> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://adamringler.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # #079 - The Blueprint, Preseason Training & Lessons from the Weight Room | Cardio Series - URL: https://adamringler.com/podcast/079/ - Published: 2025-09-05T12:45:04.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-20T00:18:01.000Z - Description: In this Cardio Series episode, I unveil The Blueprint—my free S&C and performance community—while sharing insights from a 75-min ruck walk on preseason basketball training, microdosing lifts, simplifying data, balancing team vs. individual needs, and leadership lessons. - Author: Adam Ringler - Tags: Decoding Excellence, #podcast, Conditioning, Strength Training, Coaching and Leadership **In this “Cardio Series” edition of the *Decoding Excellence Show*, I’m bringing you along on a 75-minute ruck walk to share a critical update: introducing *The Blueprint*,our forever FREE community on Instagram and AdamRingler.com** I lead off with sharing [***The Blueprint***](https://www.instagram.com/channel/AbajWzUiMzuleQGj/?ref=adamringler.com), where I’ll be sharing strength & conditioning tactics, performance insights, sport science strategies, and behind-the-scenes access to health optimization and coaching at the highest levels. [Join my channel: The Blueprint 📣Join Adam's broadcast channel, The Blueprint, on Instagram.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/16/f6164f1b-bb1b-4d5c-af28-2fe8b5a96265/content/images/icon/De-Dwpd5CHc.png)instagram.com![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/16/f6164f1b-bb1b-4d5c-af28-2fe8b5a96265/content/images/thumbnail/385172282_1021452359002964_2307211986865540519_n.jpg)](https://www.instagram.com/channel/AbajWzUiMzuleQGj/?ref=adamringler.com) Click HERE to Join our FREE Broadcast Channel over on Instagram! 📣 During this **SUPER LONG** *(trust me, I was feeling every step of it)* walk & talk, I also dive into some big topics shaping our field right now. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/16/f6164f1b-bb1b-4d5c-af28-2fe8b5a96265/content/images/2025/07/dark-blue-polygon-abstract-backdrop-vector-3437138884.jpg) ## During the Cardio Talk I comprehensively break down the following topics: ## **Designing Preseason Training for Women’s Basketball (Beyond Conditioning)** Preseason is a delicate balance,athletes are returning from summer break, practices are ramping up, and the temptation is to overload conditioning to ***“get them in shape.”*** But true preseason training goes beyond just running athletes into the ground. For women’s basketball, this phase should prioritize building durability in the joints, re-establishing movement quality, and gradually layering in power development. That means focusing on controlled strength work, mobility patterns, and foundational plyometrics that strengthen tissues before the demands of a long season hit. At the same time, preseason is about managing practice loads. Athletes don’t need maximal weight room stress when they’re already ramping up high-intensity practices. Instead, programming should emphasize ***“minimum effective dose”*** strategies,loading athletes just enough to spark adaptation while keeping them fresh for on-court work. This way, the weight room complements practice rather than competing with it. ## **The Hidden Role of Microdosing Strength Work During the Season** One of the biggest mistakes coaches make is thinking in-season training has to be long, exhaustive, and traditional. The truth is, **15–20 minutes** of targeted, well-structured lifts sprinkled into the schedule can be just as effective for maintaining strength as a full 60-minute session. This “***microdosing***” approach keeps athletes strong, powerful, and durable,without draining the energy reserves they need for practices and games. Microdosing works because consistency beats intensity. By finding small pockets of time, coaches can maintain barbell exposure, reinforce key movement patterns, and keep athletes neurologically sharp. Instead of pulling athletes away from the court, micro sessions integrate into the natural rhythm of the season,ensuring performance stays high deep into the schedule. ## **Using Data Without Drowning in It** The explosion of sport science technology has given us more data than ever before,but more isn’t always better. The danger is collecting endless numbers without a clear plan for what they mean. Effective performance departments identify the 2–3 key metrics that truly influence decision-making and keep their focus there. The goal isn’t to be impressive on spreadsheets, it’s to be impactful in practice planning and athlete readiness. Simplifying data means filtering out noise and finding the signals that align with coaching objectives. For example, monitoring jump height, player load, or recovery scores can help answer practical questions like: *“Should we push today?”* or *“Do we need to pull back?”* By focusing on actionable insights, coaches avoid analysis paralysis and use data as a tool,not a distraction. ## **Balancing Team Standards with Individualization** Every athlete needs a baseline of preparation, but not every athlete is the same. A freshman post player may need a completely different training emphasis than a senior guard. The art of strength and conditioning is setting team-wide standards while still individualizing where it matters. That might mean everyone follows the same broad training structure, but specific athletes get adjustments in volume, loading, or movement emphasis. This balance ensures the team culture stays strong,everyone is working toward the same goals,while each athlete gets what they personally need to develop and stay healthy. Individualization doesn’t mean writing 15 completely separate programs. It means having a smart system that can fork in different directions depending on athlete history, injuries, or positional demands. ## **Business Lessons from the Weight Room** Running a strength program is more than just sets and reps,it’s about leadership, organization, and building culture. In many ways, the weight room is a microcosm of running a business. Coaches have to manage time, create systems, delegate responsibilities, and inspire people to buy into a shared vision. The best coaches aren’t just technicians, they’re entrepreneurs inside athletics. Lessons like consistency, accountability, and feedback loops translate directly from the weight room to leadership in any field. When athletes see that structure and discipline create results, they learn principles that will carry into their careers long after sport. For coaches, it’s a reminder that our influence extends beyond the gym floor,we’re shaping not only performance, but also the way athletes think about leadership, systems, and success. --- If you’re serious about training design, athlete monitoring, or building durable and explosive basketball players, this one’s loaded with practical takeaways you can apply immediately. --- Thanks again for listening to the Decoding Excellence Show! I appreciate all the support growing this Sport Science, Strength & Conditioning, and High-Performance Coaching resource. If you have taken anything away from the show, please login to iTunes and navigate to [⁠⁠⁠**Decoding Excellence**⁠⁠⁠](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/decoding-excellence/id1205636566?mt=2&ref=adamringler.com) page and leave us a **FIVE STAR** ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review. --- If you haven't already, you can head over to [⁠⁠⁠**AdamRingler.com/Newsletter**⁠⁠⁠](http://www.adamringler.com/newsletter?ref=adamringler.com) and sign-up for my weekly newsletter. This is a newsletter for the curious. It's chalked full of interesting articles I've read through the week, things I'm exploring and finding fascinating through my week, and a collections of thought experiences and resources I've cultivated. [NewsletterThe newsletter is something I absolutely LOVE If you haven’t signed up yet for my newsletter, you’re missing out. I often describe my newsletter to friends as the “BirchBox of Newsletters”. It’s a simple bullet point list of all the fascinating, and curious things I’ve explored each month.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/16/f6164f1b-bb1b-4d5c-af28-2fe8b5a96265/content/images/icon/yellowcircle-20.png)Adam RinglerAdam Ringler![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f6/16/f6164f1b-bb1b-4d5c-af28-2fe8b5a96265/content/images/thumbnail/Adam-1.jpg)](https://adamringler.com/newsletter/) If any of the material resonates with you, I'd love for you engage with me at [⁠⁠⁠**@AdamRingler**⁠⁠⁠](https://www.twitter.com/adamringler?ref=adamringler.com) --- ## Key Takeaways - Preseason for women's basketball should prioritize joint durability, movement quality, and gradual power development, not running athletes into the ground to "get them in shape." - Use minimum effective dose programming in preseason: load just enough to spark adaptation while athletes ramp up high-intensity practices, so the weight room complements practice instead of competing with it. - Microdose strength work in season: 15 to 20 minutes of targeted, well-structured lifts can maintain strength as effectively as a full 60-minute session, because consistency beats intensity. - Simplify your data: identify the 2 to 3 metrics that actually influence decisions (jump height, player load, recovery scores) and ignore the rest, so data answers "should we push today" instead of causing analysis paralysis. - Set team-wide standards but individualize where it matters: a freshman post player and a senior guard need different training emphases within the same broad structure. ## Listen and Subscribe Find this episode of the Decoding Excellence Show on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/decoding-excellence/id1205636566?ref=adamringler.com) and [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/093GVrPwd9l832q3EWhVKc?ref=adamringler.com), or use the player above. --- ## Go Further in This Episode Enjoyed this conversation? Here is how to get more from it: - **Read the transcript below** to revisit key ideas at your own pace. - **Share this episode** with a coach or colleague who would benefit. - **Subscribe to the Decoding Excellence Show** on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/decoding-excellence/id1205636566?ref=adamringler.com), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/093GVrPwd9l832q3EWhVKc?ref=adamringler.com), or your favorite app. - **Join the newsletter** at [adamringler.com/newsletter](https://adamringler.com/newsletter/) for weekly insights on human performance. --- ## 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, welcome to the Decoding Excellence Show. This is your host, it's Adam Ringler, and we are back with another walk-and-talk cardio talk session, and this is a, uh, hopefully, this is a long one. I have my 75 minute rock walk, so I have a little bit of time on my hands here to, uh, to talk and to share a little bit behind the scenes of what we're building here at Colorado, what I'm thinking about as a coach, \[00:00:54\] And some of that implementation of what we're doing from a strength and conditioning perspective. But just wanted to say thank you for listening to this Decoding Excellence Show, and let's get into the show. Hey everybody, it is Adam Ringler, and welcome back to our Decoding Excellence Show cardio talk, the walk-and-talk, where I have 45 pounds on my back. I'm engaging in what is otherwise 75 minutes of conditioning by myself. You're in the sunrise out here in beautiful Boulder, Colorado, and I'm welcoming you along the side of me. So if you're doing conditioning, \[00:01:28\] If you are commuting, if you are, hey, I don't know where and how you're listening to this podcast, but if you are, whether you tube Spotify, Apple, podcasts, or elsewhere, welcome, right, you're along the side of me, we're hiking together, we are walking together, and while we're doing this, we're having a conversation. Now, you could talk back, you could look psychotic and talk back to this podcast. I'm totally cool with that, but if you just want to listen, then, uh, hey, I'll do the talking for us, right? So on this podcast today, the Decoding Excellence Show, we're going \[00:02:03\] To talk about a number of wide-ranging topics today. Now, as always on these cardio talks, I have no script. I'm going off top of my head, and I'm just ranting. So sometimes they're good, sometimes they're bad, sometimes they're controversial, sometimes they're boring. That's the nature, right? I'm feeling time, right? This is a question I had from a audience member in our blueprint, right? The blueprint is a, uh, Instagram community that I've built. It is the behind-the-scenes access to our strength conditioning sports science. Everything, as far as, uh, the lifestyle and health \[00:02:45\] Performance optimization, it's a little bit different than certainly our former athlete's society, which is catered to former athletes. The blueprint is about trying to give you i.e., the blueprint to optimal performance, right? So it's certainly more centered around strength conditioning coaches, sport sciences, how to build a career, how to optimize your lifestyle, how to optimize your performance. Now, I won't go super deep and give you the exact framework or the master plan. That's our premium level service over at www.adamangler.com. However, the blueprint is to give you some ideas, \[00:03:19\] Just to give you the rough sketches, if you will, how to architect a life that you want to live. Now, oh my goodness, this incline's kicking my, I don't want to lose my monetization. Actually, that's funny. I don't have any monetization in our YouTube, but allegedly, if you swear within the first couple minutes of YouTube, if you are monetizing your channel, you lose it. So, but I will say, this incline's kicking my butt right now. I'm breathing heavy. Eagles are in the sky. You could probably hear them. Like I said, these cardio talks are also random. You might hear dogs, you might \[00:03:59\] Hear bikes or isn't by motorcycles. There's certainly a section where there's a lot of vehicles. As I get closer to the main road, I'm out in the wilderness right now, on the on the Ruck walk through our neighborhood. Got a more of a marsh. We're a little ways from the mountains and the front range right now, but nonetheless, \[00:04:22\] Kicking my tail right now. So, breathing heavy, but we're going to get into all these things. But let's go back to the question right. The question over at the blueprint, and they asked me this. They said, Adam, how do you find time to podcast, record YouTube videos, generate content for Instagram, for Twitter, for X, for Blue Sky? How do you write blog articles and still manage to be a division one P4 level women's basketball coach and have a family and have a wife and be engaged with your children, right? And their life and their homework and all \[00:05:04\] Those things. Well, I'll tell you the secret. It is to maximize your dead time, right? Cardio is normally dead time. So, what I do during Cardio, I'm publishing content, doing both, right? I'm walking and I'm talking sometimes, I'm walking and I'm creating content for Instagram. Sometimes I'm writing, you know, some podcast scripts and starting to think about some ideas there of, hey, okay, I want to talk about Precise conditioning. I want to talk about X, Y, Z. I want to talk about testing on the broad performance force, force decks, other times. I don't know if you know this \[00:05:48\] About your boy, right? I live roughly eight miles away from Boulder, from campus. I take the public transit in and out because it's convenient. I don't have to pay for a parking pass. It runs super consistent, right? Yes, it's public transport, right? All those things. But if you live in New York, you get it. If you're familiar with Chicago, Detroit, you get it, right? There's areas and cities that better public transportation. But Colorado, Boulder and the RTD actually are really, really good public transit. It takes me about 15 minutes to get in and out of work. I go from my doorstep \[00:06:32\] Of my home about five minutes down the road, standard stop. Buses run super frequent and reliable. And it dropped me off right in front of work on bus. You're about five minute walk into work. But the added benefit on top of that is that walk right next to a Starbucks, which is fantastic on some days if my macros allow for it. But typically, I've been saving that for Fridays as a reward for getting through the work week and hitting all my macros. I go in on Friday, give myself a nice little Vente blonde roast. And maybe if I'm feeling a little bit spicy, \[00:07:14\] I don't want to allocate my carbs prior to training. I do want a two pumps. So maybe, you know, hey, little pumpkin sauce or more like a little pumpkin spice latte. However, you can't get it too much sugar. So maybe one or two pumps of the pumpkin sauce, nice little Vente coffee. I'll go for that save some calories. But so that's the plan. I try to do all the things that you see online in the other hours of the day. So after work, before work, I'm working on content scripts. I'm working on content visuals. When I'm doing \[00:07:57\] Debt time like this cardio session for 75 minutes prior to work or after work, I'm recording podcasts, right? I'm chopping it up. I'm doing post editing at home. And whether it's OBS or if it's in CapCut or if it's in Adobe Premiere, right? You could be strategic and generate whatever content that you might want or write in time outside of it. Now, I do that. And again, you guy wakes up early in the morning. I've talked about that before. There's a lot of times where I'm up at. I don't know as late as into this cardio cut, if you will. They're waking up at like 3.45, 4 a.m. I regularly wake up \[00:08:44\] At 5 a.m. My first kid, my son always wakes up the earliest. He doesn't even begin to wake up until about 6.30\. So I'm up at four. Let's just say I have a lot of time, two and a half hours to work on things before the rest of the day even gets going. So a lot of the times in the morning, I write, I pre-write out scripts for podcasts or for accountability calls on Tuesday for the former athlete society. I'm starting to generate content for the blueprint. That's how I get ahead of things. So nonetheless, you didn't come here to hear about, hey coach, how do you generate \[00:09:31\] Content for all the various mediums that you published to? You came here to learn a little bit about maybe some, some ideas and concepts and training and coaching. So let's go ahead and let's just dive right into that stuff today. I want to talk about building your ability in basketball athletes. And this is, again, come sound exercise selection. It comes down to movement quality. It comes down into power generation, reinforcement development, repower development in athletes, maybe even managing practice loads, conditioning loads, workload monitoring and some respects. So here it is \[00:10:21\] Beginning client section here for about next five minutes. So if I'm labored in breathing, it always happens around this 15 minute mark or so of the show, it's end of 15 minute. I hit this big hill and your boy starts breathing heavy but pre-season training for basketball. Now the way that our academic calendar fell this year, the way that we started on a Thursday, really really had four and a half weeks before we hit 20 hour weeks where we started shift gears. So our pre-season is ridiculously condensed, four weeks to get in shape to prepare for 20 hour practice. \[00:11:10\] Now when we hit 20 hours, it's not like it's a radical shift. We're not going immediately into three hour practices. We're smart. We're strategic about that still. But I mean, we'll rarely September, when we hit these practices, we won't maximize all 20 hours a week. Now we'll start with film. We'll get into, you know, certainly five days of training. So our practice volumes do pick up. We will go longer. But it's not like we're maximizing three hours of practice on court plus an hour of weights. That's just, we're going to taper into building those volumes, \[00:11:54\] That durability, if you will. But our training right now, I might have talked about this on a different walk and talk. We're doing two, it's very conjugate-esque style for those of those of you strength coach junkies out there doing two maximal effort lifts, typically upper body. Early in the week, we're going to, and it's different too, right? Like let's also walk through maybe some of the nuances and differences as far as traditional conjugate style as well. \[00:12:38\] We have to remember that these guys are basketball athletes. We're not training power lifters or pure strengths for athletes. So doing something where we might be doing a max effort into a dynamic effort into a later in the week, another max effort dynamic effort rotating through upper and lower splits like that. Most of those guys are open for 15 other hours of the day or a week. So we got to respect the fact that there's skill development. There's film. There's live play. There's open gym. There's academic stressors all of those things. So we will typically in the fall \[00:13:23\] Preceding pre-season phase of training, right? Or get into early in season. We will typically have our weekends off Saturday, Sunday off. Those are your 48 hours of off days. Now there'll be football games or recruiting. All of those other stressors and extracurricular activities, if you will. That's it. We have 48 hours off of a physical stress to the athletes body. That means the bulk of our physical stress happens Monday through Friday. Now we can assume very linearly as we progress from Monday towards the end of Friday, the accumulated fatigue of the week, the basketball of training \[00:14:10\] Of academic stress will push our athletes to be the most fatigued on Friday and the most ready on Monday. If here's a big if they manage their recovery well on the weekend, hydration, sleep, academic stress, study and active recovery, etc. So, as I said, the early portion of the week, I like to chase maximal effort, strength work. The athlete is fresh. The athlete typically devoid of any sort of doms or delayed onset muscle soreness. Their body is primed ready to go so we typically attack max effort, back to back, upper lower split, y upper and lower. Well, \[00:15:04\] I could attack lower immediately early in the week and then our athletes have heavy legs from Monday essentially. Let's say we get through Monday and let's say there was a court session, we get one good court session on Monday and then from Tuesday to Friday, their legs are heavy. So I like to start with upper body, maximal effort on Monday. Whoa, whoa, whoa coach. That's a gym split. You're hitting chest on upper button. Yes, okay. That's what I'm doing. We're hitting upper body early in the week. Why? Because we get Monday's court session where we're hitting upper \[00:15:43\] Body, their legs are fresh. What do you even train legs? Smoking upper body, push pull, maximal effort, pretty heavy, chasing max strength. Then go into Tuesday and we do a court session again, now we're in Tuesday. We get another high productive, fresh-legged court session for skill acquisition for team offensive defense for live play. We have two good training sessions. Now we train lower body then. So the delayed arm set muscle soreness starts to peak 24 hours, 36 hours later. So we get into Wednesday's session and we can \[00:16:32\] Most likely have another good court session. But at that point in time, the preceding day's lower body soreness from that maximal effort lower body session starts to set in. So by Wednesday evening after that court session, we're starting to say, oh, hamstrings are sore. My quads are a little sore. My calves are a little sore. My adductors are a little sore. Okay. Let's make sure we manage. We get ahead of the recovery. We start to foam roll. We start to stretch. We start to mobilize. We start to active recovery. We start to flush ride. We start to utilize \[00:17:12\] Normally tax and be a far hydro shorts and all the recovery modalities we have. Because guess what? We have two more on court sessions. That Thursday, that Friday, right? So we'll typically train up around Monday, max effort. We'll go into a max effort lower body on Tuesday. \[00:17:37\] We'll hit that max effort lower body on Tuesday. Wednesday, we won't have a gym session and then we will go into our dynamic effort when the accumulated fatigue starts to really peak upper body dynamic effort speed bench, chain bench, right? Trying to generate some rate of power development, rate of force development, bio pushups, flywheel, poles, right? More higher, higher velocity type movements, lower weight, lower intensities, i.e. Weight, right? But really done under explosive efforts. We'll do that on that Thursday for upper body and then \[00:18:23\] When the legs and the accumulated fatigue is probably the highest. You could also argue at them, a shouldn't we be attacking lower body dynamic when legs are fresh to let's say the best chances to get a rate of power development, rate of force development, enhancement when the body is fresh. Yes, sure. But we're dealing with a constraint-based system where you can only manipulate so many different variables, right? So maybe I could do. I'm trying to think, let's flip the script, let's reinvent things, lower body dynamic on Monday, \[00:19:07\] Upper body max effort on Tuesday, and then you're looking at okay, the dynamic lower body shouldn't produce that much DOM. So then you might be able to get into Thursday before you hit that might actually work. You might not have that much delayed onset muscle soreness because you might be hitting lower body max effort on a Thursday. And then so there's ways of manipulating some of these variables. That's all I'm saying. But what do you think's like you know banded trap bar deadlifts for speed for triples as we get later into preseason and actually in season \[00:19:55\] We'll start hitting doubles and we'll start hitting singles for max effort like maximal effort. I'm using terms that are probably confusing at this point now, but maximal perceived effort aren't our dynamic effort movement. So my god, that's impossible, right? Your boy has no glycogen. His brain is turtle soup right now. Muscle 26 minutes into conditioning. So burning off whatever I have in my liver and muscles and hopefully out of post-issue at this point. A little like policies. Nonetheless, that's sort of what I like to do. Now we manage practice \[00:20:38\] Loads. We use our connects on sports. I am UTAG so we're looking at our velocities or work loads are you know top-end speeds with our anchor systems. So we're doing that. We're communicating our workloads. We're monitoring our in-weight room loads, but arguably we have four weeks to get these guys ready for the workloads. Now I've talked about this on other shows so I won't you know beat a dead horse I guess. It's crazy analogy. I don't know where originated from, but we know that October or let's just call them November loads. Let's just pretend. I'm gonna \[00:21:22\] Use this as a visual with arbitrary numbers. Let's say we know our typical practice loads are 1000\. They're not, but let's say 800 to 1,800 for simple math. If we're in preseason right now and we are only capping off 300 load practices, we know at that point that we have about a 500 load difference from what we're going to get into here in November to what we're doing right now. Now if we were to just continue to build and say hey it is what it is 300 load practices. You know Monday through Friday we do that for four weeks and then we get into November or October whatever \[00:22:15\] Month we want to say and we immediately spike up to 800\. That is going to produce an ACWR right in the Q Chronic Workload Ratio or an EWMA exponentially weighted moving average ratio, which is just a different calculation of the ACWR from Tim Gabbett and Co. It's gonna, it's gonna essentially spike our acute loads in excess of the chronic loading window last 28 days or whatever calculation or window time you might want to look at for your chronic loading. It's gonna spike that and your athletes will feel that. They will certainly feel the onset of wow. \[00:23:03\] I'm used to build a tolerance to 300 loads. I have not built a tolerance to 800 loads. And then when you start playing you know your exhibition games or your scrimmages or your real games or non-conference games, by the time you do a morning shoot around you do a 60 to 70 minute warm-up and let's be honest athletes are out there shooting before the warm-up. So maybe you're looking at 80 to 90 minutes of warm-up and then you play a two-hour basketball game, 40 minutes, two hours to say, you're probably looking at 13, 14, 15, 100 units of load. So tell me how we go from 300 load \[00:23:52\] To 1500 units of load without spiking ACWRs. Well, that's what this phase is all about. You have to build load tolerance. That is called robustness. That is called nascentalibs anti-fragility. You need to build that. Now, will the system, I don't want to say fracture but like will there be splinters in the system, little niggles of soreness and pains and strains and this is hurting or this is a little sore, are you going to feel perfect in this time? No, you will not. But we have to begin strategically and intelligently building what I call the scaffolding towards those higher loads. \[00:24:43\] So 300s needs to start turning into 500s. 500s needs to start turning into 600s. You need to start building that tolerance and getting closer to the competition workloads that we will we will face. So then you get into essentially a period of periodization where you have some understanding that okay the ebbs and flows of your tactical periodization week will look like X, Y or Z will look like we play Saturday, you know, Thursday Saturday and Friday will be chill or we'll play Wednesday and Saturday and so Thursday practice will be pretty easy and Friday's \[00:25:34\] A practice for the Saturday game and Sunday is off and Monday is kind of easy. Like you'll get into that rhythm but and because of getting into that rhythm you will naturally get into a point where your body will start to get acclimated to the higher loads but also to recovery windows that you prescribe. You leverage recovering modalities like I already talked about whether it's strategic use of cold tubs, if it is strategic use of compression boots, if it is hydra be a far flushes, if it's nutrition, if it's sleep, if it's all the basics, right? All of those \[00:26:14\] Things the body will respond, the body will recover. That is what the human body does. It is exceptional at adapting to stimulus but we do need to play, hey, respect the physiology into the body and the recovery windows that we have. All right let's move on guys. I think we talked about preseason training enough. I did say at the intro of the show I wanted to talk about microdosing a little bit and this is a term that's been big popular within strength conditioning over the last five years or so but how do you \[00:26:58\] Microdose strength work in? Well you know we know that the in season period for basketball. Unlike a lot of other sports, right? I'm thinking some fall sports, the exception of being football, some of the Olympic fall sports are, you come in, you hit it fast, you're out of season within two months, two or three months. Fast falls, you're in season. If you're lucky and you make a deep run October but like we start September like in season starts in September for us. We will be in season roughly September to hopefully April. You're talking, what is that? Seven months, \[00:27:42\] Eight months of being somewhat in season. Now yes we're not playing competitions in the beginning of September but that's when we're in, that's when we're going and so you need to be able to consistently dose strength work, right? Training load in throughout the weeks and the days. So I think 15 to 20, 15 to 30 really minute little sessions is critical. Now we lift every single day. Every single day. Game days, we lift, right? There's a developmental group, there's also post-activation, potentiation group, i.e. Most of our starters, there's pre-habs, \[00:28:33\] Individualized pre-habs, ankle strengthening, very targeted knee, TKI's, quad, VMO, hamstring, glute activation, adaptor activation, right, plyle, Achilles prep, all this stuff, right? So we do that on game days, we lift before game days, right? But day before, game day minus one, we lift or recover, game day plus one, the day after a game, right? Didn't play minutes, probably lifting, played a lot of minutes, probably trying to do some type of recovery or flush, played in between, we're probably targeting some strength work. We will lift after games, \[00:29:14\] Hey, play a lot of minutes, get a lot of stress on the body, good day to consolidate that stress, let's go up to the weight room, let's hit some of our strength work, let's hit some lower body, your legs are already pretty fatigued, let's get some stimulus, some strength stimulus, because you already have central nervous system fatigue and stimuli there, let's go ahead, consolidate our loads so that we don't have to make up that load on a different day and have competing stressors, right? Game day lifts and you'll bove, right? We talk about the quadrant system, \[00:29:46\] Games are high, high stress day, for data programs, some of our max effort work, right? But aren't they fatigued from the game, you they are, but their central nervous system is also wired, their adrenaline system is kind of firing, they just play the game, you probably go and be able to get some high productive work down in the weight room. So, I think being smart with the programming, so again, like going back, we lift every single day, now do we lift long? No, we're not doing 60-minute off-season training programs or anything like that, \[00:30:23\] But we're probably aiming for closer to 15 to 30-minute, maybe upwards at moaks on days, 45 minutes, but mostly around 30-minute sessions where we're really getting after it, we're getting in, we're getting out, we're getting targeted micro-dosing in, and we're moving on, right? I've said it before, I know other coaches have said it before, but anytime that our hands touch a basketball, touching a barbell, right? No, that's not necessarily true, it's just a fancy or slogan, am I not touching a barbell? I might do some kettlebells, I might do some dumbbells, \[00:30:59\] I might do some bands, I might use a med ball, I might do some vipers, I might do some vertimaxes or perform that spans, I might use the Boltril one, right? But for touching a basketball, we're also hitting the weight room and doing some type of training up there. Now, a strategy that I've used as the last year or two is that really breaking up the stimulus even more. So a lot of athletes will come up to our room, our performance training facility, and they'll do their individualized pre-hab, this is all based on asymmetry using wrist flags that we perform with all of our testing \[00:31:44\] Devices, trained broad performance and other technologies. So some people might be doing targeted TKEs, others might be doing ad after work or abduction work, some people might be doing some Achilles, an apathy rehab or pre-hab, others might be working on their shoulder, you know, strengthening exercises. So it's all individualized based on what the athlete needs, right? If they are forced play, reveals that their eccentric breaking is, you know, the low standards or normative data, they might be doing supply-wheel work. There's about good 15 different targets \[00:32:19\] Of buckets that they could be working on that addresses their entire physiology and body related to basketball performance. But there's also a number of athletes that will come in and will utilize the extended 74-76 inch PJF bands and we'll do some 3D rotational work, we'll utilize med balls and we'll do some lateral bounding, we'll end up doing some rhythmic kettlebell drop lunges or kettlebell swings, all things to prepare the athlete from a preparatory standpoint for on court work. Now, why do it like that? Well, it's dynamic, it's not going to fatigue them before \[00:33:09\] Practice. If anything, there's a post-activation potentiation effect. So now they're actually getting more prepared, more awake, more stimulated for practice without the negative potentially performance detriment effects of heavy training. Right, basketball is a skill sport. It's a accuracy-based sport for our shooters, right? For our PGs that are trying to dish out dimes, right? Like, there's skill, there's precision involved with passes, with cuts, with change of direction, with shooting. So I don't want to make sure that our training is having a performance \[00:33:46\] Detriment effect to those things. So the heavy stuff, right, the strengthening stuff, the heavy resistance stuff, the high load that's done after the skill session, after the practice. So we can even break it up where we're doing more dynamic work in the beginning, prior to practice, and we're doing more of our strength and high force work after practice. That allows for the most precious moment that a basketball athlete has, i.e., your skill development and team session, to remain largely unaffected by the strength work or the preparatory work that a strength coach \[00:34:24\] Does. And so I'm a big fan of doing that, right? With setting up the conditions, the environment, the training logistics, in favor for that way or avenue of physical development. I think it's more conducive to training basketball athletes or accuracy-based sport athletes that way. Let's be honest, right? Like, most of our players, you think of American football, right? We don't have any knuckles down in the dirt sort of trench dogs. All basketball athletes are kind of like quarterbacks. There's a huge skill component to training athletes that are basketball players. \[00:35:11\] So we can't just train them like offensive linemen and demolish them into the dirt. And then have them execute very precision-based skill movements, right? It's not like they're just doing pass blocking for the entire two and a half hour practice. Like, here's there's some elements of dynamic and accuracy and precision that they need. So nonetheless, big fan of micro-dosing some of the strength work in into our practice and training calendar logistics. Now, from the road, we train hotel jams, performance \[00:35:49\] Facilities, right? We'll sometimes jump in an Uber. If we need to, we'll go to a performance gym. We've done that in the past, right? It's a facility has a weight room. We'll try to leverage the relationships that we have there so that we can get access to the weight room. If not, hotel jams, this is your strength coach. You can make a training environment out of anywhere. Do you give me snorkel, two rubber bands, and an avocado, and I can make a training program out of that, right? And mostly any strength coach could. So I don't need \[00:36:28\] All of the bells and whistles and elico racks and, you know, Samsung equipment and hammer strength equipment and every sort of plate-loaded push-cool apparatus. Is it nice to have those things absolutely? It's really nice for me, right? I go in before the offense. So, typically, if the athletes support it, let's say 8 a.m., because we've got the film at 9\. Then, you know, I'm going to go in there at 7\. I'm going to get my lift done \[00:36:57\] Now or before they arrive. And then the series of developmental athletes, those that need to get strength or size or muscle or force or explosiveness, they'll come in, let's say, 18, 30\. Then our high-minute players will come in, 8.30 to 9\. They get a little extra sleep because, let's be honest, they're high-minute players. I want them to get a little bit more extra recovery, i.e. Sleep. And then we'll all go to film at 9\. Right? So, we'll do that. But, you don't need all of the bells and whistles to get a quality micro-dose strength training \[00:37:36\] Stimuli in. You can use what the hotel gyms have and you can get most of the work done there. Let's change gears for 40-something minutes into this. By the time I run it through our editing software and cut out whatever, it might be closer to 39, 30, I don't know. It could be longer because of the intro and all of that stuff. But, I do want to talk about something that's somewhat relevant in this conversation because we're in the midst of football season, right? And my football brother and everybody is, you know, they're probably elbows deep into game 1, \[00:38:16\] Week 1, now they're in week 2\. By the time this drops, coming up towards the, you know, next football Saturday, if you will. Although this last labor day was then amazing because we had football Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Labor Day, Monday, and college football are for like five days in a row. It's been fantastic. But, I'm going to talk about, you know, my football people are probably, you know, whether they're operating clear sky because they're in practice facilities. If they are leveraging open field and catapult sports because they're outside, \[00:38:56\] They're doing both, probably in the elbow deep of workload and player, player load. And sports scientists are going crazy with hydration and pre-impractice, weigh-ins and weight fluctuations for athletes, right? Between the RDS, sports scientists. You have a mountain, I'm literally at the point of my, my Ruck Walk, where I'm staring at these beautiful, bolder, flat iron mountains. And I can only think that these sports scientists are also staring at a mountain worth of data as well. So, how do you use it? How do you make sensitive? How do you end up simplifying things \[00:39:42\] And using data without drowning with it? That is the million dollar question. Quite frankly, literally and figuratively for these sports science departments that figure out, how do you utilize it without drowning it? Well, I often think it starts and ends with fundamentally understanding the question you are trying to answer and starting, starting, not finishing, with how you plan to actualize the data. So, what I mean by that is that let's first generate what question do you have? And that will more precisely align and reveal \[00:40:42\] What data that you need to accrue. So, let's walk through the hypothetical, right? What question do you have? I am questioning whether or not we have practice volumes that accurately reflect the game demands for a 40-minute women's basketball game. Okay, that's my question. Now, if that's the case, what data do I need to get in order to be able to answer that question? Okay, well, I need to get game data, right? What is a typical game data for a point guard, for a forward, for a four or five, right? Like, you got to start all these \[00:41:28\] Positions, right? What is the typical plus or minus, maybe standard deviation? The typical game demands for our roster, our personnel, our offensive and defensive scheme. What are the game demands? Okay, so I need to get that. Then to be able to answer that question, are we appropriately preparing our team in this preseason period to be able to tolerate and handle and be successful in those game demand positions, right? And workloads, I need to then get practice loads. I need to be able to juxtapose our practices per position, per athlete, per team, per personnel to the game \[00:42:13\] Demands. Okay, that's great. So by having a more concise question in mind, you can then go out and appropriately select the data sources that you need. Now, I don't have that data. Okay, well, the great that you're just revealed a gap in this sports science equation that you're trying to answer a question and you don't have the appropriate data. Now, there might be other solutions, it could be session RPE, it could be duration, it could be, you know, intensities, it could, you could come up with other things, but at least you've identified the relationship between the question \[00:43:02\] That you're asking the answer in which that you're trying to see what questions, what data does one need to be able to get to be able to answer that question? Now, the much larger thing next is how do you actualize it? And that's where people often get lost in the weeds a little bit. And that is when you get the right data, when you get this indifference between earlier in the podcast, we talk about, you know, 800 loads for speaking at 300 loads and having a 500 load indifference between the two, right, the sort of September, November, practice, workload volumes of 800, here we are in pre-season, \[00:43:53\] Let's pretend we're at 300\. How do you how do you actualize this? Because quite frankly, this is the great sport science conundrum, is that you may have the most intelligence, not, I'm not talking cognitively, right, intelligence, like do the smartest person in the room, I'm just talking about data and true analytical intelligence, that by data, right? In the way of the CIA, I'm reading the CIA book, it's amazing, the mission, but they're talking about having physical intelligence, right? You have data, you have sources, you have data points that suggest some \[00:44:34\] Level of strategic or organizational intelligence, about a target about a question. You might have the most intelligence, but if you don't have the decision making capabilities or you have not leveraged decision makers in making wise data oriented decisions. You have the most amount of intelligence with the least amount of decision making capabilities. That's where these sports science departments break down, is that you have no authority, where you have levered relationships, or you have no buy-in, you have decision makers say, oh, okay, we're now going \[00:45:20\] To X-Wired C because our workloads are not 800, they're only at 300\. So that's where I think we need to be more strategic upfront in answering that question before we even go out to get the data before we even manage research question in mind, but we also need to now think second order thinking, say, okay, if it comes back one director or another, how do we actualize it? \[00:45:52\] Because if we don't think those things out and we just simply have, okay, we're now an excess of our end events where we're overcooking our assets. We're now practices are, let's just say, you know, just for the sake of this argument here, 1200 load practices. And we might be going into our training weeks, maybe over-trained. What are we going to do about it? Hey coach, what are we going to do about it? Are we flowing back? Are we changing? Are we manipulating training environments to bring us down? What about we're under, right? We're looking at it and we say, \[00:46:29\] Hey, we need to be at 800 and we're at 400\. What are we going to do? What decisions are we going to make? How are we going to increase these loads? But if we're not willing to actually make decisions based on what we see with the data, then we don't have a sports science department. What we have is a record keeping department. We have historians and not sports scientists. We have people to log what we've done with no recourse into changing the trajectory of the future. We just have historians. We don't have decision makers. We don't have leaders. So that is what I would recommend \[00:47:16\] For people that are in these positions is that we have to get our decision makers on board. So if you have data, fantastic, but guess what? It's now your job to democratize that data. You need to get into right hands, the right people to make the right decisions at the right time. That has always been my sports science ethos is to do that actually. Right data, at the right time, in the right hands, the right people. That is so critical. Or otherwise, you're sitting on data, you're sitting on intelligence that can't be actualized. \[00:47:52\] All right. Like I said, this is going to be a long podcast because I got about no 20 minutes of this rock walk. You're joining me. We're in this together, everybody. In this together. Yes. Sun's coming up. It's is now well into sunrise. And I think we move on with some of our topics. I think we beat again, we've touched on the sports science piece, we touched on the microdosing, we touched on all of that. I hear the school bells. My son must be off to school right now. \[00:48:26\] I'm quite literally walking next to a school. It's fortunate enough, my life. We have two kids. My son goes to school an hour early before my daughter. Now logistically, getting my son off to school is about 100 times easier than getting my daughter off to school. I don't know if there's some gender and differences there or if it's just my daughter's slightly more feral than my son. I love them both, but that's just the the logistics and the realistic nature of what it is. So my wife handles my \[00:49:01\] Son and then I come back home from this long rock walk. Normally, I do this earlier when it's so dark, that way I could be home. But like I said, for whatever reason, I was dragging today. Hi, it was just towards the end of the week, like Jim's low, this cut's been long. Body composition is really low. I can't say I'm under 10%, that was my goal. Let's try to get 10% body fat, but I don't know where I'm at. I do need to probably schedule a deck sun to see because I'm rounding out the final week of this summertime body recomposition phase before I go \[00:49:37\] Into growth phase. That's actually with some really good data. I might actually lean on my RD to see if she could duck that test for me. And that way, I get some real data as far as okay, this offseason growth phase. Did I add muscle mass to my quads, to my chest, to my back, to my arms? What's my body fat? Not allow it to creep up. You know, if it's in house, it's in house, might as well leverage those resources and be strategic and intelligent with the way that I know, approach this body building, if you will, although the terrible B word, no, yes, listen, \[00:50:15\] If you're a strength coach and you're not trying to get stronger, build a bigger body. What are you doing? Are you taking performance? What are we doing here? Like I'm just going to be honest, right? We should all have some level of performance goals. I talk to three coaches every single day, multiple times that we're all in a slap channel together. We live communicate all the time. One is chasing faster run times, right? Although he's trying to get bigger and stronger as well, but I feel like his emphasis is like, hey, man, I'm going to run or I'm trying to improve my my \[00:50:52\] Speeds. I have another coach who's all about, hey, I'm trying to improve my Olympic lifting, trying to get more kilos on this bar above my head or in my movements. Who would love that? Me? I'm trying to get the biggest, most jacked, I possibly can by the age of 40, just coming up here in October. So we all have different performance goals. If you're a strength coach, you should probably have some level of performance goals. I'm not telling you what it is. You might want to who you might want to dunk. You might want to compete in Olympic lifting. You might want to be a power lifter, \[00:51:26\] Whatever it is. I'm at this phase of my life. I'm just trying to keep my wife. I'm trying to look good. I'm trying to add as much muscle mass. I'm trying to decrease as much body fat. That's what I'm up to. That's my goal. All right, let's move on because we got maybe one more topic in me that I want to talk about is coming down the final stretch, 15, 20-ish minutes here left of my rook walk. How you balance team standards with individualization? That's the question I'm proposing to our rook walk together here, because we're walking down the sunrise trail here out in beautiful border, \[00:52:11\] Colorado mountains. How do you have set training for a team, which is kind of like your baseline training, that still allows for forks and individualizations for athletes with different positions, with different injuries, with different profiles. So this blueprint topic is made my master strength conditioning coaches who have CSCCA. You guys get it. My veteran coaches in the NSCA, you guys understand this. We all do this, right? So I explain this to our recruits. I'm sharing this with you in the blueprint here. I like to talk about foundational expectations. So this is very basic, \[00:53:04\] But let's just let's start with that and then we'll we'll go into the nuance, go into the details of how you train. Let's say in my case, a women's basketball team would be different than how you train your American football team. Now that doesn't seem like a controversial take. Why? Because okay, there's some gender differences, male versus female, women's basketballers, American football players, there's some positional and sport requirement, the bio demands of American football is drastically different than the bio demands, the game demands, the practice demands, the energy system demands \[00:53:47\] Of women's basketball, American football. Thank you. There is positional. I won't even get into position. Let's just start with that. That is very at the most foundation of the pyramid that we are building right now, the first layer, right? Sport. Okay, because I would also argue, right? It has to start with sport because you could say men's basketballers, women's basketball, right? Roughly the game demands are about the same, the durations about the same, right minutes, etc. The actual trying to think that bio energetics, bio demands as far as linear base sprinting, \[00:54:37\] Change of direction, cutting, jumping, roughly about the same. The last two might be different. Amplitudes of efforts will certainly be different, male versus female, but the game is the game. It's just some slight nuances, so the game's got to be the foundation, right? The sport that you're doing. Now, the next layer might be, sure, let's look at differences between gender, right? So how you might prepare from infestball would maybe it would be different than how you prepare for women's basketball, just based on the amplitudes of efforts intensities that physicality, right? The \[00:55:18\] Contact nature of men's basketball and some of that's just allowed because the referee and how the game is actually called, right? The expectations to standards and just the history of the game. But then from there, we could say the next layer should be what about position? Because again, in an American football, the way that you train your offensive line would be different maybe than your hybrids, then your skill guys, right? So the way that you train your point guards would be different than maybe your guards, then your forwards, then your forwards and your fives or centers, right? \[00:55:57\] Post players, I think that's a reasonable expectation to have that. There's some positional nuances and differences required. Like in the game of women's basketball, you wouldn't expect the same expectations or the same exact training out of your 155 pound point guard as you would your 240 pound post player, right? There's different energy system demands certainly, but there's also different positional demands of what's required and demanded out of them based on their skill and their position that they play. So our training should obviously then near that, \[00:56:41\] Right? BGs might be doing some different things because they're going to be coming down and all handling and they got to be a depth of that and the accuracy of their passing, they got to be a little bit more adept with some of the lateral movements and change directions, right, right to left, right? Change rhythm, change of pace, right? Fast accelerate, decelerate, stop on a dime, right? Give it, rotate, twist, turn, right? Where are back to the basket? So post, strong, powerful, be able to go up, repeat, maybe some repeat jump, where okay, \[00:57:19\] You've got to go up, you've got to grab a rebound, oh, you've got to get up for the second rebound, oh, you've got a third put back, there it is, angle reset, right? Like fifth, fifth put back, okay, I finally got it in. So we just have to be adept with understanding what positional requirements are as well. This then brings us into the experience base or the age base, I think it's the next layer, how you train an experienced freshman coming in from a year old who's never touched a barbell in her life, versus you've trained somebody that's trained since they've \[00:57:54\] Come out of the womb in performance, training facilities in America will be vastly different. So one has more skill, one has less skill, the exercise selection modalities and what you program and the load tolerance and the volumes and the intensities all drastically different. So there's a level of individualization from there. You're, you know, I think I'm just talking about, let's just, I know NIL, transfer portal and fifth year has changed some things, but let's just pretend like we're in high school again, freshmen, sophomore, junior, senior, \[00:58:32\] Your freshman might need very basic, hey, you're learning how to train, lock if you will, if you will, jokane s, south, you're going to have basic three sets. Well, by the time you're a sophomore, junior, you got some training under your experience, hey, you might have four or five sets, and we're trying to develop you. By the time you're a senior though, you might come back down to three sets, maybe two sets, you're doing what you need to do to retain those qualities because you have the most amount of experience on the basketball court. \[00:59:03\] So there's learning this freshman, there's developing as sophomore juniors, and then there's retaining as a senior or a fifth year grad transfer, something like that. And I think that's intelligent. I think that's smart. I think that's appropriate level of individualization and forking. That allows for another layer of individualization based on their experience. So it's well, one athlete freshman might be doing a kettlebell front squat, right, or a goblet squat, let's just say, our sophomore juniors might be doing a barbell front squat because they got a little \[00:59:41\] Bit more skill in the movement and they can handle and tolerate that positional requirement. And your senior or grad transfer might be doing a leg press because they just need to retain some lower by strength. That's all I think appropriate and levels of individualization necessary, which then brings you maybe towards the next layer of this individualization pyramid. And that is medical backgrounds of injury history. So again, an athlete with a history of, say, anterior shoulder capsule weakness, right, or I'll stay on that. \[01:00:22\] Maybe she'll never back squat, right, getting up into that high five external rotating position where that anterior shoulder labrum has a lot of force on it. Maybe you'll never back squat. And that's fine. That's why we have safety bar squat. That's why we have front squats. That's why we have leg recess. That's why we have pitch sharks, right? So even if we go through the entire cascade of individualization, I'm just juxtaposing two athletes. Both have the same \[01:00:55\] Both in the same sport, women's basketball, both in the same position group, point guards. Both have the same experience, right, with trained multiple years, right out of the world. Both have the same years. They are, you know, let's just call them juniors both, right? But the only difference is one had a shoulder injury in high school. That was alternate in a labrum shoulder surgery. The other didn't. Okay. That's a little of individualization. Hey, you know, my flow chart in my brain goes check, check, check, check, except you're now \[01:01:33\] Going to stay on the front squat, or you're going to leg press, or the other athlete without the shoulder injury, you're going to go ahead and back squat, right? And that's everybody's doing some level of the same program in the same order. Why? Because the demands of the phase of where we're at in season preseason is the same demands guys, right? We're in the same phase altogether regardless of our training, right? Preseason, preseason, in season, in season, off season, it's an off season. Now, I will argue that off season might be different based on, you know, \[01:02:10\] Roles, right? Our, our upper class men and high minifiers might need more of an off season than those that didn't play minutes. Okay, I get that. But arguably we're in the same phase. But so we can have that team wide standard, but still allow for individualization of our training program based on all of those various levels of what's required. And that's the way that I I treat it. That's the way that I program. I've always programed that way. Now, where this breaks down is that doing this for I'm going to just round down because it's easier doing this for 10 \[01:02:52\] Athletes. I can get hyper hyper specialized doing it for 50 athletes. All right, a little bit more challenging doing it for 100 athletes. Oh, yeah, tricky, right? So my heart goes out to those coaches. Listen, I was one at 120 athletes at one point. And then I went down and had roughly about 30, 35\. And then I went down further. Now I have 12\. So I don't think I started as a graduate assistant or as a young assistant coach just starting out with this level of hyper individualization. Right? That's took years to develop. That took years in the gym on the floor. And it's also took \[01:03:45\] A massive down decrease in the scale and number of the athletes that I have to program. So that's a critical piece to it. Now, I'm looking at the final stretches of my walk here at my Ruck walk. Now, maybe it's because I'm walking slower. Maybe it's because into the week. Maybe it's because I'm talking. I don't even know. I'm looking at my watch. I'm out. I'm already at 77 minutes. This thing normally takes me about 75 minutes to do. But like I said, I'm dragging a little bit today. I will say this as just a final aside to this long form cardio talk, our podcast here on the \[01:04:30\] Decoding Excellence show. I will say the final thing. And that is, I led off this podcast, this walk and talk session. We're talking about finding time to do other things outside of strength conditioning, right? I talked about content creation, this podcast, how I find the time to do it. And listen, I do it a lot of early mornings, a lot of late nights, right? Some people like to watch Netflix. I don't. Some people like to read books. I read books right before bed. It's the words of Buddha. Some people like to build businesses. That's kind of where I'm at. \[01:05:17\] So that's a fun project for me. That's what I do outside of my work. It just happens to be that it's centered around e-commerce and building. So I say all this. Now I get it. There's traffic in the background. This is the walk into office, the part where I'm close to the road. There is business lessons in what we do within strength conditioning. Running a strength conditioning program and being in charge as a strength conditioning coach, it teaches you so much about leadership, about taking initiative, about creating systems, about delegation, about creating culture, creating brand, \[01:06:01\] Creating identity, those skills transfer to business. So never, never, never underestimate your ability as a strength conditioning coach to be a fantastic business person. The systems that you use to automate recovery and to systemize recovery, training are the same systems that you might use to create marketing for the same systems to charge credit cards and financial processing. It's the same systems you use about the words and the identity of your weight room and your culture of what's important to you are the same ones that build a brand \[01:06:48\] Awareness and brand marketing and brand identity. So that's been such a joy for me. It's fun. It's not business. It's not work right now. Yes, I got to put out fires here in there and deal with taxes and legal things. Sure, that's all part of building a business. But the other aspect is that it's fun to approach this, to see things improve, to see revenues increase, to see marketing payout, to see advertisement costs, transfer and have an ROI are in your bottom line. All of those things are fun. And I would say for me, in a one, is that's the same amount of fun or enjoyment or entertainment \[01:07:38\] That some people might get from engaging a recreational church softball or watching K-pop demon hunters or Netflix or listening to music or reading the latest novel by so-and-so or watching. What's my wife watching? You're I turned pretty or something, right? Like on Amazon crime, right? It's the same enjoyment you might get out of watching college football. It's not watch college football. I watch a Colorado Buffs. Watch a few other sports. That's it. But that's the same enjoyment. So I'm going to wrap it up. This is a long podcast where \[01:08:17\] We're adding this. We're about 74 minutes. Nobody's going to listen to this. I should probably chop it up into two parts. But I will say this, if you enjoy this podcast coming down towards the end. So last 60 seconds here. If you enjoy this walk and talk, share it with a friend, right? Share it with a colleague, share it with a teammate, share it with a coworker, and help me get this out. Hope we share these cardio talks. Help me share our Decoding Excellence Show. I appreciate every single one of you. Thanks for tuning in. Hey, everybody, that's going to be it for this podcast. \[01:08:58\] As always, if you missed any of the episodes here in the Decoding Excellence Show, you can go and explore the bat catalog. I host all of our episodes not only on every sort of podcast hosting site, whether it's Spotify or whether it's a YouTube or anywhere else, but you can go to my website. It is AdamRingler.com forward slash podcasts. From there, you can listen to all of the interviews, whether it's other sport professionals, whether it's the monologues, whether it's the basketball discussions, or the sports science and tech. Go to the website, check it out, listen to the podcast. \[01:09:33\] I'm telling you, you will take something away from the bat catalog of the Decoding Excellence Show. Now, one of the ways that you can support this show. Now, there's two. Really, you could go to AdamRingler.com forward slash newsletter. You can sign up for my newsletter, and in this, you're going to get access to everything, the cool things that I discover from a monthly basis, new books I'm reading, things I'm discovering, articles that I found related to sports science, such really cool and coaching. So pop in your email there, and that is just an easy way of supporting \[01:10:13\] The show, and you'll get free behind the scenes access to all the cool things I'm discovering. If you took anything away from this episode, I would encourage you. No, I would thank you to share it with any of your friends, your coworkers, your family members, share it with somebody that could get a little bit of value from hearing what we discuss today. And as always, I appreciate you. I thank you. Until next time, stay strong, stay healthy, keep pushing on.