#6 - Q&A

And here we are, I'm Cal Brown, and I'm Jack Brown, and this is the Aqua Strength Podcast where we talk about all things aquatic, performance, and life. Before we get into the episode, I want to take a moment to let you know this episode is brought to you by Aqua Strength Athletes and Jack to Athletic. These are our two online training programs. Aqua Strength Athletes is meant for middle schoolers, high schoolers, collegiate athletes, even masters level athletes who want to take their training seriously, and they can do it all at the touch of their fingertips on their phone. So it's structured training to help you build strength and be more explosive. Jack to Athletic is our training program for those of us not competing in a sport anymore, and it provides structure. It helps you build strength, muscle. I mean, it's for those who want to look great and feel great and train really hard. So thank you. And one more thing, the Aqua Strength Agreement. If you like this episode or this podcast, please share it and give us a review. We truly do appreciate it. The first thing I actually wanted to bring up is what programming even is because I know I mentioned at the beginning of every single episode and the online side of programming has grown quite a bit for us the past few months, the past year really, but a lot of people still don't know what programming is. So quick explanation. I made this mistake when I was in high school. I would just go to the gym and just do a bunch of things that I knew, like I knew that bench pressing was a thing and I knew that squatting was a thing and I knew I just knew stuff based on like magazines and YouTube and like what my high school PE teacher had us do. And I would kind of just do those things for a bunch of sets till I was tired and then I would leave. And if I had time the next day, I'd come back and do it again and there was just like zero structure to my training. And a lot of people still train like that and I'm not here to bash anyone that trains like that. I mean, if you're working out, that's better than not working out for sure, but it actually kind of blows my mind like when I'll start talking to people or you know, programming will get brought up in conversation and they're like, what do you mean by programming? Like what do you do? I'm like, well, like we structure training based in, you know, three, four week blocks and it, when I say blocks, I mean, there's a lot to that. But like really, we'll set up training for the person based on what their needs and their goals are. And then I'll provide however many exercises I think they need based on their schedule. So if they're training three days a week, you know, maybe we're doing three full body sessions, I want to make sure we're hitting certain movements, we're hitting certain muscle groups. We're working from the bigger exercises to the smaller exercises, you know, hitting different rep ranges depending on exactly what we're trying to achieve. And then the next workout might look entirely different. And the third workout might look different. But there's still things that we're trying to accomplish in each session. And then we make progress week by week. And then we make progress month by month. So there's really the micro version of what we're doing, like the day to day. And then the macro stuff, which is looking at it more from like a month to month perspective. And trying to achieve certain goals every few months so that we know our training is actually beneficial. So I mean, Cal, when did you start like actually following programs like? Yeah, the first program I ever followed was one that you made me while you were in college. I was probably a sophomore or a junior in high school. And I was going to the gym already, lifting weights, kind of doing similar stuff as to what you were just saying, like, showing up and just doing stuff that I saw online until I was tired and was just trying to get like bigger, I guess, I don't even really know what I was going doing. I just knew that like, I would put my headphones in and go get after it and lift a bunch of weights and thought that that was going to make me better. Yeah. So the first program I did was was made by you and remember being like, oh, yeah, like this makes sense. And like, this was like prehistoric too. Like you were in college, like it wasn't even like prehistoric, man, you sound old, man, thank you. I appreciate that. It was just like, it was just, it was levels behind where we're at now, obviously. But I mean, that's after you finish school, like, have all this different experience working under other coaches running Aqua Strength now for however many years, like, yeah, so that was kind of the first time. And then, you know, I would run that back like for probably the rest of high school. And, you know, I took a weight training class in high school and learned about stuff there, but like, I don't know, it wasn't until like you started working with athletes and programming in that sense and like, going to them and doing it in person and like, talking to me about methods and then me learning about coaches and starting to follow along like with other people's training and learning from them. That like I started to kind of like gain my own ideas and like, pick and choose a little bit and then eventually start like, programming for free for a couple of buddies at school. That just like wanted to have a little bit more structure and like, by no means was I anything amazing at it, but like, those are the practice reps that I feel like help me get a little bit better and I still have so much to learn, but I think it's taking those ideas from people and coaches that you admire and then implementing them, seeing how they go and then making adjustments based on like what you believe and just overall like kind of like compiling your own format and style. Yeah, and you know, when I think about the conversation that I have with people who don't understand programming and the first time we're talking, I'm like, okay, well, like just tell me like, what do you do right now? And typically the reply is the list off a few exercises that they know and that they do and they do them regularly. So for example, you know, a guy says, hey, I bench press, I do some squats and then I do bicep curls and triceps and I'm like, okay, so like those are your four, that's awesome. How many sets? Like, how many reps? Two sets of 10 and then he lists off like the weights he does as well. He's like, yeah, when I bench, I put a plate on each side, I bench 135, two sets of 10. Then I squat, I do two sets of 10 and then I do arms and do three sets of 10. And if you're hearing that and that's what you do, you know, great, it's a great starting point. That's a great starting point. But if you're not making some sort of progress week to week or month to month, you can't get stronger, like you can't get better and you can't make improvements and what I mean by that, you know, let's say the first week of your program, you're supposed to squat three sets of six and you do that at 135 pounds. And then the next week of your program, it's still three sets of six on squats, but maybe you're trying to build up to 145 on at least one or maybe two sets. That right there is progress. And another question that I get, I think this is important. Like, I'll get this because it's super cool. The online side has been growing. Like I said, and I now I get to work with over a hundred people online, which sounds crazy to say out loud. But I absolutely like love the fact that I can help more people through online training. And a common question I'll get is, hey, it looks like some of the training is the same the next two weeks. Like are we doing the same thing? And I'm always like, yeah, we'll take a look at the notes in the description, like make sure you understand while the exercises have stayed the same. Maybe the sets are different. Maybe the reps are different. Maybe I kept the sets and reps the exact same, but I want you to be more comfortable with the movement, or I want you to take one set heavier. So doing the same things week to week for three, four, five, sometimes even six weeks. I mean, I might keep an exercise in like the same exercise for even eight weeks, but we're changing pieces of it to lead to some sort of progress, whether it's more weight on the bar, slower tempo, more sets, more, whatever it is, there's some sort of change. And that's how you make progress. You get really good at movements, and then you make little changes, and your body adapts to those changes. That's really where the bread and butter is. Yeah, manipulation of like the different aspects of it. And I like to think like if you're hearing this or like listening to this and not all that makes sense, like that's totally okay. Like I hear my buddies talk about financial accounting and like I have no idea what they're talking about or I hear like, I don't know, like think about all the different jobs there are like, yeah, like Jack, like this is your job, and it has been your job for several years now. So like you're continue to learn and grow and become more comfortable with these different pieces and components to overall like continually, continuing to develop and improve your craft. And like I'm still towards like the starting point of this, even though like I've been listening to you and other coaches and like doing this for like a couple of years now. But yeah, it's like if you don't feel comfortable with that yourself, like that's okay. Like don't be ashamed. Like, yeah, like I don't know Jack and I like to say like showing up is like more than half the battle honestly. So if you can do that and then you have some sort of program or regimen you're following and who knows, maybe you want some help or you go and find someone to give you a little bit of extra help to help with those details and the progressions and things like that. Like that's awesome. But yeah, don't don't be too hard on yourself about it. I think one of the best ways to look at it too is when you're cooking, like let's say you've never cooked a certain dish before and you're using a recipe. Let's take, let's take this to the gym now. So if you show up at the gym and you have no recipe, no program and you kind of just do something, like yeah, you are going to get a workout in. It might be a decent workout, it might be a terrible workout. It could be a great workout, like who knows. But you don't really know what the product is going to be because you're just shooting from the hip. Same thing in the kitchen. If I go to make a dinner and I've never made this dish before and I just get a bunch of ingredients and just make something, like yeah, knowing me, I'm going to eat it because I just like food. But who knows how it's going to turn out because I'm just throwing stuff together. But if I have the recipe and I put in the right amount of each thing, the final product is just inevitably going to be better. So I think it's a really good thing to, I mean challenge yourself. If you've never done a program before, try a program out whether it's four weeks or six weeks or it's a monthly program. Like I think programs are such a powerful tool. I've done so many of them. I've been on so many different programs in my life. I mean, a couple of years ago I did one that was called hypertrophy clusters by Jake Tura. Amazing program. Like, there were very clear goals with the program. And by the end of it, I made huge improvements and I'm a coach myself. Like, I use programs all the time from other coaches because there's just so much benefit in showing up and having the ingredients and the recipe laid out for you. All you have to do is execute. So if you're interested in programs, I recommend hopping on a program. It can be anybody's program. I mean, you can find amazing programs on all sorts of different Instagram accounts, all sorts of websites, different trainers. You can try out one of our programs. I think having structured your training makes a world of difference. So I know we want to talk about other stuff today. We're actually, we're going to do our second Q&A episode today. Um, Cal. What do you think about that? Yeah, let's do it. I'm stoked. I, uh, we both put up a little Q&A answer thing on our stories. I got a couple. I think Jack got like a hundred, um, still working on the Instagram game, but, uh, I'm stoked to, uh, to get some more questions and have the opportunity to just talk more about them and hopefully help some people out. So let's get going, man. And also, I haven't really heard most of these. I know Jack got him, he like read a couple of them to me briefly, but we're really coming into this with just like a fresh opinion and kind of going off the dome here. So, uh, let's do it. You know, also real quick before our first question, I got to shout you out, man, your Instagram. You've been working at it since you got home. You just got over 4,000 followers. It took me like three years or four years to even get to 3,000. Instagram is an interesting thing. Like it's a really interesting tool. Um, I think that is exactly what it is. I think it's a tool to spread your message, to watch what other people have, to learn. I mean, it really is what you make it, but that is amazing. Keep it up, bro. That's, that's super sick. Thanks, chief. Just, uh, taking what I've learned from you and trying to, trying to stay on top of it. So, yeah, sir. All right. First question. So the question is, what's the best course of action when you begin to plateau in your sport? You want to hit lead off here? Yeah. Sure. That's a really good question. I like that. And I'm going to talk about a couple different things real quick. The first thing that comes to my mind is, I think a lot of people like to throw that word plateau around pretty loosely. And I would say, be like, be sure first that what you're doing isn't moving you forward. Like just because you didn't improve in one week or two weeks or maybe you even went into a couple of meets or games or whatever it is and you're not feeling like you're improving, like, hold on for a little bit longer and see because like sometimes maybe it's just something natural or, or something like that. So I would be, I would, I would start by saying, be a little less quick to blame it on a plateau and kind of see your training through, see the things that you're doing through, um, because I, it takes, it takes a lot to, to get to a plateau on what you're doing. Like you really need to be not adjusting things and not changing stuff or, or seeing positive effects, um, to be really out of plateau. Um, what do you think about that? Does that, does that something that makes sense to you? Yeah. I do think that word is thrown around a little too loosely and I think we jumped to conclusions or we, we think we're plateauing, um, and it's not always the case. So I think you need to like zoom out a little bit and I think the first thing that came to my mind when reading this question was, addition by subtraction. Like, I, I, I really think sometimes when kids tell me they think they're plateauing or they haven't seen improvements in their sport, their next thing is they say, what, what else can I do? They're like, I haven't swam my best time in a while. What else can I do? Oh, I haven't been feeling good in the pool. What else can I do? So you're saying when, when you say addition by subtraction, I think I know what you mean. But for anyone listening, like, you mean people always look for more things to add as opposed to maybe taking something out exactly exactly like instead of saying what else can I do? I think it's important to step back and be like, okay, what am I already doing? And am I just like, am I doing too much? And it really depends on the sport. I mean, I guess the athletes that I see the most swimmers and water polo players, they are all about doing work, which is amazing. Like, you need to be a hard worker to be successful. No doubt about it. But if you're doing so much that, you know, you're not giving yourself the opportunity to actually adapt and level up and improve, then it's really hard to see improvements. So I would say the first thing, like, look at your day, like, did you get eight hours of sleep? Like, oh, you're not sleeping well because you woke up for a 5-30 morning practice. Then you went to a six or seven hour school day. Then you drove straight to the gym and then you're driving from the gym straight to swim practice again. And then you're going to go home and do three hours of homework before you fall asleep. You're not plateauing, you're just 100% under recovered. Your body's hurting, your brain is hurting. You don't have juice in the tank and you can't perform when there's no gas in the tank. Like, how about that? So that's the first thing because I see that way more often than I see high school kids plateauing. It's usually not a plateau issue. I would say. Yeah. Well, I really like that last part you just added in there. But I think it's important to say that improvements don't happen in the gym or, you know, like, when you're training hard, they happen in the recovery. So it's like, if you don't have that recovery, like that stimulus that you provided yourself, all those things that you were doing, you know, like breaking your body down a bit by bit, like, they're not going to get you better because you didn't have that chance to get the sleep or to get proper nutrition or things like that to really allow them to take in to like full effect. So I think, yeah, that is honestly huge. I mean, I'm sure you and I can both think of times where we were doing good stuff, but we weren't seeing like the outcomes that we wanted. And I mean, sitting here now, looking back, I can quite clearly see like, yeah, wow, I was not sleeping. I was always doing something. I was moving around. I was school, other extracurriculars trying to have a social life on the weekend. Like, yeah, I was getting no rest or recovery, like never had the opportunity for my body to like heal and like take all those things that I've been doing and working on and really like improve. Yeah. And I don't want you to hear this and think like, oh, okay. So if I'm plateauing, the first thing I need to do is stop doing stuff. Like that's not that's also not what we're saying at all, but I think the first things I would look at are the things that you can control personally. Like we always say, control the controllables. So before, you know, before the blame is placed on your practices or your coaches and your training, like all that stuff, take a look at your own life. Are you getting good sleep? Are you getting good food? And are you doing your best to keep your stress levels? I don't want to say low, like you're going to be stressed always. There's always going to be stress in life. But are you trying to control your stress levels, you know, to the best of your ability? And those things are all super basic. Everyone talks about them. Everyone knows they're important. But actually consistently making sure you're managing those things is crucial. So eight or more hours of sleep, nine hours of sleep is amazing. Eating. And when I say eating, like you high school athletes, you middle school athletes, college athletes, whoever it is, if you're training all the time, there needs to be breakfast. There probably needs to be at least one or two full lunches and then a really good dinner. And you are going to have snacks throughout the day as well. Like there's going to be a lot of food. You need carbs so that you always have the energy to train. You need protein so you're actually recovering real, like you need protein. You also need fats. They're super important for your brain health. You need all three of the macronutrients. So make sure you're not on some crazy diet where it's like low carb or, you know, only meats or things like like you need to have everything as an athlete. And then you also need to make sure like I think that the carb thing is so important before training sessions and after training sessions, you need to be getting carb sources in. So that's why I always tell athletes, I think it's amazing before practice, if you can have a piece of fruit or a few pieces of fruit. And that way, you know, those carbs are going to be in your system real quick. You're able to train. You're able to have some gas that you could actually use in that moment. And then post workout, you're getting both carbs and protein. And I know everyone talks about that window of like 30 minutes or an hour, like getting it in. You can get your carbs and protein in quickly, awesome, but you just need it in general. Like you need to get them in at some point during your day. And when you're hitting all those things and when you're actually putting fuel into the system, you're going to recover better. You're going to feel better for your sessions. You're going to sleep better. Like you need to give your body the sleep and nutrition to train and compete at the levels that you want to train and compete at. Yeah. The only thing I'll add on to that is like just check things like that you're hearing on TikTok and Instagram or whatever it is where you're getting nutrition or exercise advice. Like go search it up too and do some digging of your own because like, yeah, I heard something I remember like being younger and hearing something and like trying to live by that from like one video clip and like, I don't even know who the person was or if they have like any background and any sort of nutrition or exercise training. So it's like, just have a well-rounded and good understanding of the things that you're doing and why you're doing them. And then I want to add something that's like completely different in regards to this question. The what do you do if you're plateauing in your sport? The next thing I would do after getting all those points and check is I would ask myself like how happy I am to go to practice and compete and if I'm still fired up to do all that stuff because if I'm not like if the candle isn't burning, you know, as hard as I want it to, then the next thing I would say is to take a break and that's going to be controversial. And your break might be a week, it might be two weeks, it might need to be a month, but just taking a break and stepping away for some amount of time can do wonders for your mind, like if your mental is taking care of and then you kind of miss it and you want to be back, you show up ready to go, like ready to fire. So I think that's a huge one. I think one of the reasons I stayed so passionate about water polo in college is that club was only three months long or a little over three months long. So then the other months of the year, we weren't playing it, I mean, maybe a couple practices and small tournaments, but we weren't really playing it in my entire life. I had played water polo every season nonstop for years, over 10 years. And when you don't have it for several months out of the year, like I started to miss it and then I was like, okay, now I really want to play now I'm itching to play. And then like once you come back, it's so good. So that's one of the things I wanted to add, I think sometimes a break is necessary and I think sometimes kids can be scared of taking breaks, but like you shouldn't be scared. If you need a break, go take a break, you're going to come back better than ever. Hopefully. Yeah, absolutely. All right, let's hear this next question. Right, next question, best workout split. I'm going to start with this one. I think people nowadays, since there's again, since there's so much information on Instagram and TikTok and YouTube, high schoolers and younger athletes in general, they talk about workout splits a lot and they're like, you know, JB, like what split are you on? What's split you do? And here's kind of my thoughts on splits. If you're, if you're all about the gym, if the gym's your only thing, if you're a bodybuilder or a power lifter or whatever it may be, you may have to train a certain split because that's, you know, that's optimal or that's what's best for you and making the, the gains you want to make. When you're an athlete, your split, so to speak, is going to be very dependent on your life, like everything else that's going on. So I would say for an athlete, typically the best workout split is going to be two or three days a week full body because you're not, your goal is not the gym. You're using the gym as a tool to get better at your sport, like to be healthier, to be stronger, to be more powerful. And so that workout split is going to look like, you know, a little warm up to get your body going. Maybe you're doing some soft tissue work, you're doing movement preparation. Then I would recommend going through jumps and sprints. Always important to get the CNS firing and, and that's all your power work when you're most fresh. You do all your jumps and sprints. Then, you know, with my sessions, we move into a strength block and it's usually between, I would say 25 to like 30, maybe 35 minutes of, of real strength work. And since it's full body, I like to look at things, you know, typically by movement pattern. A lot of the time, so if we're going to do a, a bilateral squat movement and then maybe a unilateral hinge, we're going to get a vertical push and a vertical pull or a horizontal push and a horizontal pull, we're going to have some core work in there as well. That stuff might sound crazy and you might be saying, what are you talking about? I'm talking about patterns. A squat is when, you know, the primary movement is your knees are bending. A hinge is when the movement's coming from your hips. So when you're squatting, you know, you're using a lot of knee and all the muscles on the front side of your body. Of course, your glutes are working as well. And then when you're hinging, it's more posterior chain. So hamstrings, a lot of glutes, back extensors, stuff like that. And then pushing and pulling is, in terms of upper body pushing and pulling, you need to pull vertically and horizontally, you need to push vertically and horizontally. So that type of workout split for an athlete is amazing because you're, you're just covering so much and then you're able to do it two or three times a week. If you're an athlete who has more time or maybe you're in college and your strength coach wants you in the gym four days a week. Maybe they're going to have you on something like, you know, two upper days and two lower days or two full body days and then one lower and one upper or there's, there's all sorts of variations, like there's all sorts of variations. What I would say is that I don't think athletes get the most out of a training split that's five or six days a week where they're focusing on one or two muscle groups. Like if you're an athlete and your goal is to be really good at your sport, I don't think as Monday should be chest and thighs and Tuesday should be back in, or sorry, chest and thighs and Tuesday should be back and thighs and then your third day is, you know, legs only and your fourth day is shoulders and your fifth day is abs and arms. Like, I don't think that's a good idea, mainly because the frequency you're not going to be hitting muscle groups more than once a week, which I mean, you don't need like 10 exercises per muscle group. If you're an athlete, you need to be able to do stuff, you know, three different pushes throughout the week is going to be better than doing 10 push variations one day that week. So Cal. Yeah, I mean, I honestly don't really have much to add to that other than that. It just depends on what your goals are. I mean, you can identify what your goals are, you know, if you're an athlete and it's to help you stay healthy and get stronger and more powerful and faster on the field or in the pool or whatever you do, then, you know, you need to look at that and hopefully you're able to find a professional who can help you design something that will bring out those qualities in you. You know, if your goal is to get bigger and just have more muscle and look better, then, you know, there's a split for that. I mean, just, yeah, there's, I think there's too much focus on the word split and what's the best split? Like, it's like asking what the best diet is, you know, the best split is split that works for you and you will adhere to and will get you to where you want to go. So, yep, and I think that telling yourself that doing, you know, more days of training is going to be better. It's tough because it's like the best split for you in my opinion is the one that you can stick to the longest, like the one that's most sustainable. So a lot of people tend to be like, you know, hesitant or scared when I tell them that I'm going to start them on a three day, three day program and they're like, no, I want to be working out four or five days. And I'm like, we can totally build to that. We can build up to that. But you haven't trained in months or years sometimes is the case. I'm like, if we start with three days a week, I can almost guarantee out of the seven days a week, you can find three to fit in a one hour workout or a 45 minute workout, whatever it may be. And if we can do that consistently, like the results are going to come from the program you can stick to consistently. So three days a week is a great place to start. And then once you have more experience, yeah, like I've done tons of programs that are four days a week or even five days a week, I personally find that when I'm in the gym, five days a week, lifting, it makes it really hard to do other stuff like swim and coach. And I love swimming and then coaching is my job. So if it's pulling from my life, like five, five is a bit rough, but three or four is great for me. Yeah. Honestly, I didn't really have anything else to add until you just were talking right there. That like made me have like a kind of a big thought. I think that has to do like the people or people being, you know, like a little bit leaning towards like doing more. I think that comes from the like the aspect of like inside you wanting to make a change right now. Like people are in a rush to do things and like, oh, I'm going to start training. I want to get as good as I can as fast as I as possible. And it's like, yeah, but I don't know. I just I see it exactly how you just said it. It's like I would like you have to be able to stop and recognize like, okay, sure. Maybe you could jump right into five days a week, but like, is that sustainable? Like week two, are you going to be able to find those five days again? And like, if you're not, then boom, it's pointless. Like, like slowly implement more. Like if you start with two days a week or three days a week and you nail that for a month straight and you love it, then go ahead and throw in that fourth day. But like, it's all about that like slow exposure, like over time, like, look, you're not changing what you want or you're not achieving what you want to achieve in one week. And like, you just need to accept that. So I think it's important to just keep that in your mind at all times and just kind of be like that sheriff of yourself and just always be aware of that. Yeah, this is kind of off topic, but Jordan Syat, who's super, super popular in the fitness world, he has an amazing page if you guys want to check him out. But something he always says is, you know, one, one donut never made you fat and one salad never made you fit. Or like something, something along those lines, I probably misquoted it, so Jordan, I'm sorry. But the whole point is like, nothing's going to happen right now. Like you're, you know, this week of workouts isn't going to make you or, you know, if you missed a workout this week, it's not going to break you. Like you need to find the one that's most sustainable for you and then run with that. So on that note, next question here, what's the best way to avoid overuse injuries? I'm going to go out and say it, and I don't mean this to sound rude at all. It's in the question. Don't overuse it. So let me dive, let me dive a little deeper because I don't want to sound like a smart ass. That's not my goal here, but overuse injuries really are, you know, how they sound. So if you're swimming, five, six, seven thousand yards a day, five or six days a week, and you do that for years, or it might even only take months and your body is not equipped to do that. I'm not saying everyone's body is not equipped. You can build up to anything like you can train your body to be able to handle pretty and crazy, pretty crazy workloads. But if you're just doing that every single day nonstop, that is a lot of stress being placed on your shoulders, your joints, your muscle tissue. I mean, it's just repetitive motion over and over and over and over and over and over again. You're getting thousands, if not millions of reps. And when you make the same muscles, do the same work, like, they're going to be negative consequences to that. So I think the first thing I would say is make sure you're very aware of your training volume. That's why I think, you know, high and low method is super important to look at. I mean, by that is when you're, I mean, I'm really going to keep this surface level because talking about high low stuff could get pretty in depth. And we'll save that for another time. But if one day you have a really high volume day, but maybe it's at a lower intensity and you rack up a ton of yardage, then you can't, you know, you can't have that day five days a week. So maybe the next day is a low volume day at a higher intensity. So a little bit of variance in that sense can be super beneficial. And then I would also say one of the most important pieces to avoid overuse injuries is to do other things because the more you expose your body to, the more you're forcing, you know, your muscle groups and all your movement patterns to also get attention. So if I'll stick with the swimming example, if I'm a swimmer, but I also do some dry land strength conditioning and maybe once or twice a week, I go play pickup basketball or pickle ball or something like that, then there's going to be just so much more than my body is exposed to. And in turn, it's great. Like if I'm playing pickle ball and now my shoulders are kind of swinging off to the side or I'm doing, you know, a backhand and I'm getting all these different reps in, my shoulders are now doing something besides just swimming freestyle or backstroke or whatever it may be in the pool. And now you're working all sorts of different muscles or the same muscles, but in a different way, in a different pattern. So having other things you do is great. It provides balance. Strength training actually helps prepare you for the demands of your sport. So if you're doing stuff, you know, like building a strong upper body, you're making all the muscles in your upper body more prepared to handle the task that you want them to do, which is swim. Because if all you do is swim, it's going to make you better at swimming, but it's not necessarily going to build the strength you need, you know, to be able to withstand that much stress. Yeah, those are all great points. And you put them into really simple terms that I think will help people better understand. But another thing that I want to touch on is like, I personally think like discussions and the concept of controlled practice are so important, like, what do you mean by that? Like controlled practice? Yeah, I'm going to get into that for a little bit, not go like crazy in depth, but the concept of controlled practice is basically the coaches involving their athletes in what they're doing that day. And like that might sound a little weird, but like what better way to be able to control some of those controllables and avoid things like overuse or like terrible, like super extra fatigue and overtraining syndrome and things like that. If coaches, as coaches, I know it's your job. It's our job to come up with what you're doing and to be the head figure and all that sort of stuff. But the athletes know their bodies better than anyone. And it's like, if you just take the time to have some conversations with your team or with your players, your athletes, say, hey, how are you guys feeling today or how has this past week been or things like that, like, you're going to have such an easier time avoiding like some injuries and overuse type things and honestly burn out too. Like, I think it's so important to have conversations, even though as a player or an athlete, your job is to do what the coach says and all that blah, blah, blah, like, it's just so important to be on the same page. Like if you're operating on, like, the athlete is just gassed and completely fatigued and on the verge of overtraining syndrome and the coach is still hammering a ton of stuff, but like, doesn't know because the athlete hasn't spoken up or like vice versa, like maybe the athlete isn't getting enough and needs to tell the coach, hey, I can handle a little bit more. Like, yeah, you just need to talk. It's, it's you working together to achieve a common goal. It's not one versus the other. It shouldn't be two teams. You're on the same team. I think that really can right there just take care of most of the issues. Yeah, conversations are so huge and I do think, I think the environment is critical here because I think there's a lot of coaches who are willing to listen and I think there's a lot of athletes who are willing to talk, but you know, on the flip side, there's a ton of coaches that don't want to listen and there's a lot of coach and there's a lot of athletes that that are scared to talk or don't talk or just think they're not allowed to talk. And when that's the case, situations can become scary and then it's really more of like a dictatorship where coaches like you're doing this, this and this and the kid just shuts up and does it and it's just on repeat every single day. And when there's no feedback, it's really hard to make adjustments. Which I mean, that leads me to, you know, a point that I think is so critical. Being able to adapt is huge. Like it's so big. You can have the best like plan or structure in line, the best workout program, the best practice plan, like whatever it may be. But like Kyle was saying, like that communication comes in and I think back to, I think this was last week, the beginning of last week, I had an athlete come into the gym. He's warming up. One of the hardest working athletes I've ever met, like he would do anything. If I was, if I was like, Hey, go do 10 sets of 30 pull ups. Like he'd look at me and be like, All right. And like, so like that at first, like as soon as you figure that out as a coach, like you got to be very cognizant of the fact that they're a worker. And so he's warming up, getting ready and he's like, I asked him how he's doing. He goes, Coach, I'm like a lot, I'm pretty tired. It's been a long day. I had morning practice. Had afternoon practice. Now I'm here. And yeah, I'm a little exhausted. Just want to let you know. And I'm like, yes. Okay. Thank you. Like thank you for telling me all that. In fact, had I not known that you going through my plan for the day would have been too much like your cub would have been overflowing. So here's what we're going to do instead. And he was kind of nervous at first. He's like, No, no, no, I'm here to work. I'm here to work. Get after it. Like, let's go. I'm like, no, you're missing the point. That wouldn't be good for you. Like doing what we were going to do, we need to lower the dosage. We can still keep intensity up at certain points of the workout today. But maybe we need to spend a little bit more time on mobility. Like we need to give your body just some very general movement. Get your hips going. Get your spine going. Make sure that we're moving our shoulders a little bit. We're moving them in different planes. And when we got to the actual training, yeah, we had to pull back volume a little bit. You know, we were doing a few less reps. We had to chop a couple sets off. And at the end, I'm like, How are you doing? He's all good. I just, I really think I could have worked harder. And I'm like, sometimes it's perfect to say that at the end of a lift. Like in fact, most of the time, that is what I want to hear. I want most of our training to be like a seven out of 10 difficulty. Sometimes even a six, because if that means that you can wake up tomorrow and go to your practices tomorrow and then, you know, come back to the gym in two days and you can keep putting in work, but you're not showing up saying, Oh, I'm wiped. I'm wiped. I can't do it. Like we, I always want a little bit left. So I think that's, I think that's super important is to have those conversations. Ask your athletes questions, let your athletes talk. Athletes don't be afraid to speak up. Like do not be up. You need to, no one knows you better than you know you. And if you're sitting in the pool and you hear something and you're like, Oh my gosh, my shoulders on fire right now, but I need to do this. Like I'm going to do it like, what if that's, what if that's the 50 that does it? What if your shoulder tears? What if your rotator cuff goes and you knew in your head, you shouldn't have done it. And you said nothing like that's, that's on, that's a little bit on you. It's a little bit on the coach. It's, it's on the fact that you guys couldn't have a conversation. So have the conversation. Yeah. How awesome would it be? I mean, that was a great example of strength training and gym work because like, that's what, that's what we do. And that's what we're in control of. But like, how, how amazing of an idea would that be? Like, you know those days, Jack, I'm kind of asking you this as a question. Like, you know those days or remember those days when you pull up to a swim practice, you feel like really good. Like you get in the water and you're warming up and you're like, Oh, I kind of have some juice today. Like, you know what I mean? Yeah. Honestly, I didn't have a lot of those because I was just like the kid in that story where I was just like every day, I was tired, I had under slept and I was hurting. But I do, I had a few. Like, I did have a few where I remember showing up and being like, dude, I'm like, I'm on it today. Like, I'm ready to rip. Let's go. Yeah, exactly. So what if you could just tell the coach, like, you know what, today is one of the days. Let's do it. And then boom, you have a performance based set, right? Because like, you know what, you can have this great plan. Like we talked about like the coach lays out this weekly plan. Like, what if on Tuesday, you're supposed to do some long aerobic work or some sort of drill set or something, but you feel like an absolute machine. You should be able to switch it on the fly. If you feel like a machine operated, like a machine that day and like get it done. And then you know what, maybe the other day, you're not feeling as quick or like as athletic as you do sometimes. And then you know what, you get that aerobic work in. You have to be able to adjust because if you can get how you're feeling and what you're supposed to do in sync, like, bro, that's just a bonus to that stimulus. Like you're supposed to go fast this day and you feel fast and can nail those actual fast swims that you're supposed to do, like, bro, you just doubled down on that and absolutely killed it. Yeah, I absolutely love that. I think, you know, if you're able to have those conversations and like on days where athletes are feeling better than other days, like, yeah, let's, okay, let's adapt. Let's make a little change to the schedule. We can do this work now as opposed to this work. And that doesn't mean that like every single day, you need to just like, oh, hey athletes, what do you want to do? Okay, we'll do that now. Like that's not the point. Like if they, if your athletes trust you and respect you and you guys have built this level of trust in each other, where they know that, you know, coach is giving them their best and coach knows that athletes always giving their best and, and you can tell looking at a group, like, we see these athletes. Like, I know if a kid looks at me and he's like, yo, I'm feeling really good today. Like, my body is just, I'm ready. Like, yeah, we're going to push a little bit. And then in, you know, a couple of weeks, if he comes in after a long tournament, he or she and they're like, hey, yeah, it was a really rough weekend, like this was tough. I'm not feeling good. You have to make changes. Like it's, it should be, I love that idea of having the conversations, seeing where they're at and making the adjustments needed to get the most out of that day or to get the best out of that day. I should say. Yep. Do it on the fly. On the fly. I think, I think we got time for one more. So here's the last one of the day, how, how can sprinting and jumping benefit a water polo athlete and what are some ways to implement? I can take this, do it. So sprinting and jumping in themself, train athletic qualities like speed and power and speed and power are connected to your nervous system and how fast and well your body can move. So let's take this into account, the nervous system is general. If you train it to move fast on land by sprinting and jumping, it will be able to move faster in whatever you do. So there's a couple of really great examples of this, couple that I'll use come from one of our jack and ice favorite coaches, Brian Kula, who works with all different sports, but does the exact same training pretty much with each sport other than some minor details. He does sprints and jumps with all the sports he works with and trains their central nervous system to just fire fast and to improve it as a whole. So he's got this example. He trained sprinting and jumping with volleyball, a girls volleyball club, I think. And they don't even sprint in volleyball. Like they take two or three steps at most, but by training and sprint or by sprinting and jumping, they were able to take that one or two steps faster. They were able to jump higher. They were able to do things quicker, which therefore then allowed them to be better athletes and better volleyball players. There's an even crazier example with this golf, this golfer that Brian worked with. He sprinted a golfer and you might be thinking yourself, like, what, like, when does a golfer ever sprint? Like they don't. They walk from hole to hole, like they swing the club. He sprinted and jumped this golfer. The golfer's club speed increased by 15 miles an hour. That is wild. The central nervous system is general. If you train it to be a lead and to be fast and to operate at that high level, it can do it in anything. And that's why I think there's so much benefit to doing this stuff on land and to sprinting, you know, short bouts with lots of rest and doing big jumps, jumping high, jumping far with lots of rest. You know, not doing things really fatigued and providing that just like sharp stimulus to your nervous system to bring that in and then allow it to adapt, to allow you to move faster and jump higher, like it's the tie that lift all boats. It really is. Yeah, because you can do them. It's such a low volume. So you're not like crushing the system and, you know, yeah, that low dosing, like you can do them a couple times a week. If you're, you can't, I mean, sprint two or three times a week. You spread them out at least 48 hours. Same with the jumps. I think two or three times a week is plenty. So at our gym, we like to do them both, like we'll do some jumping. We'll spend about five to ten minutes, you know, doing some sort of jumps. And then we'll only do a couple sprints, like a couple buildups. We might have the kids do five, ten yard sprints, like resting in between. And when it comes to sprinting, it really does have to be like max intent, like you actually have to be sprinting. And it's not important how fast you run. It's more important how fast you're trying to run. So yeah, like when you watch swimmers and water polo players sprint, it's not a pretty thing. And I didn't grow up a track and field athlete. So I'm not out here teaching the details and trying to make it a perfect thing. The goal is that they're trying with max intent to go as fast as possible. And I've heard the central nervous system compared to like a light switch, where it's like you're turning on the lights in the house, like your body is the house. When you tap into that nervous system, you're turning on the lights in the house and how quick they can actually turn on. So like if you're never training at your max speed or jumping as far as possible, I mean, those are the two quickest things you can physically do. Sprinting is the fastest thing your body can do. If you're not doing it, then I mean, you're really just, you're going to be working on way slower rates of force production, like moving weights. It's a slow thing. It can build strength. It can help you be more resilient. You can do a whole lot and you will develop power, but if you're not touching on that other end of the spectrum, the really, really, really fast side and you're not trying to improve your nervous system, then you're going to be missing out on a lot because as athletes, I mean, you think about it in any sport, speed is king, like speed is so important and it can help you swim faster. It can help you, you know, hip over faster, get up on your legs faster. It can help you cut faster. Like it's like a shot. Everything. Yeah, everything. Everything. We've even seen it and I think this is like one of the most eye-opening things for me. We implement sprints every single training session now. So kids will be doing them two or three times a week at our gym and we do such a low volume of them. I mean, we'll do four, five, you know, I don't even think we've ever touched six sprints. And we keep them between like 10 and 15 yards. Some days, if we can get outside, maybe we're going 20 yards all out. But over the course of, I would say, you know, maybe a month, even two to three months, you can watch an athlete make improvements in every aspect of their training. Like the kids sprints for three months and his squats look better, his lunges look better, the pushups look better, pullups look better. They're moving around more fluidly. Like you just, with that coach is how you can just look and see like they're more comfortable in their own body, everything starts to clean up a little bit. Not to say that doing those exercises isn't going to also help with that. But the rate that they are able to pick up skills and learn and maneuver their body. When you start adding in sprints and jumps, it completely changes the athlete. Yeah. And you can also see them like get more athletic. Like I make a joke sometimes, I mean, it's not even a joke. They might think it's a joke. I tell kids like weekly, like you better be careful, you turn into a track star, like, and they laugh. They giggle and whatnot. Like I'm being serious, like it's crazy to see like how much they improve, how fast, like how much faster they get, like watch them do one jump one week and then a couple weeks later, we come back to it and they do it again and they're jumping way further than they did before. And it's like, yeah, that's not an accident. Like that right there is proof that you can train the nervous system. And it's not something that's just like based upon genetics. Like, yeah, other people can be, you know, born with a, with a better and higher functioning nervous system. But like, it can be improved. You can turn people who are slower and can't jump that far into people who are faster and can jump further. And I just, I really believe that and I've seen it myself and in the, with the athletes that we work with. And yeah. Yeah. And you already touched on Kula a little bit and we've talked about him before, but I want to go back one more time to a, a story that he was telling where he started training a swim team. He works with the swim team now. And with their training, like, he made a big portion of their strength program sprinting and implementing sprinting consistently. And he's all about speed. And I think they said every kid got best times that season or something like that. And they broke 40 or 48 club records, 48 of their club records were broken. The year they started doing this. If you're a swim coach or a swimmer out there, like, I really challenge you to not only think about that and dive in deeper, but to find a way and I want to be careful. This doesn't mean at swim practice now that a coach with no background or knowledge in this takes their team up to the track and it starts ripping sprints like crazy with zero knowledge of how to implement or program this. But it's very worth considering figuring out a way to do it, you know, properly. I mean, reach out to us, like, talk to us, talk to anybody, anybody with a, with a strength background, some, some low dose sprinting a couple days a week can absolutely change how you perform in the pool big time for both swimmers and water pool of players. I would have, I would have every water sport. I would have surfers do it. I would have artistic swimmers do it like a higher functioning nervous system is going to help you develop every other quality. Yeah. And like Jack and I said, like, it's one thing to do it, but it's one thing to do it right. And I'm no expert, you know, I haven't been doing sprints or training sprints for a really long time, but I put out a program that's pretty basic. It's what I do. It's low dosage. Do it two, three times a week. It's free. It's on my Instagram. I think that's a decent place to start. There are people who do it way better than I do. So please go look at their stuff. Go check out Brian Coolis page, go check out Les Bellman's page, like there's so many other coaches. If you have any questions or want some advice or are looking for other people to go look at, like please hit Jack and I up, like we have so many amazing coaches that we follow who have other specialties and are so well equipped to teach and help you get better with these things. Yeah. Hey, thanks again for listening to Callin' Us or Callin' I this week. We really appreciate it. If you got some from the show, we just ask, man, share it with a friend, share it with the fellow athlete, teammate, share it with a parent or parent, share it with your kids, share it with other coaches, like throw it up on your Instagram or maybe just send it over to him in a text and have him listen to it because we really appreciate the support and that's how the show is going to grow. So we love y'all, have a kick-ass Monday and talk to you soon. (upbeat music)