost there can be pushback, right? People can be skeptical. And it takes
\ntime to kind of get, you know, to build the model that you’ve really. I feel like
\nyou’ve been very just complimentary in bringing the pieces together, because a lot of times you
\ncan have the pieces, but there’s always great synergy and they don’t work well together.
\nSo I would say to add to that talk about kind of what has been your mentality
\napproach on starting something so new at Texas and in all these different pieces,
\nyou’ve done just that, almost like an orchestra. And I know every
\nevery sport coach is different and every team is different. And we’ve talked about this, you kind of
\nmove the needle, so to speak, as far as like just trust and buy. What have you done kind of in
\nyour own own way approach to do that, make it successful? Absolutely. I think
\nconnecting an orchestras is a great way to put it. You know, I think
\nit starts with one being present with all of those people. So
\nmaking sure that you have those regular interactions with them and that they understand that ultimately
\nyou’re you’re there to serve their best interest. I think this is I see this position very
\nmuch as a as a servant leader type position, where it is my job to
\nprovide them with any information that they feel is going to help them do their job better
\nand to just kind of guide them along that path. And so for for me to try and
\ndictate what a sport coach of 20 years needs to do their job better
\nis not something that’s going to make sports science very successful. And it’s not something that’s going to
\nfoster a collaborative relationship. So I’m just being president and kind of listening to their needs
\nand the things that they feel like are going well, the things that they’re kind of struggling with day to day
\nand then trying to figure out where you can help in that is is really all I’ve I’ve been
\ntrying to do. You know, I think presenting men viable solutions
\nwith some of the things that you see that they’re struggling with again. So we may have some great
\nsort of pie in the sky ideas, but if it doesn’t work within our practice schedules and
\nwithin the time constraints that we operate with in the collegiate environment, then again, ultimately I’m
\njust going to be setting myself up for empty promises that I can’t deliver on. As always,
\ntrying to make sure it’s it’s going to be a practical, viable solution. And then no matter
\nhow many great relationships you build, no matter how present you are, all of those things,
\nultimately we have to provide results. That’s kind of what we’re all here to do
\nis provide results. And so I have to show them value in what we’re doing and how we’re
\nspending and thinking through the value. Absolutely. So being able to show that we can
\ntrack performance and progress over time and really again being
\nable to affirm some of the things that they’re seeing in practice. You know, if if a coach says, man, I really
\nfeel like retired or were struggling, you know, being able to affirm some
\nof those things with, well, coach, this is this is what we saw in some of the information that we’ve collected.
\nSo if that is the case now, how do we move forward? What’s the best way? So just creating buy-in
\nby almost just affirming their coaches, I and some of the things that they’re seeing with
\ntheir years of experience, because there’s there’s no way that I’m going to be able to tell them,
\nyou know, through through the small amount of experience that I have, that a you know, you’re doing this wrong
\nor we should be doing this another way. That’s going to burn up a lot of my time and energy, and it’s
\nnot going to foster a collaborative relationship. Yeah. I think you just you nailed it on the head when
\nyou said add value. I think first when you see or
\nyou feel any kind of pushback or skepticism. Once a coach kind of a light
\nbulb goes off like, hey, I’m here to help you win. Now here to make the, you know,
\nto to keep the athletes from getting in great shape or not perform. Well, I’m here
\nand oftentimes. Would you agree? It’s sometimes it’s not really a big change. It’s just a tweak here.
\nThey’re what they’re doing is already working. But if they can adjust it again, that one percent
\nlike we we talk about all time as like that can be a difference maker and win or loss. Absolutely. And that’s
\nyou know, I think if if there was one major message that I have learned here, it’s not
\nthat we’re not trying to reinvent sport or or reinvent the things that
\na coach has done for years and years where we’re just trying to move that needle a little bit
\neach and every day. And the way that we move that needle is we inform the
\ndecisions that are already going on and and we help make better decisions
\njust based off of the information that we’re collecting. And so if we can get those small
\nwins day to day where we can help a student athlete recover a little bit faster,
\nfeel a little bit fresher before the next competition, train a little bit harder
\ntoday. All of those things just slowly move that needle. And then by the time
\nwe get to championship season, the end of the semester, when when things matter most.
\nWe’ve already done all of that work to make sure that we’re going to be successful in those times.
\nIt’s good stuff. Let’s talk a little bit now about athlete monitoring.
\nYou have to do a lot of that with the athletes. Texas kind of explain to us
\nwhat is athlete monitoring and how does it benefit performance today? And then maybe
\nyou have an example where you again off to keep it confidential, but just
\nmaybe an example, a general example you’ve seen that’s made a difference. Mm hmm.
\nSo in terms of athlete monitoring, we would look at evaluating workload and recovery
\nthrough objective and subjective means, preferably both at the same
\ntime. So, well, we have found here is that we get the most amount of buy-in from
\nour student athletes and from our coaches. When we can tell a story about
\nexplaining how they feel and how they’re how they’re performing. And the best way to tell that story
\nis by having both objective and subjective information. So that’s a great.
\nDaniel counterman quote that I keep on my office wall all the time is no one ever made a decision
\nbased on numbers. They need a story. So like I’ve never heard that one. Absent a great
\nquote. Yeah. And so constructing that story from from the
\ndaily monitoring information that we get becomes really, really important.
\nSo in terms of how it benefits our student athletes performance
\nin a lot of our sports now, we have several years of data that we’ve collected
\nfor what practice looks like, what competition looks like. And so
\nwe’re really just able to work backwards and say these are the demands of competition. How can we make
\nsure that our practice, our training sessions are preparing us for those
\ndemands of competition to meet and exceed those demands? And so that’s,
\nI think, feel like where we’ve been the most successful is using those competitions
\nas a model and figuring out when in practice where we’re able to really push and replicate
\nsome of those game situations. And when our days where the athletes are experiencing
\na lot of fatigue and we’re not going to be able to get the game intensity out of them. So then maybe we
\nwe break it up and we work on things like volume and capacity, things that
\nthat maybe don’t require some of those high intensity outputs. So there’s
\na lot of different ways that that we can do that depending on the sport. And I think
\nfor from my job, from the athlete monitoring standpoint, is to be able to give the coach more of
\nthat 10000 foot view. So the sport coaches always worried about the next game.
\nYou know what’s happening this week? How is the team looking this week? My job is to be able to step
\nback and say, how does this week fit with what we’ve done the previous two weeks and what we’re
\ngoing to do the next three or four weeks. So I get to keep my eye on the overall picture.
\nHow are workloads are trending over time and are we going to make sure that we’re tapering
\nappropriately for the championship part of the season while still holding on to do enough fitness
\nto be able to make it through, you know, any calendar congestion or dense competition periods that
\nmay occur postseason? Yeah, because when you mention a good part there about when coaches
\nwhen you’re in the heat of the battle, you’re in season and the emotion of,
\nyou know, wins or losses and you’re trying to prepare a team to do well, not just now,
\nbut get them ready for the end of the year. That athlete monitoring helps you provide a snapshot
\nlike coach, here’s what you’ve done. Here’s where you’re at and here’s what I suggest going
\nforward. I think that’s been priceless. So I know that’s that’s kind of what
\nyou’re talking about there. Absolutely. And I would say than the number one variable that affects
\nworkload in in the collegiate setting is the calendar. So how many
\noff days do you have to have this week? How many competitions do we have that
\nin and of itself creates large swings in workload where some weeks you have
\na lot of opportunity to accumulate load. And so that ends up being a high workload week
\nand then other weeks with travel, with off days, maybe with more limited competition. We have very
\nlittle opportunity to accumulate workload, so we end up really sort of dropping down
\nin our workload. And and so what we try and do is make sure that the calendar does
\nnot dictate to us what we’re able to do, what we’re able to achieve that week and that
\nwe’re going to hit our workload marks, whether it be OK, we need to be more aggressive because we don’t
\nhave many opportunities to get load this week or whether we’re going to be more conservative because we have a
\nnumber of opportunities to get load this week. You know, you mentioned something else on add to that because
\nI’ve heard you say it even recently. You’ve mentioned it again about having
\na database of numbers of previous practice sessions from last year, a
\nyear before. How important is that to have layers of years behind you
\nto compare for team kind of where they are right now compared to last year? Etc.
\nAbsolutely. I think that’s that’s crucial. Having consistency
\nboth from a sport coach all the way on down is is hugely important
\nbecause now we have that historical record to be able to say, okay, well in
\nprevious years, this is where our fitness level has been. This is where our fatigue level
\nhas been and this is how we performed. And so that’s really we use that
\nas a as a guiding principle to what we want to do this year and the things we want to achieve.
\nAnd so I think having that historical information has been priceless
\nfor us both on a team level and then on an individual level. So understanding
\nthe demands that a student athlete faced when they were a freshman and sophomore and now
\nall of a sudden maybe they’ve moved up to a starting or contributing role when their junior and senior
\nyear. A lot more volume. Exactly. And really understanding that wear and tear on their body
\nand how they maybe haven’t experienced that before and the things that we need to do as a performance
\nteam to make sure that they’re gonna be able to stay healthy and continue to perform at a high level. That
\nmakes sense. If a freshman practiced, a lot more of them play as much. Now they’re playing more. You may want to look
\nat how much the training load is in practice as a sophomore junior going into that,
\nthough. Absolutely. It’s a huge paradigm shift. Good stuff.
\nTalking about sports science again, where do you see the future of sports
\nscience heading? Is there any innovations or advances that will impact athletes,
\nhow they’re performing now, how coaches make decisions? Any thoughts on that kind of words that now where you see it going?
\nYeah, I think coaches now have more information at their fingertips
\nthan than they’ve ever had. And I think as we move forward. Coaches
\nare going to get better and better at utilizing that information. I think
\nfrom a specific sports science standpoint, activities like
\nmonitoring, collecting information from athletes is going to become less and less invasive.
\nSo the more information that we can gather in a passive manner where we don’t have to disturb
\nwhat’s going on in an athlete’s normal day, those are gonna be the things
\nthat really take off. Nobody wants to have to wear two or three sensors. Nobody
\nwants to have to, you know, wear something while they go to sleep or have something bothering them during a game.
\nSo the less invasive we can be, I think the better. And the technology will
\ntake us in that direction. I think there’s gonna be more integration with actual
\nsport. So we’re already seeing this with some of the wearables in integrating with things like game
\nfilm. So now we’re able to see, you know, an athlete is running
\na sprint on the field. You’re watching that on game film and then we can get how fast they’re running
\nthat sprint has the coaches watching the game films. So now you can do things like show
\nif an athlete’s letting off early or truly sprinting, giving a maximal leftward
\nduring certain times. You know, when when I played college football, it was always the old
\nsaying the eye in the sky doesn’t lie. That’s true. Yeah. And rurally going to add to that and make
\nthat even more prevalent. Yeah. There’s really not. I mean there’s really not much today from switched
\nto like you said, your heart rate fatigue levels that you can’t monitor today and
\nget some kind of data and read out kind of what’s going on in an athlete. I think
\nthe the true test is going to be the people who
\ncan filter through. You know, we can measure so much because of technology now.
\nAnd the people who are going to be truly successful are the ones who can filter out the things that we
\ndo and do not need to be measuring what adds value and what is worth measuring and
\nwhat really is not adding value and helping our our athletes progress. So
\nthat’s that’s gonna be a key moving forward. And why I think the sports science role, particularly
\nin the collegiate environment, I think is where nutrition was four or five years ago,
\nwhere, you know, it maybe used to be a strength conditioning coach was in charge of
\nmaking peanut butter sandwiches and making sure that they had bagels and fruit. Out
\nto now where you see we have whole nutrition departments with full staffs of dietitians
\navailable to be able to give that individual work. Sports science is going to have to move
\nalong that realm. There are a lot of places spending a lot of money on technology to be able
\nto monitor these things. But the return on the investment is very low because you don’t have a specific
\nstaff member whose entire job it is to make sure that, OK, we sift
\nthrough what is important, what is adding value to our program and what is not. So that’s
\nwhere we’re going to see the growth in sports science in terms of personnel as people who are able to interpret this
\nhuge influx of information that we’re getting from from all of this technology. I know it’s
\nkind of. Who? As you know, I was able to go to Australia last year for a little bit and see
\nkind of how they run their sports science. And we’re definitely doing some of what they’re doing, but they’re probably, what,
\nmaybe five, 10? Yeah. And to see how they’re kind of running their teams. It was kind
\nof cool. And that’s just over there. It’s their lane, which is just different. And
\nI would say over there, they’re definitely data driven. Lot of data over there in Australia. But here we’re more
\nit’s a little bit more practical on the coaching side. But you’re starting to see, like you said, the innovations come
\nin technology here in the US and start to really influence and drive some decisions
\nwith the coaches. What not. So it’s pretty cool to see. I definitely think that goes back to that integrated
\napproach. So now, you know, the strength coach has access to all of this information
\nand they they understand exactly what the information means because they have a sports
\nscientist on their team that’s kind of showing them what to look for, you know, letting them know,
\nhey, this is the threshold that we’re looking for. This is when things are going really well. This is when things
\nare not going well. So, again, just having people on staff that are able to communicate
\nand sort of translate, that just allows everybody to collaborate
\nin a much more efficient way. What about let’s talk a little bit about here, because we get we get near
\nthe end of our show. What do you do for professional development to make
\nsure you consistently grow? I know you’re a big reader, but maybe share with with
\nwith the audience. What do you do to stay sharp? I think podcasts
\nare terrific. One of the reasons why I was I was so glad to hear
\nabout this opportunity and jump at it and thankful for you for getting this off the ground.
\nI think podcasts are a way to make use of a lot of dead
\ntime that maybe we wouldn’t normally be able to have a chance to grow and improve. So
\non things like the wonderful commute that we have here in Austin or even times
\nwhere I’m at my desk just doing some of the number crunching and stuff, that’s part
\nof the job just to have that on in the background. I can’t tell you how many ideas that
\nhave that have sparked during times like that by by listening to podcasts. A
\nlot of of that type of information that I like to listen to are things that deal
\nwith interacting with with other people and and figuring out how other people learn and absorb
\ninformation. So I’m a huge fan of the behavioral economics field right now.
\nI listen to a lot of podcasts that deal with that and with human behavior.
\nOur our team physician is kind of my podcast guru. He always points me in
\nin the direction of what’s the latest and greatest podcast or did you hear this episode or that? Because
\nthere’s fundamentally if all of this information is great, but if you can’t communicate it
\nin a way, then that other people can understand it’s not really worth anything.
\nAnd so I spend a lot of my time trying to figure out how do I send the best message
\nto the people that I work with day in and day out with. You go to show you
\nthe you are not so smart. Podcast is great. I haven’t listened to that
\neffort. Effort you about to break talk about it. Yeah, that’s that’s definitely one of my favorites. I’m also
\na big Freakonomics fan. So again, being able to look at, you know, a
\nset of data where a specific problem and kind of turn it on its head by looking
\nat really some some objective information, I think a lot of what they do is pretty fascinating as well.
\nAnd then from from a books and you know, I try and read
\na book a month if I can. You’ve you’ve kept me on track with that. And
\nwe’ve kind of kept each other. You kept me come, as you said.
\nBut I definitely enjoy. You know, you selecting books for us and me being
\nable to point out a book or two, that that’s been good for our development again, because
\nI think always approaching something from the same angle
\ndoesn’t allow you to truly grow and advance in what you’re doing. And so things
\nlike that where having you pick a book for me that I may not have picked for myself and suggests
\nsomething I think is that’s invaluable for my personal growth.
\nAnd then, you know, journal articles staying trying to stay current on on everything that’s changing
\nin the field. Absolutely. And and so much of what we do
\nhere is based off of the great work that other people have done so high,
\ndon’t have to reinvent the wheel and start from ground zero in order to help our student
\nathletes. I can go off of a lot of the published research, a lot of the great work that’s been done by
\nothers and then expand on that and very quickly sort of figure out.
\nWere we able to replicate that with the data we collected? OK, great. How do we move forward for the next step
\nor a maybe maybe this isn’t a great approach for us because we’re not
\nreally seeing those same patterns in the data we collected that they saw in the published research.
\nTalking about to kind of last thing on just want to love to hear from
\nyou about maybe on the developmental side as we kind of wrap up here as mentoring
\nbeen a big thing, is it been something that’s impacted you? Have you had a mentor
\nor coach or somebody is really like poured into it, maybe just impacted how you
\nyou think can carry yourself? Is there anybody out there? You know, I
\nI would probably be remiss if if there weren’t half a dozen to a dozen people
\nI didn’t mention I. Every place I’ve been I think I have I’ve
\nbeen exposed to people who, you know, have been great at what they do and maybe present
\nthings in a in a different way that have helped me grow and help me change. So I think to mention any one
\nperson probably wouldn’t be it wouldn’t be fair.
\nBut yeah, every place I’ve been I’ve had some people growing. That’s influenced me.
\nAnd that’s been a big part. I know being a coach and being in sports, having people around
\nyou that you just learned from other years has been it’s been huge for me as well. So.
\nWell, cool, Travis. I think that’s it for today. As people listen to the show, where
\ncan people find more out about you? If they want to reach out to you, connect with you. How can
\na how can I do that, Coach? Absolutely. So I’m I try and be pretty active
\non Twitter. So my handle’s app, platform warrior from my Olympic weightlifting
\ndays. And then from there you can direct message me or through
\nmy university email. I’m always happy to reach out and help. I think
\nI am a big believer that the entire field grows as more and more people
\ngather information and and gonna figure this out. So I was jumped
\nat the opportunity to be on this podcast with you because I feel like we do a lot
\nof great things here in the collaboration with the people here at the University of Texas.
\nAnd that the more we can get that message out there that, hey, you’re your performance team
\nshould be people that you lean on and people that you learn from and grow with, not
\npeople to, you know, fight with and and try and claim credit from and things like that.
\nI think the more that we can get that message out there, the more student athletes we help along
\nthe way and the more we can grow and advance the profession a lot quicker, which is the biggest thing I’m interested in.
\nSo, yes, if you have any questions about some of the things that we do
\nhere, I’m always happy to to have a talk with it. Well, Travis, we appreciate your time.
\nAnd again, anybody interested? Connect with Travis. Don’t hesitate to reach out to
\nhim through the handles he gave you. He is definitely a game changer for us
\nhere at Texas. I know kind of on our street circle we we call he’s a rock star
\nin our in our area. And so he brings a lot of value, has had a big impact
\nhere. And we’ll continue to with our athletics teams, our coaches and administration
\nover the years. And I look forward to continue working with him. So, Travis, thank you for your time. We appreciate
\nyou, man. Thanks for having me on. All right. We’ll catch you guys next time.
\nThanks so much for tuning in and listening to this episode. The team behind the team podcast
\nfor future episodes go to i-Tunes Spotify, Google Podcast or
\nStitcher. We definitely want to keep having great guest on the show and great content.
\nSo if you have a moment, please go to i-Tunes, leave a rating and review and let us know how we’re
\ndoing. I’m Don Hemade. Thanks so much for tuning in.<\/p>\n"},"episode_featured_image":false,"episode_player_image":"https:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/the-team-behind-the-team\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2020\/03\/Team_Behind_Team_1400.jpg","download_link":"https:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/the-team-behind-the-team\/podcast-download\/32\/e8-travis-vlantes-applied-sports-science.mp3","player_link":"https:\/\/podcasts.la.utexas.edu\/the-team-behind-the-team\/podcast-player\/32\/e8-travis-vlantes-applied-sports-science.mp3","audio_player":"