Jeff Krushell - World Class Leader and Innovator in Sports Training, Psychology and Physiology Artwork

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Welcome to Benchmarked with Marc Messier and J-G Larocque. We are all in on Leadership, Coaching, Mental Performance, and overall support of those seeking to be the greatest version of themselves. It's all about leading the players and coaching the coaches. We will venture through our 9 Elements of Successful Leadership and bring you interviews with powerful leaders and influential athletes, as well as interesting stories from our time on the bench and in the classroom. Being a good leader requires a continued evolution and growth. This show strives to provide you with the tools necessary to grow and become the best possible leader and have the greatest possible impact on those you lead. Are you ready to level up your leadership and coaching game?

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Jeff Krushell - World Class Leader and Innovator in Sports Training, Psychology and Physiology

June 28, 2022 • Messier Larocque Performance Group • Season 1 • Episode 26

Jeff's career has taken him from Major League Baseball to professional football and hockey, to elite developmental programs, working with Olympic athletes, school academies and player agents helping to develop their professional and armature athletes.
He has contributed to a number of international Olympic programs as well as MLB’s International player development programs helping to support organizations across Europe, Africa, Canada, the USA and New Zealand.
He has lived and operated in the grand industry of sports and sports performance for more than thirty years and just keep going. His passion for this industry of sports performance, skill acquisition, and talent development continues to grow like a wildfire.
Small town boy making it to the big leagues…
He started his professional career in baseball as one of the first strength & conditioning coaches for the Toronto Blue Jays.

Connect with Jeff:
https://jeffkrushell.com
Purchase Jeff's Amazing Book on Amazon:
"The Performance Plan: Strategies for Top Performance in Sport, Business, Coaching and Life"

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00:00:00:04 - 00:00:09:11
Speaker 1
Hey team. Welcome to Benchmarked the Leadership Coaching and Mental Performance Podcast with Coach Mess. and Coach Larocque. Thanks for joining us.

00:00:11:00 - 00:00:39:04
Speaker 2
We're excited to have Jeff Krushell on the show today. Jeff's career has taken him from Major League Baseball to professional football and hockey to lead development programs, working in Olympic athletes, school activities and players, agents helping to develop their professional and amateur athletes. He's been a proud contributor to a number of international Olympic programs, as well as Major League Baseball's international player development programs, helping to support organizations across Europe.

00:00:39:14 - 00:00:46:07
Speaker 2
Africa, Canada, the U.S. And let's not forget New Zealand. Jeff, welcome.

00:00:47:08 - 00:00:49:14
Speaker 3
Thanks for having me, guys. Really looking forward to it.

00:00:51:02 - 00:01:12:20
Speaker 1
So, again, this it's good to have because you won your parent, your your coach, you cover all the bases, which is really, really cool. Love the international favorite, I got to say. Jeff, looking on your website, there's so much good information and we're going to put a link to your website up for our listeners and our viewers. I love that there's so much information for people of all levels.

00:01:12:20 - 00:01:27:14
Speaker 1
So whether you're an elite athlete, whether you're a parent looking to see what's best for your kid, whether you're coached and there's just so much there. And I know, Greg, we want to plug your book today, but I don't even know where to start because there's just so many good things that we want to chat with you guys about.

00:01:27:14 - 00:01:34:22
Speaker 1
So maybe get us started with how did you get rolled into doing this and what's your start in this path and your journey through this?

00:01:35:07 - 00:01:57:20
Speaker 3
Yeah, no, it's actually quite a long story. I think, you know, in retrospect, you look back and wonder how you wound up, where you wind up, and it's it's a twisted tale, no question about it. I grew up in a small farming community in northern Canada, right in northern Alberta. And, you know, we're lucky enough to be, you know, that sort of generation that played every single sport out there.

00:01:57:20 - 00:02:12:23
Speaker 3
And I just drew an absolute passion for sport. But I was one of those guys. You know, I look back now and it served me well, but I was one of those guys at the end of baseball season. I couldn't wait for football season and a football season. I couldn't wait for hockey, for volleyball, basketball, and went on and on and on.

00:02:13:09 - 00:02:31:05
Speaker 3
And that's the way I just sort of was wired, so to speak. So, you know, when I, you know, fast forward 30, 40 years and I'm working with some of the best athletes in the world, I have a true appreciation for what they're able to do to do just to deal with it and stay focused on one thing for such a continuous long time.

00:02:31:19 - 00:03:04:17
Speaker 3
So that small town community really, really did sort of, you know, create the fabric that led me forward. I wound up going to the University of Calgary, which was a great place to be. You know, after the Olympics, the winter sports were training there and I wound up going into the kinesiology, focusing on physical education. I was going to go in to be a teacher, and partway through my degree, I was, you know, working at the Olympic Training Center and, you know, working with the varsity teams and getting into physiology now and sports psychology.

00:03:04:17 - 00:03:30:09
Speaker 3
And in my just my whole world turned around. And it happened in association with a with a World Cup bobsled event. So what would happen is at the university, we would sort of host these international teams that would come in for all these different winter sports, you know, the speed skating, the bobsled, the alpine freestyle. And I got assigned to four or five teams for this World Cup bobsled event.

00:03:30:17 - 00:03:46:17
Speaker 3
And when they would come to the university, I would sort of short a chaperon, make sure they have everything they had. Well, it was the Austrian team, guys, you're going to love this. And we're up on the Jack Simpson gym track, and it's their power day. And I believe, if I remember correctly, it's about ten days out from the event.

00:03:47:01 - 00:04:03:05
Speaker 3
So they're getting acclimatized and really smart move. You know, the time zones are accounting for their training on the track and and they're they're indoors doing a power day. And I said, okay, guys, what do you need? I said, Well, we're doing a jump jump training day plyometrics. I said, Awesome. I love it. What do you need? So we need boxes.

00:04:03:06 - 00:04:26:01
Speaker 3
I said, okay, like 24 32 inch boxes. Is a no, no, not boxes. Boxes. We need box boxes. We think we need, you know, four to five and a half. What boxes and what, what, what are you guys talking about? So I'm scrambling around. I wound up getting some of the vaulting boxes from the gymnastics center. I bring them up onto the track and they're just under my eyes.

00:04:26:01 - 00:04:38:20
Speaker 3
Right. And I'm wondering, what in the world are these guys are they can't be jumping down from these kind of heights. I mean, I don't care how superhuman they are, they're not going to be jumping down. So they're doing their warmups. And I'm just sort of a fly on the wall talking to the coaches and they're doing their thing.

00:04:38:20 - 00:04:57:17
Speaker 3
So one of the brakemen is the first to go, and he's all ready to go. And he's kind of doing like, you know, like out like a power dance, like the like the All Blacks ride. He's getting ready, fired up. He's in front of this box. He's standing facing these box, and he jumps down, screams, and he jumps up proof and he lands in the box.

00:04:58:00 - 00:05:16:07
Speaker 3
And this is a giant guy. I telling you, this guy is like maybe two 20, you know, maybe six feet tall. He jumps up and lands on top of this box, like, he's freaking Spider-Man. And I'm just going, Wow, what in the world just happened right there? And again, these guys go on the train all day. And they're doing these unbelievable jump ups.

00:05:16:07 - 00:05:41:22
Speaker 3
And I, I went downstairs to the, to the administration office, and I change my degree from physical education to focus on physiology and sports psychology right after that because I couldn't believe what I just saw. It was such a, such one of those it was one of those, one of those just turning points, right? Where you just go, how is that humanly possible?

00:05:41:22 - 00:06:00:20
Speaker 3
And I was just so enamored and overwhelmed with what that human being could do. I got to get into that world. And that's that's what happened, guys. I went in and we started meet a couple of buddies, started the first, I think, varsity strength and conditioning program in all of Canada for University of Calgary. Move on. I started working with some of the national teams as well.

00:06:01:03 - 00:06:30:06
Speaker 3
And then when I left Calgary, we came back up to Edmonton. I started helping the Oilers out with their development programs and work with the Eskimos, wound up landing with the Blue Jays at a very interesting time in the late nineties just to carry this story on its actual actually pretty. Another pretty important time in my life. Now I wind up being the first minor league strength and conditioning coach for the Toronto Blue Jays, and I think only the third full time won in baseball at that point in time, and I'm glad to build that program from scratch.

00:06:30:06 - 00:06:47:18
Speaker 3
Moved up to the big leagues with the Jays, which was this incredible experience. And then when we stepped away from organizational ball and, you know, consulting with them and helping them and as much as I could to the commissioner's office from Major League Baseball called and said, Hey, Jeff, you know what happened? Except for the Blue Jays family stuff.

00:06:47:18 - 00:07:06:11
Speaker 3
You we had a third baby coming. My dad had a heart attack. So we made a family decision there. And it actually turned out to be a really good decision for a number of reasons. One, the family, of course, which was a which was the main the main factor there, but also the opportunity that it created because I didn't have anything planned.

00:07:06:11 - 00:07:24:10
Speaker 3
After the Blue Jays, the commissioner's office calls and asked, hey, Jeff, you know that program you've been doing with Baseball Canada and with the Blue Jays do you think that might work in other parts of the world? So, guys, what are you talking about? Well, they're are organizing this global international player development program. And are they asked, do you think that'll work in other parts of the world?

00:07:24:10 - 00:07:45:08
Speaker 3
Said, Boys, there is no borders on human physiology and poof, off we went to go experience international player development and I've been doing that for 16 years now. And that, you guys, is almost as intriguing and interesting for me as actually building the Blue Jays program, moving up to the big leagues and now doing all the crazy stuff we're doing now.

00:07:45:08 - 00:07:56:04
Speaker 3
So it's just one thing came out another. And the crazy thing is there was no plan, man. We were just we were just reacting and moving and going with the flow, but it really, really did work out well.

00:07:57:17 - 00:08:00:10
Speaker 2
Okay. So where we go from here.

00:08:00:23 - 00:08:21:11
Speaker 3
I don't know I don't know. You know, the other thing that I can maybe mention is on the Cross Performance Radio show, which has been another passion of mine after we stepped down from the Blue Jays, you just got to network with so many great people, you know, being involved in professional sports. It's a lucky, beautiful place to be, you know, especially for a young kid from from a small farm town in northern Alberta.

00:08:21:11 - 00:08:46:05
Speaker 3
Right. You got to interact with some of the most incredible intelligence sports scientists and and coaches and administrators and games in the world. Just incredible experience. But it broadens your horizons and you finally kind of get an idea after years of being exposed to this, how massive it really is. And in the long game. So we started Chris performance radio in 2006 and it's still going today.

00:08:46:05 - 00:08:54:00
Speaker 3
So that's just connecting the dots between this world of athlete development. And player performance. And we still have a long ways to go, by the way.

00:08:54:11 - 00:09:26:07
Speaker 1
And I think that's what I love the most about this. And looking through all your stuff is bridging that gap. Like there's there's a few people, there's experts in performance, mental performance and physiology. I feel like you're one of the few people that I've encounter that is bridging that gap and bringing those two worlds together. You know, some schools they'll have in some teams they'll have the strength coach, they'll have the mental coach, they'll have this coach and this coach where finally you bring something to the table that can kind of be like a one stop shop, you know what I mean?

00:09:26:07 - 00:09:48:23
Speaker 1
Like, it's just such a really cool background that you have. You bring so much to the plate with that and those experiences that you've had multiple sports, you know, from the small town to carry, you forged something new in Calgary you've witnessed on the global scale it's just such a great thing. But now you bring it back down like you're able to capture that with your publications and your website and your show.

00:09:49:20 - 00:09:53:23
Speaker 1
You're able to capture that for the average person that wants to learn more and become better.

00:09:54:11 - 00:10:13:20
Speaker 3
Yeah, no, and I appreciate that, guys. You know, one thing that I've learned over the years is we really do have to collaborate more. You know, I you know, it's funny because let's just look at this. Last month for me, some ten weeks and ten weeks post operation from L three L four spinal fusion. Right? So I'm recovering from that.

00:10:13:24 - 00:10:35:18
Speaker 3
And while that's going on, I am down in southern Alberta talking to Little League coaches and then three weeks later, a Major League Baseball team is flying me out to present to their entire organization. And the cool thing about that is, you know what, we talked to those coaches, those Little League coaches about is not that different than what we're talking to the proteins about.

00:10:35:24 - 00:10:55:10
Speaker 3
It's just it's a really cool phenomenon, though. You know, I think that we're starting to get better in terms of our idea and our concepts of long term athlete development. There's still massive gaps in the process that we have to fill, and we're seeing that now with the injury rates, the burnout rates, the dropout rates in youth sport.

00:10:55:17 - 00:11:16:11
Speaker 3
And so it's kind of interesting for me. I love working with the professional athletes because they've gotten there. I can honestly probably say we're seeing some of the best athletes that human beings have ever produced, but I don't think we're seeing the majority of them. I don't think the majority of the real top athletes either had a chance or survived this this crazy broken system that we have that is sport development.

00:11:16:11 - 00:11:26:18
Speaker 3
Right. And so we've got a lot of work to do. And I think conversations like this are just really, really important. If for no other reason to get people maybe thinking about things they might not have thought about before.

00:11:28:18 - 00:11:43:24
Speaker 2
So let me jump in on a few things, and I'm glad you said Farmington. I thought you were going to use another F-word when you're talking about the town you came from. So I'm glad you went with farming down back to this. Like, sorry, I wanted to first thing. So even the Olympics, like I think about in our country.

00:11:43:24 - 00:12:16:03
Speaker 2
So we had the Olympics in Calgary. We've had them in Vancouver. We had the Pan Am Games in Ontario. But like I don't think what people realize when a country is able to host things such as the Olympics, the legacy it leaves behind the opportunities it leaves behind for people in the sports world. I guess like I don't have the research in Jeff, you might, but like I wonder all the countries where Olympics have been hosted, what what that like is that little girl or little little boy that goes to an event and kind of like you, you went looking one thing and then you see these Olympians training.

00:12:16:04 - 00:12:31:08
Speaker 2
Like what what is this? And a mushrooms to something. Someone goes to watch a beach volleyball, someone goes to watch bobsledding. Someone I it's just an amazing thing that our country is fortunate. We were able to host two Olympics. But I think because of those two Olympics, someone like you was born, if that makes any sense.

00:12:31:24 - 00:12:50:17
Speaker 3
Yeah, maybe. And that's a good point. You know, you can look back to Montreal and financially the catastrophe there, but what it might have meant for our sport, Calgary was a different animal altogether because that was more hosted and more under control. We learned a lot but Vancouver was a true tipping point for the country of Canada. There is no question about it.

00:12:50:17 - 00:13:10:13
Speaker 3
After Salt Lake City, there was a transformation in how Canada went about its sport. And I think, you know what? Every Canadian can be incredibly proud right now, want to wear that flag, but to watch our athletes and players compete and represent on the national stage, because what we do with our population is rivaled maybe only by Norway.

00:13:10:13 - 00:13:44:10
Speaker 3
I mean, honest to goodness, Norway, like, listen to me, that is a very, very special conversation for another day because that could take a week. But it's fascinating to watch them. But if you look at what Canada is doing, if you look at what they're doing, not just in the international Olympic type sports, but look what's happening in professional sports, in baseball, where, you know, per capita, if you look at the number of baseball players, for example, in Canada, and the number of Canadians making it to the big leagues, we're right in the top three consistently with producing Major League Baseball players, which you wouldn't think hockey.

00:13:44:10 - 00:14:05:16
Speaker 3
Yeah, I think we're still around 50% of the NHL. Right. You look at the Canadians at the Masters a couple of weekends ago, it's fascinating to watch these Canadian golfers come in NBA we're one or two, you know, four producing incredible, incredible basketball players. So our system is producing some unbelievable players. I think we have a long way to go, though.

00:14:05:16 - 00:14:23:01
Speaker 3
And more importantly, you know, the whole idea of this long term athlete development program that came out of Canadian sports science, by the way, in every there's not a country in the world that's not looking at it, modifying it or stealing it for themselves and good for them. Canada's all on board for that because it's great for sport.

00:14:23:10 - 00:14:51:01
Speaker 3
But that long term athlete development program has has really sort of set the tone for, you know, these is progressive development in in sport on the coaching side. And what I've found now, though, is we've really got to start preparing the players for sport. We're really limited as coaches in every sport based on the ability of these athletes, because I don't think we do a really good job of preparing them for sport.

00:14:51:06 - 00:14:52:05
Speaker 3
We just get out and play.

00:14:53:17 - 00:15:14:22
Speaker 1
Can you I want to ask you, like you said, this referencing to the overall objective in the earlier you said there there's some gaps in it and now you're saying, how is it that we're not preparing younger athletes to play and avoid? The two things I want to touch on is how are we not preparing them properly? And I'm thinking mentally and physically and what?

00:15:15:05 - 00:15:18:17
Speaker 1
And then the burnout. What in your opinion is leading to the burnout?

00:15:19:11 - 00:15:42:11
Speaker 3
Right. Well, you got to understand that the main objective of the long term athlete development program when we originally came out and it's still sort of the the foundation on which it's built upon is not to produce high performance athletes. If the system is set up right and progressively, you know, address the players as they mature and develop through the system, the beautiful outcome is going to be more high performance athletes.

00:15:42:11 - 00:16:02:16
Speaker 3
But the goal and objective, the ultimate goal and objective is to keep people involved in the game. Unfortunately, we're failing, right? If you look at some of the data that's come out as early as 2013, certainly 20, 15, 16 and 17, the dropout rates in organized youth sport are at all time highs, which is which is really, really concerning.

00:16:02:18 - 00:16:22:23
Speaker 3
For me because that shouldn't be the case. Now, you have to be careful with some of that data because some of that is specialization. You know, you look to those 13, 14, 15 year olds. That's kind of when a kid might decide, Hey, look, I am going to go play hockey or I am going to play volleyball, or I'm going to have to drop a couple of sports because now I got a job and I don't have all this free time.

00:16:23:01 - 00:16:39:15
Speaker 3
So you have to be careful. But without question, we're still having tremendous dropout rates and the injury rates are at all time highs. I think if you look at sport you know, and I joke about this when I present, sometimes if I were the king of sport, I might run a campaign one day. Fellows, I might need your backing.

00:16:39:15 - 00:17:04:07
Speaker 3
Here you go. But if I win, if you look at it, youth sport and look at how much time we spend preparing athletes for the game, okay, we are so so we are we're we're so off course. I don't even know where we are. In the universe of athlete development. Baseball season just started right and here is the beautiful thing about the baseball season.

00:17:04:07 - 00:17:21:15
Speaker 3
At the professional level, you spend your offseason getting ready for the game physically and mentally. You get to spring training and typically you have four to five weeks to get ready for a season. So these athletes, you know, are spending all this time to get ready for a season. Let me ask you this. You guys are parents you guys are coached.

00:17:21:21 - 00:17:42:15
Speaker 3
How much time do you guys have before your first competition in any sport to prepare your athletes for whatever game it is you're playing? So my daughters have all played different sports. I've coached my daughter's soccer team for years. I used to coach your baseball team. And I'll tell you, this is what we did in our area. And she played with the boys, of course, because there was enough girls.

00:17:42:20 - 00:18:01:10
Speaker 3
This is what I was. So I was so adamant about this crazy competitive schedule. We get like two practices. And then when we're into games these kids can't catch they can't throw a strike. They don't know how to swing a bat, they don't know how to play a position. So I, I literally I sat down with the parents and said, I'm canceling the first ten games of the season.

00:18:01:16 - 00:18:20:20
Speaker 3
I said it will invite the teams to come over and practice with us. Maybe we'll have a fun game at the end. But if we spend the first four or five weeks of this season just really teaching these kids and preparing them for the game of baseball, they're going to have a much better time in the game. So that's exactly what we did.

00:18:20:20 - 00:18:42:03
Speaker 3
Some of the teams were choked. They just forfeited and didn't show up. But I will tell you this, the majority of the of the teams and the vast majority came out and practice with us. We had a fun game. We forfeited the games for sure, but we came out and we had both squads together and we took ground balls and we showed them how to hold the ball to throw it and and we took the first five weeks here.

00:18:42:08 - 00:18:58:14
Speaker 3
And then at the end of the season, these kids, 12 or 13 years old, were turning double plays, were smoking the ball. We had five kids. They wanted to catch. Almost every kid could stand in the mound at some point and throw strikes, which didn't happen before. And that kind of gets me back to the main point, guys.

00:18:58:22 - 00:19:19:24
Speaker 3
We don't spend enough time getting young athletes, sometimes, even our pro guys ready for the game physically, mentally, technically, or tackle tactically, right? When it comes to strategy. So, so we have a big problem. I don't know what the answer is, but I certainly do know we got to we got to cut out some of these competitive games and practice a little bit more.

00:19:20:06 - 00:19:40:13
Speaker 1
Well, I know GZ And he's thinking this right now. I could see it. I know my cousin well enough to know and we see it. Practices are for players, games are for coaches and parents really. Right. Grandma and Grandpa want to come and watch the little Sally and little Johnny play their sport, right? So we think that this is all the scouts are coming to watch the games and stuff like that.

00:19:40:13 - 00:19:59:06
Speaker 1
But I mean, I love it. I coach football. I love it when our university coaches come and watch our practices because then that's when you really, really see what's going on. Right? Games are great, but the practices, especially if they're run well, like you say that you're teaching them those core skills that are going to serve them over a much longer period of time.

00:19:59:11 - 00:20:02:10
Speaker 1
Of time in their season and their lives.

00:20:03:15 - 00:20:20:21
Speaker 2
I thought I forgot earlier, Jeff, I'm glad you mentioned 84. I forgot to mention Montreal within the Olympics, but it's funny, even when you said that, like we learn from we learn from Montreal disaster Congress a little bit better. And then the tipping point is Vancouver. Like we just learn it's about process over outcome like to talk about before.

00:20:21:07 - 00:20:46:17
Speaker 2
But back to Montreal, Brock, because we're back to practices, we're all three of us are definitely on the same page in regards to this. But I brought my class to Montreal and see we went see Jeff Maynard, you know Jeff right. Jeff awesome in order to win seen him we went to a Habs game. Anyway, when I brought them to Olympic Stadium, we got a tour, but we also got to watch practice and there was practice there for all kinds of different sports.

00:20:46:17 - 00:21:08:07
Speaker 2
And I was like the divers and they had these bungee cords on them and they're falling on their backs and all this crazy stuff happening. And then I brought them to who's the goalie for New Jersey Devils? The Canadian part hamburger his rink and a local girl from said we here, Megan Duhamel and her partner getting ready to go to the Olympics so we were able to get in and watch her practice.

00:21:08:07 - 00:21:25:22
Speaker 2
And she fell and she fell and she fell and she fell. And I was like, this is the best thing ever. These kids get to watch professional athletes fail over and over and over. And then two or three weeks later, she ends up winning a gold medal for our country. Like, but they got to see her fall. 15 times.

00:21:25:22 - 00:21:55:21
Speaker 2
Not the final product, but that's what we get so caught up in is that that final product. But it's the process. It's I'm jacked up right now just talking about practices like but you're not present, right? Because that's not what pays the bills for some of the people is everyone's games, games, games, games. And I'm doing evaluations right now for baseball Canada and there's a ratio right at this age group we should have 75% practices 25% games about leading some of these coaches practice plans or season plans Oh, buddy.

00:21:55:24 - 00:21:58:21
Speaker 2
Anyways, I don't want to get into that, but yeah, you got me fired up a little bit.

00:21:58:22 - 00:22:20:00
Speaker 3
No, no, no. But it is an important conversation. And, you know, a lot of those coaches are trapped by these organizations that just don't get it. You know, the revenue. I don't know. You know, again, that's why we maybe do need a king of sports. I don't know. But but but but if I were able to you, I would wish for every player at every level of sports more time to prepare for their competitive seasons.

00:22:20:00 - 00:22:21:01
Speaker 3
We're just not ready for it.

00:22:21:01 - 00:22:31:23
Speaker 1
I'm going to play the devil's advocate here. And this is not my philosophy, but what about let's just let the kids play. The games are fun. Let's let's just play more games. I mean, to play the devil's advocate, what's your response to that, Jeff? R.J. Yeah.

00:22:32:08 - 00:22:50:15
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah. And I think that would be great because you know what? Kids will self-organize. You know, they when they hurt, they'll stop. When they're bored, they'll go do something else. You know, when they're when they're ready to play and feel like playing, they're going to play and they get way more out of it. Unfortunately, we're so scheduled.

00:22:50:24 - 00:23:08:04
Speaker 3
The timing is so crazy. Everything so cramped and as excited as a kid might be about a sport and get together with the team, this is where the burnout kicks in. You know, here here's another just sort of life lesson that we've learned. One of my good friends, you used to be a coach with the radio show, wound up having twins.

00:23:08:04 - 00:23:27:19
Speaker 3
And of course, life got really, really busy. And so when Max is old enough to start playing hockey, just a little duffer, right? Like Knee-High to a grasshopper, Craig takes them out for their first team tryout and selection or whatever they're just grouping the kids, you know, and they're on their skill levels, and they have talent evaluators there.

00:23:27:23 - 00:23:43:22
Speaker 3
And it's a three day process. And he kind of gets that. They want to make sure the kids are kind of grouped in with players they can play with. But he was kind of taken aback by that. And then they get into the season. It's supposed to be one practice a week in one game. Well, everybody wants more games.

00:23:43:22 - 00:24:04:11
Speaker 3
And now we're keep in mind, these are seven, eight year olds, I believe, or maybe Max is only five or six, just a little duffers. Anyway, there's a parents meeting in the first third of the season, and they want more games. They want to do this big travel trip to Minnesota or something, and they got to start fundraising and who's going to hold on to Craig's going, Hey, hold on.

00:24:04:21 - 00:24:31:04
Speaker 3
So we have we're supposed to have a practice week. And if one game a week, right? It wound up being, you know, 6 a.m. practices at some godforsaken rink and, you know, three practices in four games a week and a wound up going from $300 to 30 $200 and just out of control. And we see it everywhere. And I just don't think, you know, getting back to your point, if we let the kids rule the roost, things would be so much better you know.

00:24:31:17 - 00:24:56:14
Speaker 2
So I started to answer that I started classes and I have a specific class I do is now I give 10 minutes to be being in my class and hopefully don't get in trouble for this. But I use the first 10 minutes of class. I call it unstructured play. I take out basketball, volleyball, birdies, whatever you want to take 10 minutes, get it out of your system and they organize themselves meant they literally like and I feel bad sign as an educator but a leader that's our job is to mentor.

00:24:56:14 - 00:25:13:07
Speaker 2
It's not like sorry, it is to teach also but like they can handle things like how they're supposed to learn. We don't ever give them the opportunity to learn because we're busy jamming information down their throats three quarters of the time. Anyways, this isn't the show I want to get into. The more stuff with Jeff and but that's my quick thing is unstructured play.

00:25:13:23 - 00:25:29:16
Speaker 2
Let them do their thing. And I've had many conversations with that. But you get more. I'm using baseball again. I had this conversation ground balls, fly balls, swings, all that stuff in a practice compared to a game. We have three at bats, maybe in a game. We just had practice. You got 50 swings. What do you think you're getting better?

00:25:30:03 - 00:25:30:18
Speaker 2
It's a no brainer.

00:25:31:00 - 00:25:40:05
Speaker 1
Touches you name any sport, it's the same. Any sport. So I want to touch on two questions, Jeff, before you get something else. Do you want to go on right now? Because I wanted.

00:25:40:05 - 00:25:41:18
Speaker 2
The time to figure it out. Call me down. Go.

00:25:41:20 - 00:26:01:05
Speaker 1
Okay. Okay. Take a breath, buddy. Do some to get your breathing cycle going to things that are two questions because Doug and I both strength coaches as well, and we both coach sports. So two questions. I face a lot and I know what my answer is. And I'm Jeff. I'm really curious what your answer is. How soon This is a loaded question.

00:26:01:16 - 00:26:12:11
Speaker 1
How early is can you start strength training and at what age do we specialized or should we have an age that we specialize if that's the path we're choosing?

00:26:13:09 - 00:26:31:20
Speaker 3
Yeah, great questions. Great questions. And I don't think there's a solid answer to either one of them, though. There are general principles I think you can you can follow when it comes to strength training. Right. I think I think what what really happened in that world, because it's kind of people are kind of catching on to it. They think they know what it's all about.

00:26:32:02 - 00:26:56:21
Speaker 3
But when you talk about strength, it is a massive, massive, massive topic. It's not just about getting strong. There's so many components to strength training. You can start early. We do. You know, technically, if you want to talk about, you know, the technical or just the the general definition of strength training, heck, you know, you see kids doing it every day in the playground.

00:26:56:24 - 00:27:17:02
Speaker 3
There's some form of strength training going on there inside of free play, whether it's climbing on the bars or climbing up ropes or, you know, throwing snowballs at each other, there's things that happen there for sure. I think the problem is we start getting into this structured strength training, and when we hear the word strength, we think about heavy weight training.

00:27:17:02 - 00:28:05:01
Speaker 3
Type, you know, real structured work. And that's really not what it's all about. We can break strength training and resistance weight training down into so many different categories. It might blow people away. But when it comes to really developing neurological strength in relationship to body weight, we like to wait for that to really become a major focus until the athletes are through their their rapid growth there, their peak velocity curves so many things happen as your young athletes are going through those long ball long bone growth phases where they're, you know, growing at intraday you know, three inches a week, four inches a month, and the nervous system falls behind the connective tissue becomes at risk

00:28:05:01 - 00:28:29:23
Speaker 3
The muscles are trying to adapt there's no coordination. The problem is, here's the thing. If we take a young athlete and you hear this all the time from from teachers, from coaches, from recruiters, hey, you get get up, get stronger and you'll be okay. The problem with that, though, is you can get strong, but if you can't move well, what do you have at the end of the day, a strong athlete that can't move well.

00:28:30:05 - 00:28:56:02
Speaker 3
So the way we've always approached it in terms of strength, we will do functional body weight type strength training even with our young athletes, whether it's walking lunges or body weight push ups on a bench or whether it's you know, whether it's, you know, partner or work might even be light bending. We start that very, very early to offset the demands of whatever sport the athlete is involved in.

00:28:56:02 - 00:29:21:15
Speaker 3
And that's where we're really missing the boat. All of those things should be incorporated maybe into your warmup or your cooldown, but we don't spend enough time preparing even our youngest athletes for the demands of sport. And it can be strategically done, and it might revolve around just simple fundamental movement skills, learning to develop your body weight properly probably requires more functional strength than anything you'll ever generate in a weight room.

00:29:21:15 - 00:29:50:09
Speaker 3
Right. And that happens with the youngest of kids when we get into the structured weight training. However, we have got to be careful. And it's one of the biggest mistakes I've ever seen in all of sport. It's one of the biggest mistakes that we see in terms of overall development. It's also one of the biggest mistakes we see season to season for athletes doing the wrong type of weight training as they go into a competitive season or the wrong type of training as they get peaking for a major event.

00:29:50:13 - 00:30:17:07
Speaker 3
It's one of the biggest problems out there. So we say get with a certified sports scientist or strength and conditioning coach who knows what they're doing because you when you get into the weight room and start pushing heavier weights you literally change your body, you change your muscle, you change your nervous system, you change your bone density sometimes not for the better, and most times it's irreversible.

00:30:17:14 - 00:30:32:21
Speaker 3
So you got to make sure that progress, that progress is there. So caution with the weight training, huge caution teacher athletes to move first and then the strength training that you do do should be to enhance and promote more movement. That's what I would say there for sure.

00:30:33:02 - 00:31:00:19
Speaker 1
And I'm a huge advocate of the deceleration training because a lot of times and I do a lot of work with sprinters and stuff like that and Doug and I have this conversation all the time and parents will say, can you help make my kid faster? And I the first thing we're going to do is really teach him and to go slower because am I correct in saying that's where a lot of the injury prevention comes through and you're rolling ankles in equals and learning to land and learning to absorb those forces that are put on the body, especially at a young age, right?

00:31:01:05 - 00:31:25:22
Speaker 3
Yeah, exactly. And you can have unbelievable strength gains. I mean, just with bodyweight exercises, you can have a 25% increase in in just relative strength with never touching a weight. And then you coordinate that with movement skills. Now, not only are you making an athlete stronger, you're making them more athletic, but you're also giving them propensity to withstand or offset the risk of injury.

00:31:25:22 - 00:31:52:14
Speaker 3
Right. Which is a trifecta at any level of sport. And then you get into the massive conversation as you mentioned, of of specialization. And this is a tricky one, okay, because there's lots of reasons for specialization. Now, we have a family of of nine, for example. There's no way there's nine different kids playing nine different sports. One economically, it's not possible logistically for mom and dad.

00:31:52:16 - 00:32:24:19
Speaker 3
It's not possible. Right. So there are socioeconomic reasons where an athlete might say, hey, look, all we can do is play this sport, and that's a real right. The other part of it is this whole idea of, you know, the industrialization of youth sports. One of the biggest catastrophes that we probably will experience, it's not going away. But when people started paying their mortgages with private facilities and private lessons and travel teams, we opened Pandora's Box of real major sport development issues.

00:32:25:04 - 00:32:52:16
Speaker 3
Now, inside of that, however, there's also massive opportunities for those organizations that do get it right because it's not going anywhere. And I don't think it's bad. I just think that we haven't really caught on to the big picture where those those facilities that that are dedicated to one single sport are now maybe creating a plan where at certain times of the year, every athlete in there does a different sport, right?

00:32:53:00 - 00:33:27:02
Speaker 3
Or they play a different game or they work on the conditioning side. So specialization is real. There's reasons for it, both in terms of, you know, the monetization in the business of youth sport, but also from the realities of socioeconomic and even proximity, you know, the availability of facilities. So here's the deal. Specialization isn't as bad as we might first think it is because if you understand what it what it is and how to offset it, it can also create a great opportunity to have a kid that loves a sport.

00:33:27:02 - 00:33:56:10
Speaker 3
For example, what we would do is we would make sure that away from that sport, the strength and conditioning side would compensate for the lack of playing other sports. There is no question a kid in baseball is going to benefit from playing basketball or playing hockey or playing lacrosse and vice versa. Right. There's no doubt about that. But when that's not possible or doesn't happen, the athlete side of the program has to compensate for the lack of experiences in other sports.

00:33:56:16 - 00:34:12:00
Speaker 3
And that's where there's such an opportunity in the landscape right now, guys. And we're not quite there yet. You know, we're seeing we're seeing the injury rates and the dropout rates. And a lot of that is due to specialization. Out of control specialization, though. Hmm.

00:34:13:03 - 00:34:27:05
Speaker 2
Definitely. You talked about that. We have a program here locally that you can visit in a few well prior to COVID, I guess and we talked about like the way of basketball courts in there. We have badminton courts. We have basketball courts. And I talk to you about that, like do we just leave it and then we go to a different sport?

00:34:27:06 - 00:34:42:17
Speaker 2
We never implemented that necessarily this winter, but again, with the strength and conditioning, how you put things in a place. But I want to go back to something you talked about here offsetting. What do you what can you explain to the listeners? You mentioned a couple times or maybe one sport or act or the strength conditioning helps offset.

00:34:42:17 - 00:34:44:14
Speaker 2
You unwrap that a little bit, what that means.

00:34:44:16 - 00:35:05:19
Speaker 3
Yeah. So like, for example, what would be a great example so let's say we have a baseball player. The baseball season just started, right? So you have a baseball player that's just just in the game of baseball. So just imagine all your young athlete does is throw with the right hand and hit right hand and maybe they switch it, you know, maybe they'll pitch, maybe they'll play the field.

00:35:06:01 - 00:35:26:21
Speaker 3
But, you know, if you just look at the demands of that particular sport, it is so one-Sided and so specific, the body really does develop in a very, very particular way. And you can make that argument for every single sport. So taking a baseball player, for example, and getting them involved in a sport like basketball right now, you have a totally different cardiovascular.

00:35:27:00 - 00:35:53:11
Speaker 3
You've got different interactions with your teammates and in thinking in free space and you know, the demands of the sport, the change of direction, the jumping that's involved, very, very different from baseball. I would say those two would really, really complement each other. Soccer would be another great offseason sport for a baseball player because they expose the player to things that their sport doesn't get.

00:35:53:14 - 00:36:18:21
Speaker 3
Now, if that other sport isn't there, the athlete development, the strength and conditioning side has to compensate for that lack of exposure to basketball or to soccer. Right. So we may have to do some creative running. We might have to do some creative movement skills. We might get super unique challenges for these athletes that aren't exposed to other sports and will work it into the conditioning program.

00:36:19:06 - 00:36:37:17
Speaker 3
But it might have nothing to do with with, you know, your classic interpretation of what conditioning might be. So that's what I mean. You know, when a player that specialized in one particular sport and either doesn't have time or doesn't have access to another sport, we've got to make up for that in the free time. With Athlete Development Site.

00:36:38:12 - 00:36:41:20
Speaker 2
Gotcha. Thank you for clarifying that.

00:36:41:21 - 00:37:11:15
Speaker 1
So much, so much. Now, I mean, I could talk about it because it's so interesting and I love it and it's been part of my education. My career engages the same like this is we're living, breathing, this type of stuff. I love the can't the idea of, you know, you can compensate with the strength training stuff. I love the fact that you said earlier that we're probably witnessing some of the greatest athletes in the history of we've ever seen like the performances we're seeing right now.

00:37:11:22 - 00:37:34:02
Speaker 1
I'm just thinking off the top of my head, like Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Were Auston Matthews Renaldo like these, like, you name it, LeBron James. Maybe that's not a good example right now. This time and space, but like, there's so many, like, just outstanding things that we're seeing. What do you think is attributing to that.

00:37:34:22 - 00:37:52:22
Speaker 3
Yeah, I think you guys, it goes back to that conversation about the Olympics in Vancouver. You know, one of the things that happened at the Olympics was this shift in thinking in Sport Canada. And I think we're seeing it a little bit everywhere, whether we're talking about a country or an individual athlete or even a community or a team.

00:37:52:22 - 00:38:14:01
Speaker 3
Right. What we know about the human body and human performance right now? We have never, ever known this stuff before. The technologies that we now have that are tracking data and giving us statistics is good or bad is that might be it's making us think about human performance in ways we haven't thought of before because we couldn't right.

00:38:14:12 - 00:38:35:24
Speaker 3
And so when you look at what happened in Vancouver, that might be one of the real interesting times to focus on because it was an absolute transformation in thinking but also in the way we approach athlete development. Canada went from. Okay. Hey, man, if you can compete in the world stage, let's send Canadians to the Olympics leading up to Vancouver, However, that wasn't the case anymore.

00:38:35:24 - 00:39:00:15
Speaker 3
It was unless you actually have a legitimate shot at a podium, you're not going to those Olympics unless or those international means, unless it's to get experience, competition, experience there. But the great thing is all this secret sports science stuff, what's happening around our Olympic athletes, the beautiful thing is there was a trickle down effect that has actually gotten right down to grassroots.

00:39:01:01 - 00:39:29:22
Speaker 3
So, you know, I think what we're seeing right now is some of the spin off of this great new knowledge we have and that great new knowledge being applied over time. I think we have a ways to go yet. You know, I honestly say in almost every major talk that I do, you know, as great as some of the performances are right now and some of the great things we're seeing in sport collectively and with the greatest of intentions, we're still destroying way more talent than we're creating.

00:39:30:03 - 00:39:51:24
Speaker 3
And I do believe that we haven't gotten to see the very best of human performance yet. That's coming. That's coming with conversations like this and the long term approach where we really get an understanding and maybe one of the greatest breakthroughs is going to be, you know, the brain game. The brain game was one of our themes of our show last year.

00:39:51:24 - 00:40:17:02
Speaker 3
Talent and talent ID and the Crushed Brain Game. And we just had incredible conversations around those two things that I'm incredibly passionate about because one, we don't understand talent that well and we're horrific at talent identification and where we're at and understanding the brain and training the brain real time. We've never in the history of sport or history of mankind been able to do what we're doing with the human brain right now.

00:40:17:05 - 00:40:47:04
Speaker 3
And we're just at the very front of it. So exciting things to come, but it doesn't negate the fundamentals, the fundamentals of just long term athlete development, preparing the pairing, a human being for an activity and then getting good at that activity, and then coming back and preparing and then getting better, and then coming back and getting better and troubleshooting and connecting the dots between that world of athlete performance and athlete development and sport performance.

00:40:47:06 - 00:40:51:12
Speaker 3
When that really happens and we're not quite there yet. Things are going to get crazy.

00:40:52:07 - 00:41:12:13
Speaker 2
Like Mark, I said this when we had Dr. Gilbert on Jeff also. Again, I think you're like this hidden gem where I don't know why more people don't know about it and like, why isn't it? And it's in curriculum, but it's not in curriculum in schools because like it or not, like and I can affect a little bit in a sense because we're with the kids in schools or with them for X amount of hours, X amount of months.

00:41:12:21 - 00:41:31:06
Speaker 2
And then when they do, when they leave the school, that's up to them. Why it why they don't learn principals or school boards bringing someone like you and there's just this is great for us and this is amazing. And we might solve the world's problem here, but why is it not like the ripple effect is not happening? I get just blows my mind yeah.

00:41:31:10 - 00:41:49:16
Speaker 3
No, no, it's very frustrating. And I'm with you on that as well. And again, I don't know at all, you know, I've just been in this lucky timeline where I've been exposed to all these crazy things and I'm curious as hell. But what I really am, I really am in pursuit of human performance. So I always have been for myself and now for my athletes.

00:41:49:23 - 00:42:09:23
Speaker 3
But you know, just through the ebb and flow of my career, you know, being at the highest level of human performance, but, you know, being a father and coaching youth sport, these worlds collide and things start making sense. And unless you have that exposure, I can I can see how it's difficult to connect all those dots. You have to there's so many variables here, guys.

00:42:09:24 - 00:42:37:17
Speaker 3
Like there's just so much going on. But if we really simplify, we really simplify the issues we're facing. You know, I'll tell you this right now, you know, I just went through a terrible, terrible back situation. And the health care system in Canada, though, is as great as it can be, has massive, massive holes in it. I had to go international to get my back taken care of, you know, so we have issues with our health care system, and that's not an easy fix, but it's doable, right.

00:42:38:04 - 00:43:01:20
Speaker 3
I do believe that the school system and the school curriculum will be is is is more important than anybody realizes for for human performance, not just not just from a sports standpoint, but also from academics. You know what we know about, you know, the neighbor, Bill, you know, the the zero hour fitness and the impact it had on health and wellness, body fat body composition.

00:43:01:24 - 00:43:19:13
Speaker 3
But the academic scores, it's all right there. Physical education and learning and the brain game are tied together our school system could be so much better. Guys, I'm with you there. 100%. And I do believe it's if we had one real front line of defense that would be it for me.

00:43:19:22 - 00:43:30:21
Speaker 1
And I think we're actually going to we're heading in the wrong direction because kids are getting less physical education, not more. And you see oh, don't get me started because it's a travesty.

00:43:31:01 - 00:43:56:10
Speaker 3
And I don't know I don't know who's making these decisions, guys, but they're uninformed. It's wrong and it's setting the it's like when it's like when the US Food and Drug Administration and the Canadian Food and Drug Administration decided that fats were terrible and carbs were great. Listen, that was a turning point in mankind. That was a turning point to diabetes and obesity.

00:43:56:10 - 00:44:18:11
Speaker 3
Right. And we were all just lambs to the slaughter, so to speak, and not to be too dramatic, but it's it was a terrible point in human history that really, really did result in what we're seeing now in terms of obesity and diabetes. Right. That was one of the worst things that they could have ever done. Pressure from big food, pressure from government bodies.

00:44:18:20 - 00:44:40:24
Speaker 3
The same thing in the schools. Right. We are going in the wrong direction. And I don't know how it's possible because we have all this great knowledge. We know that physical education and physical movement primes the brain for learning. We know that it also creates long term brain health and long term benefits for for overall memory learning and science.

00:44:40:24 - 00:44:51:11
Speaker 3
Social health. So so it's it really frustrates me, but I'm hoping that these are some of the next steps when I say we're close, well, we're not close. That's one of the conversations for sure.

00:44:51:14 - 00:44:53:06
Speaker 2
Jeff, you got to tell us how you feel for real.

00:44:53:08 - 00:45:00:10
Speaker 1
That actually brings up a story like I love I. Grade nine boys. What do you call Grade Nines again?

00:45:00:15 - 00:45:02:11
Speaker 2
Gordon like infants.

00:45:02:19 - 00:45:25:10
Speaker 1
Newborns, newborns every year. Is anybody like I mean, I've been teaching for 25 years and yes, I'm going to say this in the comments. The negative comments, just let them come. Dodgeball is awesome. And yet we're banning it across the globe. And, you know, we play. And then what I've seen is I had a class a couple of years ago and now I play dodgeball.

00:45:25:10 - 00:45:48:05
Speaker 1
I like I have a million dodgeball games and yes, I do take into account everybody's self-esteem when they are eliminated and blah, blah, blah, make them feel good. But I had this class and it was crazy because I said, we roll the dodgeball explain the rules and we're going to play. And it's like free elimination. You get you get to come get revived, you get respawn, and I have all these rules that they can play.

00:45:48:12 - 00:46:10:05
Speaker 1
Nobody could hit each other they haven't thrown anything they don't know how to throw. Yeah. So it was like, you know, a little kid just kind of throws a ball and he goes like two feet and it falls down and it was about a 20 minute period of time. I don't think there was more than two kids eliminated and it wasn't because they were good at dodging is because they couldn't throw and it was horrible.

00:46:10:05 - 00:46:31:10
Speaker 1
So I was like, Oh, goes by back this up below the whatever. The elementary school system has failed you and we're seeing it now. We're they just they're not doing it. They're not getting these like playground skills. And what I find is the gap is growing. And the kids that play sports at a young age of elite athletes are you use the term elite here or the more developed athletes.

00:46:31:10 - 00:46:49:07
Speaker 1
I feel like it's like the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer and there's no more middle class and comes to physical activity because sort of what you said earlier, now they're getting jobs early or they're doing other things are the financial restrictions that they can't play. But we're failing them in the school system of not just giving them playtime.

00:46:49:13 - 00:46:56:23
Speaker 1
I remember a teacher punished the kids because their behavior in the class thing we're not doing for their class. Well, why don't you ever eliminate math?

00:46:57:14 - 00:46:59:04
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah.

00:46:59:08 - 00:47:00:03
Speaker 1
Don't pick on Wednesday.

00:47:00:06 - 00:47:04:19
Speaker 3
That might create a mutiny. Yeah. Hey, if I bad no math, let's think about that.

00:47:05:24 - 00:47:17:09
Speaker 1
It's a frustrating thing, and it's just like we need to be better at, like, developing core skills, like serving a badminton, you know, like, they can't connect with the BR. It's just anyway, that's a whole other conversation, but.

00:47:17:10 - 00:47:34:01
Speaker 2
Like, to add to that, like, locally here, I can speak to our, like, certain school boards, and then the elementary level like, this isn't picking on elementary, but you'll have some school boards. And I think this is a great they have designated health and physical education like they're specialist in health and physical education in the elementary school in their stream.

00:47:34:02 - 00:47:55:23
Speaker 2
Sorry. Others will have the classroom teacher doing it and this is when you run into you. We were behaving so we'll take away from that and but I use that in any subject when you don't have somebody who's passionate and knowledgeable what they're teaching math, science, nutrition, whatever it is, it's a recipe for disaster. So put educated people in those positions and let it go or they're worried about losing.

00:47:56:13 - 00:48:05:05
Speaker 1
Or they're taking more time. Or this math lesson I pick up where I always pick on math teachers on this show. Jeff So just get used to it. You don't have a math teacher in the family do.

00:48:06:02 - 00:48:06:23
Speaker 3
No good there.

00:48:07:01 - 00:48:22:19
Speaker 1
So, you know, the I know this was an experience with my own daughters was the math teacher or the teachers is like, well, we need to take more time to go through this math lesson so we're not going to go to the gym. So you're 45 minute gym session is now 20 minutes. So we're we're young and that has a ripple effect.

00:48:22:19 - 00:48:26:07
Speaker 1
And the compounding effect on physical activity yeah.

00:48:26:07 - 00:48:42:12
Speaker 3
There's no question about it. And even if, you know, look at the homework some of these kids have after their school hours and it almost some of these kids get stressed out because they're not able to get their homework done and they don't have time for physical activity. I mean, we really have to rethink this thing. You know, we've got this we've got this push towards academics.

00:48:42:12 - 00:48:59:05
Speaker 3
But if we truly want to master academics, you better take care of the physical side as well because we know you're never truly going to reach your potential as an academic, whatever the subject might be if you're not physically in reasonable shape. Right. The same conversation for any sport.

00:48:59:22 - 00:49:04:13
Speaker 2
Jeff, I want to be conscious of your time. Where are you with time? Because I want to go a little bit more, but I don't want to impede on.

00:49:04:13 - 00:49:06:01
Speaker 3
Yeah, I'm okay for a little bit, guys.

00:49:06:05 - 00:49:24:20
Speaker 2
Okay. You just tell us. Okay? Yes, we'll go all night. Yeah. So I want to add to that. So I talked to I was out of school and I said what have we proposed this like? We have OSL TI, which is the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test. We have the Echo. So the kids have do the math. I said, So what about if you had to get a six on the Pacer test to graduate high school?

00:49:25:01 - 00:49:41:21
Speaker 2
Huh? What if we did a Pacer test to graduate? Well, you can't do that. You know, I not. What about the kid who's not smart in math? What about the kid who can't read that doesn't make any sense to me because you can't say, well, you know, they'll never get to this level while you're expecting that from somebody's math and you're expecting somebody and reading and writing.

00:49:42:02 - 00:49:45:03
Speaker 2
What's the difference in physical education? Anyway, that's.

00:49:45:03 - 00:49:50:11
Speaker 1
Another conversation of sport. And we're going that's the first thing we're going to get them to bring in some sort. Yeah.

00:49:50:18 - 00:50:10:08
Speaker 3
And there's an interesting one there. Two guys, you know, so they're they're there's a program that was, you know, had the kids going out and they're running, what, 800 meters or whatever and they had to keep their heart rate. You know, the whole thing was guided by, Hey, man, I'm going to keep your heart rate in a certain certain range.

00:50:10:20 - 00:50:43:03
Speaker 3
And, you know, this is an interesting story from from an actual teacher, and I'm paraphrasing this a little bit, but the just the the story was they went out and had these hard parameters for this run based on effort level. Right. And so the teacher was judging the the effort by the time of the finish and when he actually stopped and looked at the effort level, this one girl who finished slower or towards the end of the pack, her heart rate was one of the highest in the entire group.

00:50:43:07 - 00:51:16:08
Speaker 3
So for her at that particular age, at her particular condition, in all of her circumstances, she was working harder than anybody else in the group, even though she had a slower time frame. So that might be a cool way to to to really build a program like that. Based on individual performance. And I like that stuff. And there's nothing more empowering than showing a young person how to get better at those kind of things, because everybody can it's it's so easy.

00:51:16:08 - 00:51:17:13
Speaker 3
It's crazy. Yeah.

00:51:18:04 - 00:51:33:18
Speaker 2
My grandson like that at his school, and so do we with the heart rate monitors and we kind of bounce that around. The one you're talking about, too, that's in Naperville High School. That's what we refer back to. And I had read that book and we tried something along those lines at a school. I was that and we went to Naperville High School where this happened.

00:51:33:24 - 00:51:51:18
Speaker 2
I met the teacher, the person ran the program. We did a presentation. All we did here in Canada, they loved it. And what's crazy is we did this we did this project in our school and here in northern Ontario doing here really much about it, to be honest with you. We go to Naperville in Chicago, Illinois, basically just outside of Chicago, we do the presentation.

00:51:51:23 - 00:52:06:13
Speaker 2
And the guy that wrote the book and the person who wrote the book, you wasn't there. But the people he wrote about were there saying it was the best thing that you took our idea and you did this. And this is amazing. And you can hear a pin drop around here. It's funny. You leave your community and people like this is the best thing ever.

00:52:06:23 - 00:52:09:15
Speaker 2
And then when you're in house, it's just whatever. Next.

00:52:09:24 - 00:52:21:01
Speaker 1
Yeah, well, and I think this goes back to Jeff's back surgery where there's holes in the system. And I think here there's roadblocks. How do you buy 60 heart rate monitors for kids that there's not budget for that right. When there's other things that are needed.

00:52:21:01 - 00:52:22:14
Speaker 2
So like calculators.

00:52:23:01 - 00:52:37:13
Speaker 1
Yeah. Another day I just got this feeling that being one of my best friends, one of my good friends is a math teacher and I know he listens to this show. So sorry, Dan. Sorry Dan so I heard this before.

00:52:37:17 - 00:52:58:12
Speaker 2
Gears because I'm going to forget this and I won't get it out. I love it. I heard it from you specifically because I want to go back to small farming town, small communities. If I'm correct, a majority of NHL players come from communities. 500,000 or less a majority a professional. I want to say it's golfers also come from communities.

00:52:58:12 - 00:53:18:13
Speaker 2
500,000 or less. And the conversation was, you know, how many outdoor rinks is there in downtown Toronto compared to a small community like I'm looking at outdoor rink here, here, here, here with the my community and then golf courses trying to get into a golf course in a populated community compared to getting in a golf course in a smaller community that has three or four golf courses.

00:53:18:24 - 00:53:27:17
Speaker 2
Can you elaborate on that a bit? Because I remember you started the show with being from a small community, but this small community not benefit you more or would you say it did?

00:53:28:05 - 00:53:48:13
Speaker 3
Yeah, well, there's no doubt and the data does reinforce that 100%. It's called the birthplace effect. You know, when you look at sport sociology and without question the numbers are out there, we have them posted on our website as well. I talk about this all the time, but if you're right, if you're to look where the top performers are, the majority of the top performers come from regardless of the sport.

00:53:48:22 - 00:54:06:19
Speaker 3
They're from smaller communities. And, you know, it's kind of counter intuitive. But, you know, if I think about some of the big high schools in in the city, they almost have more people than my hometown, for crying out loud. So, you know, making a varsity team at one of these high schools for most kids is just not even possible.

00:54:06:19 - 00:54:19:19
Speaker 3
I'll tell you what, back in the community I grew up, we could go down to the neighbors, grab the key to the arena, and they would just say, make sure you turn the lights off. We would go in, unlock the arena at night. We would go skate till one in the morning. Our parents had to come get us.

00:54:20:01 - 00:54:45:15
Speaker 3
We just had to make sure the lights were off and we locked it up so there is no doubt it's called the Birthplace Effect. You can Google it and see the actual numbers, but it is remarkable how the top performers do really come from the smaller communities, and it's actually much below 500,000, by the way. You get 50,000 below that's where that's where you're really, really hitting the sweet spot.

00:54:45:15 - 00:54:57:17
Speaker 3
And when we started talking about this on the radio show, I had a, I had a real estate agent call me up, said, Holy smokes, man. We're having people wanting to move out of the city and move into small towns. What are you talking about?

00:54:57:21 - 00:55:03:20
Speaker 1
He destroyed real estate in Toronto. And Vancouver in Calgary.

00:55:06:03 - 00:55:22:10
Speaker 3
So pretty cool. But no, that is one of the huge benefits, right? I mean, listen, when I grew up, we didn't have it. If you didn't play basketball or volleyball or baseball or hockey we didn't have a volleyball, basketball or because we didn't have enough kids, we just didn't have enough kids. We had to play everything. And it was great.

00:55:22:22 - 00:55:28:23
Speaker 1
Awesome. While you say there's something when you say no one does it alone, can you elaborate on that, Jeff?

00:55:29:18 - 00:55:50:20
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. And again, this is for parents. This is for coaches, certainly for athletes. You got to understand that that, you know, the world has become so specialized not just in sport, but also in our knowledge base is now. And it's fantastic. And you guys are right I'm incredibly lucky. I've got a really cool base knowledge in all these different areas.

00:55:51:00 - 00:56:16:13
Speaker 3
But when I need help, like I can take an athlete, probably any athlete on the planet. Let's just talk about speed. I could probably take them to here, but if we need to get them to that last little bit because it's just critical for them, we go to somebody who lives, eats and breathes speed training, right? Because that person's going to have some kind of context or perception that I possibly could never have without being totally immersed in that in that world.

00:56:16:21 - 00:56:38:09
Speaker 3
Much similar for nutrition, much similar for the brain game, you know, much similar for a lot of the things that we look at. So so, you know, if you look at sport performance athlete development, getting back to the conversation, human development, it's just really all about problem solving, right? And if you think about, again, the crazy analogy of building a house, which you've heard a thousand times.

00:56:38:16 - 00:56:56:24
Speaker 3
But listen, when you go to do the electricity in your house, you're not going to do it yourself. You're going to go get in, get an electrician, a guy who actually knows what he's doing. You're going to get a plumber, you're going to get a framing guy, you're going to get a drywall or you're going to get all these experts inside of your team to put it all together for you.

00:56:57:07 - 00:57:19:11
Speaker 3
And that's kind of a great analogy of when we say, you know, you can't do it alone. Nobody does it alone, but you got to make sure you have the right people around you. Or if you don't, you just got to be inquisitive enough to go find that information. But it's amazing. It's amazing. What you'll find when you get out there because there's so many great people that do want to help and do want to share information.

00:57:20:03 - 00:57:40:04
Speaker 1
And it goes back to accessibility now because even now virtually we could coach virtually, which is such a really interesting thing. And, you know, like you say, I don't claim to be an expert in everything I can get somebody to somewhere, but if I can't get you to that next level, I and I know there's somebody out there that might be willing to help and can help.

00:57:40:14 - 00:57:55:07
Speaker 1
So and I think that you get as coaches and parents, you get to overcome your own ego to know that you're not necessarily going to have all the answers, right? Like I might be an okay hitting coach, but I might be a terrible pitching coach. So I mean, go to G for that, right?

00:57:55:22 - 00:58:13:16
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah, right. And that and that's that's a great way to put it for sure. Yeah. So, you know, you got to have that collective for sure and and, you know, the whole virtual world now and the webinars and the virtual coaching might be one of the real positive spin offs of this Kobe madness because I've never seen anything like it.

00:58:13:16 - 00:58:32:21
Speaker 3
It really helps us even today, you know, as the COVID thing sort of calms down, we're still connecting with our guys and our athletes all over the world through mediums, just like this is really, really powerful. So so this is another way that I think we're going to be able to push human performance forward because there are there is no barriers.

00:58:32:21 - 00:58:35:11
Speaker 3
Now, you can get information if you really need it.

00:58:36:13 - 00:58:54:17
Speaker 2
Jeff, before before you get going here shortly. This is a game changer. Right here for for our program. This is a game changer for our program specifically. And when you came up, we talked about it. We've got our athletes the book got on my coaches, the book you speak a little bit about this one, the book to where people can find it and also your book on sleep.

00:58:54:17 - 00:58:58:06
Speaker 2
I can't show that right now because I have it as a PDF, but can you dove into those for us?

00:58:58:24 - 00:59:20:19
Speaker 3
Yeah. So the performance plan now is just sort of a that was a pursuit of passion. You know, I've been asked for years and years to write something, but I think I think a lot of people wanted me to write drills, give them drills, give me drills, give me drills, and you know what, guys? Even in my presentations or when I'm consulting with teams, I don't give a lot of drills because there's just so much work that needs to be done.

00:59:21:06 - 00:59:46:03
Speaker 3
Before those drills truly become effective, if that makes sense. We got to understand the process of development. We got to understand the idea of of human performance. So when it does come to the time to teach and integrate drills into a performance program, they're actually one effective but maybe even more meaningful for the coaches and athletes themselves. And that's kind of what that book was about.

00:59:46:11 - 01:00:20:16
Speaker 3
And it's interesting, that book kind of took a life of itself. I self-publish that, you know, because I was talking to publishers, but that's a whole other world to get your head around. So I self-published that. And interesting, a lot of sports teams there's proteins I know that make it mandatory reading. I've got notes from teams that said they just make it mandatory reading for their athletes pro teams, which is which is pretty cool for me, but also businesses I've been contacted by my major business owners and teams that make it make it mandatory reading for their employees.

01:00:20:21 - 01:00:47:03
Speaker 3
I like how cool is that? It's just it's it's about it's about human development and is there's no magic to it at all. I share some experiences that I had that sort of led me down different roads and different thought processes. But it all comes down to Problem-Solving. And, you know, I say in the book, if I had one wish for everybody it would be to help them or encourage them to become decision makers and problem solvers.

01:00:47:03 - 01:01:22:18
Speaker 3
If we could do those two things for our for our children, for our youth, for our teammates, for our athletes, for our students, and we're doing something special. And that's kind of what that book is all about when it comes to human performance. No, we have solidified, you know, for the last ten years, we've had four priorities that we believe need to be addressed before you even talk about sport performance, the technical tactical side of the game and pretty much written in stone in our world, was rest recovering sleep, sleep being the number one priority in human performance.

01:01:22:18 - 01:01:43:23
Speaker 3
Okay. If that's not taking care of really, everything else isn't quite where it should be. Every program that's ever being built should be built around the amount of the amount and the quality of rest in recovery an athlete or a human being can get. And they're not. We we we plug in practices, we plug in work, and we pray for recovery.

01:01:43:23 - 01:02:06:13
Speaker 3
Again, one of the reasons that injury rates at every level of sport are at all time highs that is probably the number one reason. So rest, recovery, sleep being a top priority. Number two, very close nutrition and hydration. Okay. Some of the lowest hanging fruit. Just stay hydrated. So easy. Number three is posture in range of motion for our athletes, depending on the sport.

01:02:06:13 - 01:02:29:17
Speaker 3
But this is your setup and if you're not set up, it's a very, very difficult to have success moving forward. And then three movement teach movement. If those four things are in place, you've got a chance of chasing down a dream or at least really enjoying your sport. However, boys, last year I've just something's been nagging at me for years and years and years.

01:02:29:17 - 01:03:03:00
Speaker 3
And about six or seven years ago, we had on a good friend of mine, Dr. Martin Karasik, from the University of Alberta and and a sports scientist from Sweden, come in and talk about the brain game and the meant not even so much the mental side of performance, but more setting athletes up for success. And they started talking about hassle scores and coping skills and in all these parameters that can throw an athlete off course.

01:03:03:00 - 01:03:23:18
Speaker 3
And I've seen it firsthand when an athlete gets distracted or something in life is taking their focus away from their sport, it can derail them for sure. And so for the last five or six years, I've been thinking about this thing called the brain game and trying to define it. And in all the literature out there, you have sports psychology and you've got psychology.

01:03:23:18 - 01:03:44:05
Speaker 3
But this brain game is much, much more than that. The brain game is perception, it's personality, it's attitude, it's approach, it's decision making, a reaction time. It's your mood, it's your personality. And yes, it's the psychology of sports. So it's all these things. Last year, one of our main themes on the radio show was the crushed brain game.

01:03:44:05 - 01:04:10:10
Speaker 3
And we set out to get a real understanding of what it's all about. And I can say we're still in the process of doing this, but there's now an official top priority in our in our sport performance programs. And it is the brain game. Where does it lie in the hierarchy? We're not sure yet. We're not sure whether it's an individual thing or if there's things that should be addressed before we even pick up a bat, a ball skate or ski right now.

01:04:10:16 - 01:04:32:17
Speaker 3
But that picture is coming together. And here's what I can tell you about the brain game. What we know about the brain right now, we know more at this moment than we've ever known in the history of mankind and the technology that is out there now is allowing us to map, train and monitor the brain real time in.

01:04:32:17 - 01:04:57:14
Speaker 3
And we've never been able to do that before in the history in the history of mankind. So we're on the cusp of a new age of human performance. We're not there yet. It's coming. But but I'm excited. So we've got those five priorities guys that we believe have to be addressed before we even talk about sport performance. Unfortunately, they are not and hardly ever, by the way.

01:04:58:09 - 01:05:21:11
Speaker 1
I love it because it approaches the entire person before they even put on their spikes put on their their gloves, put on their skates, whatever it is, you're addressing the whole person as who they are and what builds them to that. And then, yeah, okay, let's go out and do this skill. You've taken care of this. I've had people hear this in our listeners.

01:05:21:11 - 01:05:39:02
Speaker 1
I hate the word elite because it gets thrown around right? But like, are you elite nutrition? Are you elite all the time when you're in it stepping over the line and into the gym, you could be elite, but when you walk out and your diet is horrible, then you you're up till 3 a.m. doing a deep dove on. Tick tock.

01:05:39:11 - 01:05:44:20
Speaker 1
That's not elite, right? So all this type of stuff and the attitude and you see the mood.

01:05:44:20 - 01:05:46:05
Speaker 2
I treat other people. Yeah.

01:05:46:08 - 01:05:58:19
Speaker 1
Oh man, that is gold. That whole thing is gold. And we want to hear more about this and we're definitely going to make sure we direct people to the information on your website and in your book, which is really, really cool.

01:05:59:17 - 01:06:00:18
Speaker 3
Yeah. Thanks, guys.

01:06:01:18 - 01:06:07:04
Speaker 2
One more. Yeah. One more. Work on Sugar.

01:06:07:16 - 01:06:17:18
Speaker 1
Oh, now this is going to hurt because my co-host and my beloved cousin Greg has a bit of a sweet tooth, so be careful. Tread lightly on this one.

01:06:17:18 - 01:06:20:06
Speaker 2
Okay, Jeff, a block, my ears go.

01:06:20:16 - 01:06:27:18
Speaker 3
Yeah, well, this is probably a conversation for another day, boys, because this is a doozy for sure. But yes.

01:06:27:19 - 01:06:29:14
Speaker 1
We have another podcast with you.

01:06:29:23 - 01:06:51:24
Speaker 3
Yeah, I know. This would be a worthy conversation. There's no question about it. And there's a lot of people really talking about this as well right now, which is fantastic. But listen, if you look at the amount of sugar we're consuming as human beings, you know, you know, it's a disaster. It is truly a disaster. And, you know, sport is just a beautiful platform, you know, to get people active.

01:06:52:09 - 01:07:18:06
Speaker 3
It's great for social interaction. It's great for interpersonal reasons. It's great for human development for sure. It's also a great platform to deliver messages. And if you look at the amount of sugar in a fruit juice or the average sport drink, certainly those energy drinks, if you look at how much sugar the average kid is consuming before they even get to lunch, it is an absolute horrific disaster of human health.

01:07:18:18 - 01:07:46:20
Speaker 3
And so one of the things that we've initiated years ago on the radio show is the Crush War on Sugar. And we've had some epic, epic conversations with some of the world's smartest people. But without question, the writing is on the wall. We are literally killing ourselves. And it was it became it never became more apparent than I think it was 20, ten or 2011 when the World Health Organization came out with an incredibly powerful statement.

01:07:47:13 - 01:08:15:21
Speaker 3
And it was worded something like, we are now looking at the first generation of human beings to have a shorter lifespan than their parents. And what they were talking about were my kids, my kids, the kids of my generation. And I'm going, What did they just say? And when you dig down a little bit deeper, it was 100% connected to obesity and diabetes.

01:08:16:04 - 01:08:35:10
Speaker 3
And then the spinoffs of that hypertension and heart attacks and cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer's and dementia, which is directly correlated with exposed or longitudinal exposure to high glycemic, high carb hydrate, high, high carbohydrate diet.

01:08:35:16 - 01:08:37:23
Speaker 1
Not to mention this transcend sport.

01:08:37:24 - 01:09:16:10
Speaker 3
This the Warren Sugar transcends sports. This is a human thing that we're facing. And and honestly, before COVID was even a word we were talking about, a global pandemic of obesity and diabetes and the crazy thing is, guys, it's 100% 100% preventable. And again, I do believe our school systems have to be the crux for this. It has to be we need every kid in every nation looking at looking at the looking at this supplement, looking at the nutrients, looking at the at the nutrient ingredients in everything they consume.

01:09:16:19 - 01:09:28:11
Speaker 3
If we simply do that, guys, well, we've accomplished something pretty special. The war on sugar, though, that is a deep, deep conversation. The warning shot across the bow is we're literally killing ourselves.

01:09:28:24 - 01:09:47:10
Speaker 1
I tell my kinesiology students because we do a whole unit on nutrition and nutrition for performance. I say sugar is so readily available. Think of it as in the air. You're breathing and you know, they're like, well, okay, this does I say you're breathing it basically every day. Right. Like we talk about it like a double double has this much sugar.

01:09:47:10 - 01:10:10:22
Speaker 1
And then when I show them how much it is, I I said this story the other day, one of my friends is a football players. His family runs a Tim Hortons in town. I said, Give me one of the crazy thing. Like, what's the craziest beverage so we have a regular we have a regular customer that comes in for a wing, a large a large Wayne Gretzky nine Cream nine show sorry.

01:10:11:01 - 01:10:12:00
Speaker 3
Wanting to see it.

01:10:12:08 - 01:10:39:16
Speaker 1
Yeah. And then there's a Mario Lemieux. He says he's got a Mario Lemieux that comes into play every now and then. So they name and that's what they know it. And it's like, how much would you know, like a large cup of coffee anyway. So that's a whole. But we're listen, you're preaching to the choir here, and I think Doug and I, we're going to try to put this out to as much as many people as we possibly can and count us in on the war on sugar and the brain game and everything else we can to to help send your message along.

01:10:40:07 - 01:10:50:04
Speaker 3
Yeah. No, I really appreciate it, guys. And yeah, conversations like this, I love it. We need more of it for sure. And there's so many great people talking about this stuff right now. So hopefully we're breaking down barriers here.

01:10:50:11 - 01:11:10:18
Speaker 1
So I guess it's going to be safe to say and I'm going to jump ahead. Usually we give this to our guests, but I'm going to say our call to action this week. Our homework is to say like, hey, why don't we as a family for our listeners, I'm going to challenge our families to take an inventory of the sugar that's consumed to it in your household in a day or in a week by everybody.

01:11:10:21 - 01:11:27:03
Speaker 1
Look in your cabinets, look in your fridge, look in what you're what you're taking in on the road. How much sugar are you taking? And do a deep dove into that. And that's the way we're going to leave it for you for today. Well, you might not like the answer, but we're all about self honesty and self-reflection and trying to make yourself better.

01:11:27:10 - 01:11:42:16
Speaker 1
You cannot raise an elite athlete without having a elite approach to nutrition, rest, recovery, mood and all that stuff. And Jeff, I'm sure you would agree the sugar is based. It can affect your mood as well.

01:11:42:24 - 01:12:13:00
Speaker 3
Oh, listen, when we really do a deep dove into the brain game, sugar and the brain game are intimately connected. It is devastating to sport performance. It's devastating to brain health guys. And the crazy thing is you can't perceive it for the most part. But when you look at reaction tests and learning tests and in exposure to high sugars, it is night and day, black and white, it's devastating just for performance.

01:12:13:00 - 01:12:18:09
Speaker 3
And, you know, there's a reason they call Alzheimer's type three diabetes diabetes of the brain.

01:12:18:23 - 01:12:19:08
Speaker 1
Wow.

01:12:21:13 - 01:12:38:07
Speaker 1
We could keep them here for hours, but we want to be respectful of your time, Jeff. So we appreciate it. We're grateful and we're grateful that, you know, Canada has you but not just Canada, but the world has you. And your passion for this stuff is exceptional. And it's it's motivating.

01:12:38:24 - 01:12:49:24
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, guys. No, I love it. I truly do love it. And again, I've been blessed to be surrounded by some incredible people as well. So I think, you know, we're just messengers in, so we have a lot of work to do.

01:12:52:00 - 01:12:58:17
Speaker 1
Well, that does it for this episode of Benchmarked. Thanks for listening. Until next time.

01:12:59:12 - 01:13:00:22
Speaker 3
Keep crushing it, everybody.

People on this episode

Jean-Gilles Larocque

Host

Marc Messier

Host

Benchmarked

Benchmarked

Jeff Krushell - World Class Leader and Innovator in Sports Training, Psychology and Physiology

People on this episode

Jean-Gilles Larocque

Marc Messier

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