Today’s episode features Rett Larson.  Rett is a physical preparation coach with an extensive and diverse background.  He has worked internationally with the national volleyball teams of Germany, Netherlands and China.  Rett has also worked with professionals, down to athletes of all ages, having prior experience as Velocity Sports Performance’s director of coaching in California.  Rett is a student of movement, having studied not only the top minds in sports performance, but also in general movement training such as taught by Ido Portal and in the scope of physical education.

The evolution of sport is one of integration, and not separation.  Currently, the “silos” of sport coaching and then all of the “supportive” services (such as S&C) don’t tend to have much interaction with each other beyond a conversation.  The fact of the matter is, that when an athlete hits the field (or court) of play, they are operating within all facets of their humanity.  Their physical, tactical, technical, emotional, social and deep psychology all impacts their performance on the field.  The ”sport-warmup” may be the one place, in all of an athlete’s training, where the maximal amount of silos can be integrated.  Athletes can use strength, physio, games and sport-constraint oriented methods to not only prepare them for practice in an enjoyable way, but also form a “melting pot” of all aspects that make an athlete.

On the show today, Rett Larson takes us through his evolution as a coach, and how his warmups and training has evolved over time.  He covers the highest transferring abilities he sees from the gym and warmup sessions, that are embodied by the best players on the team.  Rett also covers the important interaction that must take place between the physical preparation coach and sport coach, to create buy-in, and move the warmup process forward.  After listening to Rett speak on his approach to training athletes, it’s hard to think differently about our own process towards the evolution of our athletes and training programs.

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Timestamps and Main Points:

4:23 – What Rett has learned from other cultures, traveling and coaching abroad, that he has been able to integrate into his coaching repertoire

17:45 – The role of maximal strength training across various countries and cultures, and how to utilize data to help coaches understand what really matters in transfer to on-field performance

24:13 – How to design weight training sessions from a perspective of being able to “level up” regularly

27:43 – How Rett’s approach to the warmup process has changed over the years, and main factors that led him to where he is at now

34:49 – Rett’s athletic background, and its influence on him as it may pertain to his coaching

45:00 – The main box that Rett is trying to check in his warmup process for team sport, the “thermogenic” box

53:06 – Scripted vs. unscripted elements of the warmup for Rett’s work

56:04 – How exercise done in more of a “game oriented” state may not register the same way as more formal training, and how play or challenges can allow for more physiological work to be done

58:42 – How Rett incorporates and considers rhythm and dance-oriented components into his work

1:03:46 – A sample pre-sport warmup session that Rett utilizes with volleyball athletes

1:15:24 – What Rett has learned from Ido Portal in the course of training and athletics

1:25:03 – How Rett communicates with sport coaches to optimize his initial warmup process for the athletes