Happy Days everyone, today’s bit should be fairly quick and to the point. I hope if you’re not an athlete  or a coach yourself you can still take some good out of it, enjoy.

Coaches in many sports and even in the training world, tend to overlook how beneficial it can be to take the foot off of the gas for a minute when amidst a sports season. For some odd reason, the default setting for sport coaches is to press harder when things seem to be going poorly, simply baffling to me.

The better thing to do for me is to look at your athletes' body language. Are they sluggish, no matter how much sleep they got, or before you’ve even started practice? Chances are they might just need a day off, maybe reel back the conditioning.

It’s not ALWAYS going to be the answer, but just automatically going to, let’s push them harder to get more out of them, is downright stupid. There is evidence out there, coaches that give their athletes proper rest when it’s need and only put the pedal to the metal when required, often perform better in their contests, week in, week out.

I’m not Jurgen Klopp, Bill Belichick or Graham Henry, but I still don’t think this is wrong either. It’s always about balance, coaches just tend to go right for swinging that pendulum towards the “more” side when the team probably needs less.

That’s what I got for you all today. Thank you very much for using your time to read my thoughts and I hope have yourself a week!

Happy Tuesday everyone! Been a minute since I’ve written, that’s life sometimes though. Today’s blurb is about a few assumptions that folks may have about coaches and personal trainers. Not that it’s a huge deal by any stretch, but I want to do my part to set the record straight.
 
It never fails when I mention to people what I do for a living, 1 out of every 5 or 6 new interaction brings about a comment to the like of, “You’re a trainer, you must workout 7 days a week and run 5 miles a day,” or one of my favorites “You must eat to super healthy and clean,” whatever that means. I’m not insulting any of these folks or trying to make them out in a bad light (mostly). They simply are going off what they know in their brain to start and interaction. I’m just here to clear things up a bit, coaches and trainers aren’t perfect.

Overall, yes, as a group we all try to practice what we are preaching, but then again, the above (though they are super exaggerations to drive the point home) isn’t all that healthy either. I personally am trying to press to improve everyone’s health, that’s both the body and the mind. With that, I’m freaking human too, we all are. I go through periods of time where I’m eating food that’ll fuel me well and take care of my body, but I also like to indulge a bit and go out with friends...really shocking I know.
 
Side note: When I hear someone say a term like "eating clean", this makes me want to walk away from the conversation very quickly and get a frosty one.
 
The point is, coaches do what we do because we want to show everyone how to live a health lifestyle, but we aren’t tyrants to our clients or even ourselves. Reset those expectations of your coaching friends & acquaintances, you’ll find your conversations with them more enjoyable, I promise.
 
Just a quicky for today folks. Thanks for reading and have yourself a week!

A good Tuesday to everyone! Today’s subject was inspired by a post from another strength coach that I very much respect and it turned the gears for me. Fueling yourself or your young athlete for competition, it’s not something that should be breezed over by any stretch. Whether you’re talking about a weekend warrior in some sort of adult recreational or club league, or a young athlete getting ready for a competition, match, game, etc… you must eat something beforehand.
 
I understand that early start times make that very difficult to some. It’s not in my scope to tell you exactly what to eat. I can share stuff and strategies I’ve found helpful for the entirety of my playing days.
 

I don’t have time to eat, I have an early kickoff, tip-off, so on…Get to bed!
Alright, never mind the fact that sleep is kind of important if you’re going to be running around the next day trying to compete, it’s also helpful for those early start times. As someone that’s experienced the path of wake late up, scramble for what little food I’ll be able to digest and then wake up even more on the ride to the pitch, I can tell you, that ends poorly 9 times out 10. The best I’ve felt with those lovely 7 AM kickoff times is when I got my butt to bed at a reasonable hour (that might be a loose term for some of my younger days) got up a little earlier and got a decent meal in, with time to digest it.
 
I feel weighed down when I eat before a game. What’s your body using for fuel at the end of the game then?
Firstly, without getting into too much of the nutrition side, the simplest answer is probably to change up what you eat pre-game. Most importantly though, the simple science of it is, your body is going to need the energy from a food source when you reach that 4th quarter, 80th minute, 3rd period and the like. What happens if it doesn’t have that food source to use? Assuming you’re still playing it’s going to use other resources, like your muscles, to break down for energy. Yes, you guessed it, once that starts happening you are simply waiting for an injury to happen. Sounds like a crappy trade off if you ask me.
 
Side note: I’m a fan of smoothie when there’s an early kickoff in my future, make it the night before and stick it in the fridge.

These are the most likely things going through an athletes head when they have an early start time of any sorts. I'm sure there's others I didn't cover and strategies that others have found successful. This is just my 2 cents on a very broad topic. Hope folks found this worth the read and I appreciate your time. Have a week everyone!