התמלול המלא של #147 - Jake Dyson - Using Creativity to Make Better Athletes

basing off your Instagram, I would have never thought you would be a chiropractor. So how yeah, how did you Jake: Yeah. Yep, I don't aver go. Brett Hart: make that mental shift going from working with people that are in pain, you're just cracking their backs a little bit, to now actually diving fully into athletic performance. Jake: Yeah, so chiropractic school is kind of a trip. You really you really dive into it's basically med school for a while and then it just completely shifts into like philosophy and clinicals and stuff like that. So I was really into it for about a year and a half, two years, minus the philosophy classes that we had to take in those first two years, and then towards the end, probably the last year, I was like, This is not for me. But I spent all this money, I spent all this time. I'm gonna see it through. My deal with myself was is I'm not gonna study for any tests, any boards. If I flunk out of any of it, I'm just done and I'll go do something else. That never happened, finished it out, well, honestly, and then went, yeah, started working in a clinic because that's what I thought I was supposed to do. so Honestly, COVID was the one of the biggest blessings for me. because it it didn't affect us financially because my wife works in a hospital, so she was safe with her job, job security, stuff like that. I was like, I'm just gonna dive into something else. So I really dove into mobility because I thought, you know, that was kind of close enough to chiropractic, that I didn't have to completely start over. And then it kind of just transitioned. So I went from chiropractic to functional mobility to like strength and mobility to strength training to sports performance. So it's just it just naturally shifted over a couple years. So I didn't ever have to start over. I could kind of just build it build upon itself as I went. And I I I love sports through and through. Everything about them, everything they do for people. And then the chiropractic side I really just am interested in why the human body is the way it is, what it actually needs and stuff like that. So I can get off the deep end on some of the topics, drink the Kool-Aid of some of this really funky stuff, but I really I just got really good at taking bits and pieces from it rather than going full guru into anything. and it yeah, it's turned out really well. The product I put together is it it it proves itself with the athletes that I work with. it proves itself with me and then kind of what I'll be transitioning to over the next little bit is my oldest son is five. so I'm really gonna start getting into long like the like true long term development from when you can actually start doing things. And then obviously that's that's gonna be the the project, the mission until until they don't want me to coach anymore. Brett Hart: I see your stuff and I know you were on Austin Yoakum's podcast and I see a lot of overlap between the two just from the creativity and the expression side. And when I Jake: Mm-hmm. Brett Hart: was starting off, I stole a ton of stuff from Austin personally. And then now Jake: Mm-hmm. Brett Hart: seeing you post, steal a ton of stuff from you. Who are some people Jake: Yeah. Brett Hart: that you've stolen from? You drank the Kool-Aid on some of their methodologies in the sports performance world that now you've started to blend your own approach and philosophy. to what you're doing now and what you plan to do going forward. Jake: Yeah, so I I was really lucky to find Yoakum and then Jeremy Frisch really early into my transition into this. So I that was always in the back of my mind. But first starting out when I first started out, I was like, I'm just gonna do the basic stuff. minus have you heard of landmine university, Alex Canellis? So he he trains. It's like five minutes from my house. So I actually went and worked out with him for a while, got into that, and I really like and I really liked it, especially for baseball players, the rotation of it. So I really liked his stuff and his approach to training younger athletes because he works with mainly middle school and I guess now they're in high school and college and stuff like that. So I really I really liked his stuff. and he's a friend, so that was nice 'cause there's there's really not a lot of people locally that I can connect with or chat with. So that's been a blessing of Instagram blowing up is now I feel kind of more worthy of talking to some of these people. but yeah, Yoakum Frisch for like the gamifying stuff. I really like Tyler Franklin, T Franklin Performance, your stuff, School of Strength, And then for the more like formal side of training, I really pull for and I'm not even gonna attempt to say her last name, but AK, LSU volleyball strength and conditioning coach, I really like her stuff. and then, you know, just just the classics, the the Will Rattels, the Tim Riley, the Blame McConnell's for like the actual like application of strength and power and stuff like that. But Gamify, I try to I tried to carve out my own stuff. based off of what other people do. but I'd also never want to get really weird or guruy, which is kind of why if you do follow me, you're seeing a lot of stuff recycled just in different ways. 'cause I'm not just gonna make stuff up just to make stuff up. but yeah, just kind of carving my own path of of blend of all those people and and many, many more. I like there's a lot of European basketball, handball stuff. Honestly, Asian elementary PE, I pull a lot from. I think that stuff is fascinating and the PE in America is is dog water. So just anything, anything. I'm a doom scroller. luckily my algorithm has finally fed me what I want to see that on top of like TV show clips. And then yeah, so what I try to do is I don't I don't really save anything. I scroll it. And then I try to remember it in my head how they did it. And then I tried to just apply it and just kinda see what happens. So it's

never really like copy paste unless I see something like I really, really wanna do. and that way I can kinda ensure that I'm putting a unique spin on things when I do apply it with my athletes. Brett Hart: It sounds like we have very similar algorithms, which I thought was pretty funny. And I have Jake: Yeah. Brett Hart: a quick story about Jeremy Frisch, because I did meet him and got to go see his facility, which if Jake: Uh-huh. Brett Hart: you don't know where his facility is, you're just gonna be walking around this abandoned middle school. It it's a really it's a really niche spot where he is. You have to go down a couple of stairs and just find out where he is. And Jake: Yeah. Brett Hart: I went through my internship and one of my other buddies who was interning with me, and it took us like twenty minutes to find it. But I got to see him for two days, just talk with him. And he led me, he left me with like with one of my favorite quotes that I've been keeping in my mind for the last five years was that the only rule of this is that there are no rules. You just plug Jake: Mm-hmm. Brett Hart: and play and try to figure out what it is that you want to do. And if you have Jake: Yeah. Brett Hart: your why and your explanation as to why you're doing these things, then that's really all you need. There's no rules that you have to follow or set structure. And I thought him giving me that advice at twenty-one years old. I thought that was huge. And so you saying him having you having him be one of your like people you take from, I thought that was awesome because he does phenomenal work and I feel like he is still underrated in this sports performance youth development world. Jake: hundred percent. He's he's gotta be the first first to do it this way and that I he's still so underseen. The fact that more people follow me and not him just blows my mind because he yeah, he's he's the go to this honestly. Brett Hart: Social media is weird, man. And I do Jake: It really is. Brett Hart: I do like what you said about not just straight copy and pasting and still making it your own. And I think that comes from your level of creativity. And I wanted to ask you, how did you expand upon that? How are you able to become creative and not just rely on, all right, I saw this. I because the analytical side of my brain sometimes, I see how you post and I go, all right, how far away is that? Do I have to set it up exactly like Jake: Yeah. Brett Hart: this? How do I make this drill? Perfect, the how he posted on his Instagram. The how do you just Jake: Yeah. Brett Hart: see something and be like, All right, we're gonna try it and do it our way and figure it out as we go. Jake: Yeah. So what happened was is I I just I just post stuff and I had one video blow up and it was just kind of a random video. It was just kids chasing each other on like a half circle. I'm I'm sure you've seen it. It's been seen lots of times. I've reposted it lots of times. And it was popular and I really liked it. And it was really good with the athletes and it was really well received. And then for a while I just built drills based off of that. So we just we changed the direction of the cones, we changed some distances, we changed maybe instead of like just tracing straight back here, you hit a little spin or something like that. So I take something for that one, I just took something that was really popular that that was really well received. both athletes by me, it was fun to watch. social media liked it, which isn't necessarily all that important, but at at that time it was. for me. And then I just built, I think I built 60 drills just based off of that. So originally it was just all building off of off of that one drill or those a couple drills that I did. And then creativity wise, it's like what do I want? It's just what do I want to get done for that day? so for a long time it was all these sprint drills, acceleration, change of direction, stuff like that. and we still do all that stuff. But then it was to keep it fresh for the kids, I'm always just trying to do something different. So then we get into a bunch of stuff with balloons. And you just I take one thing and then I just build upon that. And then I take maybe a childhood game that I used to play, and then I just build upon that. And then so it's really just it's never completely from scratch. Like I'm never sitting down and just racking my brain of like what can we do next? It's like, what did I do that worked that could have a slightly different spin on it? Like I think it was like last week I posted a tower defense game with a Swiss ball that I that I saw randomly when I was scrolling. We did it. And then somebody commented, that's not a warm-up. Half or all the kids minus that one aren't moving. Okay. Let's ha let's figure out a way to make them move. And it's really just that on top of it, just over and over and over again. and then once you do it enough times, it it gets pretty easy to Think of something different. Or you just go back to what works. So because the kids are gonna do it differently each time. I don't really write anything down like direction wise. So I'm gonna set it up different a little bit different each time. but I I get asked all the time the distances and like what cut do you want to hit and like do they need to touch the cone or does the the foot just need to be near the cone and all that stuff? I don't I don't care or coach any of that. I set up the constraint and I just let them roll with it. and all you ever see is the final products at stuff. I've set up drills and they've gone, they've just been a disaster. So it's like, and I talk to the athletes, I'm like, okay, what didn't feel right? And they'll be Well, I think that turn was too sharp. Okay, so we widen it out. It's just I really work cooperative cooperatively with them as well. because if it feels really funky and stupid and it's something that shouldn't. i it's it's the drills

messed up. So we have to we just reiterate it, reiterate it, reiterate it. It takes a couple minutes, couple reps, and then eventually you end up with the drills you see on my Instagram page. Brett Hart: So do you break up the week depending on what you said you what action you want done? So like Monday, we're gonna do some type of acceleration based session. We don't know what we're gonna do, but the primary focus is acceleration. And then Tuesday, change of direction. We don't know what we're gonna do, but that's the primary focus. Or is it that 15, 20 minute block when you start off? You're like, all right, let's try this out today and then go hit our lift. How much of it is just off the dome where you just figured out on the fly and how much is it actually structured and planned. Jake: right now we're we're I'm doing a lot of the the more creative warmups. just because it's football season, I'm not really making them do a ton of that stuff with me because I I guess I don't know if they are, but they should be doing enough of that in practice that that we we don't need a hammer at home right now. So the way I've been going is we do like like an upper focus day or a lower focus day, just really simple stuff. So that's that's what I'll kind of create the warmup around. upper days are, you know, we're gonna do a lot of bare crab positions. We're just gonna try to get a little creative off of that. some hand-eye coronation stuff, lower body days, we're gonna do some like single leg, you know, pull the flag from a partner or single leg bump into each other trying to get the other person to put their foot down. So it's it's structured in a way that it should be warming up the part of the body that we're gonna primarily be focusing on that day. when it was the sprint drills and stuff, it wasn't really structured that way. it was more so on leg days we're probably just gonna be doing something more straighter line. And then on the upper body days, that's when we're gonna hit a ton of the change of direction and stuff like that. Brett Hart: And do you do any testing for like specific movements? Because I know in my world with the football guys I work with, they're always going to want to get their five ten five better. And then we've gone back and forth on Instagram saying the five ten five sucks, anyways. There's so many better options. Yeah. Awesome. Jake: I just posted that today. Yeah. Brett Hart: I gotta make sure I go like it and repost it. But the five ten five has such a grab, like the 40, the five ten five, the three cone, it has such a grab on the football guys and their population. And Jake: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Brett Hart: They get lost a little bit where they just care about the number of the drill. Whereas the drill, like you guys have been doing it for like the last five years. You're good at the drill. Like you're not getting anything out of this, but they still want to see the number. So how do you Jake: Yeah. Brett Hart: incorporate things where you can test and get some data a little bit just to show them like, Jake: Yeah. Brett Hart: listen, you are improving and how much of it is just all right, we're not even worried about the times right now. Let's let's just compete. Let's just race. Jake: Yeah. So I I got a lot of trust put in me by the parents of the kids that I work with. So I don't really do, you know, we're not really testing max outs, strength. I I I'm with these kids year round, day after day. So I'm seeing their numbers go up. and the parents really all all they care about is that they're kinda they're getting stronger, they're looking like they're getting stronger, their on-field play is improving. But they also they get their five ten five, their forty, vertical, and a couple other things tested at the school each summer because I don't discourage them from going to their summer programs. In fact, I do encourage it, despite what maybe the school thinks. so they get those numbers at the beginning of summer and then at the end of summer and then at like football camps and stuff like that. So I don't I don't waste our time and it's not a waste, so I shouldn't say that. I don't I don't spend time testing them in that regard because they're getting their numbers elsewhere. So like I n I know their forties, I know their five ten fives, I know their verticals and stuff like that. but I'm not the one measuring them. Brett Hart: Interesting. Yeah. So I just was curious from a private sector lens because like as you know, we we have to show that our stuff works. Like there's nothing saying these kids have to come see you. Like they are coming to see you because they generally want to spend time with you, but to just Jake: Yeah. Brett Hart: show that, all right, these guys started here and they got that here. But it's cool that you have that it's a little unique where you actually have a school that tests the numbers. I don't really have that. Jake: Yeah. Yep. Yeah. And like I said, they get like their more legitimate numbers at their football camps when they go to so and as long as long as they're testing where they need to test, I'm not stressing on it. I also don't have a ton of d so I can't even test their forty. I don't have enough space to do it. but yeah, we'll do it. And I guess we're testing and measuring without completely just like making it all about the data. Like they know where they jumped or where they landed with their triple bra jump like a month ago versus where they don't. Because we always start in the same spot in the gym. and honestly all they really care about is they're beating the person next to them. So yeah. We are, but I'm not writing it down and it's just because I don't have to justify it to the parents. Because the athletes I work with and it's a little bit of a blessing and I never take full credit for it is they they stand out against their peers, both the from other schools and within their school. So as long as and and the gap keeps widening

further and further and further. So it it it's showing what we're doing is working. I I've honestly just never even they've never even asked me. The parents have never not once asked me what a Lyft number was, what a five ten five number was, what their triple broad was, none of it. Brett Hart: It's other strength coaches on Instagram, honestly, that all ask. It's never it's never the parents or it's never really other kids too. Which I thought that was funny. Jake: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Brett Hart: Talk to me a little bit, because I just saw you made a post going back on social media about the three things you've changed your mind on. And I'm actually Jake: Mm-hmm. Yep. Brett Hart: I really want to dive into those three because I feel like the best part of being a coach is to look back a year ago or a couple of years ago and being like, wow, I was kind of an idiot back then. I got it. And like you just change your mind and have a whole different context to like how you speak and like what you think about. So go in on that post a little bit. Jake: Yeah, so I think I posted it yesterday, so hopefully I can remember enough of it. the the premise of it was is I think people get too stuck on their opinions. And this goes all fields, people who aren't even in field like professional fields, but there's new information and new stuff coming out every minute of every day. And to ignore it all and stay stuck where in your mindset I think is ignorance. I and I think in the post I said some things will stand the test of time. I mean with the lifting stuff, I don't think I I think that's where where it is. I don't think a lot of that even needs to change. But the three that I posted, what was the first one? The first one was I used to think the more you practiced your sport, the more athletic you'd be. And that started with because the kids I worked with, they were playing, I think it was they were playing baseball year round. And and I don't know how many baseball players you work with, but that's gotta be the most toxic community when it comes to you have to play all year as much as you can in as many tournaments as you can. So because the baseball players I worked with, you know, division one commits, you know, all-star teams, all these teams, I was like, okay, that must be what you have to do. the more I watch it is playing a lot of baseball just makes you a little bit better at baseball, right? it doesn't make you more athletic, it doesn't make you stronger, it doesn't make you faster, it doesn't make you jump higher, none of it. It just makes you better at baseball. And then to what extent? Like, are you a big kid when you're ten and you're never gonna grow again? So it's no, I just believe now that and Jeremy Frisch was a huge part of it, he's like, you just gotta You gotta run, jump, sprint, throw, roll, do all these things. That's what you need to do for a very, very, very long time. and then you just play your sport really hard and you apply everything

that you've built physically into your sport. and I don't know how much you remember I feel like I can build skills so much quicker and easier than I would have been able to when I was little, but I have a different Like I have a body for it because I played all sports. I I didn't really lift in high school 'cause we didn't have a weightlifting program, but you just need to be good be good at everything and then eventually take the time to be great at something. So I've completely shifted and I'm I I time that up perfectly with my son getting into sports because now it's like he can sign up for year round b baseball right and earth. Yeah, year-round baseball right now. Cause he could have played up on a six a six-year-old team, playing up on a six-year-old team. But so I'm glad I changed my mindset on that. And then what was another one? Another one was free weights versus machines. you you gotta I mean I listen to the Coach up podcast and they talk about that all the time. So I've gotta credit a lot about a lot of that mindset shift to them and the people they talk about. But I always thought free weights, stable just a classic thought. Free weights, stabilizers, they're they're what you have to do. but I didn't realize how much my athleticism had gone down when I shifted because I started off just wanting bigger muscles, just like everybody else. And I got really strong, but I was using a lot of machines. And I didn't realize how much my athleticism went down until I took a years long break from machines and then I went back to using them again and now I'm climbing back up again. It's just you can put so much more intensity into a machine that you when you don't have to worry about getting crushed under a bar than you obviously the traditional back squat. and people some people just aren't built for for For the classic lifts. not to say you can't figure it out and do it. I just think it's a waste of time to like my I played I've played over twenty-five years of basketball. My ankles, my hips, they're so stiff. Like if you watch me do just a bodyweight squat, I just fold. And I'm not gonna take the time to gain that mobility just to squat in a picture perfect form. I'm just gonna like hack squat or bell squat or do something like that instead. so I think machines are just Just underutilized because we have to fit everybody in this box. I think high school, high school football lifting is probably the biggest problem with that. And I think the only reason they don't use machines is because they don't have them. So they convince themselves that the free weights are so much better, but it's just lack of opportunity to use the machines. I think. You know, maybe I'm wrong. what and then what was the third? I don't know if you remember. Brett Hart: I feel like it has to do with conditioning. Jake: I sure Yes, yes, yes, yes. And this was kind of a little bit of a slight at the kids' high school that I work with. They don't believe in conditioning. if somebody from there listens to this, I guess it is what it is. and they're just constantly like they don't believe in I because people don't I think the pendulum is shifting towards don't use conditioning as punishment anymore, which is what I think, but it's shifted so far like Don't use it's always a punishment if you condition, right? So you still need to condition, you still need to exercise, but I don't think either one should be used as a punishment anymore. you know, I'm a little I'm older than you, I'm sure almost by ten years at this point, but we Brett Hart: How old are you? Jake: I'm 33. Okay. Okay. Brett Hart: You're only you're only a couple years older than me. I'm twenty six. I'm about to be twenty seven, so Jake: Okay, all right. But they used to run us into the ground. Like just and that wasn't even that long ago. And I never really thought much of it, honestly. I I didn't hate it. I obviously didn't love it, but it was just kind of what you did. and I just and I was able to play my sport for hours upon hours just without any issue. And now kids are cramping after three or four plays on a football field. So you gotta condition, just don't use it as a punishment and they won't hate it, right? So yeah, that's kind of that was more a little bit of a shot I took, but I also do believe don't use it as a punishment. I used to make my son do laps in our yard when he was bad. he but he just thought it was fun. So when it's little it doesn't even work anyway. Brett Hart: Yeah, it backfires a little bit. All three of yours, I would probably say I'd have the same mental shifts, which I find interesting as well. And I Jake: Yeah. Brett Hart: played baseball growing up and I used to work in baseball facilities. So I am fully aware of like that toxic mindset of having to play year round. I even made posts saying most of your kids don't even need fallball because one, Connecticut, fallball sucks. No umpires don't want to be there, coaches don't want to be there. It's cold, it's like fifty degrees. You have to wear three layers just to sit out there and have the pitcher throw 72 miles an hour. Like can't even snap a curveball Jake: Mm-hmm. Brett Hart: because their hands are frozen. I want to touch upon early specialization and I want to really hammer home that for people listening on how that is just not the way to do things. And you can talk about your plan, what you have for your son, like what's your long-term development strategy? Because I have mine for eventually like hoping to have kids one day. I have a plan in mind, but what is your Jake: Yeah. Yeah. Brett Hart: like what's your like next what is it, five years old? Yeah, so the next like Jake: He's five, yeah. Brett Hart: thirteen to twenty years of like long term development, what what are we looking like? Jake: Yeah. So first and foremost, if I hope he enjoys it, but and I try to have these conversations with him and my wife's always like he's not gonna understand, he's five. He's a

smart kid, he'll figure it out. But I have a general rule that we're gonna play sports seasonally, at the very minimum till middle school. Like I don't think we need to do I don't think we need to spend more than four months, three, four months on a sport, in a year until Then then if we want to start getting like diving into or if something's really sticking out, because right now he's really into golf and basketball. So you can't even play golf year round in Iowa. basketball you can. If we can start to shift into some like some basketball lessons or golf lessons, but and then I I'll have a rule with him, I'll try to enforce it as best as I can. is you you play every everything. Everything you can. So in Iowa, it's for boys, it's football or cross-country. So you'll do one of those. I don't care which one it is. Preferably he'll play football because running sucks and it's not fun to watch. And then winter is basketball or wrestling. I'm 6'4, so the likelihood that he's going to be built for wrestling is is not great, but he's gonna and actually Let me go back on that. In middle school in Iowa now, they split the season so that they can do both. So in middle school, he's gonna do both. in high school, he can pick. Spring, all there in middle school, all there is is track, which he's gonna do track until he can't. If golf ends up being something he wants to do, golf season and track season are the same in high school. But some coaches will let you do both, and if they can let if they'll let him do both, he's doing both. and then summer is baseball. So he'll play baseball in the summer. And we're just that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna play everything up through middle school. Once you get to high school, then obviously drop wrestling or basketball. You're still gonna do football across country. I don't care which one it is. then track or golf and then baseball in the summer is the only option. If he ends up I've always been weird about baseball being in the summer, as like a school sport. So if that's something he wants to maybe golf in the summer or do like basketball league in the summer, that's probably one I'll bend on a little bit more. but yeah, that's the plan from the the s approaching sports, because I don't think you should play more than four sports. I also why I believe that too is I I've watched big league injuries show up in 12, 13, 14-year-olds. Cause I do think baseball, you're kind of inevitably gonna get one of the classics, you know, Tom like tear your UCL or have hip issues or something like that. I do think those are kind of just inevitable. If you make it through without, I think you're more lucky. But I saw, you know, little league elbow. If you've heard if you've heard of that, hear it all the time. Maybe it's called something different. It's just like a UCL strain. I don't I didn't even know what my UCL was when I was. I actually I don't think I knew what it was until I took anatomy my senior year of high school. Now

kids are their their elbow hurts all the time. Their UCL hurts all the time. It's from pitching year-round. but anyway, back to your original question. We are probably going to start just a very minor like strength program. I call it a program. We're just gonna do it in my basement with some like dumbbells and med balls and stuff like that. And it's just gonna be the clap, we're just gonna do do it in patterns. So two, three times a week, we're gonna hit a hinge, a squat, a vertical pull, a horizontal pull, vertical press, horizontal press, throw sprints, and jumps. And we're just gonna, I'm gonna gamify all of it. as best as I can. I don't like gamifying lifts. I think that's when you get really wonky and when you see a real a lot of stupid stuff. It's usually because people are trying to get really weird with the lifts. and yeah, we're just gonna we're just gonna have fun with it. me and my wife, we work out together Saturday and Sundays. The kids are all around. They're just gonna join, they're just gonna start joining in. they already kind of do. we're just gonna formalize it a little bit more when they hit about five or six years old. But yeah, it's nothing, nothing crazy. We're just we're gonna play everything for as long as we can. We're not gonna specialize on any particular sport. And it will be hard. it's all because my parents, my wife's parents, they you know, they see they see a five-year-old flushing iron 50 yards on a golf course and they're like, shit, he's gotta he's gotta start taking lessons. My dad already started talking about it like when he was four years old. It's like He learned how to swing the club 100% on his own. Like there's no reason to be diving into all of that stuff. but I'm also not an idiot. And if he is and does have the potential for stuff, I'm not gonna completely keep him away from it. It's just we're but you're still gonna do everything that we can. because if all you do is you play baseball, you're gonna move like a baseball player, not an athlete. If all you do is basketball, you're gonna That's a little bit different. I think basketball players typically all can move like an athlete. I'm a little biased towards that. But yeah, if you do more of like only golf, only baseball, only tent that's just how you're gonna move. And not only is that bad for your body long term, it's bad for your athleticism long term. yeah, there's a long winded answer, but it we're really just anything that you see that I'm doing on my social media, I'm just gonna start implementing it with my five year old and we'll Kind of see how it rolls over the next decade. Brett Hart: This is a l not totally off topic, but do you follow Ray Zingler, Zingler strength on IG? Jake: I do, I do. I l I love the stuff he does with his kid. I do. Yeah. Brett Hart: That is the every time I think of youth development, that's just the first thing that pops in my mind. I'm like, that is the dream right there. That is so sick what he's been doing. Jake: Yeah. Y Yep. And if I had the space to do it the way he's doing it, I'd probably I'd probably approach it a lot like it actually I would we're gonna probably approach it very similarly. my be honest, my kids I don't feel have the temperament that his kid does. my kids are a little more it's really hard to get to focus. but that's just that's just different parenting styles, different coaching styles and stuff like that. So but yes, that's gonna be if you follow his son, I think his name is Mac, Mac Zindler strength, is his account or something like that. Yeah, that it's gonna be a a lot of that stuff. Just constrained to what we can do in our home. Brett Hart: How important is that to know like what to take and what also know what you have available? Because I you heard I heard you talk about this before of coaches stealing stuff and trying Jake: Mm-hmm. Brett Hart: to do it perfectly to what you're posting, but have completely different environments and constraints. Like how do you Jake: Yeah. Brett Hart: can check that off in your mind, being like, all right, we can maybe do some variation of this. We probably can't. And like do we get more space? How do you make that decision? Jake: Yeah. anybody who reaches out to me who asks like the distances and stuff, I'll tell them the distance we do it, but preferably I'd be doing my drills on much larger, like a larger area. So it's like make it as big or as little as you want. If you want it to be more intense and fast, do it smaller. If you want it to be more, you know, endurance based, make it bigger. It's just yeah, you gotta t You gotta look at your environment and your equipment first and then see what you can do. And then just get creative off of that. Like right now I'm sitting in my gym. It's I don't know, maybe twelve by twenty-foot room. and then I got like a 30-foot hallway just r like right out there. So that's that's gonna be our constraints. So we're gonna be able to run as hard as we can, 30 feet, 10 yards. That that's going to be our constraint, especially as it gets cold. So he's just going to be working on running as hard as he possibly can for 10 yards. You know, if I was in nicer in like a nicer weather environment, we'd go outside more. but yeah, equipment and environment first. Figure out what that is for you. That's your limiter, obviously. And then just build it around that. There's really no there's no wrong way to do it. You can make like Jeremy Frisch told you, there's there's no rules. You can make up and do whatever you want. And it's just all based on what you have available to you. And I think coaches get so set on well, I don't have timing gates or I don't have artificial turf or I don't have a wrestling mat. And it was like, Well, what do you have? Okay, do it that way then. And yeah, I I don't know. I don't I I I'm a pretty unstructured person from personal to professional and it's not always ideal but it all it makes you more creative and we kinda just work

work with what you got. You can buy some stuff, but you don't really need a ton of things to make this really work. Brett Hart: That was gonna be my next question for you about just easy pieces of equipment people can buy because you've mentioned balloons, tennis balls, I see you use all the time. We use them a ton and the pool noodles are obviously Jake: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Brett Hart: my S tier of random equipment you can Jake: Yeah. Brett Hart: buy that's gonna increase intensity 10X. What other Jake: Yeah. Brett Hart: niche pieces of equipment you think could be beneficial for some people looking to add in a little bit more of a constraint led approach? Jake: Yeah, so strictly speaking for like the drills and skill builders and games and stuff like that. So we use tennis balls, balloons. We use their dog training agility hurdles. It's those just the classic yellow ones with the weird cone on the bottom for the base. I used to have the metal ones that go up, but a lot of the kids I work with like to train barefoot and one girl kicked one over and landed on the peg and cut her foot open, so it was like I'm just gonna get rid of those. So those dog agility hurdles, dancing sc the dancing juggling scarves you'll see on my page. it's 12 bucks for like 15 of them. So they're they're cheap. aside from tennis balls, I got like dog training balls. They're just like basically big racket balls, they bounce better and they're harder to catch. So it makes it a little bit harder. But yeah, it's it's just basics. It's just basic stuff. I don't buy anything crazy. You can buy like s fancy juggling balls for like twenty bucks a ball or something like that. I got fifteen for twenty bucks, and people are always asking for links and stuff like that. And I'm just like, it's a tennis ball, man. Like just go to Walmart go to Walmart and buy it. Yeah, and that's the thing. Brett Hart: Dude, just Google it. Just Google it. Amazon Prime, bro. Jake: Yeah, it's just But if you really want to know like some niche things to buy, go just get on Instagram or whatever and search like Asian elementary games. And basically all the stuff that they have is useful. I just I just don't want a bunch of clutter at this point. So I just kinda get one thing at a time. Brett Hart: Smart. That's smart. And I I love hearing that just because I feel like as coaches, we always look for the next shiny object and to Jake: Mm-hmm. Brett Hart: buy the force plates, buy the timing gates, buy all this fancy piece of equipment. And then I'm gonna be honest, I never got a force plate because I have no idea how to read one. And I would not know what I'm looking at besides vertical jump. And I was like, I already have a jump mat, so I don't even know what else I'd be looking at. But for Jake: Yeah. Yeah. Brett Hart: some reason, those pool noodles, the tennis balls, I I'm gonna get those handkerchiefs that you just talked about because I think that's awesome. That Jake: Yeah. Brett Hart: those are the things that have the highest return on investment. I know if I had a group of fifteen, Jake: Okay. Brett Hart: if I had a group of fifteen middle school athletes and we're like, all right, we're gonna do force plate testing today, like I'm gonna lose them in half a second. Like they're not gonna be there. I might get one good Jake: Yeah. Yeah. Brett Hart: jump per person on that thing. And I just spent 15 Jake: Yeah. Brett Hart: grand, 20 grand on that. But if I get Jake: Yeah. Brett Hart: a set of 20, 20 juggling balls for 15 bucks or whatever you said, I can I can get 20 minutes out of that. And everybody's gonna Jake: Yeah. Brett Hart: get a high quality rep. Jake: Yep. Yep. Absolutely. and same thing with the force plates. I mean, you like y it's hard to hold these kids' attentions for a minute, let alone, you know, ten minutes in between each rep. And to be perfectly honest with I mean, some of my high school athletes I would call their border lining what I would I hate the word elite. but they're they're they're close. they have the potential to be there. but I work with a lot of kids under twelve years old and they don't even know how to test anyway. Like they like not even it it's cra I guess I I did a clinic and they wanted me to test all these things for like twenty nine year olds. And it's like they don't know how to test, let alone improve on a test. And so yeah, I don't I have timing I have the like the OVR stuff, everything except for the except for the new force plate. and I I d I I won't get it 'cause I don't need it. But Yeah, we don't we don't get out. And if we get out, it's to compete with each other, like time wise, not and yourself. 'Cause obviously I I have one kid who's f faster than everybody else, and the only way to get him to push harder is he's gotta be himself. So but yeah, I think I think a lot the fancy equipment it's fun, but just like with everything else, I'm just gonna try to gamify it anyway, so yeah. Brett Hart: Yeah, and like what you're saying before, you know they're gonna get better. Like they're gonna get faster. Like even if they don't know how to test at nine. You do the things you know that they need to do. They need to move, sprint, chase, react, cut. Give three, Jake: Yeah. Brett Hart: four, five years when it actually matters, when they're in high school and they get to go test, they're probably gonna be way better than everybody else anyways, that is just trying to like it's inverted. They're like, I need to test my vertical jump now. Like these kids don't know how to jump to begin with. Jake: Yeah. I think it's it's mainly for the people I did it with. They wanted to they wanted to start their own little performance space. So that it it's all marketing purposes. So but I and I I told straight up I was like, you're not gonna see much improvement in any of these tests. It was only eight weeks coming once a week. Like you're not I don't know. They don't sleep well the night before, they're they're

not gonna test good. And they didn't. They all tested even or worse. Because they were so serious on day one and then they got comfortable and they were having fun and they couldn't be serious anymore. But I'm not gonna yell at a group of nine year olds to be serious to test a vertical jump just to get a better number. Like the whole point for me at that age is getting them to come back. and not for money, it's because that's what I know that's what I know is the most important is consistency. Like if you just show up day after day, week after week, for years on end, you're gonna be better than the kid who spends their 12 weeks of training in the summer every year. So I've and I don't care how good the program is. If you have, you know, 52 weeks in a year and you're using all 52, you're gonna be better than the kid that's using 12. Unless that kid's an absolute freak, which happens as well. Brett Hart: So glad you said that because that's just such a dilemma still of like we need to know our stuff's working, we need to know our testing numbers are certain a certain way, like we need to see them improve. And then we forget that they're nine years old. And I love that you said you hated calling kids elite because that drives me up a wall when I see nine you elite travel baseball organization. I go, these guys just play started playing like two years ago. Jake: Yeah. Yeah, and Brett Hart: None of these guys are elite. Like the elite if they were elite they'd be making millions of dollars. Jake: yeah, and they have elite A, B, C. They like like they have elite pocketbooks. I but that's about it at this point. Brett Hart: That that is one of my biggest pet peeves. But I understand why they do it. They have to get people in, but you can't have you got ten, nine new baseball teams. Not every single one of them could be called elite. Not even one of them I think should be called elite. But it's just it what sells, unfortunately. Jake: Yeah, yeah. And it's I mean some maybe some of the kids care, but it's it's more for the parents. But yeah, it Brett Hart: Yeah, one hundred percent. Jake: it it's really not you can't in parents' minds you can't sit here and tell me that anybody who can cut the check can make the team. So for for most Brett Hart: Do you know Jake: programs. Brett Hart: Do you know who Jim Wendler is? Jake: Yes. What is Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Brett Hart: five five three one powerlifting. Are you familiar five th so Jim, my my buddy actually told me this quote from him and I thought it was phenomenal 'cause he's a high school football strength conditioning coach now. And he goes, My entire job is to make my average kids better than your average kids. Like that's that's my job. It's like how much better can Jake: Mm-hmm. Brett Hart: I make my average kids to actually make the team rise up? Because you're gonna get an elite freak out of nowhere. And that's just all he's like, all that's gonna do is just make me look good. It's like, but I didn't really do much. He was he was a freak of nature to begin with. So he Jake: Yeah. Brett Hart: was like that that's his whole approach. It's like, how can I make like my group of athletes just better all around on average compared to the other team? And it really sounds like Jake: Yeah. Brett Hart: that's the type of approach that you have, just talking to you and hearing how you have some thought processes behind that. Jake: Yeah. And honestly that's why I think high school like the high school teams, not the high school age kids, like small town or whatever, you take the kids, your friends, your classmates, I think that's the last true sp like sports competition anymore when it comes to kids. You know, college has always been the way that it is, pros is the way it is. But like now you take ten cherry-picked kids and you put against another ten cherry-picked kids. I don't think that's really all that impressive anymore. I think and people care about, you know, you see like the perfect game plates and rings and banners and all this stuff. It was like, show me a high school state championship trophy. I think that is that's the last true great feat of a kid or of a team. I I I don't care about any of that other stuff. In f in fact I think those plates and rings are bought or participation trophies at this point. So just because youth sports is such a it's such a moneymaker and I I I don't have a problem with that. I really don't, but I have my opinions about it. yeah, I'm just not impressed with any of that stuff. anymore. Like I thought I w would be. Brett Hart: How big are your how big are your groups on average that you work with? Jake: so it just kind of depends on what season we're in because we we we avoid game days. So right now most of my kids that I'm working with are football players, so they'll come on the same day. So we'll do about f 12 to 14 kids in that group, and then the other group is like four right now. and it's just accommodating schedules. I I like I'd like to keep it probably around eight, and that's what we keep it around in the summer. is about eight a group. But they're also they're all from one school. They've known each other since they were in diapers. They want to work with each other. So it's it's a good time and the groups aren't they're not they're fine with whatever. I'd rather them come in and enjoy their time with their buddies and get after it with their buddies than be like, no, you could like you eight have to come this time and you eight have to come this time. So yeah that So th it just really varies. I think today I today I had two, yesterday I had fourteen. So it's it's just accommodating schedules during the school year. In the summer it gets a little more spread out. Brett Hart: I just wanted to piggyback off that question because you've sparked an idea with teams. When you do your competitions in that those games that you do, do you team kids up and make it like a competitive like all right, your A

team, your B team, or like you you guys decide a team name, like take thirty seconds decide a team name, you guys decide a team name, and then we compete and then go team versus team, or is it all like one v one, two v one comps? Jake: It's usually that, usually one V one, two V one, or two V two. But no, that's a good idea. I've done it before. I swear anytime I have the idea to do it I have uneven numbers. Brett Hart: Every time. Every time. Jake: or somebody's hurt or something like that. So no, I need to do I need to do more group stuff. I've done it before, yeah, I'd like to I'd like to do more of it. Right now, football season, I swear everybody's got a different acre pain. So you being in the private sector, you kind of just gotta accommodate for that as well. Everybody's kind of on their own little like half rehab, half strength program at the moment. So Yeah. Brett Hart: Yeah, just to feel better. Yeah. I love that with our because we I run two groups, a youth group and a like intermediate middle school group at the gym I work out of. And one of the athletes thought it was always funny. He counts and goes, even number, we're teaming up and he goes, someone comes in late, can't do it. And then another kid comes in. we can still do it because I always end with some type of game and they Jake: Yeah. Brett Hart: love handball. I do some really botched handball variation at the last five, Jake: Is it? Brett Hart: ten minutes. And those kids, when I just break them up and be like, all right, fastest times of the day, you guys are team captains. You pick rock, paper, Jake: Yeah. Brett Hart: scissors, and then we can do four v four is the best. And I throw Jake: Yeah. Brett Hart: out different rules as I go. And I kind of got that from Austin, where I just spew out random BS rules. I'm like, hot potato, get rid of it. you you're not allowed Jake: Yep. Brett Hart: to score anymore because this kid's just dominating. He's got like eight points already. He's like, All right. You're not allowed to score, everyone else has to touch it first, and then you have to pass it off. Stuff like that. I think that's Jake: Yeah. Yeah. Brett Hart: the because going off of what you said, just building off some type of how to work with a team, like how to work within a unit, because so many kids Jake: Mm-hmm. Brett Hart: are so individualized to a point where they don't know how to work with another kid their age or how to get Jake: Yeah. Brett Hart: the same outcome. And watching them through like 10 weeks of doing it, like they're actually communicating. They move around now before they would just stand there and w wait for the ball. It's crazy. So I was really curious Jake: Yeah. Yeah. Brett Hart: to see if you implemented stuff like that. Jake: Yeah, I have with some things. but I definitely need to do it more. yeah. No. Maybe that's what maybe that's the some stuff you'll see moving forward here. 'Cause yeah, that'd be fun. Yeah. At me, bro. Brett Hart: Yeah,

tag me. Credit. No, I'm kidding. I do want to ask this one question because I just see your shirt and it says that Jake guy. Is there a funny story behind that shirt or are you just you just wearing it? Jake: Yeah, I wear it all for all the podcasts I do. You're the first person to ask about it. like I've c like I've kinda alluded to, the the high school coaches don't really they don't vibe with kind of what we're doing. they think the athletes that I'm working with are a little cocky or too big for their britches. And I think it's just because there was just like There was, you know, small town Iowa. There was just drama, like, why is this kid going here? And all this stuff. And like some parents wanted me in the high school to come help with them. The high school didn't even want me to volunteer for free. they kinda just completely slammed their door in my face. I ran a clinic for 'and then that was kind of the only thing, and that was just to make peace. But anyway, all those coaches, they all refer to me as that Jake guy. Even though they follow me on Instagram where my full name is on there. I've had meetings with them. Like I've I've met most of them. They know my full name, but they just constantly kept referring to me as yo, you're working out with that Jake guy now. That Jake guy. Were you with that Jake guy this morning? So I was like, I'm just gonna put on a shirt and wear it to every event that I go. So because I I just think it's it's petty and disrespectful, but I'm I'm 'Cause I want them to know like I'm hearing what you're saying. So yeah. Yeah, a little bit. Brett Hart: Little B rabbit, little eight mile. Yeah. I love that. I remember if you just when I was first starting off, I was going on Instagram before I was named like hitman.fitness, like stupid names. And I would post my training. And I had an ex employer years ago. Like I one of the athletes came up to me. He's basically talking shit. He's like, he'll never do anything with that Instagram. that's so stupid that he's posting all that stuff. Like you just get back to you, and for some reason it's that chip on the shoulder. You're like Well, I'm not gonna let him dictate what I'm doing. It's not gonna change anything. I'm gonna stay with it. And I wouldn't Jake: Yeah. Brett Hart: have been able to have a conversation with you if it wasn't for Instagram. I wouldn't have been able to have this podcast if it wasn't for it. Wouldn't be able to have Jake: Yeah. Brett Hart: this career business, be able to talk to like-minded individuals without it. So Jake: Mm-hmm. Brett Hart: having you have it on a shirt is fucking badass. And I love it. I love that you just I love that you just wore it. Jake: Yeah. Yeah. That's just yeah. I just want them to know like I'm aware of everything going on too because at the end of the day, all I'm trying to do is help these kids make them better, show up to their games, support be there for them. And like to have to put my name in their mouth in a like with bad context, it's it doesn't make any sense to me. So yeah. I mean it's it's it's about the kids and some people don't realize it's not about themselves, but that's that's some adult men, man. Brett Hart: Yeah. No one no one doing better than you will talk down. It's always the people below you that talk up that try to bring you back down to their level. And dude, Jake: Exactly. Exactly. A hundred percent. Brett Hart: keep doing what you're doing. I love stealing stuff from your Instagram all the time. So please keep posting 'cause I run out of ideas very quick. we talked about your Instagram a little bit, but Jake: Yeah, it's yeah. Brett Hart: give the listeners a little bit of a debrief. Where can they find you? Where can they reach out? What do you got coming up? And the floor is yours. Jake: Yeah. Emerge Performance on Instagram. if you're only on Facebook, it's just my name, Jake Dyson. It's just my normal page. I'm on I post the exact same videos to TikTok. They're just a copy paste. So follow me on Instagram because I don't I don't want to post on TikTok anymore. I don't do YouTube. I probably won't get into it. Some things in the pipeline. I'm I'm getting all my stuff on a website here in the next couple months. with years and years of what me and my son will be doing. you'll be able to follow along with what I do personally, what he's gonna be doing. you'll probably get a page on there with what my athletes are doing. but yeah, that's kind of the next thing is trying to reach more people. So that's that's what's in the Brett Hart: Awesome, brother. Jake: pipeline. Brett Hart: Awesome. I'm looking forward to it. And I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me. And I hope people got something out of it. Jake: Yeah, absolutely. I really appreciate having me on. This was fun. Brett Hart: All right, brother.