#069 - The Turbulent Times in Collegiate Athletics
In this episode of the Decoding Excellence Show, I'm discussing the rapidly changing landscape of collegiate athletics.
In this episode of the Decoding Excellence Show, I'm discussing the rapidly changing landscape of collegiate athletics. From NIL deals and the Transfer Portal to the monumental implications of the House v. NCAA settlement, I explore how these seismic shifts are impacting athletic departments across the nation.
As a reminder, our Random Shows shows are a quick 15-30 minute episode where I typically discuss current industry trends, research reads, current events, and occasionally offer my insights into the training process that we're undertaking each week.
Episode Highlights:
During this episode, I take a close look at how conference realignments are shaking up competition, focusing on the travel challenges faced by women’s basketball programs. With longer distances and more grueling schedules, how are teams managing the demands of the season?
Next, I share insights into the testing and monitoring strategies we use to optimize athlete performance. Specifically, I discuss the use of force plates for Countermovement Jump Testing and how workload monitoring plays a pivotal role in keeping players at their peak on the hardwood.
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Key Takeaways
- NIL deals, the transfer portal, and the House v. NCAA settlement are reshaping collegiate athletics faster than most departments can adapt, and performance staff feel it in roster instability and planning horizons.
- Conference realignment is a performance problem too: longer travel distances and more grueling schedules, especially for women's basketball, change how you manage load across a season.
- Force plates for countermovement jump testing and ongoing workload monitoring are the practical tools for keeping players at their peak when the schedule gets chaotic.
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Episode Transcript
This transcript was automatically generated. While we strive for accuracy, some words or phrases may be misheard.
[00:00:00] Sport science, strength and conditioning, high performance coaching, welcome to the Decoding Excellence show. Hey everybody this is Adam Ringler and welcome to the decoding excellence show. It is 2025. I've been doing this thing for I can't even imagine. I don't know six seven years. Yes we don't have a thousand different podcasts like Tim Ferris or as many episodes as Dr. Huberman or anything like that. It's a one off sort of win. My mind is thinking about a
[00:00:55] Topic when we want to dive in deeper into something that's related to sports performance or sports science or collegiate athletics and hey I wonder what has happened in collegiate athletics over the last year. Dun dun dun so much right anybody that works within collegiate athletics house v nc double a transfer portal in i l you name it right it's almost as a turbulent time in collegiate sports and higher athletics as maybe covid. I don't know I don't know there's a lot of
[00:01:30] Different things but we're going to get into it during the show as we explore some of the new topics and we're going to end up announcing a couple of different things as we go. So without further ado here is this episode of the decoding excellence show. Alright here we are the 2025 season it is late January and we are jumping into the decoding excellence show. I've had the pleasure of doing this for several years now and have gone through multiple iterations and
[00:02:05] Seasons and episodes and like anything else this is no other it's not different by any stretch of the imagination but I'm going into this episode with a little bit of a different mindset. I'm not discussing workload management I'm not discussing muscular skeletal force output testing force plates Nordboards force frames sport performance technologies. I could I have no problem discussing those things I have in a lot of the episodes in the past we've
[00:02:37] Talked Python and coding and regressions and multi-variant regression analysis. There's a bunch of different things throughout these episodes that we've talked about we've talked about sleep with sleep experts we've talked about mindset sports psychologists we've talked nutrition with registered dieticians on the show so a wide gamut of different expertise in the early episodes of the decoding excellence show I can't believe it I am almost two
[00:03:10] Years from the date no I left which I'll stay in 2027 so we've been doing this for 10 years I got to go back to the first episode and see when I started let's see you know this is podcasts it's long form it's not perfect I don't have Jamie like JRE so I can't just kind of do things right on the fly and ask my producer to do this but let's see what the first decoding excellence show episode is boom here we go Apple podcasts this is dumb to do right now but we're gonna do
[00:03:52] It that's the great thing about podcasts is that most podcasts have hey look at that February 14th 2017 and so we have been doing this for eight years we are two years removed from our 10th anniversary and the first initial podcast with coach Matt Shadeed who is where is Matt now I'm gonna just check him how it's been a while sorry Matt if I've man Shadeed I think he's working back with football he was working Baylor women's basketball at the time that I recorded this coach
[00:04:34] M. Shadeed at Instagram this is gonna be a random aside oh yeah Alabama football well done but that was the first initial Alabama Alabama I see it yeah he got hired he was with south boy yeah nonetheless right I digress a little bit we've been doing this show for a while ultimately it's what I'm trying to say and coming up almost in 10 years and we've interviewed boy I go back to that Apple podcast and look Brett Bartholomew Vernon Griffith Dr. Mike Sun Henry Burrera Henry Zat Alabama
[00:05:20] Men's basketball so quite an Alabama connection Greg Addamson Michael Mulein Dr. Joe Eisenman Dr. Ben Jones yeah so quite a few different people in the early days we are 68 episodes later we've talked about you know a lot of monologues if you will over the last 20 30 episodes of just finding a little bit more difficulty not necessarily booking guests but finding the consistent time schedule to keep guests and what I mean by this anybody that works within athletics knows that when
[00:06:03] Somebody needs something it's sort of at a drop of a hat and what I mean by this is that it's hard to have calendar schedules that are absolutely consistent that you can agree on two months out one month out if you're trying to book guests for a show and you're saying hey your schedule allows for you to be available on a Saturday or a Sunday or a Friday at 2 p.m. At 9 a.m. Whatever it is I don't know what tomorrow looks like for me meaning that I know what the practice plans as
[00:06:34] I know what we have on our scheduling application team works but what I don't know is will there be changes will a team will we have recruits in at that time will we pivot will I be on the road at that time a month out two months out so life is chaotic that's ultimately what I'm trying to say life is just absolutely chaotic and that's okay that's part of it's part of being busy and being involved in a team and anybody that works in higher athletics you guys
[00:07:07] Understand that but ultimately what I'm trying to say is man 2025 what a year right I know I said it in the introduction of the show we have name image and likeness that is blowing up we have transfer portal which is blowing up we have House V NCAA which is blowing up and the ramifications of this trifecta this perfect storm if you will and quite frankly we should all saw this coming down the pipeline five ten years ago and so it's it had we reacted sooner I say we
[00:07:50] Collectively in the coaching industry reacted sooner maybe we wouldn't be in a position of scrambling right now trying to figure things out but there's a recent news article about Indiana University cutting positions you have Texas Tech cutting positions you have other institutions across the country sort of figuring out how are you going to make up this difference in revenue necessary to support this House V NCAA settlement so that is like any
[00:08:24] Buddy that works in athletics that's that's a reality that we have to exist in so you know 2025 has has been somewhat of a I say shaky within the collegiate athletics industry as I talked to other coaches and people that work in various support staff roles and different responsibilities I think many of them have gone into this year with a little uncertainty regarding what the outlook of a their positions look like but be collegiate athletics as a
[00:08:59] Industry looks like so you know I'm fortunate in some way knock on wood that man I love I love strength conditioning I love training I love coaching I love the weight room I love what the weight room teaches people the habits disciplines the character development outside of the athletic performance right we could get into sets and reps and exercise selection modalities and pre-hab and recovery all of the various things that happens within the was right and I
[00:09:30] Get this right this audience if you're listening to this this audience is already has a proclivity to strength conditioning this is a very sports science and strength conditioning centric and oriented podcast I get that I've advertised that that way for the last 68 69 episodes of the Decoding Excellence Show however that said you you probably feel the same way it probably resonates with you in the same way that it resonates with me right the weight room the
[00:10:03] Iron the steel the kettlebells the dumbbells the barbells the the performance technologies the testing that's cool and I love all those things and quite frankly I'm having a Renaissance period myself of just really getting back into loving training loving the discipline loving nutrition loving the monotony if you will of chasing progressive overload on a daily basis with myself and I hope that is being transferred or is carrying over to the coaching I I am
[00:10:40] Humbly able to do on a daily basis with the athletes that I work with that's number one but it's strength conditioning is such a cool industry because yeah not only are we supporting the direct athlete development of athletes that that get the opportunity to prosper off their name image and likeness and play we have the tremendous responsibility and boy I'm at I'm at a loss of words and that's hard to do not only responsibility but we have the capability of
[00:11:18] Really enhancing the things that are so necessary to go that to develop that is needed to go on and play at another level and that is your habits your disciplines your behaviors your decisions all centered around everything that goes into athletic performance not only training but how the athlete handles the other 21 or 20 hours of their day necessary to reap the rewards of the three to four hours that are athletic endeavors or countable athletic related activities
[00:11:55] Care up so education on sleep education on nutrition education on mindset education on recovery education on managing training what can they do to leverage all of these various areas that go into the behaviors decisions and disciplines that they need to be able to perform at a high level so one of the things that I'm really really excited about and I've shared elsewhere but really diving deeper on the discussions and the education with our current athletes centered around
[00:12:31] These key pieces and I'll be frank it's it's a lot of work to be able to go in and deliver on these things on a daily basis right teaching new things about recovery new things about training new things about performance and the various inputs that factor into both positive and negative performance right but the thing that's really unique and the thing that I take a lot of away from it is that these are the lessons necessary whether you had a coach teach you those
[00:13:07] Things or you're discovering it by yourself these are the things that are necessary to perform at a high level so to me it feels very much part of our responsibility part of what we need to do in order to educate our athletes to be the best versions of themselves so that's one new thing that I've been really doing not only here but elsewhere to really try to enhance the performance of our student athletes and the athletes that we get to work with so
[00:13:42] Let us let's see what else is new I do want to talk a little bit about maybe simplifying some of the things that we've done that I've done the stances I've taken I'm still very much responsible in doing some coding on a daily basis really centered around some of the workload monitoring for a women's basketball program so that's been really cool really adding a lot of new combination metrics or feature ads feature engineering to the reporting or
[00:14:17] The analysis but really just simplifying getting better at understanding communicating and trying to determine if we're on target for what is the typical game day minus four game day minus three game day minus two on our game days are we overshoot or undershoot if we're overshoot a predictable load projection or a average load target for a particular athlete how do we individualize or personalize the recovery their afterwards how do we respond
[00:14:52] Coming off of a game day into a plus one but also a minus two how does that athletes loads recovery strategies look like going into the next game loading cycle minus two minus one into the next game day so it's been a a journey certainly and it's been some learning lessons early on now anybody that's worked with college basketball you can certainly relate to this non-comfort scheduling is it's just dictated by your away travel your home schedule if
[00:15:26] You're going to a November tournament or any sort of multi-team tournament it's a little chaotic and what you found is that outside of the the multi-team tournaments you typically have a longer prep cycle minus four minus three minus two minus one in a game day now depending on the league that you work with the travel logistics the meteorites you probably have found that you might have a three-day cycle in between basketball games you might have a two-day cycle that
[00:15:58] Might be very consistent I can relate to that certainly in the past with the Pac-12 RIP that we had a very predictable Friday Sunday conference schedule that was just chef's kiss when it comes to travel travel partners logistics and preparation you could close your eyes and predict the workloads for a game day minus three on a Tuesday minus two on a Wednesday minus one prep practice on a Friday or Thursday going into a game day Friday and then that
[00:16:31] Saturday practice that co-exist in between the Friday game day and the Sunday game day super predictable all of those targets are super predictable now if you're in the big 10 or you're in the SEC or you're in the big 12 it's a little it's a little different right I think we're all sort of having to navigate now if you're the big 10 you know and you're one of the former original big 10 schools you're probably like this is old hat but I don't know
[00:17:02] How much with the addition of the West Coast schools have changed the scheduling format the SEC probably has continued to be the SEC as far as scheduling wise but big 12 big 10 I got to imagine cross-power for conferences ACC as well that the schedule is a little bit crazy it's a little chaotic compared to the last several years of doing it so we are that's one of the things I'm really focused on throughout the 2025 season is just really getting a better grasp of our
[00:17:35] Game day minus two's our minus ones unjulation of workloads into game days so these are all things that any sports scientist any strength conditioning professional anybody that's doing workload management in any form or fashion is probably also trying to wrap their heads around and yeah I'm no different on that we're still continuing to do a lot of our muscular skeletal testing force plates kind of movement jumps we are still leveraging output sports for
[00:18:05] Our velocity based training modalities that's also diagnostic in some way as far as our power generation with our dynamic effort days or bench press speed bench press or speeds watch or speed deadlifts that can be an early indicator of central nervous system disruption so that's a big proponent of what we do or a big component of what we do and then yeah our our main sort of muscular skeletal test with force frame or Nordboard we still do some frequent
[00:18:41] Hand grip dynamite although I would say I probably lean on the four stecks and CMJ certainly more often than I do for the hand grip despite the fact that the hand grip is super convenient I and actually probably delivers less total stress on the human body i.e. One or two maximal effort grip strengths rather than having an athlete do a max effort counter movement jump so there is certainly a large debate right but I still leverage four stecks
[00:19:14] Probably do if I were really dive deep into my brain why probably do to the fact that there's so many more variables that I can get out of a CMJ than a grip dynamite and we're fortunate enough to use the VOD performance dynamo so super convenient goes to the hub love all of that but the fact that we can get you know modified RSI we can get eccentric duration eccentric depth we can get obviously peak force or relative peak force eccentric
[00:19:49] Breaking I mean there's so much metrics you could you could go really down a rabbit hole of looking at all your counter movement jumps variables and parameters and metrics but that's why I think for me I leverage the CMJ more frequently than the hand grip but hey you know what to each their own so we still doing all of those things and it's still rocking and rolling and I'm super excited about what we're doing and I think we're really sort of
[00:20:18] Finding our tune right we're getting into a really good routine as far as delivering on wellness questionnaires responding to individualized responses to training really personalizing recovery strategies we're fortunate enough last year to to get an infrared sauna that's located directly within our weight room so our recovery days look a little bit different our training days certainly look different in some ways so really
[00:20:46] Having a blast with what we're doing in 2025 and looking forward to even more cool and interesting developments as we get through this spring semester so wanted to kind of give everybody an update of what we're up to what I'm up to and start with that and hopefully there's something in this as you're starting to think about like oh man yeah I'm I'm operating in the big 10 and travel's crazy I'm going from West Coast to East Coast and back
[00:21:16] And how you're navigating that from a whether it's even time zones or altitude or travel logistics yeah that can be all chaotic but hopefully as we are all in this together in the coaching industry and sports science industry in strength conditioning that we're all coming together and really trying to to help each other out on these things because you know what we need each other our industries are really cool industry and we have an opportunity to help each other but so often I think sometimes we knock each other down so we
[00:21:50] Got to be better about that as well so appreciate you I do have one more thing I want to talk about and this is the last thing and it's something that I've been sort of working on so a little bit behind the scenes over the last couple of months but I do think that it's it's warranted sharing because I know it can benefit people so most of this audience as I can see by the analytics are strength conditioning coaches those that work in higher athletics and those that are sports scientists however though I do have a few people that listen that are just casual sports
[00:22:32] Fans and some of them are previous athletes of mine and I can tell that they played sports at other levels and what's really interesting is that as as strength coaches you guys know this how often do we get messages from athletes former athletes that say hey coach it's great to hear from you I hope you're doing well hey I'm I'm trying to get back in shape or I'm trying to get you know I got half marathon I'm preparing for all of those things we get this all the time all of the time hey coach how do I you know a couple years removed now how do I eat for I'm a new
[00:23:08] Mother I'm a new father all of these things and so I've spent a lot of time thinking about how do I respond to that at scale whether it's one athlete if it's 10 athletes if it's 100 athletes former athletes what do I provide what do I do and how do I deliver the the quality of a response in a way that's scalable across the quantity of requests and so I've partnered with a community platform it's called school sk o o l dot com and I've created what I've called the masterplan and I do want to describe what this masterplan is all about
[00:23:51] And some of the features to it because I think if you have a brother or a sister or if it's you you could benefit from this masterplan so what I'm essentially have done is created this community and what I've recognized is that during your athletic career you probably had coaches or teammates or schedules really clear individualized personalized goals to keep you on track but so often that support system and that structure disappears and for me what I've recognized is that's where this masterplan comes in so it's not just another group it's not just
[00:24:31] Another program is a hand-built community just for you by somebody who has seen this happen when athletes transition when they step away from the game and they step into life without a playbook so I do want to break down what's kind of really cool about the masterplan and some of the key features in it and what I've added to it so I want to talk about the community discussion board so first this that that's really the heart of the masterplan the community discussion and what I think about and what I want you to think about it that's the digital locker room this
[00:25:10] Is where you can connect with other former athletes who are all on the same page the same journey to reclaim their body and their performance that they once had during their playing glory days so if you're looking for advice if you're sharing wins or just want to have a pep talk that's where you can go that locker room is yours that's our space to share conversate discuss the highs the lows what we're doing and we're building that community and that camaraderie in that space also equally important is the classroom so the classroom is really a curated library of online webinar
[00:25:51] Modules and lessons all that are designed to help you unlock that that that former athlete that current athlete in that former athlete body if you get me it's essentially the lessons that you should have learned during your undergraduate playing career so whether you want to optimize your nutrition recovery I got you if you're looking to rebuild the disciplines and the routines and the habits that you had as an athlete you'll find step-by-step instruction and guidance there if you're curious about advanced strategies to elevate your training this classroom is packed with actionable
[00:26:27] Insights and the best part about it is that everything is specifically tailored for a former athlete so I'm not I'm not trying to suggest that you're 18 again that you're 18 to 20 year old your joints feel well you can just wake up from a Friday night of whatever debauchery and go into a Saturday practice and rock and roll your body's different now as a former athlete and I respect that and I curate this material to be specific to that we also have what is I think one of the most unique features about the masterplan this school community I built is that we have a leader board
[00:27:04] Now I want to talk about something that every athlete loves this is what differentiates us this is what makes us who we are and that is we love competition I love competition and in the masterplan I have a leader board that tracks your engagement and activity within our community and the more that you participate whether it's just completing that education modules joining calls or contributing commenting in the discussions the more points that you will earn and there's more than just bragging rights estate it's not just about wins and loss every single month the top leader
[00:27:43] Gets access to exclusive perks so whether it's a four week strength conditioning program provided completely free or if it's you know if it's just one-on-one calls or a little bit more group or in hand holding and structure we will reward I will reward our top participants in our leader board every single month with those exclusive perks now it doesn't just stop there I do have a calendar structure where you can essentially you can look at the calendar and navigate to it and this is your key to staying involved and accountable so here's what I have on deck for every single month
[00:28:19] I have a weekly accountability call this is like a check-in call 15 to 20 minutes every week set on Tuesdays to help us win the week right we set our goals we stay on track I check in with you you share your goals and what you're doing for the week and we're just building that camaraderie and that accountability every single week to set us up for wins in addition on Thursdays I have a Q&A call and this is where you bring the questions and I'll bring the answers completely live so it will be a little bit more of a community and participation with those calls then in addition we have
[00:28:54] A monthly master class and what's really unique about these master classes is that exclusive for a level two once you get through that level one you level up these deep dives cover advanced topics so you can jump in it I'll try to get really in the weeds and the nuance about your health your for fitness your mindset and everything that's related to performance so here's what ultimately I'm trying to say here's the bottom line if you are a former athlete or you know a former athlete who is looking to reclaim that competitive edge embrace some new challenges really
[00:29:32] Thrive in life not just survive but thrive in life beyond sports the masterplan is the team you've been missing it's not just about workouts not about advice it's not about social media it's about giving you the tools the support the accountability the structure that you need in order to level up in every aspect of your life so here's kind of what I want you to do right this is my actionable for you right now if you're like Adam like I I love this like yeah tell me more about it there's a couple different ways you can do it you could direct message me on instagram at
[00:30:12] Adamringler.com and you could comment school you just send me school SKOOL and I will personally invite you to the community right and I want I want this to be the first step to your next big win in life you could do that or you could go over to adamringler.com forward slash school SKOOL and you'll find a plethora of information why I built this access to the leaderboards our course curriculum you'll find information about the community discussions all of that's available on my website right but here is sort of my call to action for you the first 10 people that join you will have it
[00:30:56] Forever for free now the idea is that this is not for free forever for everyone right I'm not listen I I love this community I want to help everybody out but like everybody else we all have bills to pay right and I'm no different I'll be fully transparent but for the first 10 people it will be free you will just be gifted it absolutely for free come in learn engage you will have it for free continue to participate be on the top of leaderboard and you'll get free training as well after the first 10 though there will be a monthly subscription to this site and that's where
[00:31:33] As new people come in right they're gonna be paying and but you will already will have it for free for life so there is an incentive to jump in the community early be one of the first 10 people early before this converts over to a paid subscription model so I just want to I want to thank you for tuning in the Decoding Excellence Show has been a blessing it's a part of my day that I absolutely love and I I appreciate you listening to this and sharing with this and if you're interested in this school community I think this is perfect for you if you're a former athlete
[00:32:09] Trying to relive reclaim your glory days the physique the performance the mindset the habits the disciplines that you once had the structure that you once had head over to addemringler.com for just last school SKOOL and sign up today
[00:32:30] Hey everybody that's going to be it for this episode of the decoding excellence show I hope you took something away I know this was a 2025 recap what I'm excited about the turbulent time and collegiate athletics and the industry just as a whole with name image likeness transfer portal everything else house v nca all of that chaos that's existing in college sports but the navigation of the travel schedule the 2025 conference realignment the shift in training cycles to prep for a basketball game whether you're three days out two days out one days out your normal competitive
[00:33:08] Schedule we discussed that all in this episode and I can't thank you enough for listening and reaching in this podcast episode clicking it listening to it and essentially arriving to this period right here now rather than advertising ways that you can support the show like the by me a coffee campaign or micro donations all I want you to do is head over to addemringler.com forward slash school SKOOL give it a look and if you know anybody that's a former athlete that's struggling to reclaim their glory days send them this link I that would be a huge ask of me
[00:33:53] And it would benefit me so much that's all I'm asking if you got anything away from the show head over to that website share it with the friend a colleague a co-worker anybody that might actually feel like wow this might change their life because I'm putting a lot of time and attention and effort into building this community to be one of the absolute best school communities on the platform and I want you there thank you