Approaching Athletic Development & Competition in Children Ages 15-18+ (High School & Beyond) with Chandler Lewis

WEBVTT
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All right, welcome to the fourth episode
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in our four-episode miniseries. That's what
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the fourth episode, four-episode miniseries,
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the last episode, with Chandler Lewis, swim
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coach, one of the owners of Schrader Swim
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Team, and a sports psychologist. And we are
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going through different age groups and essentially
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how they progress through their development,
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specifically looking at athletic development
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and competitive development. um this episode
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we're talking about high schoolers going
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like 15 to 18 onwards um i think like once
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you start getting like 18 plus like you're
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an adult right um different challenges in
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high school and college for sure different
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challenges after college um things change
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again i think when you start Getting to like
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males females like in your 40s 30s 40s things
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might start changing But I'm excited for
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this one Especially with having you on here
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and how many competitive athletes in this
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age group That you guys are training and
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you're trying to like get people scholarships
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to colleges and stuff How many athletes in
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this age group? Do you have like high schoolers?
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I
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I'd say a hundred. Put you on the spot. That's
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huge. Like a hundred. How many are like college
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hopefuls? Like they want to keep doing it.
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At any level, let's say a little, let's say
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half, at least half of them are going to
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swim into college.
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Do you get a lot of kids getting like scholarships
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too?
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Yeah.
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Like there's like big financial reasons to
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perform at this age?
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Yes, 100%. There's, I mean, I think we have
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a hundred athletes within our senior program,
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but then there's, you know, out of those
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hundred athletes, there's going to be different
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groups. So like the kids that I'm coaching,
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majority, I mean, I would say majority of
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them are trying to swim into, college, you
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know, and that's their goal. And with that
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becomes a lot of challenges, you know? So,
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I mean, I would say most of the kids that
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I'm coaching are going to some into college.
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What grade do scouts start looking for them?
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End of sophomore year, so July 15th, or June
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15th, their sophomore year summer. Some of
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those kids are 15 years old. So, and that's
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the game. I've told parents and athletes
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that I am not going to lie to you. And this
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is the reality, is at the end of your sophomore
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year, you're gonna get recruited or not recruited.
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And that's gonna be 100% based on performance.
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And that's reality.
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When do normal people apply for college?
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Senior year. Bro, I started- Second semester?
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I didn't apply for college until I heard
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other people were applying for college. I
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feel like I missed some sort of memo that
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was like, hey, you should apply for colleges.
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I was so late that I'm surprised I actually
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got in anywhere. But, and these kids are
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committing to three years, two years before
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that, three years before that.
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Yeah. I mean, I had a girl come in in August
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of her going to be junior year and she went
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to five visits and picked the school.
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Is swimming ever a sport where they skip?
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We'll get to the meat of the podcast in a
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second. I have all my personal questions.
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Is swimming ever a sport like gymnastics
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where they just skip collegiate and you have
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18 year olds in the Olympics?
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Phelps. Phelps did that.
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Okay.
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So not uncommon. It's not uncommon. It's
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extremely, it's extremely uncommon though.
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Okay. Like, I mean, we have kids throughout
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the country that on the girl's side, it's
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more common. Yeah. If you have a 16 year
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old, 17 year old girl, that's going to skip
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collegiate athletics to just go professionally.
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Like that's happened. It's not the norm.
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Even if with our, like we've had Olympians
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and the 16th, not us directly, but USA, seven
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Olympians at 16, 17, 18, but still go the
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college path. Because the college path gives
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resources that you can't get through personalized
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club or programs, or even if you decide to,
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I'm going to swim at University of Texas
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but not compete for University of Texas,
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there's still a lot of resources as the NCAA
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that provides. I think it's the landscape
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of collegiate athletics has changed and is
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always changing and I've done my best to
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try and keep up with it, like my friends
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that are coaching in college to understand
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it, but it's beginning more professionalized
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and harder. One of the boys that a lot of
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the boys that I'm coaching that he's their
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age and he's 16 people are calling him like
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the next Phelps, but he's just got a NIL
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deal of 800 K at 16, so it's there's There's
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a lot of, it's a very hard process right
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now. It's different than when I was, and
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we're talking about swimming. Imagine football.
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These kids, high school kids have agents.
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Not in swimming, but the pressure is definitely
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increased. The expectation is increased.
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Parents, athletes, coaches, everyone know
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that there's this loot of collegiate athletics.
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So there's a lot of variables that go into
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it. Did you swim in college? Yeah. Which
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college? I went to UW-Green Bay first, and
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then I transferred to Whitewater.
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Did you swim on scholarship? Yeah, at Green
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Bay, yeah. Nice. I did not do sports in college.
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I mean, I did jiu-jitsu in college, but not
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for the college club.
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It's definitely different. Being a college
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athlete is is people always say like, oh,
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it's like a job. I think that's very corny.
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I don't, I did not look at it like a job,
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but it is, it is very challenging. You know,
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it's challenging. It's, I think the, the
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opportunity to, to, to be able to, to compete
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in college or do a sport in college is very
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limited. But the expectation is higher, both
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like with the decisions that you make, both
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in the classroom and then as an athlete.
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So it's, I mean, it's not a job though. It's
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not a job. It's very fun. But there's pressure,
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you know?
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Well, let's run through this. So just like
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our past episodes, we're going to run through
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our PIES acronym, Physically, Intellectually,
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Emotionally, and Socially. And that acronym
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actually breaks down. It's what we use for
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childhood development, right? So that kind
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of breaks down at like 16, 17 years old,
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because then you go to adult stages of development,
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which is much different, but also a really
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cool concept if you've ever looked into it.
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And then we're going to look at athletic
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building blocks. How can we be training these
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kids most effectively in sport and supplement
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training? Not supplement training, supplementary
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training. We're not going to train them just
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to take creatine and steroids. Yeah, although,
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although, probably something we could talk
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about. And then we're gonna talk about steps
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towards competition and how to approach competition,
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especially considering that there are potentially
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extra pressures like the monetary thing that
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we're talking about with college scholarships
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and all that stuff. Man, so pies physically,
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This is, I think, if you've been training
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for a while, movement patterns should have
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been developed, right? Skill building should
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be developed. this is where you start getting
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fun and like truly start loading, loading
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weight, doing power exercises. Like you could
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start having kids do like power cleans and
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stuff. I shouldn't even say kids, right?
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15 to 18. There are many adults, right? But
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you have a lot of tools at your fingertips
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at this age.
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Yeah.
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What, um, what do you like to see as you
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start having athletes get into this age group?
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Yeah, I mean at this point, I coach kids
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14 to 18. I don't coach any younger kids.
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I coach some post-grads. I coach collegiate
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athletes that come back to our program in
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the summers during the breaks, whatever.
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So when it comes to this group, we can now
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start training. I'm training these guys.
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That's why whoops are valuable. Understanding
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the recovery process or how they're adapting
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to training is really important. But when
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it comes to their foundation of skills, it
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needs to be good. And it's still something
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that I have to constantly be coaching. You
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know, like during warmup, during presets,
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during training sets, like these skills are,
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have to be good. Not just like a little bit
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of time, all the time, all the time. Those
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skills have to be good. It's not just like
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we're swimming back and forth trying to get
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our heart rate up. That's like a, that's
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a one thing, but we got to try to really
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recognize that the skill development still
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has to be there and it has to look better.
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Um, and at this age, man, you have to be
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cross training to be a successful athlete
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at this age. Like if you're a swimmer, you're
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probably also running and lifting.
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Yeah. Right. The lifting portion is super
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important. It's like, um, you're building
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durability on your body. Uh, there's a lot
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of development that can be done in the explosiveness
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or power speed. Um, I outsource. And years
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ago, there was a guy that I, and I think
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this is good for coaches, I'm good at being
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a strength coach. If I wanted to be a full-time
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strength coach, I could go do it. I am not
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the best in the country. I am no means the
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best in the region. I am no means the best
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in the state. I'm probably pretty good, but
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I'm not the best. When it comes to swim coaching,
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that's what I do. And I've always felt that
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when we get to this age group, especially
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with the high performing athletes, is we
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can start outsourcing to people or recognizing
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that there's people out there that are better
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than us in these regions. So like our kids,
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I can do it for them. It's gonna be good,
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but it's not gonna be as good as you go somewhere
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else. It's like all our kids go to either
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a gym called Next Level, which is in Waukesha
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or Mequon. And they do a very good job. And
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it's specific towards sport. And as a coach,
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I'm communicating with them, understanding
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what they're doing, and that's important.
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But I am not doing their strength training.
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I can guide it, and I can recognize it. And
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if a kid doesn't have the means financially
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to go do it, I can totally supplement it.
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But I would rather someone else do it for
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them and communicate with them than me do
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it personally. Or we go to a gym called,
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and most of the kids are going to, Athlete
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Performance, which is a gym that I worked
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for. A guy named Steve Becker owns it, and
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I think he does a fantastic job. And there's
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a lot of communication between coach and
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athlete, and then also coaches. So like on
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the strength training side, You can see big
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changes at this age group. It's very recognizable
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when someone is not strength training.
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Yeah. And I think in jiu-jitsu at this age.
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Man, strength matters. It doesn't matter
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as much. But in my opinion, it's crucial
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for, the biggest thing in our sport is injury
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prevention. Because we're falling, we're
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bracing, people are literally trying to hyperextend
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our arms. So the more that we can build muscles
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around those joints to protect ourselves
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from all that impact and people trying to
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rip it off, is very, very helpful. And strength
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never hurts. It never hurts to be stronger
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than your opponent.
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And like being functional.
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Yeah.
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You know, and I think for like our sport,
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the, at some point it turns from, okay, we're
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trying to learn basic movements in the weight
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room. We're going to load these movements.
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These are important movements. They'll make
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you better athlete. Cause you build awareness
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in the water to then it's eventually it's
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like, all right, we're going to build some
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speed. We're going to build power. Like we're
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going to see results off the block when we
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see results in the water. Like there's. There's
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a really big difference between learning
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movement patterns and training. Yeah.
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We'll talk more about physical as we get
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into athletic development, but I got some
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good questions for you on that one. But let's
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go to intellectual, P-I-E-S-I, intellectual.
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They're adults, they're smart. I think this
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is where they can start developing their
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own plans and tactics. In jiu-jitsu, this
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is where I start giving people a lot of control.
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I'm like, hey, you need to have a game plan.
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You have all of these tools in your toolbox.
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It's now up to you to arrange them. And the
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interesting thing about jiu-jitsu is like,
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Every year, you're just building up more
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tools, more tools, more tools. The tools
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you have get better, and you add more. So
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if I have a kid that started with me when
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they were 7, 10, 13, and now they're 18,
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now they need to figure out for them which
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ones are going to be the best in the moment.
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based on like, how they roll, how they train
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who they are, which is a challenging, challenging
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thing. Because, you know, a lot of times
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when you have a plethora of tools in front
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of you, sometimes it's hard to know which
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ones to pick in the moment. But this is where
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we start putting those plans together. How
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do things intellectually change with your
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older kids, adults?
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I mean, like you said, they need to have
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executional plans that's developed by them.
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They need to have race plans.
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Are they doing like their own paces? Do you
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do like pace plans for longer races and stuff
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like that?
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Like, obviously I'm going to guide you to
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give you an idea of how to execute a race.
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But at the end of the day, that's going to
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come down to you. You know, your reflection,
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the way that you, you know, think about executing
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is totally going to be on you. I'm going
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to try and guide you and help you make a
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better decision. But at the end of the day,
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that's going to be on you. And whether it
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comes to like warmup, the way that you warm
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up before a race, like I'm not going to tell
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you what to do. Yeah, that's your job at
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1516. So you've been doing this long enough,
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you've been doing this long enough. And I
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can't tell you how many coaches just tell
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kids what to do. And you break that autonomy
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that they need to have. So if you move into
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collegiate athletics, there's it is on you.
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Yeah, you know, in warm up cool down. all
15:38.235 --> 15:40.316
that kind of stuff is totally on the athlete.
15:40.336 --> 15:43.377
And they have to recognize that that is their
15:43.437 --> 15:47.739
job as the athlete to do those things. These
15:47.799 --> 15:50.140
kids, though, are a lot of kids that I'm
15:50.180 --> 15:55.162
working with. They have learned so much.
15:55.682 --> 15:58.203
They know what to be doing in most moments.
15:58.283 --> 16:01.544
It's just trying to maintain it. You're trying
16:01.564 --> 16:03.605
to guide it. You're trying to challenge it.
16:06.169 --> 16:08.237
I know one thing like I personally run into,
16:08.258 --> 16:13.148
you know, I know I'm just gonna take strength
16:13.348 --> 16:16.291
training as an example, right? I know so
16:16.331 --> 16:19.213
many exercises, like so many ways to warm
16:19.313 --> 16:21.275
up and so many different leg exercises I
16:21.295 --> 16:24.237
can do that sometimes it's overwhelm of like,
16:25.038 --> 16:27.020
shit, what should I do today? How should
16:27.040 --> 16:29.242
I warm up? Should I lunge? Should I squat?
16:29.262 --> 16:30.943
Should I Bulgarian split squat? Should I
16:30.983 --> 16:32.644
hit the hack? Should I hit the pendulum?
16:33.105 --> 16:38.249
Should I barbell? Should I belt squat? Do
16:38.289 --> 16:41.756
you find like kids with like, like information
16:41.976 --> 16:44.437
overload, they kind of freeze in that moment
16:44.457 --> 16:46.258
of like, I don't know how I should warm up
16:46.298 --> 16:46.558
today.
16:46.738 --> 16:50.359
Yes, all the time. That's like a coach. It's
16:50.399 --> 16:52.220
a coaching point to try to build autonomy.
16:52.260 --> 16:54.700
It's like, okay, let's let's go through the
16:54.720 --> 16:56.081
past. What have you done? Well, I've done
16:56.161 --> 16:58.221
XYZ. And how'd you feel? I felt really good.
16:58.241 --> 17:00.422
Okay, you should probably do that. Well,
17:00.442 --> 17:01.883
I don't know how I felt. Okay, well, next,
17:02.023 --> 17:04.663
let's try this. Let's try and make some mental
17:04.703 --> 17:06.804
notes next time. Yeah, see if that helped
17:06.844 --> 17:09.485
or worked. Or, you know, what do you what
17:09.505 --> 17:11.286
do you think you need to add? It's like,
17:11.826 --> 17:14.687
as a coach is like, you're, you definitely
17:14.887 --> 17:16.307
have an idea of what they should be doing.
17:16.447 --> 17:18.748
Yeah, like, I, I watch kids. And I'm like,
17:19.028 --> 17:21.490
Fuck, that's not probably what you should
17:21.530 --> 17:23.933
do. And they might ask me questions and I
17:23.953 --> 17:26.555
can totally try and guide them, but you got
17:26.575 --> 17:29.798
to let them make their own decisions. Whether
17:29.838 --> 17:33.462
it's the right decision or not, we don't
17:33.522 --> 17:35.964
really know until they make the decision
17:36.024 --> 17:38.726
and then we can learn from it. Yeah. There's
17:38.766 --> 17:41.147
too many coaches that jump into the process
17:41.207 --> 17:44.449
of a kid trying to learn and build autonomy.
17:45.170 --> 17:48.552
And I think there's been times where I've
17:48.592 --> 17:50.633
gotten a lot of backlash on that actually
17:50.713 --> 17:54.135
from both athletes and parents where they
17:54.195 --> 17:56.977
feel that that is my job and I've always
17:57.037 --> 17:59.578
felt that that's the athlete's job is to
18:00.178 --> 18:02.820
learn and then build autonomy versus me just
18:02.880 --> 18:05.361
telling them. Yeah. I don't think that's
18:05.421 --> 18:06.242
the coach's role.
18:06.863 --> 18:12.147
No, I totally agree. I mean, again, we talked
18:12.167 --> 18:14.829
about this in the last podcast, but athletes
18:14.869 --> 18:16.670
need some level of ownership within their
18:16.710 --> 18:21.114
own training. And it's not just their results.
18:21.314 --> 18:22.895
If you want them to have ownership over their
18:22.935 --> 18:24.797
results, you also need to give them ownership
18:24.877 --> 18:28.319
over many of their actions. And you're there
18:28.619 --> 18:30.941
as a coach. You're there as a support system
18:31.121 --> 18:34.464
for them. You're not in the pool swimming.
18:34.884 --> 18:35.905
Yeah, swimming them.
18:36.345 --> 18:39.088
I can't make you do it. I can't get behind
18:39.108 --> 18:41.390
the block, get up on the block with you and
18:41.430 --> 18:44.773
make your arms go. That's going to be a result
18:44.793 --> 18:46.534
of you, whether it's good or bad, especially
18:46.554 --> 18:48.436
when it's good. It's like, hey, you did that,
18:48.596 --> 18:50.498
not me. You did that. That was something
18:50.518 --> 18:52.479
that you've been putting in work. You've
18:52.499 --> 18:56.743
been making these decisions. Trying to develop
18:56.783 --> 18:58.745
that autonomy is important.
19:00.598 --> 19:05.261
How about social? Man, at this age, there's
19:05.301 --> 19:08.463
a lot of... Sorry, not social. Let's do emotional
19:08.543 --> 19:14.286
first. P-I-E-S. There's a lot of pressure
19:14.506 --> 19:22.611
around results. I feel like at these ages,
19:22.671 --> 19:26.416
there's... you start the countdown of lifespan
19:26.456 --> 19:30.097
in a lot of sports, right? I remember junior
19:30.137 --> 19:32.118
year playing football being like, although
19:32.138 --> 19:33.878
I didn't play senior year, but I didn't know
19:33.918 --> 19:35.619
that when I started junior year football,
19:35.659 --> 19:37.239
I'm like, man, there's two years of football
19:37.280 --> 19:40.020
left. Like I was never someone who's going
19:40.040 --> 19:44.182
to go on and play college football, but there's
19:44.222 --> 19:47.203
either a countdown to end of life of a sport.
19:48.064 --> 19:51.326
Or to make it or break it moments like getting
19:51.386 --> 19:53.347
selected for a scholarship and making it
19:53.447 --> 19:55.448
on to a college team or whatever it might
19:55.488 --> 20:03.700
be. How much do you see that creep into the
20:03.740 --> 20:05.781
results that the athletes are getting, this
20:05.841 --> 20:06.861
emotional pressure?
20:06.881 --> 20:10.063
Yeah. I mean, every, I think the youngest
20:10.163 --> 20:12.145
athlete that I've worked with on the mental
20:12.185 --> 20:16.687
performance tools is 11. Okay. And that was
20:17.188 --> 20:19.449
unnormal. And it was a very specific case.
20:20.410 --> 20:22.371
But I would not, I would- High performer?
20:23.552 --> 20:27.635
Gymnastics. Okay. you think about the sport
20:27.655 --> 20:31.318
of gymnastics, an elite 11-year-old is different
20:31.338 --> 20:33.280
than an elite 11-year-old in swimming.
20:33.540 --> 20:35.762
Because you have 16-year-old Olympians.
20:35.822 --> 20:39.706
Yes. So like the lifespan of an 11-year-old
20:39.746 --> 20:45.051
elite gymnast, that is different. That is
20:45.812 --> 20:48.554
totally different. And it was very good.
20:49.015 --> 20:51.496
Her parents were like, We know she's on this
20:51.556 --> 20:54.477
path. We want to do the best that we can
20:54.537 --> 20:56.618
as parents to try and help her out. She has
20:56.658 --> 20:58.399
a lot of pressure on her because she knows
20:58.939 --> 21:01.260
the lifespan of her sport. She knows what's
21:01.300 --> 21:04.061
on the line. And that was a good experience
21:04.101 --> 21:06.302
for me. But I've never taken anyone else
21:06.902 --> 21:10.183
under the age of, honestly, 14. Everyone
21:10.203 --> 21:44.357
that I work with is between the ages of 15
21:11.963 --> 21:19.568
to 30. These are the ages where the pressure
21:19.608 --> 21:21.828
comes in, but a lot of it's internal. Some
21:21.868 --> 21:23.949
of it's external. It's probably the actual
21:23.969 --> 21:26.730
that's impacting the internal, but, um, you
21:26.750 --> 21:29.551
know, the, the emotional side of sport, especially
21:29.571 --> 21:31.392
the higher level that you get to becomes
21:31.472 --> 21:33.813
more critical. It becomes something that
21:33.853 --> 21:36.714
is coachable, but something that is, is hard
21:36.794 --> 21:39.615
to recognize, but also work with. Um, and
21:39.655 --> 21:43.297
it's a limiting factor. Um, it's hard. It's
21:43.337 --> 21:44.357
very tough. I agree.
21:46.057 --> 21:51.462
What about social? Man, I feel like swimmers
21:51.502 --> 21:54.105
in high school all shaving their heads on
21:54.145 --> 21:57.067
the same days, right? You get these huge
21:57.227 --> 21:59.389
social constructs in these sports, which
22:00.430 --> 22:01.191
I think are really cool.
22:01.607 --> 22:04.850
Yeah, super cool. You know, even though we're
22:04.870 --> 22:07.213
an individual-based sport, like there's a
22:07.313 --> 22:10.816
lot of team dynamics, like energy in practice,
22:10.916 --> 22:14.020
energy at meets. We try to go to nationals
22:14.080 --> 22:17.603
and win. Like we have team goals. We organize
22:17.623 --> 22:22.087
team goals. You know, we have specific genders
22:22.127 --> 22:25.248
of women team goals and men team goals. And
22:25.288 --> 22:27.429
it's very recognizable that these kids are
22:28.690 --> 22:32.572
thinking about those as a team. Even though
22:32.592 --> 22:34.933
it's an individually based sport, it's like
22:34.953 --> 22:36.654
you still got to work with other people.
22:37.274 --> 22:38.755
There's going to be kids in your lane that
22:38.775 --> 22:41.596
you're training with. There's like the recognizing
22:41.636 --> 22:42.937
that there's kids that are better than me
22:42.957 --> 22:45.878
that I can utilize on a daily basis in training.
22:45.898 --> 22:48.701
There's kids that that really perform well
22:49.162 --> 22:51.785
because of that, that loot of another person
22:51.805 --> 22:55.590
that they're aiming towards. Um, there's
22:55.670 --> 22:58.774
also this other side of things that, um,
22:59.855 --> 23:01.697
there's important decisions that athletes
23:01.738 --> 23:04.101
have to make sometimes that are selfish.
23:05.002 --> 23:05.142
Yeah.
23:05.682 --> 23:09.444
And some of the things that I work with and
23:09.464 --> 23:14.185
deal with a lot is decisions that are made
23:15.286 --> 23:17.687
that might seem like selfish decisions, but
23:17.727 --> 23:20.548
are the best for the athlete. Example? So
23:20.588 --> 23:24.489
for example, and this is very, this right
23:24.529 --> 23:26.210
here is something I deal with all the time.
23:26.650 --> 23:29.311
And maybe you'll understand, but this is
23:29.531 --> 23:32.793
very, This is looked at negatively.
23:33.153 --> 23:33.734
Okay, let's hear it.
23:33.754 --> 23:38.337
It's something that I think is very important.
23:38.497 --> 23:41.679
Okay. I, if a kid is looking at swimming
23:41.739 --> 23:43.180
in collegiate university and they have an
23:43.240 --> 23:45.002
opportunity to swim at a college university,
23:45.882 --> 23:49.485
and they're on the path at 13, 14, 15, at
23:49.625 --> 26:16.536
the difference between 14 and under and 15
23:53.207 --> 23:56.150
and up is also high school, but also the
23:56.190 --> 24:00.373
integration of high school sport. So football
24:00.693 --> 24:03.515
is different than swimming. Swimming, we
24:03.555 --> 24:08.920
are training kids, and coaching 110% matters.
24:10.000 --> 24:13.383
And swimming in high school is a non-cut
24:13.423 --> 24:16.085
sport. That means if Perry wanted to try
24:16.105 --> 24:17.847
out for the swim team in high school, he
24:17.887 --> 24:20.550
could go try out for the swim team. Me, as
24:20.610 --> 24:22.292
someone that's trying to get a college scholarship,
24:22.653 --> 24:25.557
I'm also on the same team, right? And the
24:25.637 --> 24:28.321
coach is going to be put in a position where
24:28.361 --> 24:30.885
they're going to coach kids on that program
24:31.626 --> 24:35.531
at the level of the program. I think that
24:35.571 --> 24:37.412
there's a lot of good high school coaches.
24:38.853 --> 24:40.894
It's fine. Sometimes there's the math teacher.
24:41.215 --> 24:42.756
Sometimes there's a really good coach in
24:42.796 --> 24:47.459
place. However, I encourage kids that are
24:47.859 --> 24:50.461
wanting to swim in college to not participate
24:51.422 --> 24:53.924
racing with their high school program. Meaning,
24:54.144 --> 24:56.846
if they can train with me, and then race
24:56.866 --> 24:58.687
with their high school team, that's the best
24:58.707 --> 25:01.268
of both worlds. However, in the state of
25:01.288 --> 25:04.230
Wisconsin, most high school coaches do not
25:04.270 --> 25:07.371
allow kids to train and race. However, if
25:08.732 --> 25:10.753
you go to the East Coast, all the way down,
25:10.793 --> 25:12.374
all the way down to Flora, then up through
25:12.394 --> 25:14.515
the Gulf, then all the way across to Texas,
25:14.535 --> 25:18.017
then into California, and then on to Seattle.
25:18.537 --> 25:20.859
They all can do that. They can all do that.
25:20.979 --> 25:23.680
And in fact, that is normal. So we're in
25:23.720 --> 25:26.462
the specific upper Midwest where this is
25:26.562 --> 25:28.644
discouraged and not a thing. And I think
25:28.684 --> 25:30.465
it places our athletes at a disadvantage
25:30.825 --> 25:32.086
because they're fighting for opportunities
25:32.106 --> 25:34.107
throughout kids throughout the country and
25:34.147 --> 25:37.789
internationally. And training matters, coaching
25:38.010 --> 25:41.552
matters. And the argument is, well, they
25:42.012 --> 25:44.454
have to be part of the team and it's important.
25:44.654 --> 25:47.296
And I totally get that. And there's an enormous
25:47.316 --> 25:49.537
amount of value from competing with high
25:49.557 --> 25:53.019
school programs. Like you get the announcements
25:53.059 --> 25:54.600
in the morning, you get to be in the paper.
25:55.261 --> 25:57.102
But at the end of the day, you have to get
25:57.142 --> 25:58.743
up on the block. You have to race your race.
25:59.204 --> 26:00.685
And if you're making decisions because of
26:00.745 --> 26:03.627
other people, you're impacting you. And that
26:03.667 --> 26:07.810
has always been my argument. And we have
26:07.930 --> 26:09.811
some of our best kids choose not to swim
26:09.831 --> 26:12.213
with their high school team because they're
26:12.253 --> 26:15.135
not allowed to train at a specific level
26:15.575 --> 26:16.536
that they were doing prior.
26:17.777 --> 26:19.578
So questions on that and how that works in
26:19.618 --> 26:25.426
your sport. If you only swim on club teams
26:25.486 --> 26:29.128
year round, is it called the club team? Can
26:29.168 --> 26:31.450
you, do you still have meets during that
26:32.211 --> 26:33.852
high school swim season? Do you go to like
26:33.952 --> 26:34.452
all the other?
26:34.612 --> 26:39.576
In fact, um, the higher level meets actually
26:39.596 --> 26:44.945
kind of They go around the high school season.
26:45.125 --> 26:46.926
Yeah. And that's the thing. Yeah. That would
26:46.946 --> 26:48.187
be my other question. If I was trying to
26:48.207 --> 26:51.711
get off season. So like, for example, Wisconsin
26:51.731 --> 26:53.812
is not a huge swimming state in the grand
26:53.833 --> 26:56.715
scheme of things. If I look at Texas, Texas
26:56.735 --> 26:58.457
does everyone is in their high school team,
26:58.797 --> 27:02.340
high school, um, some season from it's like
27:02.440 --> 27:06.382
March to whatever. And then it's done. In
27:06.482 --> 27:08.483
Florida, it's September to November, and
27:08.503 --> 27:10.643
then it's done. And it's boys and girls.
27:10.763 --> 27:12.224
And everyone just swims with their club team,
27:12.264 --> 27:14.084
and they show up to meets, and they risk.
27:14.904 --> 27:17.485
And then it's done. Within Wisconsin, we
27:17.505 --> 27:19.825
have girls from September to November, and
27:19.845 --> 27:22.106
then we have boys from December to February.
27:22.546 --> 27:24.646
The high-level meets are in December, so
27:25.987 --> 27:28.487
nationally, and then also March. So it's
27:28.607 --> 27:31.348
just completely, especially on the boys'
27:31.368 --> 27:31.568
side,
27:32.288 --> 27:36.509
really bypass yeah yes so it there has to
27:36.549 --> 27:39.890
be a balance and it's hard and what i'm saying
27:39.950 --> 27:44.392
is very not what people think yeah well what
27:44.412 --> 27:49.093
about the other social side of athletes these
27:49.193 --> 27:51.914
ages balancing all the other stuff that we
27:51.934 --> 27:53.734
were talking about with your college right
27:54.274 --> 27:58.282
um academics Jobs.
27:58.442 --> 28:01.524
Social. Even being a kid.
28:01.804 --> 28:06.966
Going to homecoming. Going to prom. Relationships.
28:08.786 --> 28:12.108
It's all those kids want at that age is relationships.
28:13.468 --> 28:16.010
It's, it's a, you're, you're, as a coach,
28:16.030 --> 28:18.611
you're balancing so much, so many dynamics.
28:18.751 --> 28:20.653
So it's just like a lot of push and pull.
28:20.933 --> 28:24.115
Yeah. Right. And it, um, you know, like you
28:24.135 --> 28:26.436
can recognize when a kid walks through the
28:26.596 --> 28:29.638
pool deck or it's a practice like. They had
28:29.678 --> 28:31.199
a day today. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's like,
28:31.239 --> 28:33.840
that's a very identifiable thing. And it's
28:33.900 --> 28:39.082
a skill to manage life and sport. There's
28:39.162 --> 28:41.763
kids that really can do well through routine.
28:42.263 --> 28:44.424
And there's kids that get challenged. I as
28:44.564 --> 28:47.865
personally as an athlete, like did so much
28:47.945 --> 28:50.426
better when I was swimming, swimming, because
28:50.587 --> 28:53.288
it set me up for the routine. It builds routines
28:53.328 --> 28:55.689
that I now have in my adult life, you know,
28:55.749 --> 28:59.292
and When I was in college, the month and
28:59.312 --> 29:01.314
a half that we were off of swimming, and
29:01.354 --> 29:04.036
we didn't have structured practice, my grades
29:04.076 --> 29:06.138
went pfft, because there was no routine.
29:06.519 --> 29:08.681
You know, and it's like, there's a lot of
29:08.761 --> 29:10.883
value as an athlete where you're balancing,
29:11.244 --> 29:13.125
there's a teaching point there, whether you
29:13.145 --> 29:15.747
swim in college or not. There's schedules
29:15.767 --> 29:17.948
that you're balancing, there's relationships,
29:18.008 --> 29:20.968
there's social, there's school, there's work,
29:21.048 --> 29:24.109
there's all these things. And sport is just
29:24.329 --> 29:28.610
one of those things. So it's that relationship
29:29.190 --> 29:30.010
is a skill.
29:31.091 --> 29:35.151
Yeah, man. Let's go on to athletic development
29:36.052 --> 29:40.302
for these young adults. We talked about how
29:40.502 --> 29:45.628
cross training is key. How do you like to
29:45.709 --> 29:48.632
balance that with your top tier athletes?
29:48.652 --> 29:51.535
Your ones that are going on to college, how
29:51.575 --> 29:53.878
many hours of swimming a week, days a week,
29:54.299 --> 29:56.241
versus strength training are you typically
29:56.281 --> 29:56.541
seeing?
29:58.083 --> 29:59.904
So like strength training is always secondary
29:59.965 --> 30:02.267
compared to water training. Like I'd rather
30:02.347 --> 30:04.208
if you have like, oh, I, you know, I have
30:04.228 --> 30:06.090
this thing, I can do strength training, I
30:06.130 --> 30:10.494
can swim. I'm telling them like swim. Some
30:10.554 --> 30:12.636
kids are going, like I offer it in the summer,
30:12.676 --> 30:15.078
we'll offer 10 sessions. So that's 20 hours
30:15.098 --> 30:17.440
in the water. And there's kids that- How
30:17.480 --> 30:18.221
long is a session?
30:18.581 --> 30:19.382
Two hours. Okay.
30:19.682 --> 30:23.927
Hour 45 to two hours. Most kids during the
30:23.947 --> 30:27.892
school year are coming to six. We offer nine.
30:28.853 --> 30:31.757
And some of them are doing nine. And then
30:32.017 --> 30:33.659
let's say they're going two to three times
30:33.699 --> 30:35.842
a week of strength training. So you had another
30:35.902 --> 30:39.626
hour, two hours, three hours. You're close
30:39.666 --> 30:43.530
to 20 hours, and it's a lot of volume. So
30:43.671 --> 30:46.574
when it comes to training and like working
30:46.614 --> 30:49.317
through your blocks, like what's this practice?
30:49.357 --> 30:51.859
What's this practice? Your myocycles, microcycles,
30:52.280 --> 30:54.182
and then macrocycles is you got to be aware
30:54.262 --> 30:56.963
of training within the week, training throughout
30:57.023 --> 30:58.604
the year, training through periods, and then
30:58.704 --> 31:00.605
also managing your strength training. So
31:00.625 --> 31:02.105
that's why I've always outsourced to other
31:02.125 --> 31:05.827
people. It's like, I can do that, but where
31:05.847 --> 31:07.968
I'd rather have someone else that is looking
31:08.008 --> 31:10.249
at this from like, I'm a strength coach lens
31:10.329 --> 31:12.429
versus just swim coach. Yeah.
31:12.750 --> 31:16.491
Um, I mean, what is, what is your perspective
31:16.971 --> 31:20.373
on the different avenues out there for strength
31:20.453 --> 31:22.674
training? Whether it's through a program
31:22.774 --> 31:25.616
like, what's the one, Next Level? Yeah, Next
31:25.636 --> 31:27.277
Level Athlete Performance. Like going through
31:27.317 --> 31:29.839
Next Level, or even it's like a personal
31:29.919 --> 31:34.342
trainer, or the high school team does strength
31:34.442 --> 31:39.946
training. How, how do you make, how do you
31:40.026 --> 31:42.088
educate parents to make the best decisions
31:42.268 --> 31:43.489
around that for their kids?
31:43.730 --> 31:46.172
Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of constraints
31:46.192 --> 31:47.393
sometimes financially.
31:47.533 --> 31:47.773
Yeah.
31:48.294 --> 31:50.876
Right. Going to a personal trainer is going
31:50.896 --> 31:53.959
to be more expensive compared to a gym. Yeah.
31:54.019 --> 31:55.961
Like an X level or an athlete performance
31:56.001 --> 31:59.163
where you're going in groups. Obviously,
31:59.183 --> 32:00.723
if you want more attention to personal trainers,
32:00.763 --> 32:03.564
great, but I don't think that that is needed.
32:03.884 --> 32:05.805
But do personal trainers, are they going
32:05.825 --> 32:07.885
to take a look at your kid's swim schedule
32:07.925 --> 32:10.186
and build cycles? Right.
32:10.766 --> 32:13.926
I don't think that that is needed. I really
32:14.026 --> 32:16.947
feel that when it comes to finding strength
32:17.127 --> 32:19.948
training for your kid is, if you're an athlete,
32:19.988 --> 32:22.828
is you should go to a performance gym. Go
32:22.848 --> 32:27.330
to a gym that values sport. Sure. And I don't
32:27.370 --> 32:29.991
think there's really a difference between
32:30.011 --> 32:33.813
a high school golfer and a high school swimmer.
32:34.694 --> 32:36.595
They all are doing the similar type of movements.
32:37.275 --> 32:39.476
The difference, though, is, OK, throughout
32:39.516 --> 32:41.177
the season, we're going to have these meets.
32:41.458 --> 32:42.638
They're going to be doing this. They got
32:42.678 --> 32:44.599
this. What's the volume of swimming that
32:44.619 --> 32:46.940
they're doing? How much can we actually give
32:46.980 --> 32:49.622
them in the weight room? What I've seen is
32:49.682 --> 32:53.024
that there's so much volume and intensity
32:53.044 --> 32:55.286
in the weight room that it hurts their training
32:55.326 --> 32:58.569
in the water. So you got to manage the two.
32:58.989 --> 33:01.171
In other sports, such as football, there's
33:01.211 --> 33:03.413
very clear off seasons, right? So you can
33:03.553 --> 33:05.394
really go in the weight room and increase
33:05.454 --> 33:07.396
load. In swimming, we don't have off seasons.
33:07.716 --> 33:10.699
We just go. So it's like, can we at least
33:10.739 --> 33:13.461
get some consistency of twice a week? And
33:13.741 --> 33:16.003
you can still build muscle and it's important
33:16.083 --> 33:18.285
and sometimes it's going to inhibit your
33:18.325 --> 33:20.127
training in the water, but we'd like to not.
33:20.487 --> 33:24.671
What style of training, if you were to interview
33:24.992 --> 33:28.475
a coach, what style of training would you
33:28.515 --> 33:31.378
look for? Strength coach? Yeah, you're going
33:31.398 --> 33:32.699
to interview a strength coach. What kind
33:32.719 --> 33:33.940
of questions would you ask?
33:34.381 --> 33:38.116
Well, I would ask him about progressions
33:39.137 --> 33:42.782
and how they periodize. I would ask them
33:43.322 --> 33:45.345
how they would strength coach a swimmer,
33:45.505 --> 33:50.351
a specific water athlete. I look for strength
33:50.371 --> 33:52.874
coaches that value and understand the amount
33:52.914 --> 33:55.437
of training they're doing in the water. So
33:55.497 --> 33:57.799
years ago, I had a guy, Matt Gifford, who
33:57.900 --> 34:00.522
is unbelievably good, and he owns a gym in
34:00.562 --> 34:03.104
New Berlin. It's called Wisconsin Performance.
34:03.865 --> 34:05.587
And I've seen numerous athletes there. And
34:05.907 --> 34:07.969
years ago, I had Matt come in. He was a track
34:08.009 --> 34:10.211
background, football background. He went
34:10.231 --> 34:12.253
to Whitewater, worked at Next Level, and
34:12.313 --> 34:15.316
then opened up his own gym. He was a speed
34:15.356 --> 34:17.998
guy. really valued speed. And he came to
34:18.038 --> 34:20.040
practice, and he's watching them go back
34:20.060 --> 34:22.563
and forth. He's like, dude, this is hard.
34:22.783 --> 34:25.486
I'm like, yeah. I'm like, they do this every
34:25.506 --> 34:27.288
day, dude. And then they come to you and
34:27.308 --> 34:30.611
you're, you're deadlifting max effort. Humans
34:30.671 --> 34:32.233
weren't meant to swim. Let's get throw that
34:32.273 --> 34:32.693
out there.
34:32.914 --> 34:35.616
Of course, swimming is hard. We're not We're
34:35.697 --> 34:37.619
made to move on land Chandler.
34:37.660 --> 34:37.800
Yeah.
34:37.880 --> 34:40.083
We're not made to be swimmers. Of course
34:40.143 --> 34:41.465
it's hard, but he's like, all right.
34:41.505 --> 34:43.588
So, you know, like, is this a, how does the
34:43.608 --> 34:45.812
day work? I'm like, well, today's like, we're
34:45.832 --> 34:48.856
going anaerobic spit, you know, we're, we're
34:48.876 --> 34:51.300
going really anaerobic today. Today's threshold.
34:51.480 --> 34:53.801
And they do this every day. Yeah, there's
34:53.861 --> 34:57.102
no break. And he's like, I get it. And he
34:57.142 --> 34:59.463
was able to periodize and manage training
34:59.844 --> 35:02.204
with these athletes. And there was a lot
35:02.245 --> 35:04.405
of game like kids were not showing up to
35:04.445 --> 35:07.107
practice next day with lower back issues.
35:07.127 --> 35:07.387
Yeah.
35:07.427 --> 35:09.948
So are they focusing on like, if you take
35:10.008 --> 35:15.867
all like the the target objectives of strength
35:15.927 --> 35:19.688
training, right? You have hypertrophy, you
35:19.728 --> 35:22.308
have just generalized, get stronger, move
35:22.328 --> 35:26.029
more weight. You have like the functional
35:26.129 --> 35:28.270
side of things, like let's do like weird
35:28.690 --> 35:30.890
balance-y shit while we throw medicine balls.
35:31.650 --> 35:34.191
Like what are you, what are you looking
35:34.651 --> 35:36.552
make it move better. Okay, make them move
35:36.592 --> 35:38.472
better on land, it'll build awareness and
35:38.512 --> 35:40.493
that would be my step one. Okay, can move
35:40.533 --> 35:43.814
better. Like that could be basic things,
35:44.214 --> 35:47.055
but make a move better. Second thing would
35:47.075 --> 35:48.556
be power, speed, strength.
35:48.696 --> 35:48.776
Okay.
35:48.796 --> 35:51.557
You know, like those are those are very basic.
35:52.517 --> 35:54.378
And you can recover pretty well from those,
35:54.418 --> 35:56.299
right? Like, you're not going to recover
35:56.359 --> 35:59.601
well from general like powerlifting training
35:59.801 --> 36:01.103
or hypertrophy training, right?
36:01.263 --> 36:04.887
We're not honestly the hypertrophy the hypertrophy
36:04.927 --> 36:08.070
training is like that has to be a balance.
36:08.691 --> 36:10.733
Yeah, that is gonna that's gonna lead to
36:10.773 --> 36:13.436
soreness. Yeah, inhibit training. Yeah, me
36:13.496 --> 36:14.958
as an athlete, like when I was in college.
36:16.179 --> 36:18.360
I went against what our strength coach was
36:18.400 --> 36:21.322
doing, which was twice a week, basic foundation
36:21.362 --> 36:23.763
movements. You periodize them like you should
36:23.783 --> 36:26.705
be. There was low, like we were doing two
36:26.745 --> 36:30.567
or three sets. And it was very, very, very
36:30.627 --> 36:32.948
basic and it was good. And I went outside
36:32.988 --> 36:35.709
that. I added more. I was really pushing
36:35.749 --> 36:38.031
weights and it was my worst season. Bet you
36:38.051 --> 36:40.711
wish you had a whoop. Yeah, I did not. But
36:40.751 --> 36:44.294
I was benching and deadlifting. And I thought
36:44.314 --> 36:46.075
that was the way to go. And I learned very
36:46.196 --> 36:47.797
shortly that that was not the way to go.
36:48.878 --> 36:50.939
So it's, it's honestly, it's making move
36:50.979 --> 36:54.262
better. There has to be some implement implementation
36:54.302 --> 36:56.123
of hypertrophy. Yeah, like I want to get
36:56.404 --> 36:58.225
muscle growth, you know, but there has to
36:58.265 --> 37:01.107
be more on the side of recovery. There has
37:01.127 --> 37:03.329
to be more thinking on okay, what's going
37:03.349 --> 37:06.631
to be the least we can do? Yeah, without
37:06.712 --> 37:11.314
hurting them. Yeah. And honestly, the functional
37:11.354 --> 37:13.154
side of things, how can we take strength
37:13.174 --> 37:15.255
training and implement or kind of look at
37:15.295 --> 37:17.656
the sport of swimming, the landscape of swimming,
37:18.036 --> 37:20.697
find movements on land that integrate into
37:20.737 --> 37:23.398
the water, whether it's, you know, single
37:23.418 --> 37:25.199
leg movements, pushing movements, pressing
37:25.219 --> 37:28.661
movements, There's all these movements that
37:28.681 --> 37:30.762
we can select and pick. There's new movements
37:30.782 --> 37:33.044
that definitely kind of integrate into swimming,
37:33.904 --> 37:36.666
and someone that's mindful of that can come
37:36.706 --> 37:38.827
up with a very good plan, but I don't think
37:38.847 --> 37:40.969
that swimming athletes or water athletes
37:42.110 --> 37:46.552
need to be doing super, super volume-based
37:46.633 --> 37:47.033
training.
37:47.673 --> 37:49.214
Yeah, especially in the weight. Save the
37:49.274 --> 37:52.357
volume for... the sport yeah right like i
37:52.397 --> 37:55.641
would rather in jiu-jitsu you know a white
37:55.661 --> 37:58.925
belt adult match it's five minutes i'd rather
37:58.985 --> 38:01.548
have see them getting a ton of those in or
38:01.628 --> 38:06.612
even pushing longer durations um Then do
38:06.652 --> 38:07.973
a lot of strength training and have to do
38:08.013 --> 38:08.653
three minute rounds.
38:08.693 --> 38:08.873
Yeah.
38:09.173 --> 38:12.695
Yeah, right I mean the last thing you want
38:12.715 --> 38:15.236
to do as a strength coach is Push your athlete
38:15.256 --> 38:17.557
too far and now they have Dom's the day of
38:17.597 --> 38:18.277
a competition.
38:18.317 --> 38:21.818
Yeah. Yeah and like Collegiate I think this
38:21.838 --> 38:23.739
is the issue that I have with a lot of collegiate
38:23.759 --> 38:26.900
programs. Yeah, it's like the swimming Assuming
38:26.940 --> 38:29.022
if you're not at a power five university,
38:29.082 --> 38:31.003
so for example, you go to UBM, you're going
38:31.023 --> 38:33.624
to have the grad assistant or the new guy
38:34.205 --> 38:36.026
as your strength coach. And he's going to
38:36.066 --> 38:38.427
coach you up just like any other sport. And
38:38.447 --> 38:39.968
he's going to think like, oh, they have an
38:40.008 --> 38:44.952
off season. And it hurts them. And so I've
38:44.972 --> 38:48.055
always been very selective on people that
38:48.115 --> 38:51.218
I work with or have athletes go to because
38:51.919 --> 38:53.721
swimming is different. You're in water, you're
38:53.741 --> 38:56.243
in a different ecosystem. We do this all
38:56.283 --> 38:58.285
the, we're full time all the time. There's
38:58.326 --> 38:58.986
no off season.
39:00.447 --> 39:05.551
Which, man, adults who train, like hobbyists
39:05.631 --> 39:08.453
out there, take note, because your sport
39:08.493 --> 39:10.614
is probably very similar, right? If you're
39:10.634 --> 39:12.015
a tennis player, you're probably playing
39:12.055 --> 39:14.777
tennis year-round, indoor and outdoor. Golf,
39:14.837 --> 39:17.679
maybe not, unless you're hitting those simulators
39:17.739 --> 39:20.881
all the time, right? But like, as training
39:20.921 --> 39:25.554
goes onwards in life and sport is less of
39:25.634 --> 39:29.238
a thing and doing it as a hobby is, you need
39:29.258 --> 39:33.904
to approach it differently. When I was doing
39:34.284 --> 39:36.367
jiu-jitsu, like earlier in my jiu-jitsu career,
39:36.387 --> 39:41.473
so like 2010, 11, I was doing CrossFit and
39:41.493 --> 39:43.215
jiu-jitsu on top of it. Oh, that's tough.
39:43.935 --> 39:44.836
It just wrecked me.
39:44.896 --> 39:45.797
Yeah, it wrecked you.
39:45.897 --> 39:48.038
Yeah. But it wrecked me in a way that I was
39:48.098 --> 39:49.379
young enough that I was still recovering
39:49.419 --> 39:52.782
pretty well. But over time, as I started
39:52.822 --> 39:55.644
getting a six months a year in, it was really
39:55.744 --> 39:57.545
hard to tell in the short term. But the long
39:57.605 --> 39:59.126
term, I started noticing it a lot.
39:59.166 --> 40:00.027
Yeah, that's a lot.
40:00.287 --> 40:02.108
And it just ended up being a lot of volume
40:02.248 --> 40:04.250
of getting beat up.
40:05.010 --> 40:06.511
Yeah. It's not the goal.
40:06.992 --> 40:09.994
No. So I've gotten wiser over time. So now
40:10.074 --> 40:12.536
I go up and down, right? Sometimes I'll be
40:12.596 --> 40:14.438
training heavy jiu-jitsu, lighter lifting.
40:14.478 --> 40:16.580
Sometimes I'll be more into lifting and just
40:17.000 --> 40:18.501
kind of doing more maintenance on jiu-jitsu.
40:19.242 --> 40:21.143
Now my latest thing is I'm a runner, so I'm
40:21.163 --> 40:23.525
just running all the time now. I strength
40:23.565 --> 40:25.027
train two days a week, and I do jiu-jitsu
40:25.067 --> 40:26.208
like three days a week.
40:26.288 --> 40:28.550
Yeah. It's different. That's different.
40:28.570 --> 40:29.951
Running is different, especially never being
40:29.991 --> 40:30.611
a runner before.
40:30.711 --> 40:30.911
Yeah.
40:31.172 --> 40:36.561
Yeah. Ran right before this. I'm exhausted.
40:38.163 --> 40:44.968
Let's talk about competition. This gets tough.
40:45.248 --> 40:46.409
Like we talked about at the beginning, there's
40:46.429 --> 40:50.692
a lot of pressure in competition. One, because
40:51.552 --> 40:55.075
there's a whole collegiate path that many
40:55.175 --> 40:57.036
athletes are hoping to go on at this age.
40:58.257 --> 41:00.239
Or if you're not hoping to go on the collegiate
41:00.279 --> 41:03.704
path, there is the countdown to your last
41:03.764 --> 41:08.825
day. I still remember when I was like, this
41:08.885 --> 41:11.205
is my last wrestling meet ever. This is my
41:11.265 --> 41:14.586
last football game ever. So there's a lot
41:14.626 --> 41:20.867
of pressure and emotion behind it. As a sports
41:20.907 --> 41:24.708
psychologist, what do you see there? How
41:24.728 --> 41:26.668
do you help people with that? I know the
41:26.748 --> 41:28.849
self-talk is a big thing, which it is,
41:30.120 --> 41:33.542
Well, I mean, there's so many layers to that.
41:34.262 --> 41:38.864
I think on the most simplest terms, we're
41:38.964 --> 41:42.046
trying to stay present in the moment. We're
41:42.086 --> 41:44.307
trying to control what we can control. We're
41:44.327 --> 41:46.648
trying to compete at our best. And that's
41:47.229 --> 41:51.671
us, me, not anyone else. At this age, there's
41:51.731 --> 41:53.512
so much external stuff, whether it's like
41:53.552 --> 41:55.693
I'm going for cuts, I'm trying to get a scholarship,
41:56.233 --> 41:57.674
I'm trying to get to the next level meet.
41:58.995 --> 42:00.335
And all like that, I'm afraid of letting
42:00.355 --> 42:02.837
people down, letting myself down, right?
42:03.418 --> 42:07.961
Like, there's the whole stages of grief that
42:08.021 --> 42:11.663
comes in of like, you know, sports ending
42:11.783 --> 42:15.066
and yeah, leaving, leaving your team. Yeah.
42:15.306 --> 42:22.052
Right. Like a lot. Swimming is such a black
42:22.093 --> 42:24.315
and white sport where you swim a race, you
42:24.335 --> 42:26.377
get a time, that's the time. It's not like
42:26.417 --> 42:29.481
the next possession. There's so much value
42:29.501 --> 42:32.204
that kids put into their time. And there's
42:32.224 --> 42:34.226
a limited amount of races, there's a limited
42:34.246 --> 42:36.208
amount of times you can race that. And at
42:36.248 --> 42:38.190
the end of the year, that's the result. And
42:38.610 --> 42:40.551
whether you go to a high level meet or a
42:40.591 --> 42:43.473
lower level meet, the time is the time. And
42:44.294 --> 42:47.336
it can be very challenging because you're
42:47.416 --> 42:48.997
not going to go at best time every time you
42:49.017 --> 42:51.879
race. You're racing yourself. And there's
42:51.999 --> 42:54.441
all this stuff that's going into it. And
42:54.481 --> 42:58.704
it's super challenging. And the biggest kind
42:58.744 --> 43:02.827
of inhibitor sometimes is parents. And a
43:02.867 --> 43:05.849
funny thing I always say to my other coaches
43:05.969 --> 43:08.291
is, as parents put so much pressure on their
43:08.311 --> 43:09.672
kid, why aren't they performing well? It's
43:09.692 --> 43:12.974
like, you go put on a suit, get in front
43:13.114 --> 43:14.775
of 2,000 people, and every time you race,
43:14.795 --> 43:16.156
you're going to go your absolute best time.
43:16.497 --> 43:23.502
That is such a hard thing to do. So the sports
43:23.522 --> 43:29.128
psychology, I think for me, is a gift that
43:29.188 --> 43:31.651
I'm able to implement that with the athletes
43:31.671 --> 43:34.594
that I'm working with. But I recognized early
43:34.674 --> 43:37.437
on that it's such a critical part of, not
43:37.657 --> 43:40.179
coaching, but as an athlete, that your mental
43:40.219 --> 43:41.981
game needs to be something that you're working
43:42.041 --> 43:44.043
on consistently and all the time. Because
43:44.083 --> 43:46.065
at some point it's going to inhibit you to
43:46.145 --> 43:48.407
be performing at your best when it matters
43:48.447 --> 43:52.010
the most. And that's really what I'm trying
43:52.070 --> 43:55.814
to do. And swimming is just a vehicle to
43:55.834 --> 43:58.596
be able to get to where you want to go and
43:58.656 --> 43:59.337
learn skills.
44:00.478 --> 44:03.020
Yeah, so this major change of transitioning
44:04.401 --> 44:08.697
off the team to a new team, to a new sport,
44:08.737 --> 44:10.820
to a new space, to even out of the sport.
44:11.341 --> 44:13.505
What are some things that parents and coaches
44:14.346 --> 44:17.351
can do to help that athlete through that
44:17.411 --> 44:22.178
transition? You have athletes that are going
44:22.218 --> 44:24.358
to go swim at college. Granted, you might
44:24.398 --> 44:26.679
see them during the summer. You also might
44:26.719 --> 44:30.120
not. There's a level of, man, as a coach,
44:30.161 --> 44:33.342
I worked with this kid so long. It sucks
44:33.722 --> 44:35.583
to see him go, but it's also cool to see
44:35.603 --> 44:39.225
him go. And as a, and as an athlete, you
44:39.245 --> 44:42.888
know, you saw success, maybe you didn't see
44:42.908 --> 44:46.171
the success that you wanted, but you're either
44:46.531 --> 44:48.773
getting done with swimming or you're going
44:48.793 --> 44:51.396
to go on a new team with new people and a
44:51.476 --> 44:54.098
new coach. And you're just like, unsure of
44:54.178 --> 44:57.741
everything. How do you support parents and,
44:58.382 --> 45:00.644
um, athletes and your other coaches through
45:00.664 --> 45:00.804
that?
45:01.072 --> 45:03.713
Yeah. Well, I think for me is like, I'm in
45:03.753 --> 45:06.995
this weird position or in a good position
45:07.035 --> 45:09.676
where, uh, you know, like the end goal for
45:09.696 --> 45:11.357
a lot of these kids is like, they're going
45:11.377 --> 45:13.638
to go on to college swimming.
45:13.858 --> 45:14.098
Yeah.
45:14.418 --> 45:17.479
And my job is to prepare them for that. Um,
45:17.920 --> 45:21.401
and I've always battled this thing of. I'm
45:21.421 --> 45:23.263
going to do the things that I think is best
45:23.283 --> 45:25.164
for them, but I also know that there's these
45:25.204 --> 45:28.466
things that are probably things they're going
45:28.486 --> 45:30.808
to do at the collegiate level that maybe
45:30.868 --> 45:32.449
I agree with, maybe I don't agree with, but
45:32.489 --> 45:35.131
that's part of my job is I have to introduce,
45:36.392 --> 45:41.196
whether it's skills, situations, scenarios,
45:41.916 --> 45:45.579
that they will 100% be given at the collegiate
45:45.599 --> 45:48.741
level. whether that's training or emotionally,
45:48.821 --> 45:51.183
socially, those are things that I have to
45:51.223 --> 45:55.166
do. And that progression starts at, you know,
45:55.686 --> 45:57.948
right when you get in the group at 15. And
45:58.008 --> 46:00.089
it's like, if the goal is to swim in college,
46:00.449 --> 46:03.331
backtrack, okay, what are the things that
46:03.391 --> 46:08.615
I need to be, what implementation as a coach
46:08.635 --> 46:11.377
that I need to be put into? training and
46:11.778 --> 46:15.021
guidance and support. And it's, that can
46:15.041 --> 46:16.762
be very challenging, but it's important.
46:16.802 --> 46:18.985
And one of my favorite things is when collegiate
46:19.005 --> 46:21.827
athletes come back. And then I have them
46:21.887 --> 46:24.350
talk to younger athletes, like, what did
46:24.370 --> 46:26.532
you learn? And they always say the things
46:26.552 --> 46:28.954
that I tried to teach them for five plus
46:28.994 --> 46:31.076
years, you know, at the collegiate level,
46:31.116 --> 46:33.699
you have to, do really hard things, and you
46:33.759 --> 46:35.621
can't be negative, and you got to be worried
46:35.661 --> 46:37.323
about the process, not so much about the
46:37.363 --> 46:40.626
result. And day in, day out, you got to be
46:41.106 --> 46:43.148
doing the right thing, and blah, blah, blah,
46:43.208 --> 46:45.311
blah. And it's cool to see that, but that
46:45.351 --> 46:48.013
started with, at 15, I'm trying to implement
46:48.053 --> 46:51.416
these skills and tools. Now, on the other
46:51.457 --> 46:55.379
side, when it comes to parents, if you backtrack
46:55.419 --> 46:57.581
and say, what's the end goal? Parents always
46:57.621 --> 47:00.323
say, well, I want them to learn skills that
47:00.763 --> 47:02.805
will help them be a better adult. And it's
47:02.865 --> 47:05.087
like, OK, so what are those skills? And it's
47:05.147 --> 47:07.448
basic things, like I want them to learn communication,
47:07.869 --> 47:10.551
leadership skills, discipline, go through
47:10.571 --> 47:13.413
tough things, and then you recognize that
47:14.013 --> 47:16.515
they want this end result of a person that
47:16.555 --> 47:18.376
has gone through all this stuff and they
47:18.416 --> 47:22.039
learn these skills. And there's a lot of
47:22.099 --> 47:23.500
teaching that can be done there where it's
47:23.540 --> 47:25.781
like, okay, then the goal isn't for them
47:25.861 --> 47:28.863
to get this result or get this thing. We're
47:28.923 --> 47:30.985
trying to develop them as people and through
47:31.025 --> 47:34.847
that is swimming, training, competition,
47:35.608 --> 47:39.691
ups and downs. It's a cool position to be
47:39.751 --> 47:42.533
in, but there can be a lot of experiences
47:42.553 --> 47:44.314
as an athlete that it's not that fun, but
47:44.714 --> 47:46.596
for the long-term goal of I'm trying to be
47:46.636 --> 47:50.319
this person, it's important that you go through
47:50.339 --> 47:50.539
those.
47:54.195 --> 47:58.336
What challenges did you go through on the
47:58.376 --> 48:00.157
path to committing to a college?
48:00.477 --> 48:02.018
As an athlete? Yeah. I went through a lot.
48:02.198 --> 48:03.878
I mean, on the mental side, this is probably
48:03.898 --> 48:06.319
why I got into sports psychology. Sports
48:06.339 --> 48:09.400
psychology is because I held myself to such
48:09.440 --> 48:11.201
a high expectation all the time where it
48:11.541 --> 48:16.182
really broke me. Yeah. It broke me. I look
48:16.222 --> 48:19.602
at sport as, even though it's sport, Um,
48:20.403 --> 48:22.968
there's like trauma involved in sport, like
48:22.988 --> 48:25.012
whether people want to, like, for example,
48:25.432 --> 48:29.139
if, uh, uh, for me, it was as a very young
48:29.159 --> 48:31.063
age, had a lot of success in an event called
48:31.083 --> 48:34.767
the mile. And not like the mile run. No,
48:34.807 --> 48:37.949
milestone was my best event at 14 years old.
48:38.389 --> 48:41.831
I won state. I got crazy. Top five at the
48:41.911 --> 48:44.372
regional competitions was ranked top 20 in
48:44.392 --> 48:47.954
the country for sure. Right. At 15, I was
48:47.994 --> 48:51.136
still, I was still good. One state regional.
48:51.156 --> 48:53.077
Pretty good. Wasn't top 20 in the country.
48:53.097 --> 48:56.198
It was slipping away. And I'm looking online,
48:56.298 --> 48:58.019
looking at results like, well, I'm not in
48:58.059 --> 48:59.400
the top 20 anymore. I need to do more.
48:59.974 --> 49:04.077
challenging as an athlete to see other people
49:04.137 --> 49:07.600
that are catching up. And how do you, how
49:07.620 --> 49:09.241
do you judge it? Is it like, am I getting
49:09.381 --> 49:12.143
worse? Are people catching up to me? What
49:12.183 --> 49:14.705
was, what was running through your head at
49:14.765 --> 49:19.089
that time when you're like watching that
49:19.149 --> 49:21.431
top 20 list and you're just like not on there
49:21.471 --> 49:21.791
anymore?
49:22.102 --> 49:23.585
I think it's something that kids do all the
49:23.625 --> 49:26.590
time, but it's like you constantly second
49:26.630 --> 49:28.874
guess your ability. Yeah. I'm thinking about
49:28.914 --> 49:31.899
how am I good at this? You say very irrational
49:31.919 --> 49:34.283
things. And as a sports psychologist, you're
49:34.303 --> 49:38.153
trying to recognize that there's these irrational
49:38.173 --> 49:39.954
thoughts or threats that come into our brain
49:40.014 --> 49:43.237
naturally and really dial into what is rational,
49:43.417 --> 49:45.779
what can, what is actually helpful for me
49:45.819 --> 49:48.942
right now. And I was unable to do that because
49:49.002 --> 49:51.064
I let these irrational thoughts of, I'm not
49:51.084 --> 49:52.365
good anymore, I'll never be good anymore,
49:52.985 --> 49:56.889
actually become reality and just exploded.
49:57.069 --> 49:58.770
You know, that's kind of what it felt like.
49:58.890 --> 50:00.192
And then you started working with a sports
50:00.212 --> 50:01.152
psychologist after that.
50:01.172 --> 50:04.495
Did it pay off? It definitely did. I was,
50:04.515 --> 50:07.597
uh, it took me two years to be able to send
50:07.637 --> 50:09.718
my best event. Okay. Like I didn't finish
50:09.758 --> 50:11.539
it for two years. Yeah. So I'm at every meet,
50:11.899 --> 50:13.600
never was able to finish it. Jeez. I couldn't
50:13.620 --> 50:16.102
put myself in a position to feel the failure
50:16.122 --> 50:17.822
of that's not good enough.
50:19.023 --> 50:21.524
But you eventually, yeah, it sounds like
50:21.544 --> 50:23.526
you overcame it. Do you go on to go swim
50:23.546 --> 50:24.146
at college?
50:24.676 --> 50:30.319
Yeah. Like it's, it's hard to like, I did
50:30.379 --> 50:32.220
other events for sure. Right. And I was good
50:32.260 --> 50:34.601
at other things, but my best event was the
50:34.621 --> 50:36.782
mile, but I couldn't mentally put myself
50:36.802 --> 50:39.563
in position to go out there and do it. At
50:39.583 --> 50:42.364
least with like my, like be able to mentally
50:42.404 --> 50:44.385
and physically able to do it. I could physically
50:44.405 --> 50:46.546
do it, but mentally I just couldn't do it.
50:46.946 --> 50:48.867
I couldn't put myself in that position. Took
50:48.907 --> 50:50.289
me two years eventually I was able to do
50:50.329 --> 50:51.990
it and it felt great to be able to do it
50:52.010 --> 50:55.654
again. And honestly I never was able to conquer
50:55.714 --> 50:58.396
it because there's always the voice in my
50:58.436 --> 51:01.899
head that I'm not good enough, never be good,
51:02.200 --> 51:02.480
whatever.
51:04.073 --> 51:05.613
Did you, do you remember the day you were
51:05.633 --> 51:06.273
being scouted?
51:07.094 --> 51:09.414
Yeah, yeah, in college, yeah. What was that
51:09.454 --> 51:12.355
like? Well, for me it was much different
51:12.375 --> 51:14.575
than the kids have it now. When I was in
51:14.615 --> 51:16.135
college, when I was in high school, it was
51:16.416 --> 51:18.556
normal. Like, you went on recruiting trips
51:19.436 --> 51:20.856
your senior year, at the beginning of your
51:20.876 --> 51:22.377
senior year, and then you come in and do
51:22.397 --> 51:24.257
a school. No one was committing like they
51:24.277 --> 51:28.418
did now. They made these rules, I think in
51:07.094 --> 51:30.838
2018, around that time. Okay. Where kids
51:30.858 --> 51:32.879
now can get recruited a year and a half prior.
51:33.379 --> 51:35.501
Before it was like, it was totally different.
51:36.422 --> 51:38.884
So it was normal stuff. Having phone calls,
51:39.004 --> 51:39.484
emails.
51:39.604 --> 51:39.824
Sure.
51:40.005 --> 51:40.465
It was cool.
51:40.805 --> 51:42.226
And they're just looking at your past race
51:42.266 --> 51:43.848
times and stuff like that. They're not like
51:44.348 --> 51:47.210
at a swim meet staring you down necessarily.
51:47.491 --> 51:48.371
There was a little bit.
51:48.391 --> 51:50.933
They would come to meets. Yeah. Um, like
51:51.174 --> 51:52.955
college, college coaches would come to meets.
51:53.956 --> 51:56.558
Um, and then like, you know, there's the
51:56.878 --> 51:59.100
communication process of like, oh, we'll
51:59.160 --> 52:01.782
follow up and we'll watch your results throughout
52:01.822 --> 52:04.404
the year. But I took through three recruiting
52:04.424 --> 52:07.006
trips and then I ended up picking Yoby Green
52:07.046 --> 52:07.307
Bay.
52:07.587 --> 52:10.549
What about the transition from like high
52:10.609 --> 52:13.711
schools ending, right? And then there's probably
52:13.731 --> 52:18.355
a huge gap and then I have a new team. What's
52:18.415 --> 52:21.978
it like leaving your team? Not leaving, but
52:22.018 --> 52:26.383
I guess The team's like gone, right? And
52:26.423 --> 52:28.843
then I, now I'm on a new one with some other
52:28.883 --> 52:30.224
new people, but some people have been here
52:30.264 --> 52:31.064
for three years.
52:31.284 --> 52:35.465
Yeah. New coaches, new teammates, a new environment.
52:36.085 --> 52:37.966
Expectations are different. Everything's
52:38.006 --> 52:39.906
different, you know, and me personally, as
52:39.926 --> 52:42.647
an athlete, I struggled tremendously with
52:42.667 --> 52:42.827
that.
52:43.227 --> 52:45.189
Going to then leaving your old one behind
52:45.249 --> 52:46.510
or going to the new one going to the new
52:46.570 --> 52:46.650
one.
52:46.890 --> 52:49.372
Yes going in the new one I struggled a lot
52:49.792 --> 52:52.754
and I was I thought I was prepared but I
52:52.814 --> 52:55.716
wasn't really prepared like Emotionally,
52:55.736 --> 52:58.638
okay as a person was it what was it?
52:58.678 --> 53:01.701
Was it just joining a nude? click group of
53:01.761 --> 53:04.322
people or the demands of
53:05.163 --> 53:09.588
I would say in the water I was great. In
53:09.628 --> 53:12.752
practice I was great. And I was training
53:12.872 --> 53:16.577
at a very high level at Green Bay. And I
53:17.438 --> 53:20.061
loved the environment where I'm a freshman,
53:20.581 --> 53:22.604
there's people that are better than me, I'm
53:23.004 --> 53:26.067
striving to be better. Because you have people
53:26.127 --> 53:28.769
that are juniors, seniors. We had an international
53:28.789 --> 53:31.770
kid from Germany that was an Olympian, and
53:31.990 --> 53:38.373
he was super good. I didn't have 100% scholarship,
53:38.393 --> 53:40.954
and I knew that if I increased my performance,
53:41.014 --> 53:44.096
I could increase my scholarship. So I loved
53:44.116 --> 53:48.077
that aspect of it. But the demand of student
53:48.177 --> 53:52.379
athlete really means who you are outside
53:52.760 --> 53:55.602
of the pool. which I struggle with, you know,
53:55.622 --> 53:58.004
there's new things. Yeah. There's the lifestyle
53:58.044 --> 54:01.206
of a college, you know, student athlete where
54:01.226 --> 54:03.088
you have to make decisions that are in line
54:03.548 --> 54:05.670
with being a division one student athlete,
54:05.990 --> 54:07.692
which at that time at 18 years old, I was
54:07.852 --> 54:10.934
not emotionally ready for. So it was, there
54:10.954 --> 54:13.897
was like a lot of like learning to be done.
54:14.757 --> 54:17.259
And, um, The athletes that I'm coaching is
54:17.299 --> 54:19.441
like, that's something that I'm trying to
54:19.501 --> 54:21.903
coach them. It's like emotionally as an athlete,
54:22.343 --> 54:23.964
you have to make decisions. Do you think
54:24.004 --> 54:25.986
you can actually prepare someone for that?
54:26.326 --> 54:31.990
No. Well, yes. Yes, for sure. You can. you
54:32.030 --> 54:33.951
can put that in their brain that this is
54:34.011 --> 54:36.973
coming. But unfortunately, as a coach and
54:37.033 --> 54:40.275
as a parent, sometimes you gotta actually
54:40.356 --> 54:43.438
do it and sometimes they fail and learn and
54:43.958 --> 54:49.081
whatever. But I think that there can be some
54:49.161 --> 54:52.384
coaching done where you're providing experience,
54:53.064 --> 54:55.806
you're trying to provide tools. Whether they
54:55.846 --> 54:59.008
accept it or not, it's at least worth it
54:59.548 --> 55:00.289
to talk about it.
55:00.549 --> 55:06.530
Yeah, man. Any other challenges that you
55:06.590 --> 55:11.111
see athletes of these ages run into in competition?
55:11.151 --> 55:13.512
I mean, there's just so much pressure.
55:13.892 --> 55:16.053
There's the pressure side of thing. There's
55:16.073 --> 55:17.753
the expectation side of thing that's either
55:18.013 --> 55:19.814
from them internally or externally from their
55:19.854 --> 55:21.274
parents. So there's that.
55:21.994 --> 55:24.216
Or pressure from coaches that aren't the
55:24.236 --> 55:25.097
best coaches too.
55:25.217 --> 55:27.979
Yep. There's a lot of, I mean, there's social
55:28.019 --> 55:31.141
comparison, whether it's within a team or
55:31.201 --> 55:32.943
throughout the state or throughout the country.
55:33.003 --> 55:35.585
Like these kids are getting ranked, you know,
55:36.105 --> 55:39.307
there's top 20 recruits, top 10 recruits,
55:39.328 --> 55:42.050
top 100 recruits, there's top 500 recruits.
55:42.110 --> 55:44.191
There's specific times that they have to
55:44.231 --> 55:46.253
try and hit to be able to move on to a collegiate
55:46.273 --> 55:49.055
program. So there's, there's that dynamic.
55:50.396 --> 55:53.517
There's the, the dynamic of like, there's
55:53.597 --> 55:58.479
talent and, um, at some point your talent,
55:59.359 --> 56:01.240
you know, it's, it's, it's a hundred percent
56:01.280 --> 56:03.781
of thing. It can be frustrating to watch
56:03.861 --> 56:07.702
kids or you as a athlete work hard, work
56:07.722 --> 56:09.522
hard, work hard. And there's just kids that
56:09.562 --> 56:12.483
are naturally more talented that end up being
56:12.543 --> 56:15.544
better. And it, it's like that, that game
56:15.584 --> 56:18.266
that you're trying to play, that it, You're
56:18.286 --> 56:19.807
trying to focus on yourself, but there's
56:19.847 --> 56:22.109
all this stuff that's around you. And it
56:22.669 --> 56:24.470
can be hard. There's the social side of things
56:24.490 --> 56:26.252
where kids get to high school and they're
55:25.217 --> 56:27.893
15, 16, and they're like, you know what?
56:29.054 --> 56:30.995
I'm driving myself to practice. I don't want
56:31.015 --> 56:32.977
to go anymore. Oh, yeah. You know, and my
56:33.017 --> 56:35.279
mom used to drive me to practice. Now I'm
56:35.319 --> 56:38.001
in control. I drive myself to practice. And
56:38.121 --> 56:40.683
kids quit and, or they decide, you know what?
56:41.503 --> 56:43.184
I'm not fully committed to this anymore.
56:43.244 --> 56:44.666
I'm going to just compete with my high school
56:44.706 --> 56:46.407
team. I'm good with that.
56:46.767 --> 56:49.909
I mean, part of it, I think is, you know,
56:51.010 --> 56:52.491
when you start something like this, there's
56:52.531 --> 56:54.973
like a, there's usually a why behind it.
56:55.053 --> 56:56.874
Like, why do you want to start swimming?
56:56.954 --> 56:58.875
Why do you swim? Why do you keep swimming?
56:59.315 --> 57:01.297
But at some point in time you run out of.
57:02.037 --> 57:04.199
Why? Yeah. Especially when you get into the
57:04.259 --> 57:05.860
level of training that you need to do as
57:05.900 --> 57:08.462
a high school athlete to go on to be a college
57:08.502 --> 57:11.123
prospect, like there is no, why strong enough
57:11.444 --> 57:13.685
to get someone to swim for 20 hours a week
57:14.205 --> 57:15.526
straight train for three.
57:16.607 --> 57:16.887
Yeah.
57:18.048 --> 57:19.809
And do all of that, right? Where you need
57:19.869 --> 57:23.672
to go from like a why based training to just,
57:24.072 --> 57:24.753
it's your identity.
57:25.053 --> 57:25.173
Yeah.
57:25.193 --> 57:26.874
Like, why do you do it? It's because it's
57:26.894 --> 57:27.434
who I am.
57:27.534 --> 57:29.876
Yeah. And that, that's a, you know, that's
57:29.916 --> 57:31.957
another layer of things that can be really
57:32.017 --> 57:33.599
challenging because if things aren't going
57:33.639 --> 57:35.780
well and this is your only identity, it becomes
57:35.900 --> 57:37.041
like, you know.
57:37.381 --> 57:39.763
Well, it depends how you frame the identity,
57:39.823 --> 57:44.386
right? Like, Hey, I can be like, I, I do
57:44.426 --> 57:47.508
this because I am a swimmer versus I do this
57:47.568 --> 57:49.890
because I am the best swimmer. Like if you,
57:49.970 --> 57:52.112
if you put the best swimmer in front of that
57:52.152 --> 57:55.034
identity and there's one race that you weren't
57:55.074 --> 57:56.715
the best shattered.
57:56.915 --> 57:59.637
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Identity is based on whether
57:59.697 --> 58:03.520
I get the results or not. Yeah. It's a challenging,
58:04.140 --> 58:07.041
you know, like thing to navigate as a, as
58:07.061 --> 58:09.722
an athlete and as coach and a parent, you
58:09.742 --> 58:12.383
know, watching your, your kids struggle through
58:12.963 --> 58:14.784
tough times where it's not going well. It's,
58:15.644 --> 58:18.165
it's a, it's a very fun age though to coach
58:19.065 --> 58:21.386
person. Like I'm, I'm biased because I coached
58:21.446 --> 58:24.887
this level. Um, because I, I think that you
58:24.928 --> 58:28.769
can really, um, develop relationships with
58:28.829 --> 58:33.130
kids that are very long-term. Yes, on Thanksgiving
58:33.630 --> 58:36.491
we had practice. We had 74 kids there.
58:36.771 --> 58:38.271
Wait, hang on one second. Did this turn off
58:38.291 --> 58:41.132
for you? Okay, you're gonna have to cut that
58:41.172 --> 58:42.312
out. All right, so Thanksgiving.
58:42.552 --> 58:44.952
Yeah, Thanksgiving we had 74 kids at practice
58:45.773 --> 58:49.253
on Thanksgiving. What time? 8.30 to 10.30.
58:49.333 --> 58:50.614
Okay, reasonable.
58:51.174 --> 58:52.614
30 of those were college athletes. That's
58:52.674 --> 58:55.274
awesome. They're coming back because there
58:55.294 --> 58:57.635
was a relationship with the program. Yeah.
58:58.655 --> 58:59.856
They want to see their coach, their team.
58:59.916 --> 59:03.017
Yeah. And I, I constantly am trying to keep
59:03.117 --> 59:05.178
up with college, the kids that I've coached
59:05.198 --> 59:08.680
that went on to college. And there's, there's
59:08.720 --> 59:11.821
a very, you know, at this age, you can really
59:11.881 --> 59:14.543
develop those relationships with a kid that
59:14.563 --> 59:16.444
are, that are like really lifelong. Yeah.
59:16.604 --> 59:18.565
You know, like I've sent a lot of kids to
59:18.585 --> 59:20.886
college programs. Some of them have graduated
59:21.446 --> 59:23.648
and I'm still keeping up with them and it's
59:23.708 --> 59:26.069
cool. And there's that relationship side
59:26.089 --> 59:29.452
of things that I valued so much. Um, and
59:29.472 --> 59:30.993
if you can develop a relationship with a
59:31.033 --> 59:33.794
kid at this level, when you develop a kid
59:33.835 --> 59:36.256
with a relationship, you develop a relationship
59:36.296 --> 59:38.818
with a kid, you build this trust, right?
59:38.938 --> 59:43.781
And it can get you enormous amount of result
59:44.241 --> 59:46.283
and performance out of them. But also when
59:46.303 --> 59:48.224
you go through really hard times, it's like
59:48.244 --> 59:51.026
there's that trust factor. You know, is they
59:51.066 --> 59:53.749
remember that when you go to a college program,
59:53.809 --> 59:56.591
especially power five, you know, you can,
59:56.891 --> 59:58.413
as a coach, like you're still trying to build
59:58.433 --> 01:00:00.214
a relationship, but like coaches come and
01:00:00.254 --> 01:00:03.938
go and athletes are looked at as more as
01:00:04.058 --> 01:00:07.100
a number and result. Yeah. And so I'm in
01:00:07.120 --> 01:00:09.583
this special position where it's like, it's
01:00:09.603 --> 01:00:12.345
really cool for me to see athletes grow and
58:59.916 --> 01:00:13.886
15 to 18 is yeah.
01:00:13.906 --> 01:00:18.010
What's your, uh, Before we wrap up. What's
01:00:18.030 --> 01:00:20.771
your number one tip for athletes that age?
01:00:21.832 --> 01:00:25.394
This can be a you this can be a Whatever
01:00:25.454 --> 01:00:26.795
kids watch these days. I'm gonna make this
01:00:26.835 --> 01:00:28.476
a snapchat. Yeah, I'm just kidding. This
01:00:28.496 --> 01:00:30.477
is gonna be Instagram real What's your number
01:00:30.577 --> 01:00:33.739
one tip for athletes high school aged athletes?
01:00:35.791 --> 01:00:38.012
My number one tip to high school athletes,
01:00:38.892 --> 01:00:41.374
especially athletes that are trying to move
01:00:41.494 --> 01:00:44.295
on to the next level or striving for a high
01:00:44.335 --> 01:00:49.097
performing goal, is you have to keep in mind
01:00:49.177 --> 01:00:53.959
that this is going to get hard. It's going
01:00:53.979 --> 01:00:56.241
to be tough. There's going to be times where
01:00:57.541 --> 01:00:59.722
there's going to be some big failures. There's
01:00:59.742 --> 01:01:01.923
probably going to be more failures than there
01:01:01.963 --> 01:01:04.204
is going to be wins. But the reason why you
01:01:04.244 --> 01:01:07.065
do this is because you go through these failures,
01:01:07.145 --> 01:01:08.926
go through these failures, become this person,
01:01:08.946 --> 01:01:12.428
you adapt to these things, and you eventually
01:01:12.648 --> 01:01:15.729
come up with a win. And if you can just hang
01:01:15.769 --> 01:01:18.250
through those tough times, and you can learn,
01:01:18.290 --> 01:01:20.871
you can be a better person, you are going
01:01:20.891 --> 01:01:23.973
to be long term such a better person athlete
01:01:25.134 --> 01:01:27.936
because of that. And if you can recognize
01:01:27.996 --> 01:01:32.579
that that's 100% going to be a thing, I think
01:01:32.659 --> 01:01:36.341
it makes it more manageable versus, you know,
01:01:37.742 --> 01:01:39.023
being the person that's like, I don't want
01:01:39.043 --> 01:01:39.303
to fail.
01:01:39.323 --> 01:01:39.883
I don't want to fail.
01:01:39.923 --> 01:01:42.525
And then in the end you're, yeah, you know,
01:01:42.545 --> 01:01:45.287
you don't learn anything. So it's, I think
01:01:45.327 --> 01:01:47.948
if you can be the person that is striving
01:01:48.048 --> 01:01:51.611
for, you know, I want to have perfectionism.
01:01:51.671 --> 01:01:53.872
I want to have good results, but I know that
01:01:53.992 --> 01:01:55.473
the path to be able to get to where I want
01:01:55.513 --> 01:01:57.474
to go is going to have these ups and downs,
01:01:57.534 --> 01:01:59.075
ups and downs and down, down, down, down,
01:01:59.095 --> 01:02:01.337
down. And I keep going through it. If you
01:02:01.377 --> 01:02:03.558
can adapt to that, learn through that, you'll
01:02:03.578 --> 01:02:05.019
be a better person than an athlete. That
01:02:05.039 --> 01:02:08.044
would be my number one. Awesome. My last
01:02:08.104 --> 01:02:08.425
question.
01:02:08.966 --> 01:02:10.931
Do you ever get in the pool and show these
01:02:10.991 --> 01:02:12.875
young guns how it's done? Dude, these kids
01:02:12.915 --> 01:02:13.376
are better than me.
01:02:17.922 --> 01:02:19.563
I've seen some of these kids do stuff like,
01:02:20.363 --> 01:02:22.644
yeah, that's way better than I ever was.
01:02:24.005 --> 01:02:25.905
That's because they have a great coach. Sure.
01:02:26.125 --> 01:02:29.747
Or it's kids, the sport is something that's
01:02:29.767 --> 01:02:31.468
getting, and not any sport, right? Yeah.
01:02:31.708 --> 01:02:34.369
Kids are getting better. The training's getting
01:02:34.389 --> 01:02:35.709
better. The coaching's getting better. Kids
01:02:35.769 --> 01:02:37.950
are just, they're better. And I'm watching
01:02:37.970 --> 01:02:40.551
these kids do stuff that I'm like, I can't
01:02:40.571 --> 01:02:42.493
do that. I, I mean, I was still swimming.
01:02:42.574 --> 01:02:43.494
I can coach that though.
01:02:43.595 --> 01:02:46.017
Yeah, I can coach that. But I am a, I'm a
01:02:46.037 --> 01:02:47.759
better coach than I was an athlete. It was
01:02:47.779 --> 01:02:48.380
a good summer.
01:02:48.560 --> 01:02:48.740
Yeah.
01:02:48.980 --> 01:02:51.843
But my, I was inhibited with my mental game
01:02:51.883 --> 01:02:55.827
and yeah, I see kids that, man, some of these.
01:02:55.847 --> 01:02:57.549
Well, man, and if you weren't inhibited by
01:02:57.569 --> 01:02:58.830
your mental game, you probably wouldn't be
01:02:58.850 --> 01:03:00.252
on the path that you're on today.
01:03:00.646 --> 01:03:03.387
Yes, and in the moment, though, as an athlete,
01:03:03.427 --> 01:03:05.268
and this is a learning experience that I
01:03:05.288 --> 01:03:06.789
always tell kids, it's like, in that moment,
01:03:06.889 --> 01:03:09.310
I was, I didn't know that that was a teaching
01:03:09.350 --> 01:03:11.391
point for where I am now. You know, and it's
01:03:11.431 --> 01:03:13.492
like, I look back and now, I'm like, yeah,
01:03:13.532 --> 01:03:14.773
that was great that I went through that,
01:03:15.053 --> 01:03:16.774
because now I can provide the perspective.
01:03:16.914 --> 01:03:19.515
I sucked at wrestling in competition. I was
01:03:19.575 --> 01:03:22.296
great in the practice room, terrible in competition,
01:03:22.897 --> 01:03:26.038
and now I still grapple multiple times a
01:03:26.058 --> 01:03:27.099
week, and I own a grappling gym.
01:03:27.119 --> 01:03:31.881
Yeah. It sounded like you were very process
01:03:31.901 --> 01:03:34.882
oriented though. You loved the process. And
01:03:34.982 --> 01:03:39.244
I similarly loved the process, but sometimes
01:03:39.284 --> 01:03:41.665
that result got in the way of the process.
01:03:41.805 --> 01:03:45.047
Oh man, great episode. Anything else to add
01:03:45.147 --> 01:03:45.867
before we wrap up?
01:03:46.198 --> 01:03:47.059
No, I think that's it.
01:03:47.339 --> 01:03:50.282
Um, if considering like this is your wheelhouse,
01:03:50.743 --> 01:03:54.547
if, um, athletes are looking to work with
01:03:54.587 --> 01:03:57.811
you, um, under your sports psychology umbrella,
01:03:58.331 --> 01:04:01.114
I know you work with athletes of any sport,
01:04:01.635 --> 01:04:03.016
but typically in this age group, how can
01:04:03.036 --> 01:04:03.557
they get ahold of you?
01:04:04.978 --> 01:04:07.499
I work for a LLC called Championship Mind.
01:04:08.560 --> 01:04:10.381
We're a consultation business. We work with
01:04:10.401 --> 01:04:12.782
teams, direct consultation with athletes
01:04:12.822 --> 01:04:14.643
on an individual basis, but you can email
01:04:14.663 --> 01:04:16.785
me at Chandler at ChampionshipMindset.com.
01:04:17.065 --> 01:04:19.006
Cool. And I'll put that in the show notes
01:04:19.046 --> 01:04:21.988
as well. If you can, leave us a review, like,
01:04:22.048 --> 01:04:23.869
share with your friends. Appreciate you.
01:04:24.209 --> 01:04:26.490
And thank you for this awesome mini-series
01:04:26.510 --> 01:04:28.411
we did on all of these different age groups
01:04:28.451 --> 01:04:29.352
and approaching competition.
01:04:29.592 --> 01:04:30.372
Yeah. Cool.
01:04:30.893 --> 01:04:31.173
Thank you.