In this podcast conversation, host Young Gary interviews strength and conditioning coach Peter Rice (P.T. Performance). Peter discusses his recent experience at a sports conference and his process-oriented approach to setting business and athletic goals. He explains his training methodology for team-sport athletes, advocating for vertical integration—where multiple physical qualities like strength, power, and conditioning are developed concurrently throughout the season, with shifting emphases—rather than traditional block periodization. Peter highlights the importance of athlete autonomy in training, allowing individuals to choose exercises and adjust volume based on how they feel to ensure quality and engagement. He cautions against an over-reliance on standardized strength metrics, arguing that movement quality and sport-specific performance are more critical than hitting arbitrary weightlifting numbers, which can sometimes compromise technique and increase injury risk, particularly for younger athletes. The discussion underscores a flexible, individualized approach to coaching that prioritizes sustainable progress and overall athletic development.
What is the crack everyone? It's been a little bit of time since I've had a guest on the podcast and the one I have on today is a strength and position in coach. He's going to get you fast. He's known online as P.T. Performance. Peter Rice, thank you so much for coming on. How are you keeping? I'm the finest. Thanks for having me, Young Gary. It's a pleasure to be on for this chat. I thought I'd be a little bit worse for where today. I just got back from the sports Smith speed conference at the weekend and I was in the whole pile of sleep over the weekend between flight flights being delayed and then under Saturday, which a number of different strength and condition coaches in one place. You wouldn't expect those to go on the beer but that is exactly what happened. It was great crack. It was a fantastic weekend of learning and happy to have this conversation and hopefully impart some of the wisdom that I've just learned from all of the better coaches than me across the water and from all over the world. Glad and keen to get into it. As I said to you before we started, I wanted to pick your brand because you know more than me. If you're saying you're learning from Lads and no more than you, hopefully you'll hopefully pick up something from us from this chat today and really looking forward to it. Before we go into it and you can elaborate a little bit about it there with the Recorder's Conference. I always like asking coaches themselves, do you have any particular goals you're working towards yourself at the moment? Be it fitness wise, strength wise, nutrition wise or business wise? Heaps, always heaps, always lords and I am all over the place generally. That's my personality. I like to have multiple different things going on at one time. I was just chatting to a number of coaches yesterday about this and about how I like to spread what I'm focused on across the board to keep me engaged and keep me enjoying it. So as a business, we'll always seek water-ly goals and we'll always attempt to hit them in terms of, and like they could be in terms of revenue for the business, it could be in terms of client acquisition, it could be in terms of growing the podcast, it could be simple, simply in terms of getting some high quality and high caliber guests on a certain number of them or reaching out to a certain number of people. But then as well as that in relation to the GAA season, we're heading into our league with our ladies team. First league game is on Wednesday and then we are tree-rounding with the hurlers and the footballers. So we would have had sit-down meetings with the groups at the start of the year as most groups would have done this year and for many years in the past and we would have been setting goals, talking about our process and our outcome goals and there's a correlation there between our process and our outcome goals in performance as well as our process and our outcome goals in business. And it's very interesting because when you're setting goals and you're setting standards and you're setting what you're going to adhere to in order to be consistent so that you're more likely to reach the goals down the line, you will often be attempting to motivate others as a coach or sometimes not even motivate them but maybe concentrate their attention on the lowest hanging fruit and the easiest things that they can do on a consistent basis to make it more likely that they reach their goals. When you're setting goals personally, you're doing the exact same thing. You're setting goals out and you're setting process orientated goals that you can hit on a daily, weekly, monthly basis to hopefully end up where you want to end up down the line as well. So I'm very process orientated as a person. So I have my list every morning that I write down and I cross them off as they go. I get a little bit of dopamine serotonin every time something gets crossed off. My housemates likes the life out of me because she's like you're writing everything on a list. Insane. But I think it's sort of Matthew McConaughey got me into during COVID. He was talking about how we'd write literally his whole day on a list and I'm very Google calendar oriented person as well. So all of that goes in a list as well. So there's multiple goals and then in terms of my own training, like I have to train every day. Like I'm just that type of person that if I don't move, I'm not feeling fully myself and I don't feel like my attention is as good elsewhere. So I'm generally the morning trainer. At the moment, I am transitioning from a bit of a strength block into a more power focus or power development focus block where we do a lot of velocity based training and building a decent amount of volume at law intensities or law loads. And I tend to do that and train that way because I try a lot of things that I will do with my athletes on myself first to see how I find it. As well as that, I do have aspirations of getting back to play in competitive sports soon. It's just with coaching as the conversation was at the weekend, I'm caught up every night coaching Monday to Friday. And then on the weekends, I might have time to do an individual sport or our plane individual sport like golf, which I'm absolutely obsessed with at the moment. So the goal is to shoot sub 90 in the next month. That's the golf orientate goal. And then I have a number of different physical metric goals in the gym that I'll be trying to hit as well. So very, very broad, I know, but as you can imagine that as I just said, I've loads of different things. I'm focused on the odds and that's what I enjoy doing, I suppose. That's brilliant. I love hearing that. And again, kind of the aspirations you have, you have goals set in your process, the oriented person. And it's great. Like if you're a coach, obviously you're telling people to follow the process. And not that I don't like what people say because sometimes they do it myself. I'm, won't be as organized as yourself now, but like sometimes they can do this and say, not as I do, I feel a little bit more scatty, but as a coach, if you see the person that's telling you what to do, is also following the process, whether that's in their own kind of strength or fitness schools or their business wise, like, right, okay, well, he's doing it for a reason and he's a coach for a reason. It's kind of given that good impression that right, okay, I'm going to stick to this plan for a minute. And kind of just touching on that power phase you're coming into at the moment. And I suppose the main question that every G A player listens to this probably is probably going to ask me or yourself is, how do I get faster and how do I get stronger and how do I get more powerful and that? How important is it you reckon to kind of come into that power phase in the season and like I love what you said there about your trials upon yourself first, I love doing that myself and I've made mistakes, loathes them in the past, which again, the idea of a coach is I to coach someone else is learning curves so they don't make it themselves and unfortunately I've made some terrible mistakes which have made my performance worse. But how important is it now we're talking, you know, I'm coming into A for now, I'm coming into the start of the leagues. If people have been doing a good offseason plan on a strength block or hypertrophy block, why is it so important to come into a power focused phase moment? Okay, I can't be after that. So when I am programming for any team's board at least, I generally won't do it in block periodization. Actually, I won't do it in block periodization. So we won't go hypertrophy strength power, although I may do that with myself because I'm not training team sport and I don't have tactical and technical goals to hit. And my conditioning generally isn't going to go very specific. It's not going to be anaerobic. It'll generally be pretty aerobic because my goals in the gym are generally health focused and generally feeling good and attempting to look good are feeling confident in myself, I guess. With the power focused stuff, so the model of periodization that I would use generally is called vertical integration. So if you think about all of the qualities that you want to develop as a team's board at least, let's just say a GA player, you'll have strength, you'll have hypertrophy, you'll have power, you will have change direction agility, you will have acceleration, you will have max velocity, you will also have aerobic and anaerobic condition loads. If you were to do block periodization, it wouldn't work because your playing matches the whole way through that as well as that with your team sport training, which are training with the team, you're going to be working on conditioning, you're going to be working on change direction speed, etc in those training sessions as well. So you're never solely going to be focused on developing wound quality. So with vertical integration, we actually work on all of those qualities the whole way through the season, both the emphasis of what we're focused on working on and developing will change based on the phase. So as I said there for a power focused phase or a power development, it won't be solely power that we're trying to develop and I see that a lot with athletes that are doing their own program and going into the gym and taking things that they see off the internet and off social media and they're like I'm going to do a powerful session and then they go in and they're just buying a drum of just 24 different power focus exercises, whereas really they'd be getting more buying for bulk.
if they just took one to two exercises where they're either focused on rate of force development, so developing force very, very quickly, or their maximal outputs, so like their max strength, max power, whatever they can, they can output as much as possible. If they did that to a high degree and you've already developed that, then in the same session, it's fine after that to move on to a different movement velocity or in a different physical quality. So after you've worked on your RFDE, your rate of force development and your power, it's fine to just go into a strength-focused movement or a hypertrophy focused, sorry, I shouldn't see a strength-focused movement, I should say an exercise or a variation and a set and wreck scheme where you're more focused at developing strength or more focused at development hypertrophy. But you might have a particular emphasis on developing power for like a micro cycle of two, three, four weeks, but you're never solely just working on one to answer that in a very long-winded way. I think though that a lot of athletes do and team sport athletes from my perspective and what I've seen a lot of them just go a strength for the whole year and like very slow strength is not going to really help you that much as a team sport athlete when you're trying to develop speed change and directionability. It might help you initially when you're a bit younger and you haven't yet developed that strength, but you're only going to get so much out of five by five programming and before you're just going to plateau and also because the season is so taxing under so many games, you're going to have to un-delay or alter the amount of intensity within the weeks as the weeks go on because the fact of the matter is if you're playing the bottom of the league team and you know that you're going to go in and you're probably going to have a handy enough game, you're not going to be as stressed going into that game or coming out of it if you win by a large margin and you only play 40 minutes, maybe you come off, then if you play your biggest rivals down the road in a runching counter where there's a thousand people at a roar and actually from the sideline and you're really feeling the pressure in the heat of that battle, you're not going to be as well recovered then for the next week, so there's no point in trying to go with a very structured hip-block periodization model when we don't know what's going to happen. So I know that's answering the question in a roundabout way, but I'm very non-married to specifics in terms of my programming for my athletes and for myself. I will always prescribe a range of sets that they can complete and I will always prescribe them a very a variance of exercise varieties or exercise modalities or different exercises that they can pick because I had this conversation at the weekend and that comes in and he's like, I don't think I can front squat today, like I just not up to it. In the past, when I was very young, when I was in coaching in schools and whatnot, I was saying, "No, we're front squatting today, you're front squatting, you are early." But now I'm like, "Okay, Grant, what do you want to do? Do you want to trap our deadlift? Do you want to back squat? Do you want to go up the squat? Do you want to do a uni-atre squat?" I don't really care as long as they're getting some exposure to the stimulus. And likely, if I made that person front squat, what would the quality of that front squat that they don't want to do be? It would probably be pretty shit, whereas if they really love trap-barred deadlift and I was like, "Right, let's do a trap-barred deadlift, they're going to get far more out of that than if not." And then in relation to the sets, then, am I going to make them do five sets because that's on the program when they're feeling a bit banged up. If they do three high-quality sets, it's not going to be more valuable than doing five sets of absolute rubbish. So I try to deliver a high level of autonomy in my program and from my athletes so that they feel that they have control over what they're doing. And so that depending on how they're feeling that day, they can decide what they're capable of doing. Now there's a caveat to that as well in that. If I have some athletes that are generally quite soft, I'm sure they say it's tough, but they don't, that, maybe not soft, but they don't enjoy the gym as much. Then I'm going to be motivating them a little bit more. And then I'll also have tons of athletes, which is a great problem to have. Tons of athletes that need to be protected from themselves. Where they're like, I'm my grinds at me a little bit, pretty sore there, and I'm like, okay, how many sets of back squats did you do there? I did the five. What way did you do? I was near enough my max. I was like, why? If you're in pain, just tell me before you do it, you shouldn't be doing that. So that's the way I kind of think about things because I think we get caught up in the weeds a lot, whereas the hardest thing in GA is getting them to do the sessions in the first place. So like, if you can get them to do something, it's going to be better than nothing. Then we can worry about how much they're doing and what they're doing. You've answered, I'd say about 20 questions there, answered that my question. And as I said to you that I don't ask people to ask, I've sent the question box anymore because it's the same kind of questions every time. But you've covered with so much stuff there that it's about 20 of smaller questions in one. And so I think the main takeaway of the problem is there is no one size fits all for everyone. And everyone wants to hear this, like, look, this is what we need to be doing at this time. And I can't answer the liberal abroad statement there about this coming in block because people are used to hearing that. As I buy it, powers, I get the questions a lot. I'm sure you do too. What's a good plyometric workout? I was like, well, you're not going to do all the time that one because the keyword is, yeah, when should I do plyometrics? I go to the gym twice a week. When do I do my plyometrics? Do them when you're in the gym? That's like their exercise. You do them alongside stuff. And I think like as well, and I fall into this trap myself. I wouldn't even say when I was younger. I'm talking in the last couple of years that, sometimes your focus changes from performance to more gym-based work. And just kind of, I kind of enjoy the strength, side of things in power lift, not quite power lift, but I like want to get picked numbers and bench, want to get picked numbers in Scott, want to get picked numbers in deadlift. And coming into the end season, they're obviously not the main goal of the main goal is going to be my performance on the pitch. But you still somewhat want to keep, you know, you always hear the least numbers or the least targets aim for. I think there's obviously is a point of dimension returns that if we keep aiming for these massive numbers, like, oh, has a 1.5 your body weight on bench, two times your body weight in squat and 2.5 on deadlift was like the goal standard elite levels at least it should be aim for. Is that the case that we obviously it's a recommendation of target? What stage would you reckon is like, it's probably a north at this stage as people can get quite overwhelmed. Like, I need to be hitting this number because Gary said that's the number. So I have to, if I'm not doing that, I'm, you know, poor. What is like a good kind of range, if you will. I have a bit of a difficulty with those metrics. I think that they're good as goals to have. But I'll draw back to maybe three years ago. I had a player ask me. He's now actually, he's, he's starting on the senior panel. He was very young. I think he was only 18 at the time when he asked me. But I was teaching him. He'd never done a trap bar deadlift before. And he was doing a trap bar deadlift. And at this stage, he was pretty green in terms of his training age was quite low. He hadn't done much lift and then he said, Oh, what, what, what mound should I be lifting on the trap bar? And I said to him, I don't care. He said, What? I was like, Connor, as long as you put the ball over the bar, I'll stay in my job. So there's bigger things to worry about than how much you're lifting on the trap bar. There are some of the fastest sprinters in the world who didn't even look at the way it for about 10 years of their career. They were still able to sprint fast. So like, it's great to have metrics to go by and it's great to look at what correlates with the highest and most elite performers in that sport and to have that in your mind. But I would rather set goals that are specific to the individual around their performance and how far they can take themselves than by aligning myself or marrying myself to watch the literature and the research would state that they should be doing. Obviously, we do, are we should be looking at some things in terms of if we're going to reduce injury risk, there should be hitting certain metrics. But I would argue from the conversations I've been having over the weekend and last week as well that what they're doing doesn't matter as much as how they're doing it. So often we get married to, are we really intensely focus on these body weight relevant metrics that we want to hit. And as a result of doing that, the movement quality is reduced, there is not as good. And I think especially with youth athletes when they feel like they should be getting a two times body weight trap or deadlift, if they feel they're nearest, then they are going to push to get to it and they might go outside of what they're capable of doing with decent integrity to the movement quality. So I had the conversation last week with David Gray.
around some intercounty players and how, in fact, those intercounty players, now I know they're outliers because they're elite athletes and they're top of the top cream in the crop. They need so little exposure to strength training to keep them on the field that they're actually probably getting less out of pushing the strength numbers off than they would be if they just focused on the actual things that are going to be more likely to keep them feeling good and keep them moving well. So if I'm to break down what my job is as a strength and conditioning coach into a sentence which is very hard for me because I talk so much and I talk so much shite. My goal as a coach is to give the athletes confidence. A confident athlete is going to perform better on the field and I can give them confidence through guiding them towards improved performance that we can measure and we should be able to measure certain things in terms of physical qualities but that's the overall goal all the time is that you were at this level now you're at this level. Oh, I feel like I'm capable of more now. So on the field, I'm not going to play within myself. I'm going to put myself in challenging opportunities in training and in matches because I feel capable that I'll be able to deal with those scenarios. Very long-winded answer but so what so to sum up in terms of the goals, I won't really look at across the board what everybody needs to be hidden but I will meet with the athletes on most of my teams on an individual level when we're doing our goal setting and I will set specific goals to them on a specific number of qualities are monitoring measures or test and again, I'm saying that I'll do that with a couple of my teams but with some of them I won't do it because you're a different coach for each team you have a different need for each team like which I won't name the teams but we're one of the teams it's the major challenges just getting them in to do something at all like get them out the pub and that's a win if I can get them into the process and get them consistent in their training that's what our goal is for now and that's okay whereas other ones I'll get more caught up in the will of okay can we push your speed on a little bit over 10 20 meters can we get your high speed running in the games up a little bit more can we increase your rate of force development in terms of your trap or deadlift or your bench press can we increase your RSI so your drop jump scores can we increase your counter movement jump get you more explosive get your bouncy or for some athletes it might be can we get your pain free so that you're able to train and so that you're able to be on the field so yeah I don't really worry too much about where everybody is in relation to each other I'm more worried about how they are in and where they are in relation to themselves last week that makes sense yeah that's a hundred percent this perfect again you get the questions like what I need to be doing and I think no matter how many times you say I think I get a fresh perspective on someone who knows more than me explaining why these numbers are important and as you're saying there as long as you're getting better over time and it doesn't matter what the X is you're you started X now you're at Y and that's if you're looking at six months and you're still at the same point you probably might be thinking right okay there's something obviously going to look back here and scale back and see what's going on but if you're improving over time and if you're playing better and if you're saying the main thing obviously is getting that ball over the bar if you're able to do that week in week out and you're feeling better about yourself and the numbers in the gym happen to be also going in a linear not linear fashion but are also across across the week like what does it matter that your body who goes to the gym six years as we can as never kicked it ball in his life can bench more than and I think that's the so important again like the main focus is if you're a G.E. player is your performance on the pitch and again I'm talking about mistakes I made in the past where I wanted to be super straighted for Z. Gatti look and I wanted to be a power lifter I wanted to be all this and a G.E. player and obviously it's not saying you can't do both I didn't align everything and correctly that I could hit board at the same time which meant my main goal which was my G.E. performance went down the way which again that's that was always my main goal but sometimes you kind of get the sidetracked by by GM and stuff as well as you kind of briefly touched on at there about the speed and I think it's I think this isn't an area you probably know yourself now that people are getting more focused on and getting more in tune with it and I think it's great because it's speed it as it will say in speedcales and especially acceleration I think in G.E. It's the acceleration I think from your own experience of playing that's what kind of gets it's the difference is that 5-10 meters that is the difference you can get now in front of your like I'm a corner for myself and my acceleration will be at a decent level my top end speed isn't fantastic now but I can go from zero to top quite quickly and then as a corner for it I don't go past a 45 you know yourself I'm in close to goals there and I still think there's this little bit of people who don't want to believe that to get faster you have to run fast and take lots of rest and I think the rest is the big things like oh but sure during the game you don't get a minute rest for run for run and time you say but yeah but like that's you train to get you prepared for games how important is it number one to sprint a few times a week at max velocity max speed max effort to get faster and also just why is it so important we're taking that rest and or maybe I'm making a wrong statement what I'm saying there and no no there are a number of different reasons that we should be sprinting I have a heavy speed bias in terms of my training and coaching of team sport athletes because that's what I was molded by what is a commonality amongst all players that play a gale football and hurling on the field what do they all have to be able to do run it's running based sport so why in the hell would we not attempt to improve our ability to run in terms of trying to improve our athletic ability I just think it's it's a crazy question that we don't attempt to improve our movement quality in relation to sprinting in relation to the movements that are relevant to the game what's the number one injury as well in gale games hamstrings by a country mile what's the number one injury risk reduction matters for hamstrings sprint trail so and something that I was explaining to some of the English coaches over in a couple of weeks ago and I was just saying that the lead at the weekend was how as a training in addition coach in GAA your primary goal is just keeping all of the athletes healthy because if someone gets injured in GAA we can transfer someone in well actually sorry we won't put out that rather than all I've been done with we're not going to be a lot of resistance to that happening it's not an it's not an opportunity really so if we're going to risk or reduce injury risk in GAA for any lower limb injury with those lower limb injuries with those hamstring post-ear chain injuries typically they're going to happen true acceleration deceleration max velocity run and change directions and sometimes react to it not very often but I wouldn't say not very often not as often so if we're going to reduce injury risk and hopefully keep athletes on the field first then we're going to have to sprint them near enough their max velocity or what they're capable of doing as well as that the sport is dictated by space who can find the space and get to the space first as well as that if you're a back or if you don't have the ball if you're forward as well you have to be able to close the space you have to be able to identify the space that your opponent is trying to get into and get there before him so with that in mind obviously we need to be able to perceive the space and see it and positionally put ourselves in the right position to get there first but it also helps to be just faster than your opponent physically to get there so if we're going to be a better athlete on the field and better able to find space create space close the space then it makes sense to be able to get there faster and to work on our max speed work on our acceleration as you said and then as well as that not just linearly but work on the speed in change and direction movements and then when we come into perception work on our game speed our ability to identify scenarios and pick the right option our decision making so if we're going to improve as not late as well as just stay healthy sprint and seems like a pretty important thing to do if we're going to develop our maximum outputs like we just said about the gym then it makes sense that we're fully recovered so we can push those max outputs like you touched on there in terms of you have a passion for some of the compound movements the power lift and movements if you were trying to develop
your bench press and you were doing a TRM or a number of different low volume lifts, wait like really low volume, so but incredibly high load. You're not going to take party to 60 seconds rest in between those lifts because you're not pushing max strength if you're doing that because you're not fully recovered to go again. The exact same thing with Sprinton. You can't develop your maximum output in your max velocity if you don't rest in between. And it's the same thing with the change of direction. If you're constantly fatigued, then the quality is going to go down and then you're not going to actually improve to top end. You're probably just working in the middle zone which is no good to anyone because nobody wins championships for a move and slow for a long period of time. As you said, people got a you have to be able to move fast and you have to be able to move fast repeatedly. So the caveat to that is first we need to develop our capacity to move fast, then we can worry about how repeatability is over time. But if we raise that ceiling in terms of our max speed would be more likely to raise the floor as well because say you run 8.5 meters per second as a max speed or max output. Seven meters per second as a percentage of your total max speed is going to be close to about 80%. I'm not big numbers guy. I'm very verbal chaotic as you can guess. If I move the ceiling of the max speed I'm able to hit the 9 meters per second, what happens to our ability to tolerate that 7 meters per second? As a percentage of our max speed, it's now lower. So it won't be as taxing so we'll be hopefully more efficient at moving at that speed. And 7 meters per second is still pretty fucking fast as well. You wouldn't tolerate running like that for a long period of time. So that's why we should be developing the maximum outputs and not just doing repeated sprints all the time with very little rest. When you're coach and speed with a group, your athletes should be almost bored by the time they're doing their next rep. I had to get my guys into the habit and my girls as well. When they run the sprint I'm like they automatically because they've been conditioned to do it over years they turn around and start jogging back to the line. And I've like okay every stop jogging, let's walk back, let's have a chat, let's talk about it, we'll get back to the line. And then when we get back to the line we're still going to have minutes to rest before we're going to go again. And we might only get, because I'm only going to get as a straight condition, coach 10-15 minutes, that's started a session. So we might only get exposure to a couple of maximal efforts sprints there. It's probably going to be enough to retain your speed. And if you haven't been training speed frequently before, maybe improve your max speed. But if that's the only exposure you're getting throughout the week, then you probably do need an additional microdose of speed development and speed training yourself. And a great thing that I've seen in the last month or so is some of my athletes have been taken on board what I've been saying over the last few years. And they're starting to get up to the pitch at a half-six, doing a microdose of what they need to work on, specifically whether it's acceleration, max velocity, their technical capacity to run, order change direction and agility. And they're doing that after their own bath before we go into our training session. Same principle as if you're a free-taker and you get up to the field with a bag of balls and kick them over to bar before the training session, you're doing that because you don't feel you're getting enough shots in training to develop your shooting. So while you with physical qualities like speed and change direction and agility, do we allow ourselves to just have those three to four moments in training that we get to, we won't even get to max velocity, but that we're actually pushing ourselves hard or putting ourselves in a difficult scenario and trying to get out of it. And we say, that's enough, I'm going to develop, I'm going to get better from doing that. You need to do a little bit more. Like as a corner forward, just as a question for you, Gary, if you were in a team training session and even if you're playing like medium-sized, large-sized games or backs and forwards or whatever, how many opportunities do you reckon you get in that session to take on your corner back one-on-one in an hour-long session? You're probably talking one, especially small to medium-sized games because you're always going to have that rule, two players, one player. And it's very, very, very seldom you get that one-on-one, I'm going balls to all, going to take a manifold speed. It very rarely happens. And then in a game, like do you feel like if you're not doing the extras that you would be prepared to execute that scenario better over the course of the season, if you're not getting the opportunity to experience that scenario frequently in training? Yeah, absolutely not. Like a common-from experience I wouldn't have taken my train in the gym quite seriously until I was a probably 21-20, to my speedwork, probably didn't really start checking that seriously until I'm 29 now. Probably 26-27, if an already started realizing that speed in itself is a specific skill and it's not done or you're not getting enough of it from your club training. And over the years, from one bridge, that would have been my thing, it would have been quick, it would have been like, "Rump past year for players under like under 16, at a lower division." And then coming seniors, like, "Why isn't this happening from now?" And so used to be named as "Rump past children." "Why am I named as "Rump past men?" Which is, I always say to young people, ask me questions about my first year senior. You're paying against children, paying against men, that's why. But when I started doing those sprints now, and when I feel like I'm at a stage where, as I said, like a mixed acceleration is my thing, that that's what I'm best at. Now at this stage of the year, it's not quite as good because the ground is a little bit soft, you feel like it does not get in that spring, and like that's the excuse I'm telling myself, both, as you're saying there, if I wasn't doing the sprint work in isolation, and you only get that one or two sprints taken on a man and training, you get in, that's that's the confidence, and that's where people kind of lose, as you're saying, the main thing is the coaches to make people feel confident, feel good in themselves. If they're not feeling confident, they're able to run past someone. I hope they know they're definitely faster than, but in their head, in that moment in time, they're thinking, "Oh, I haven't sprinted, I don't feel good and fast today." For whatever reason, and again, there's obviously more reasons than we can even counter as to why someone might feel confident, in a certain day, in-site sport, outside sport, whatever the case may be, but to answer your question, yes, if you don't do that work in isolation from your own experience, you're not confident doing the match. We're talking now, like we've, we've, we've, again, there, on Saturday, when anytime I got the ball, my initial thing was what the head down, if it was none, then you know, you're a cyclist or again, you're trying to make something else happen, but I had the stage now where I'm feeling good, I've lost a little bit of weight recently as well, which was definitely needed. I was a little bit too heavy, then the last year, that I'm like a performance, I'm feeling, I'm feeling like I'm flying it, I'm practicing my sprint work, I feel like, it's not to sound like an asshole, but I feel like no one can catch me if I go check an off here now at the moment, and as you're saying, as a coach, you should feel. Yeah, and again, it's such an irish thing, you say sorry for feeling confident yourself because you, you know, to come off as an arrogant layer of soul. That's the kind, that's the way I'm feeling at the moment, and it comes down to my preparation, and again, again, it comes to maturity as well, and it comes to getting older that you realize that, like even if it's funny, or you're younger, you're nearly kind of made fun of if you were good. Yeah, yeah, and I know, and we're not the only team, I'm not saying we're a special case, there is that kind of element that, especially if you talk minor level, under 21 level, even a couple of years of senior people are there that if you're trying to be the best you possibly can be, there will be people there who kind of want to check you down because whether it's a case in ourselves or not confident in their own abilities, like all the easiest things to do now is make fun of them because I'll look at the liquor, you're liquor off the manager because he's trying to win all the sprints and trying to better himself and go to the gym. Oh, what are what are the liquor's that that might just be enough for one person to not do that work anymore. Yeah, it's so disappointing to say because when people are trying to better themselves, one small comment like that could completely derail their confidence and it comes to game time then when they're both the lads gold is for the team to win a championship his own team it has completely derailed his his his his court could be his corner for player of sight him his his own confidence and it's it's it comes down to just doing those reps and that's that's a question I wanted to ask you actually as well was like how important or not it's important but like how much would like a mental fatigue or just general mental fogginess or mental clarity have on your overall performance in the gym and on the pitch as well. I would say like if you could do all the strangeness and work in the world you're sprinting twice a week going to the gym twice a week you're getting your recovery or playing your games and everything like that but if you're having an off day mentally whether with the ever dealing with anxiety or just overwhelmed or had a tough day at work if you're someone with kids or something like that or to sleep and start gliding exams there is going to just be days where it's not your best day ever and how important is again, what I want to get your perspective and it's how important is it for people to realize that's normal that it's it is going to happen. It's extremely important and it's extremely important as coaches as well because we're in an amateur sport that we train professionally for and
And there are so many other stressors in the week that impact on your mental performance. And the number one thing that's going to impact on your confidence is your mental health or your mental performance or where you're feeling psychologically. So obviously the psychological impacts the physical to a great level. So a very important thing as coach is to do is to make your players aware that if the kids are up till 2 3 a.m. in the morning, the light before, you are not required to get through the same amount of work as everybody else that's in here as the guys that are in college wouldn't even turn up for a lecture today. They've been at home playing the PlayStation. You don't have the same level of stress probably, so you're not going to be able to tolerate the same amount of stress in this training session before you will be putting yourself at risk of breaking down. And obviously stress is bad in a sense, but it's also good in that stress is what we're seeking in order to elicit adaptation and cause an adaptation to improve. But it's about the right amount of stress at the right time. And sometimes it's not the right time to go hell for later in terms of intensity, volume, etc. What we're trying to do is we're trying to on your good days expose you to more intensity that you're able to tolerate and recover from so that when you come in on your bad days, your bad days aren't as bad as what they could have been. We're still able to expose you to more on that day because of the robustness and the tolerance that you've built up. As an example, like two weeks ago, one of my players down in the dressing room after training, the way we run training and my perspective on it is that your high days should be high so you should have really hard days and then your low days should remain low so it should be low. And that's in relation to stress and sits kind of intensity as well. So we will do our gym and our pitch on the same night because it allows our lad and our ladies more time to recover away from the pitch. It allows them to have more balance in their life. It will reduce stresses hopefully in terms of their spouse or their partner one time with them and time spent with them. It will give them more opportunities to have more experiences away from the field outside football, outside harling, the Mogi as well. And it will hopefully lead to them being more motivated and more refreshed and more willing to push intensity when they are at the field because when I came in first, like I just thought it was madness that some of these lads lads in particular because we have more jewels on the lads teams. Some of them were up there six, seven days a week and I was like, what the hell is going on? Like this is insane. Like, why are we up here so consistently because if we're up here the whole way across the week and our frequency is that high, we're not going to be able to push the intensity so much because we're never recovering enough to push the intensity again. The same principle as with our sprints. So he said to me, long story short, he said, I can't believe how I'm feeling now. We've just done an hour in the gym and an hour on the pitch and I feel like I could go for another half an hour if I needed to. And two years ago when you came in and you were saying we were going to do a gym and pitch on the same day, I thought you were fucking mental. I thought there was no chance that that was possible. But because we bled it in over time and we slowly progressed it now what they're able to tolerate, far exceeds what they were able to tolerate previously. So I hope that answers your question in some way, but there's so many factors that have to be taken in to account. And the number one thing that you need to do as a coach is you need to approach your players and ask them what's going on in their lives at the moment. And it shows that you care, it shows that you're able to connect with them and it shows that you actually understand that football is in everything in their life. They have other things that are going to impact on their mental health, their mental performance and under overall performance up there. And we have a variety of different methods that we use to assess their wellness, assess how well they're recovered, assess their performance. But the number one is always how is it going? There's no point in having the data if you're not able to have a conversation. Yeah, 100% in the nail on the head there. Like for training for one person could be an hour to go to the house and just clear the head. And for someone else, like you're saying there at 670s, we get such an Irish thing as well that all the more the better, the more the better. It's absolutely doggy every single day. The team down the road or train at 5 days a week. We better train 6 and no days off and I even go back to speed work. It's absolutely doggy. It's a case where you're the max speed you can actually roll in this run is just above a walk. That's how tired we want you to be because when it comes to your championship time, you won't be. You remember this. It's such an, you have to go to the absolute extremes where as you're saying there to scale it back and even like to do double up in days is it's fine if you're taking a rest at the next day. Like that's against someone who's going to listen to this at 16 year old like, oh yeah, double, let's do double sessions every day. Every day. I'm going to do 14 sessions across. It was like, no, if you do a double session and one day the next day as you're saying it's the load, that's the rest of that's your recovery day. And your recovery day isn't doing a 5k or are doing this in session or you know, it's really taken her back and that's something that again. Well, with that as well, Gary. Like with the high day and the low day. So the low day doesn't have to be complete rest, but as you said, you can push the intensity on that day. Well, you can, but it'd be stupid to do so. Like a spin session or running on the road is not going to be a low intensity or maybe of lower intensity, but it's not going to be low in terms of stress. You can hop onto the bike if you want, but I don't want you going more than 60% of your max heart rate. I don't want you staying on it for longer than an hour. And as well as that, if it's not something that you've been doing, then you don't just implement it straight away. The same thing that my athlete was saying there, we bled it in over time. Like, you don't just go from here in this and just throw out your whole program and say, OK, now I'm going to do gym and pitch on the same day every day as you said. You should be building up your frequency and changing that over time, not just wholesale or all of a sudden doing it. And as he said earlier, as well, there's not one size fits all model. Like, it might work for you differently. So as I said, I personally feel like I have to do something every day. So I still use a high low model, but I might do some low intensity aerobic work on a low day or I might do an upper body session in the gym on a low day. But in order at least my not recover as well, maybe because of the rage. And they may not be able to tolerate that. Maybe they need a full day arrest in between their training sessions. So it's different. It's different for every individual. And your training should be individual to you if you're going to get them all out of it. And that's something that has probably been a difficulty in terms of the GAA is that here's the teams program, go and do the teams program. There's no element of individualization in a whatsoever. And as you said about yourself, you're very strong and you're very good at acceleration, which there is a bit of a correlation between typically, which are max velocity is as good. And I don't know, maybe I'm making assumptions, maybe your reactivity is fantastic either. Are we going to get more out of training you to get stronger and improve your acceleration or for you, should you be maybe focus a little bit more on your max velocity and your reactivity to get more out of yourself. Like as I said with those players that are going out and doing extras, they're not all doing the same thing because some don't need to improve axel. Some of them need to improve max velocity and some of them just run like shit so they need to improve their technique. So that is difficult as a coach. Like you'll have more work to do by writing a few different programs within your system or your framework, but the team is going to get more out of it from you doing so. And also the athletes are probably going to buy in a little bit better because they're getting a program that you perceive to be the best thing for them. Yeah, 100% and like that, I've had people coming online with me for online coaching. And then after a couple of weeks, I'm saying, "Oh, Sarah, I can't finish the last week or two because our team has got a new plan and our coach wants everyone to do the same plan and don't do the wrong thing." And you're after spending an X amount on this to get a tailor plan for you and what you told me what your goal is there, what the equipment you have available to you, how many days a week can go? Like I've designed this for you and you're not going to do it now because your coach of probably has very limited knowledge and necessity has got a plan. Corky cutter plan and that's it. Every single person has to do the same two sessions a week. It is frustrating, not because you're in terms of the coaching. You're for a straight forward player who, like you said, I've perceived this to be the best plan for you. What you've told me is what your goal is there. This is what I think is the best thing for you. And all of a sudden, you're going to be given a generic plan that you, again, what I've "Oh, you're really gonna get the best benefit for you." And like that, like I know myself, and I think it's an Irish, or not maybe an Irish thing, maybe it's an ego-tistical thing that you want to work on your strengths. So if I'm strong, I'll probably stick with the strengths so 'cause I know that makes me feel good, that makes me feel happy because, oh look, I live big weight, I feel good. I run fast over short distance, I feel good, whereas I know that condition is the thing that I would have always been an issue at myself. And whether unfortunately or fortunately, I'm working as a PT in a gym that I've, somehow become a spin instructor over the last couple of months, which is fantastic for the off season, 'cause they kept me at that baseline fitness for me, which is great. But in the end season now, I thought I'd be a little bit worried that I was gonna be touched on the line of, I wouldn't recover as well because I have to do two or three spin sessions a week. But like I said, I'm bleeding it in. It's not a case that I can't walk after a spin session. I have to coach them, so I'm obviously taking a step back from that. And if I have won the day before a game, or the day of a training session, I'm barely coming out of it. I'd say like, I wear a hoop. My hoop isn't even picking it up that I've drawn activity. And that's how low level it is. But like if that's a case that someone else is doing the same thing and they're doing the spin session and they're maybe they're a spin instructor who is balls to the walls every single time. And that's the way they teach the class. And they're also playing in GAA. It could be that their performance could slightly vary on that. And then like if I was younger, what you'd mentioned there that, oh, I need to work on other stuff. I'd be at the back of it, oh, fuck you. You just know what he's talking about. I know what I'm doing. And I was such an asshole. I was younger than I was like, I've been told so many times, like I would have had a habit of dropping the ball short and been on the wrong. And I would have been told my kicking was wrong. And like I would like, oh, should I score the rules between these before? What do you mean my kicking is wrong? Whereas, like I think that's the beauty of recording yourself or having games recorded. You can see what you're doing wrong. And the video does not lie. And that's what my sprint work is about. I used to think that I was the fastest thing ever. And I went to a David Drake seminar. And he said one of the things that said is quarter self sprinting. And I was like, are you neat? He's gonna buy enough again. A good knee drive. And when you see the video back, there's no known as edit this video. You've recorded yourself. And it's there, blatant in your face, a poor knee drive. Or if it's in the gym, like if we're talking about it at the bench press and there one right max would be fantastic. But like, was it a quality rep? Really like it? The video wasn't gonna tell you it was good or bad. So I think that it's so, I think the main camera who said it, but like the best trade any player can have is coachability. Or if that's the made up word or not, it's been able to say it come both about a coach is saying to you. And I like that, when I was younger, I would have got newly offended about what you said, that reactivity and my max velocity. But I'm at a stage now, I know that I have lots of weak areas. And like if you keep doing your strength, if your strength is whatever it is and you keep working on that, and all you're gonna do is just make your weak areas really weaker. And we're not giving them any focus at all. And all your focus and on is whatever that is. And that could be the same thing. If you're the fittest person on the team, but you're also, I like breeze is pushing you off the ball. Maybe the strength work is something you need to focus on and stop doing the five Ks and 10 Ks and maybe do some speed work. And vice versa, maybe I should be doing less speed work now. If that's a strong area, and like you're saying, max velocity or doing more condition work, or maybe just it put down the weights for a couple of seconds and kick the ball, which I have, I know myself, I need to do more of that. And something simple as last week, like I said, I'm 29. My shooting for goal last week was terrible. Me and my buddy went out and we're taking shots and goal and it was absolutely abysmal. So I'm not right, okay, that's obviously something that I haven't worked on in a while. I'm gonna have to really nail down this in the next couple of weeks because it's still a marriage, championship is in August time. If I go one or the one with a goalie, come August time, I want to be confident that I'm able to put the end to the corner. Nice and low, where the keeper can't get it as opposed to losing the cool blast and as high as the can and the going straight down the middle and keep it just catches it. So I think this been able to take that feedback on board, whether you like it or not, the video doesn't lie. And you notice that if you record yourself for the for TikTok, which we're talking off for camera, I absolutely love your TikTok videos because you're breaking down scenarios where it happened in in-in-ch County games and your own videos. Like just no hiding in videos. And I think that's the most important thing. And like whether you like your coach, you don't like your coach, whether you like a team, or you don't like him. If he is trying to help you improve, just take the fucking hit on the chain and put the pride and ego to the side for a second and listen to people who are trying to help you. I think that's something I learned the long way. I wouldn't say the hair, I learned the long way. - Make sure when you're advising people that you're giving constructive feedback as well. You're not just identifying a problem. Now, identifying a problem is useful in a sense as well that you might be aware of the problem. But if you don't have a potential solution, then that problem identification is in of the same value. So if they're coming with constructive feedback and brutal honesty around things not being good enough and this is what you need to do, you have to take that on and see like, and say to yourself, okay, right, I'm gonna try this, I'm gonna try and improve in this regard. Like they're doing it for my own good. They are being brutally honest at the end of the day because they care about you. They're not being brutally honest from a lack of care because if they didn't care about you whatsoever, they didn't care about the team, they'd just say nothing. And it's something that I'm trying to get true to, I'd say my ladies in that, from working with both ladies teams and men's teams, men have absolutely no problem calling each other out. What's so ever? Whereas sometimes the girls, like their friendship gets in the way in a sense because they're like, oh, I don't wanna tell her that. I wanted the ball earlier that that wasn't a good ball in or that I was disappointed she didn't turn up for training last week or whatever because it might get in the way to friendship. And there's a benefit to being so close near as a group as well. But you also have to be as a teammate, you have to be willing to say the hard things and as a teammate in the conversation on the opposite side, you need to be willing to take that on. And that comes from a caution perspective as well. And I think as well as that with GAA coaches in the past, not as much anymore, I think it's really progress and wealth. In the past, they were just identified problems with your game and that really given you a solution which wasn't of great benefit. But from what I'm hearing from people that I know that are in Intercounty teams and all, they've seen a change in some new setups that have come in where their identifying, lads, look, this play here isn't fast enough, we're not fast enough getting it in. Now, no, we're not saying you're not fast. We're just saying this is fast enough. We think that you're capable of more here. And that's something that's changing and that's something that's going to be beneficial. And sometimes I have to catch myself when I'm identifying too many problems. And I'm like, okay, I need to give the more positive reinforcement here. I need to reward the good behaviors over identifying maybe the problem behaviors. And sometimes that could be very refreshing for them and they'd be like, oh my God, I'm actually getting the compliment here. And we had our review last week or a couple of weeks going on to the teams and it was identified that those are the coaching team probably weren't being positive enough. Even though we thought we weren't when we were attempted to be as positive as we could. So that just shows that as coaches, we also need to get refined and get better all the time and ask our players questions around how we're doing as coaches, what can we do better? 'Cause we're all in it together. We're all trying to get better as we go. It's not just a one way street where we're just telling them how to get better. We need to strive to be better coaches. And that comes back to me being over in Leeds as well at the weekend. Everybody that was there is interested in hearing from other people, interested in other people's opinions and perspectives and learning from others because you never stop learning as a coach. But you have to be willing to reach out to others and go outside your comfort zone if you're going to improve. The only way your athletes are going to improve is if you can improve as well. - Yeah, 100%. And that's the main reason I said the podcast here I even originally started on IG lives and then it just kind of grew legs and I'm in this podcast form because I know, I don't know a lot. I know that I'm still at a low level in terms of strength and condition and for sports performance. But I'm always trying to learn and like that, pick people's brains, ask questions that I want to ask. And that's why I stepped away from asking question box. I know it's a good way to boost people's eyes on a potential IG live or podcast and then they get chairs and you know, more of an ad. If I come on here and just ask you the same three questions you get all of this, how do I get faster? How do I get stronger? All right, there you have good TikToks. Who's your favorite player? And kind of ignored the questions that I want to know because I want to always want to, if I don't come away from a podcast myself but learning something like unless it's like a kind of more social media based person who wouldn't be as in debt or like I have as much of a background like I did David Gray on myself there a while ago. And I took so much away from that. But like that might not be what people want to hear. They want to hear you know, a social media person but 100,000 followers who you know, as a collaboration with this set and the other. But David Nerdy has a hundred thousand. I can't be set up there. I think not David has nearly that. And I took so much away from that podcast and even like there's so many other coaches that like didn't necessarily get the best response in terms of downloads or players or whatever. But I was like that was an amazing podcast. I took so much from that. And that's why I'm doing like in my own set up I'm sure like I'm having the conversation people I want to talk to. I know I like I'd be the first one. I'd be always like,
and I was hoping to announce and say, you played the game as well, you put up a question box, you say, who'd you wanna get on, you tagged them and hope that they'll receive it and reply to it. And that's, you wanna get people on. And actually, your name was one that I came up for a while. And I was searching you, you didn't come up on Instagram for a while, I couldn't understand why, 'cause I was finally on TikTok, I was trying to search on Instagram, I couldn't find you, I was trying to tag you, unless there were settings there that you didn't want to be tagged or sage or whatever it was. 'Cause I was searching for-- - I am allergic to social media, which is a funny one, because I think some of the coaches that I was waiting to weekend couldn't get over how little I wanted to interact with my phone. My phone stresses me out like, majorly, majorly. I'm thinking about maybe getting a private phone as well. So, mine's undue not disturbed constantly. I have, you can't tag me unless I follow you. - Right, that's why so. I can't, like I have, I guess. I probably piss off a lot of people because I have a WhatsApp message that is sent in a way message if your message be outside hours. And it's only because I am a very obsessive person, okay? And sometimes my obsession gets the better of me in that I will not stop working if the work is there. Because you'll understand from self-employment as well, like you'll keep working there's always something to do. And I find it very hard to switch off. The easiest way for me to switch off myself is to turn the phone off completely. So that's something that I've been doing a lot recently. And I think some people struggle a little bit but it comes back to something that my friend Sam Portland told me that's really resonated with me. My phone is for my convenience, not for yours. - Yeah, love it. - And you need, like not that you need to, but I need to have a decent relationship with my work life balance or try to at least. For that to work, I need to have time away from social media, time away from my phone. And it actually has a, as the side of funny little story. So I sleep with the phone outside the room, turn it off. And on Saturday night, we got home from our dinner with the rest of the coaches on late. And I looked at my phone when I got in and I was like, 2 a.m. It seems like it was 12, like a second ago. The clock said, "Want to forward?" I didn't realize. I turned the phone off and I used my little Casio watch here for my alarm. - I have the same one. - Yeah, it's a good watch, I'm very good. - Great watch, great watch. I woke up at what I thought was half six and looked at my watch and the seminar second day was starting at nine. So I was like, "Grand, I have a lot of time here to go back to sleep." So I went back to sleep and I was woke at half seven to my alarm. And I was like, "Grand, an hour and a half, four, it have to be down there." For an on the phone, realized it was half eight. And we were starting at nine and I was like, "Oh, shit, I'm gonna miss the start of the seminar." So look, but that's what you take, I suppose. And I really do protect my attention and I really do protect and have strict boundaries around everything. Some of my friends take the piss out of me 'cause I'm always about boundaries and I was about protecting myself from. But do you know what it comes from as well? Is like, you know actually because you're quite big on TikTok Instagram. You get a lot of messages on these platforms, more so on TikTok than Instagram. That aren't very nice. And I don't deal well with them. I don't really like it. It's like, "I choose not to engage with them." So for that reason, and for multiple other reasons, I chose to really distance myself from it, but I'm glad that I finally got to have this conversation because something that I learned over the weekend over in leads is that we're all just people at the end of the day and there's so many good coaches out there and really interested in improving themselves. And I can hear your passion about improving. And you know what, I really respect it. Your ability and your intent to say, "Look, I know that I don't know at all, and I need to, "and not that I need to, but I want to get better "and I want to have conversations with other people." And in terms of don't improve or affect, which is at the start, you think, you know what all? I'd say I was there a few years ago and like from going to the weekend, I realized that I don't, I fucking, I know fuck all. And I'm saying that and you're saying that, but that is a common characteristic of people that are gonna get better and gonna improve. So I really appreciate you having me on, Gary, and I really appreciate sitting down for this conversation with me because when you do connect with other coaches, you realize what are we fucking arguing about all the time? They're just blocs and they're just cool people. And it sounds like that from what you're doing, you really care about your athletes and really care about your performance and your team's performance as well. So I wish you all the best for the rest of the season and thanks again for having me on. And it's always nice to sit down for a set fellow, or a way to a fellow podcaster, I think the conversation can go to a little bit of a deeper level. And also, I'm sorry for wrecking your head with all of this shite talk. - No, I know when you give me a question, I just go off like, - That's the point, the reason, or I always think that if I had a career podcast, if I've said fuck all of it, because that means my job is easy, I don't have to take a hard question. I love when people talk because obviously, the more you talk, the more interesting you are in a topic. If you're here giving me one word answers like, "Right, you don't wanna be here, you don't wanna engage." Like that's fine, look at you've taken your time to come on. I appreciate that, but the more you talk, the easier it is for me. I know you have, you have, you have, how Jesus Christ has gotten an hour and 15 minutes nearly here. - Yeah. - I've just, I like that. - That's my fault, not yours. - I didn't even look at the time. I like that, like the, I know that I'm going to the S&C seminar and then you buy a G, the Irish writing debate and seminar. I'm really looking forward to that. And I know, I'm by, I know close marriage, and I'm going to be the least qualified person there. But I'm at the stage and I'm going to ask questions. I'm not like a, not that you be ashamed. Like I have no problem saying, like I'm only a PG, I'm not as qualified as the S&C coach. I have no problem saying that. Whereas someone else, I've been trying to hide the fact that I'm, - Don't, no, no, so just how you're framing that. Take the only out that sentence. - Yeah, I'm a PG, yeah, I'm not an S&C coach. Okay, yeah, I appreciate that. Again, not only, yeah, I'm working with, with variety of people in the gym. Like I've worked a lot of old people in the gym just the time of the day that I'm in it. And like you're, I never would have thought years ago when I first got my PT served at. I'm excited to be going to do a class with people who've had hip and knee replacements. Right, I'm at the stage now. If I can get them to do an a new movement and they're like, "Cheers, that was great. "I really enjoyed that. "I got stared. "I think everyone is the same. "They want to work with high performance athletes." That's like, "Oh, I want to be the best, the best." But there's so many, or maybe even phrase that wrong, there's so few high performance athletes in the world. It's a small percentage. Everyone else is what makes up. And I think that's the same with online coach at the moment that everyone wants to go online and has a laptop lifestyle, but there's so many people who don't want online coach. They want the in-person coach, the one-to-one accountability, the class settings. And I like that people think that our class, like I never want to do class. But this people who do it just to get out of the house for 45 minutes to an hour. And like if you can say, like this is how to do a push-up, even if you're starting from your knees or doing an awful box, you're not popping for apples, put your head up and down. You're thinking about bringing your chest down to the ground and like, "Oh geez, that's, I've been coming here for years "and that's the first time I've ever done a push-up." But Genu, I'm not making up. That's someone who said that to me in the last couple of weeks that I've been doing that for years. And now I understand what you mean by doing a push-up. And that's what I'm saying. - I argue as well as that with that, Gary. - Yeah. - I would argue that the value of that person doing that push-up to them maybe exceeds the value of an elite athlete running nine point five meters per second from nine point four because that person has struggled so much with that. That the significance of it for them in their mind is massive whereas you'll know from high performance athletes even they say when they win the gold medal in the Olympics or they win the NBA championship, Michael Jordan as an example or they win the Allerlan a lot of times they're like, "That is, what's next?" Next job, like, so from having conversations at the weekend with athletes in professional sports, primarily, like, et cetera, that's not all it's cracked up to be either. And I think we really need to, as coaches, value what we do. Like, and I love working in the GAA because the players are there because they love that club and they love everybody in that club and they want to do the best to represent their teammates, their family themselves to the best ability that they possibly can. They're not just shown up because they're getting head 60 grand a week. - Yeah, absolutely. - So it's easier to coach them and you can make more valuable a meaningful change. I think in amateur and semi-professional sports than you can in pro sports. That's not to say that pro sport, you're not making meaningful change and you're not doing great things. It's just that from my perception, I really, really value the connections and the significance that I can have in someone's life when they're playing a sport for the love of playing it and a reprieve from their day to day life and the stressors of that, than they're playing it for the Moulat. Yeah, absolutely.
even the smallest thing that like I, it doesn't feel like a message to me on Instagram a couple of weeks ago. And like I put up a kick in drill or like this is why you're not improving your kicking distance is like the trauma technique. And he sent me a video of his seven-year-old son. It's like, we're took your drill and right here on the pitch and he's kicking the ball from like the middle of the G and it's like seven-year-old and I was like, I was like, that's, that's on read. As I, I, like to take someone's check the time, not even an orange message, but to send a video of him doing my drills with a young friend I only drew my spare time because I stared this page 'cause I was bored. That's similar to that. Like I've said it before, I stared because I was bored. I broke my hand and I wasn't able to work in the lab. So I was bored so I stared doing gym and football videos. Like someone has taken what I'm saying and I'm impromentiation with their child. Like that's, like that, there's not much more, like then like if you're saying there, like if I have G.A. pair, I said, oh yeah, I got a 200 kilo of deadlift. Ah, fair play to it. That's like, I'm delighted. We only last two like, class, fair play to it. But seeing the seven-year-old getting better at kicking because he's seen my video, is there something kind of supposed, not, I was to where I'm trying to think of, like I'm thinking the second world. So something more, it kind of means a lot more when someone's like young and someone's like, they're kind of having a little bit of a, if I could help them in any way, shape or form, you know, it means a lot. And I know we've kind of gone on here a long, I'm not forgetting the two questions. I still have the two questions for you at the end. You didn't want to know, I know a lot of people want to know beforehand, but just a kind of touch on that. I'm sure you get the same yourself with the Roman videos and the changed direction videos. And I know you're saying you don't like the comments. Me, I said it to myself, I've taken so much from them. And when you break the town, I know so much more than the people do check so from that as well because, as I said, I'm 29, I still go out and copy what I see on the telly. Like I went to watch Clifford play yesterday and I was like a child. I was really there at the front of the page, trying to get his gloves after the game because, it is, you don't go out of that when you're really passionate about something. And you know where, like the people might say, there's not the embarrassing, the friends that watch your videos, they watch the break down and they go out and try it. No matter how well they are, they do it in training, they might show that, that change direction for the shoulder down. Like, and that's what it's all about. It's the value you're putting out there on those videos, if you don't look at the comments, if you don't want to engage people, it's unreal. And I'm not saying that. It's not that I don't want to engage well. Maybe it does sound like I don't want to engage with people. It's not that, it's not that I don't want to engage with negativity. Yeah. Because I choose to overlook that I suppose. Yeah. I think life becomes easier if you do that. Yeah, 100%. Sometimes I engage because it can be quite funny. I kind of find the news inside, because I like that. And at stage now that I'm taking off skin dash, like you can say, what you want, like I don't really care. And I guess if some of them, if you have, if you even reply to them, they apologize because they probably don't expect to reply in the first place. But anyways, that's kind of going on. I'm like, I'm sorry. So, like someone, someone commented on it. It's me like a video's like, "Oh, you're shite off full feet or something like that." And I was like, "Yeah, you're not shite-ly yourself full feet." And I was like, "Yeah, well, you won't pick snow off a rope, but here we are." I was only messing with you. But like, you can't give the comment and not respect your reply. That's how the conversations work. So I have no problem. Like, I'm at the stage now that I do, as you're saying there, I know I don't know everything. So I don't post of saying, "This is the best way to do this is the best way to do that." It's like, I know that. Of course. Yeah, like, yeah, you're correct. And that is the way to do it. In terms of, "This is the best way to do that, or this is the best way to do this." And I think you'll get more out of it and it's more morally right. Although you won't get the same clicks to say, "This is what I'm seeing. This is how I think you should do this." Or "This is what I believe." Or "This is what I'm doing." "This is the example of something I'm using." Or "I've seen benefit in rather than, as you said earlier, yourself, there's no one size fixed also." So it's not like, "This is how you do it." Like, even to take it back to those, to those change in direction and agility drills that are one on one's and the breakdowns that I'm doing, most people will notice in it that not all of those athletes change direction or do a side step in the exact same way. Sure, there are some KPIs that you'll always see with Elite performers executing that task. But it is still highly individual to the athletes in what their favorite method of beating the player is. But by observing what they're doing, you can maybe take something yourself, as you've said, for your own game and try it out and see if it works. If it doesn't work, draw it out. But if it does work, it could benefit your game in a long run. But anyway, let's get to these questions. - Yeah. - It's right to get to trade. - I'm sorry, sorry. I'm not keeping any longer. And just before we go today, is I really, really appreciate you coming up. - No worries, I didn't think that we'd go on this long and I didn't think it would feel this short. 'Cause I feel like we've wanted to go on a cool one. I say we could do a pair of two, three, four and five. And still have some talk about. So the two questions I always ask people is all Ireland final, you've been called into the temporary team, you're captain. - So we heard it, no worries. - You do whatever sport it is. - I say I'll be probably bare on the football, but I don't think we're getting to the final. - It's strange time to events, you're captain on the tip of football team, you're all Ireland final, and you're not a strange time to events. G-E-A have implemented entrances like boxing or wrestling or MMA, or wherever you want to go with it. You're leading the team out. Final to now on Saturday nights, the lights go dark. Your walk a note, do you understand? What song are you picking to lead the team out? - Oh, the team out. I thought I was coming out individually, 'cause it's the whole team, but you're first on note. - Okay. - You're, you're, you're second. - I don't change things though, because it's a team one. That's a great question. It's tough like. - See, I think Johnny Schmacks and Johnny Beavie pissed off if I didn't pick the Premier Rapper something, but I don't think I'm gonna pick that. I did know why Colour Boxing did this to you. And my perspective on it was, I was better going into the ring, feeling confident than anything else. So, rather than come out to some rare, heavy metal rap music, whatever, I came out to James Brown, get up off of that thing. - Oh, deadly. - So I think that something akin to that might work well to be honest in terms of setting the stage a little bit, but also relaxing the players that are coming out. So I came out relaxed, 'cause there's pretty much dancing. - Yeah. - So I think that is probably a good show, but I'm sorry to the two Johnny's, but I'm picking one of their songs, or I always have fingers leaving them on, but it's too slow. - I think James Brown is as good as any. The most common answer for that one, so fair has been the strong call Steve Austin, "Entrance Song." - I think I'll be going down to the wrestling group myself, but James Brown is a quality one as well. Now, the last one, you can go a few different directions with this one. - Not winning that final though, I find the captain. - Who knows? We'll never know. - We'll never find the-- - We made the goal, and someone asked to take the kick-outs. (laughing) You can go any direction with this one, the game you're at, the game you've played in, the game you're watching in the pub. What is the funniest thing you've seen or heard during a GEM match? (laughing) - I tend to tune it out, you see. 'Cause I, you wouldn't believe, I get a fair bit of abuse on the side, like doing the war of the odd time, unmatched as in championship. You'd be surprised what you'd hear of being shared with other boys. I'm trying to think, what's the funniest thing I've ever heard at GEM match. Jesus. I don't know. I don't know who was that funny, but I was down in Waterford watching Tiplay Waterford. It was, no, it was last year, it was last year. I was in the championship in the first round, and there was a fella from Tip behind a little bit behind us, and he was roaring for the whole game, and he was given a stink about referee, and he was feckin' blind, and then he was arguing with everyone, and at some stage, the war of the bads were kind of moving, 'cause it's standard there, like at all. But then at some stage, a few of the tip boys were just sick of them as they said, "Would you ever shut the feck up?" We're feckin' getting hammered here, and you won't shut the feck up. - So I thought it was funny that the tiplads wanted to, or the tiplads wanted them to shut up, because he was that loud, and he was that annoying, that he was annoying them by how annoying he was at the water for players. My mate was next to be as well, and he in fact said to me, he's like, "He's just gonna be a row here." And I was like, "He's a hopner," and he said, "Yeah, I hope not too, 'cause there's no chance I'm jumping in for that." - It's always one of those, like your own fan, it's probably the most annoying one. - Yeah, one of the. - Oh, that's a good one. I think that that's sometimes when that's sprung on, you're the funnyer, you probably take, now, later on tonight, when you're lying in bed, you're like, "Oh, fucking, "get rid of that under 10 game," when it happens. - Yeah. - 'Cause I need people to say that this random stuff can pass into their head, but Peter, I've taken up enough of your time, now this evening. I cannot thank you enough for coming out for this. I've taken loads for us to meet from it, and I'm sure it's loads of other people who don't know what to do.
take it from take stuff from as well. If anyone wants to get in touch with you or they're there, you're checking out where is the best place to check out and I link it below in the show notes as well. - You can get me on Instagram, get me on TikTok, you can get me on YouTube, you can get me on Twitter, you can get me on LinkedIn, you can get me on all the above, but I have a website as well, you're pretty good to go through there, but I'd say most of my traffic and most of the stuff that I put up is on Instagram. I do try to put the TikToks up, semi-regularly. The funny thing is that maybe people don't like, here and me as much, but my TikToks seem to go away better than the Instagram. As you said yourself, that's where you come across me on the TikToks. But yeah, I'm happy on all of those and then on my podcast, the PD Performance podcast as well, it's quite in-depth. It can be like harder at times as well, but yeah, all of those, I won't, you don't have to link all of them now, blog, you can put in one or two of them and you'll be sound. I really, really appreciate you coming on. I really, really appreciate coming on your show and inviting me on. And I'm glad to hear that you're really invested in your own self-development, be that in your coaching, be that in improving in terms of your information in your education or in terms of your athletic endeavors as well. So best of luck for the whole season. I hope you enjoy the Irish S&C conference as well. And if you ever need anything, just give me a show. - Gentleman, thank you so much. Same to you, best of luck for the year and I with all the team just involved in and your business and personal as well. - Thanks mate, really appreciate it.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
The podcast guest, Peter Rice (P.T. Performance), is a strength and conditioning coach who recently attended a sports performance conference.
He emphasizes a process-oriented approach to both business and athletic goals, using vertical integration in training rather than strict block periodization for team sports.
His coaching philosophy prioritizes athlete autonomy, movement quality, and adaptable programming over rigid metrics like specific strength numbers.
He argues that for team-sport athletes, developing multiple physical qualities simultaneously is more effective than focusing solely on one, such as power or maximal strength.
Practical performance and injury prevention are valued more than hitting arbitrary weightlifting benchmarks, especially for youth and elite athletes.
Summary:
T. Performance). Peter discusses his recent experience at a sports conference and his process-oriented approach to setting business and athletic goals.
He explains his training methodology for team-sport athletes, advocating for vertical integration—where multiple physical qualities like strength, power, and conditioning are developed concurrently throughout the season, with shifting emphases—rather than traditional block periodization. Peter highlights the importance of athlete autonomy in training, allowing individuals to choose exercises and adjust volume based on how they feel to ensure quality and engagement. He cautions against an over-reliance on standardized strength metrics, arguing that movement quality and sport-specific performance are more critical than hitting arbitrary weightlifting numbers, which can sometimes compromise technique and increase injury risk, particularly for younger athletes.
The discussion underscores a flexible, individualized approach to coaching that prioritizes sustainable progress and overall athletic development.
FAQs
Vertical integration is a periodization model where all physical qualities like strength, power, and conditioning are worked on throughout the season, with the emphasis shifting based on the phase, rather than focusing on one quality at a time in blocks.
Block periodization isn't ideal because team sport athletes play matches year-round and engage in team training that covers various qualities simultaneously, making it impractical to focus solely on developing one quality like strength or power in isolation.
Providing autonomy allows athletes to choose exercises and adjust sets based on how they feel, leading to higher quality sessions and better adherence, as it tailors the training to their daily readiness and preferences.
While strength metrics can be useful goals, movement quality and specific performance outcomes are often more important than hitting arbitrary weight targets, especially to reduce injury risk and maintain overall athleticism.
A power-focused phase emphasizes developing rate of force development and maximal outputs, but it still integrates other qualities like strength or hypertrophy within the same session, rather than isolating power exercises entirely.
Coaches can balance goals by setting process-oriented targets daily or weekly, using tools like lists and calendars to stay organized, and spreading focus across areas like client acquisition, personal training, and team performance to maintain engagement.
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