Today’s show is with performance coach, Kurt Hester.  Kurt is currently the Head of Football Preparation at the University of Tulane, and was previously the head strength coach at Lousiana Tech University from 2013 to 2021.  He has decades of experience coaching in both the collegiate, and private sectors, and is the author of the book: ”Rants of a Strength and Conditioning Madman”.

When it comes to the results we get out of a training program (or the experience an athlete has in a sport organization), we usually think on the level of sets, reps and exercises.  What we typically don’t consider as much, is how an athlete perceives the training from an emotional and sub-conscious, perspective, and how important building the right relationship is to the holistic success of the program.

Kurt Hester is the kind of strength coach I wish I had when I was a young athlete.  When we talk about what it means to be a coach, and to be a servant-leader, Kurt is one of the first individuals that comes to mind.  He not only has been studying and living the art of physical training for almost half a century, but he also has a focused sense of how to train individuals on both the athlete, and human levels.

On the show today, Kurt talks about how he connects with his athletes on the “human” level, to help improve their total experience as an athlete, gain trust, and improve the quality of training sessions.  He’ll talk about how he uses games and fun activities to improve, not only the emotional content of the training sessions, but also the total effort level of the athletes.  Finally, Kurt digs into some details around the sports performance industry itself, what he considers “mental toughness” to truly be, and gives his advice on developmental practices in leadership and communication.

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Timestamps and Main Points:

5:31 – How Kurt started to survey his athletes to learn more about them, and how this helped him to connect with athletes on a stronger level

10:14 – How to command a room in a coaching setting, while still getting to know athletes on a more personal level

13:27 – How players at Kurt’s former university rated the importance of the “strength coach” so high, in regards to why they attended the school

17:432 – Why Kurt uses games as a critical portion of his physical preparation program, as well as the injury prevention benefits of using game-based agility training

29:17 – Kurt’s learnings in his training with elite track and field athletes in the 1980’s and how many “modern” training methods have been around for a long time

32:14 – How strength coaches should have good all-around GPP, and be able to play games, do dynamic warmups, and demonstrate sprinting

40:15 – What Kurt would re-brand the field of sports performance

48:53 – What Kurt considers “mental strength” and “toughness” to truly be, in light of sports performance training

58:32 – Kurt’s advice on helping coaches to be able to understand athletes and lead them on a better level

“You can’t serve who you don’t know”

“The athletes who trusted me, and I had the best relationship with, those were the ones who excelled the most… the closer I had a relationship with them that was not about (sports) where they trusted me at a very high level, they developed at a faster rate than an athlete I wasn’t close to”

“A lot of strength and football coaches think that, if you have fun, that you are not working hard or at a proficient, high level, and I never wanted to be in this field, to not have fun”

“Most athletes don’t like to train, and that’s what most strength coaches don’t get… 99% of strength coaches do not understand that fact, they are not you! So that’s always in the back of my mind,