Chris Martin - Minor League S&C Coordinator Houston Astros

Welcome to the Coach U Podcast, where today's episode features an in-depth conversation with Chris Martin, Coordinator of Minor League Strength and Conditioning for the Houston Astros. Join Coach U and Chris as they delve into the world of sports performance, rehab, and strength training in baseball.

In this episode, Chris shares valuable insights on the use of caffeine for performance enhancement and its impact on sleep, the benefits of various supplements, and the importance of high-quality, third-party tested products in unregulated markets.

You will gain insider knowledge on player rehabilitation, training, and recovery practices, as Chris discusses the collaboration and communication within the rehab team and the implementation of velocity-based training VBT techniques.

You'll learn about the crucial role of tailored training for pitchers, the complexity of arm care, and the programming principles for athletes. Chris also sheds light on personal development, goal setting, and the value of networking and gaining as many coaching repetitions as possible.

So, whether you're an athlete, coach, or fitness enthusiast, this episode offers valuable lessons and expert tips from Chris Martin, providing a comprehensive view of strength and conditioning in the world of baseball.

00:00 Rehab experience led to sports medicine career.
03:37 Internship led to full-time strength coaching job.
09:53 Team helps with mental health and rehab.
13:02 Rehab process depends on injury type, principles.
15:02 Increasing exit velocity is crucial for baseball.
18:44 Pitching coach and rehab coach understand biomechanics.
21:41 Reduce post-pitch exercises to aid recovery.
24:23 Ice bath for recovery, prioritize sleep.
27:46 Caffeine benefits aerobic, uncertain for anaerobic performance.
30:46 Multivitamins helpful, but some supplements overhyped.
35:07 Adaptation first, exercise second - mindset shift.
39:04 Baseball pitching requires robust aerobic energy system.
43:46 Autoregulation key in lifting for speed adaptation.
45:40 Adapting bar speed for different exercises.
50:28 Consistent routine and discipline are keys to success.
52:03 Network with coaches, reach out on social media.
56:07 Active on Twitter and Instagram, follow for content.

YOUTUBE RECORDING

Transcript

Chris Martin: 0:18

Hey, what's up? Everybody? Welcome to the coach you podcast I'm your host coach you and we're welcoming in today chris martin Who's the houston astro strength and conditioning rehab coordinator chris? Thanks for joining us today Absolutely. Always a pleasure. Thanks for having me. Absolutely, man. So before we actually get into the nitty gritty, I had an idea this morning. I just told you about it. I had this thing called the impact deck and in it, there are affirmations, actions, or reflections. And so I'm just going to draw one for you. I got a reflection. So let's see in what area of your life. Are you playing too small and how can you expand this comfort zone? I would say financially. You know, I'm pretty well versed in personal finance type stuff, but long term have some big goals. And my girlfriend and I have been interested in getting into real estate investing, kind of on the side of what we do in our day jobs. So that's in the works. It's scary as hell. I'm sure it's going to be a lot of work. It's going to be a lot of learning, but we're both excited to jump in and, you know, hopefully get that thing off the ground and no down the road, scale it and, and have some, some nice income and on the side. And I don't know, maybe one day do it full time, but that's. A possibility, but, something we're, we're looking into. You said it, you know, like it's scary. And I think like those are the things that we should be running after. There's a reason it's scary, right? Because it's like something you have to overcome or you got to face and try. You've probably tackled a lot of challenges in the strength conditioning world to get to the position you're in now, right? I mean you you've done a lot of internships You are now working with the Houston Astros and you're out in West Palm Beach. You said correct So I work out of our spring training complex. So we have our, our, one of our, our now our only rookie ball team plays out of here and we do our longterm rehabs out of here. So anybody from our, our major league team that comes down or any of our affiliates longterm stuff, they'll come here, rehab, and then we'll send them back to where they came from. Nice. Nice, man. So let's talk to me about how you've gotten to the position you are in now. Obviously you, you've gone through. different experiences that have helped you get to this point. So can you give me some examples of those? Yeah. So background, I've played baseball growing up. It was my only sport in high school, played in college at Kent state university up in Ohio. I was an exercise physiology major and. I kind of picked that because I knew it was something I would be interested in, but didn't have an end goal in mind a bunch of different things floated through my head throughout my first couple of years. I stuck with it. I figured out I'll figure out a career out of this. Had some injuries myself. So I got exposed to, you know, the rehab side, the physical therapy side, did all that a few times. It wasn't exactly for me, but I wanted to be in the sports world. And the more I was around our performance team in college and our strength coach and stuff like that it kind of really started to spark my interest. Ended up after my senior year, before my fifth year, that summer I didn't play. I actually did an internship. up at Cressy Sports Performance in Massachusetts. So did that went back, finished up my fifth year and by, I mean, I guess, luck of the draw a little bit. Got a linked in message from our director of sports medicine and performance at the time, Bill Furcus. He had seen the Cressy internship on my resume. I had also done Another small internship at a local gym near me back home. And so I talked to him on the phone, was actually going to a conference later that week. And our farm director at the time, Pete Putilla, who's now the GM of the San Francisco Giants, was scheduled to be at that same conference. So, two days after that LinkedIn message I met Pete. We had lunch, had, you know, a good conversation. Ended up going through a series of phone interviews with several staff members the Astros. In the performance side, the medical side, the sports science side, and After about a month, month and a half later, ended up with an offer for an apprenticeship to come down after I finished that season my fifth year. So we lost at our conference tournament, packed up, drove down to West Palm beach and was a strength and conditioning apprentice for that first season. Working with our SEL team. So got brought on full time after that. I did about a year and a half with the FCL team, got promoted into the Rehab S& C Coordinator role so now I'm a little bit over two years in this role now. Nice. Tell me about the role, like what does a day to day look like for you? Yeah, so they're pretty standard. I don't want to say we have things on autopilot, but we have a pretty good flow with our rehab team now, so it's me, our rehab coordinator, who's a PT, AT, and we have a rehab pitching coach, and then one of the SEL coaches helps out with our position players, so we are on a morning schedule here in a complex league, so we'll show up around 6. 30, 7 a. m., players will start rolling in around 7. 30, 8 to the training room, They'll do their treatment come out with me, we'll do their baseball work, so I'll stretch them, help the pitchers out with their throwing program. I was a pitcher, so I love to hop in and play catch whenever I can. Oh man, gotta pick your brain on some pitching stuff, for sure. I wouldn't say I'm an expert on the pitching side. I think, I like to think I know a decent amount but I, I, I do leave the, the pitching specific stuff to our pitching coach, but we're always collaborating. I want to know about the movements, like the stuff that you use, you know, that's we'll, we'll talk more about that stuff. We can chat about for sure. And then guys will go do their baseball work. So position players will hit, throw defense, whatever it might be. Pitchers will do their throwing. We'll do our conditioning or speed work that we have for the day while we're outside. We'll knock that out. We'll come in. We'll do our lifts and guys are usually in the rehab group. If they're not playing in games down here, they're usually done by about noon, 1 o'clock, so they'll, they'll get changed, get out of here. And then, you know, just kind of administrative work. Programming stuff takes up a little bit of the afternoon. Nice. Nice. So, there has to be, I'm assuming, a lot of communication. You guys have a system that's down. You guys seem to have a flow to it. What kind of communication is going on between you and the rehab coordinator? Yeah, so, he sits at the desk right next to me. The rehab pitching coach sits right behind me. We are in constant communication whether it's something as simple as what does this guy have today? Or maybe this guy is progressing or not progressing as well as we had hoped. And we can make modifications on the fly to their programming or their plans for the day. We have a really, really, really good sports science team here down in West Palm Beach, too. So we have two sports scientists who they help out with both us. And across the organization. But those guys were in constant communication to whether we're doing performance testing or resiliency monitoring, whatever it might be those guys are are taking the data that we're collecting on a daily basis. They're turning it around really quickly, making it actionable for us, which is the most important part of the data collection process. And then we're able to turn that around and show the athletes their own data, show their, their progressions or regressions, whatever it is. And it helps us explain to the athlete, why are we doing what we're doing? Because if we can't give them a why that we shouldn't be doing it in the first place. And it helps drive a lot of buy in and, you know, I think, like you said, we have a really, we have a really good staff here some good processes in place to help do all that. Nice. When it comes to the metrics and the numbers, the things that you guys are going over with your guys to kind of give them an idea of where they are. Are you, are you saying like, Hey, this is where this week you were, you know, this is where you were at your best. And here are your metrics from that week. Maybe we kind of keep things similar or is it more like we're just comparing and this is your baseline. We, maybe you're a little tired today. Maybe you're a little bit maybe you're ready to go a little harder today. How do you guys use those numbers? Yeah, so there's a ton of examples. I guess in terms of fatigue monitoring you know, we're looking at force plate numbers once or twice a week when these guys are jumping on the force plates. We're using driveline pulse for throwing programs making sure guys workload is not too high or too low. So we're, we're measuring daily workload AC ratio. And and then in the case of, you know, say a guy breaks his hand, maybe we're measuring his grip strength every other day or every three days or once a week as he's returning to show him. Hey, you are progressing. Sometimes it's good just to show them. Hey, you're on the right track. Even though sometimes these days can kind of blend together in this process can get long and boring at times. And it helps them know that they're on the right, the right track. They're on the right course. And they're progressing in a timely manner. It's like seeing that 1 percent better every day thing. I mean, it's hard to, when you're in the middle, this is one of my questions. This is a perfect segue to talk about some injuries and kind of the psyche. You know, maybe this is what you can do to help is to see, help with the metrics and like, and let them see, Hey, you're, you're improving every single day. How, how can this help with injuries and dealing with them? Because it's tough, you know, like these guys are, this is their, this is what they do for a living. This is what they, they breathe. So how do you guys help them through injuries? What are some of the things that you guys talk to them about? What are some of the things that you guys program for them? Obviously, I know that's contextual, but just kind of one of the process of dealing with that. So to start off, we have a mental health and performance team that works down here as well. So another sub department of our sports medicine and performance department. And we have one guy full time down here and our head of mental health and performance. She kind of roves and she's, she's around from time to time. So those guys are, they're really critical in one, helping players with their, with their mental health. That's first and foremost. The, the rehab process is really difficult. I've done a few long ones myself, and it's inevitable at some point, you're going to question, am I ever going to be the same again? You know, do I have what it takes to play at this level and keep going? So that, that inevitably seems to come up at any point and they're there to help talk to those guys. And those conversations are usually confidential unless the player, you know, tells them, Hey, let everybody know what we just talked about. bUt on our end, like you said, we can show them their progress and a lot of guys get caught up in their, their ceiling or their peak value. So we might have a guy who's coming back from Tommy John who is stuck at 92 miles an hour and he used to throw 95 and maybe for three or four weeks he's been stuck at this 92 number and can't bump it up to 93. And again, these are typically in bullpen sessions. And so the first thing I, you know, we tell them is. We're not in game. You don't have that adrenaline rush. It's okay. But we also, we can look for other areas of growth, so maybe they're not busting through a new velocity PR every week, but maybe their floor is coming up. Maybe throwing 85, 86 in their throwing program is a lot more effortless than it was a month or two months ago, where that was, that was their peak. And that, and so we can use a lot of this data and information to show them, hey, you are, you are on the right track, like I said before. And it's not always. Your best, but sometimes like your sub optimal performances are getting better, which is huge, especially in a sport like baseball, where in the minor leagues, you're playing maybe 140 games a year. Big leagues are playing 162 games a year. Nobody is 100 percent for all of those and who can operate at 90 percent for the longest and who can operate the best at 90 percent usually is a big determinant of who has success in this game. And so showing them things like that can go a long way during the rehab process. Yeah. I was just thinking about injuries and like the, the comeback from it, like finding your new 100 percent or whatever that is, and trying to stay near that. So like, what, how do you tell the line? We're just trying to get our bodies to respond better. But like you said, it's hard to think, Will I ever be the same again? Because that's, that's, that's tough as a mover, as an athlete, like I've been through it, you've been through it, you know, it's not a fun process. So how do you then as a coach and on the training side toe the line of, all right, well, we're going to get you to train just below that 100%. How often do you need to get to 100%? Are you just using that as like a KPI, your indicator as your base? How do you view that when you're starting to work with somebody? I think it depends first on how long is this injury, like, is this rehab process going to take? Is this a 12 to 16 month Tommy John, where we're really starting from the ground once we start to throw again? And you know, we're really building the foundation and starting over, or is this a three week hamstring? And I think just using sound principles of physiology. Goes a long way with this kind of stuff. So my overarching kind of strength and conditioning philosophy in the rehab space is we're just going to deconstruct. The time energy demands of the sport. And then when you have the context of rehab, we're gonna do that, but we're gonna be mindful of any contraindications along the way. But we're gonna, we're gonna follow principles like progressive overload. We're going to follow some sort of periodization early on. Maybe it's a true linear periodization where volume, load, intensity, any, whatever you metric you want to pick. Maybe we're increasing that daily or weekly, or maybe we get further along and things get higher intensity and we're closer to that true hundred percent. Well, okay. Now we need to start undulating. We need to have high intent days, high stress days. Whether that's lifting, running, throwing, we need to have lower days where guys can recover and overall, we should see that periodization and that total total load that they're taking on increase over time. But on a day to day basis, we're really going to undulate and vary that to make sure we're not just beating guys into the ground. And that we're not, you know, putting guys at risk for re injury. I love it. So then when it comes to programming for pitchers, what are some of the big buckets that you want to see filled in the training, in the training world? Oh, for pitchers specifically, position players is so much easier. Why is that? I want to hear you. Why, why is that? The data is pretty clear that. So increase exit velocity, which is a pretty important KPI for position players. And if you can't hit the ball hard, you're not going to last too long in professional baseball unless you have some exceptional other tools, skills like speed or defense. Typically, defensive stars can still hit a little bit at the major league level, and they don't get by. With a really underwhelming bat. So more or less you can turn a guy into a physical specimen and he should have some success. For pitchers, there's a lot more gray area, so I think anybody can envision the guys that are big, strong, you know, the units who are 65 to 30 and throw 95. And a lot of athletes aspire to be like them and they should, but there are also pitchers who are six foot, 165 pounds soaking wet who throw 95 and pitching is so much more individual because of the sequencing of the delivery, the interplay of the ground reaction forces. Whether that's on their rear leg in terms of creating momentum, creating force, or it's on their front leg in terms of creating a really quick impulse. upon foot strike. And then you also have to be efficient all the way up the chain. The pelvis has to rotate before the torso. You have to be able to hold some tension across your core. Arm path is going to play a big role in that. And that that's kind of up to our pitching coach. So we're always chasing strength and power with our pictures. But maybe one guy is really strong and can produce a lot of power because he produces high forces, but maybe he throws 88 because he can't access that quickly. And so I might go program his program might be really focused on, on gaining some elasticity. Whether that's in the upper body, lower body, across the core. I'm going to attack all of those. What are some things, can you give me some examples of some things you would use for that guy? Yeah. I mean, we could do a single leg drop jump, um, in terms of a really elastic upper or lower body plyometric could be single leg could be bilateral in terms of upper body. I love plyometric pushups, band assisted. I love. throw variations where, but not one where it's just a med med ball slam or a med ball shot put, we've got to tap into that stretch shortening cycle. So we'll have guys do like overhead catch slams, right? We'll have guys do shot throws that we throw to them. And it forces that pec, you know, the pec tendons. Everything in the shoulder to contract really quickly, utilize that stretch shortening cycle and we can try and elicit some both lower body and upper body elasticity versus there are other guys who are pretty straightforward where it's okay, you're six foot one hundred sixty pounds. We just need to add some mass to you and that might help that that size and strength might help your performance in terms of velocity, but it also might just help your resiliency and lower your risk of injury. If you've got more muscle mass to take on some of that load throughout the throughout the delivery. Nice. Yeah, I love hearing the breakdowns of the different kinds. It's just as a coach, you obviously it's like you guys You see so many different kinds of bodies come in. You see so many different kinds of just the movement patterns, the efficiency coordination, like all of these things. And you have to take it into account. So it's cool to hear your process on that. Yeah, and another thing that's kind of cool is our pitching coach, a rehab pitching coach. I think his masters is in Thanks for having me. biomechanics or something along those lines. So he really understands human movement pretty well. And we both do a good job of speaking each other's language. So when he says so and so needs to work on his lead leg block, okay. I know what I can give him in the gym to go help that. Or maybe I, even I noticed something in a guy's throwing program, like. Hey, when this guy's front leg hits the ground, it kind of just like it melts. It's like mushy. Like, do you see that too? And do you think this is something we need to work on? Is this a low hanging fruit? So that constant back and forth for us can also help tailor a prep program that a guy can do daily or, you know, exercise selection within his lifting program, what is arm care? That's a loaded question. It's not just doing dumbbell external rotations or cable external rotations and all that kind of stuff. Arm care is, is holistic. It's big compound movements. We press, our pitchers bench press. When you throw a baseball, you get into very high degrees of horizontal abduction. Doing bench press on the floor or with a pad on your chest doesn't train that range of motion that you get into every single time you throw a baseball. It's heavy pulls, it's fast pulls, it's fast pressing, it's heavy pressing, it's chest flies, it's all of those in terms of exercise selection. But it's also it's how do you recover? What do you do after your outing? What does your nutrition look like after your outing? What does your sleep look like that night? Are you going out? Oh, I pitched today, so I'm good. I can go crush 10 beers. Well, now you're, you're not going to sleep. Well, your nutrition is probably not going to be very good that night. And you're shooting your recovery in the foot from, from the get go. So it's very, very holistic in terms of. arm care as a general thing, but it's so much more than than general arm care exercises that are designed to that are designed to isolate the rotator cuff or other muscles in the shoulder. So it's That's a loaded question, but that's the best answer I can give. No, it's good. I mean, I think the holistic approach, it makes the most sense to me too, because there's so many things happening during that throw and, or just in that action itself. So you want it to be powerful, strong, you need mobility, you need elasticity. There's a lot of different aspects of it. So it's. When you train it, that's what I was just curious. It's like, you know, like you said, there's so many throwing programs out there that are arm care, but that arm care is general. Everyone's going to be different. So if you have somebody who's hyper mobile could be different, right? You have somebody who's like you said, you have the guy who's 1 60 versus the guys to, you know, to 25 to 30. Like you're, you're, it's a big difference of what kind of care their arms getting right? 100%. It's funny too, because In the sport of baseball in general for decades, guys have done after, you know, after you pitch, you come into the training room and you might do some shoulder manuals, or that's when you hit a lot of those arm care exercises. But recently I've kind of tried to peel that back and really think about what's going on there, because if you just pitched. You just shredded the muscles in your shoulder, your forearm, everything. Those muscles are damaged, as can be. And I don't necessarily know that it's the best strategy to go and then do more exercise. Instead of just, like, let's try and really flip on the parasympathetic nervous system. And let's try and shut down our activity and kickstart and jumpstart that. recovery process instead of doing stuff that could potentially just induce more muscle damage. And it's going to make it harder to recover longterm. I don't have any data saying that that's a hundred percent true, but anecdotally it's kind of where my mind's been shifting in the past few months. I do. It's funny. Cause I think the same thing. Cause like, I've seen so many pictures come through our system and our program now, and everyone's different. And I think it really is dependent on a lot of things. So we use a lot of the readiness scores. I've been implementing that now. Like, Hey, where are you right now? Because you really need to check in with yourself. And if something hurts or something's bugging you, that's an indication from your body telling you something, right? It doesn't mean we need to freak out or throw the alarm system on, but we just need to be aware of it and then pay attention to that. What are three of your favorite post throw, let's say somebody does need, they're sore, they're pretty sore, they're beat up. We're not going to give them more, you know, shoulder external rotations, drops, dumbbells, isos, whatever, whatever you want to use. We're not going to go that route. We're going to go more of the parasympathetic. What are three of your favorite things that they can add into their routine for some recovery? First thing is gonna be, what's your nutrition like immediately following that outing? If I go do a heavy lift, what are you gonna tell me? Get some carbs, get a lean protein or maybe some protein powder, go make a shake. Okay, we should probably be doing that. And we should also probably be checking, checking off the hydration box. So, our guys, our nutritionists will have guys do pre and post activity weigh ins. And we'll give them a fluid intake recommendation based on how much fluid they lost in that activity. I think that's huge too, because that hydration is also going to play a huge part in the recovery. So, first one is, what does your nutrition look like immediately? Following that outing in the hour or two hours following if it's over the course of a professional season and recovery is really the main goal. I'll tell a guy, go ice bath for five or 10 minutes. And that's just a really powerful way. If you getting cold water neck down for 5 to 10 minutes to stimulate an anti inflammatory response throughout the body. nOw if it's in the offseason and guys are sore and beat up a little bit, I'm going to tell them to, to embrace that because that's where your body is going to recover better and make those quote unquote gains. But in season, if being fresh is the, is the priority, I'll tell them hop in the ice bath. oTher than that. I'm going to try and tell them to sleep like a baby that night. So I forget who told me this, but it was a very simple recommendation for athletes, and that's to be in bed, lights out, trying to go to sleep, ten hours before you're supposed to wake up. I think, you know, sleep is also one of those individual things, but the more you can get of it, the better you're going to be physically. And a lot of people will go to bed, get in bed, shut off their, shut off the lights eight hours and they tell themselves, well, I slept for eight hours. No, you didn't. You slept for maybe seven, seven and a half. So I tell guys in bed, lights off, trying to go to sleep 10 hours before you wake up. And a lot of them respond really well to that. I like it. Simple, easy to follow. Yeah. That's what most people need. For these guys. Yeah, I don't try and reinvent the wheel. Give them one or two things that they can take away. So get an ice bath for five to ten minutes. It's pretty straightforward. We have a clock in there. You look at it and you just embrace the suck while it's in there because it's not exactly the most fun thing to do. But along that sleep point, I'll just make one other point that sleep hygiene is really important too. So I, if guys want to talk more about it, you know, we'll make recommendations to them sleep in a dark room. Try and keep an alarm clock out of there if you, if it makes too much light, if there's too much light, get blackout curtains, sleep cool at 68 degrees, roughly really try and maintain a schedule, a sleep schedule that's consistent. So wake up, go to bed at the same time every day and get your circadian circadian rhythm. Right? So a lot of these things are things that we preach on a deeper level to guys that they want to have that conversation. but on surface level, get in bed 10 hours before you're trying to wake up. I like it. Am I correct? And did you do, I thought when I was reading on some of your profiles, you did a study on caffeine that was in college. We actually, we wrote that study out. Got it approved through our IRB in grad school, but the study never actually happened. We ended up not being allowed to use players from the team that we were trying to pull from. So we ran into a massive roadblock there and that study didn't end up getting off the ground. I'm assuming, you know, a fair amount of about caffeine though. Yeah, I've done, I've done my digging into it. And in college was really into looking into supplements in general and what does what and what's, what's worth the hype, what's garbage and try to kind of filter that out myself. So let's talk about that too. Then with, you know, recovery can be helpful with some supplementation and, you know, caffeine can be helpful as an aid, but it can also be hurtful if we have too much of it. So talk to me about some of your favorite supplements and let's start with caffeine as. An aid. And if we have too much of it, what, what, what's the side effect? Yeah. So as an aid, generally I'll say the research shows that it's great for aerobic performance in that three to six milligram per kilogram of body weight. In terms of anaerobic power output performance, the research is a little bit more mixed. You'll see some stuff that says, yes, it does improve performance. You'll see others that say, no, it doesn't. Not really. Anything is going to say it harms your performance. But I think the big caveat with a lot of this is when they're supplementing the caffeine and doing these trials to see if it doesn't improve performance, the people that are consuming it are not typically habitual caffeine users. So, if you take 300 milligrams of caffeine every single day, whether it's an energy drink or pre workout, you really might not be getting much of an effect because your body. Has created that tolerance to it. Right, right. So if you are going to use it truly to improve performance The best times are going to be on your most intense training sessions or pre competition But then like you said on the flip side there can be negative uses Caffeine can be addictive And there are, you know, there are people who consumed 600 to 1000 milligrams very easily in a day without really even realizing it. They drink coffee and then maybe they have a pre workout and then maybe they have a soda with caffeine in it. And all of a sudden, that, that starts to add up. And, and if you have too much and it's too late in the day, it can start to, to negatively impact your sleep cycle. So, obviously, the best we can try to to, to limit that to morning, early afternoon at latest, which is, is tough in the baseball world. Thank you. We'll have relievers crushing Red Bulls at 9 p. m. before they go pitch at 930, 945 which I can't say is the best thing for sleep because a lot of them get really, really jacked up and, and then really have to try and calm their nervous system down to get to sleep at night. And the caffeine certainly doesn't help that. It's like the, the bro iest of bro things ever. It's so great. Oh yeah. It's like the traditional video. You'll see a guy. Crush a can of Red Bull, crush it on his head and then run out of the bullpen or something like that. Start sprints of the mound. Oh, so good. SO let's talk some, some more supplements. What are some of your winners and what are some of the things that are overhyped? Whey protein is a classic. It's a staple that, I mean, in terms of if you struggle to hit your, your daily protein intake, it's very easy. It's very portable. So that's, that's a staple creatine, monohydrate. Probably the most research supplement out there. It's safe. It's effective. People who tell you need to cycle it don't know what they're talking about. So we, we try and push creatine monohydrate to our players. They all have whey protein available to them. Omega threes can be pretty decent at reducing inflammation, especially just for general health. Mm-Hmm, We'll also give players they have access to multivitamins and vitamin D supplements. Multivitamins are. A lot of it's just expensive pee, but if it can help fill a gap in your nutrition that you're, you're not hitting, then there's really no harm if you, if you're taking a general multivitamin, you're not going to run into vitamin toxicity of any, at any levels. In terms of overhyped, pretty much everything that everything else that you can put in a pre pre workout. I know everyone loves to take it for beta alanine and beta alanine. is a very effective supplement in and of itself. Most of our guys pre workout and think that the tingles, the paresthesia that they feel from the beta alanine is the effect. And that's actually just a harmless side effect. What they don't know is that it works as a lactic acid buffer during really high intensity exercise, which as baseball players, we don't typically get into that problem. that zone. This isn't crossfit or something like that. And additionally, with beta alanine, a lot of people don't understand that it's, it works similar to creatine where you have to you have to saturate the muscle with it. And so it's a supplement that you have to take daily like creatine. You don't take it right before your workout to get the effect. So great supplement when used correctly. I rarely see it used correctly trying to think we, we try, we try here just to give guys stuff, simple things that we know are effective. So trying to rack my brain on other ones, but a lot of those ingredients and proprietary blends that you're going to find in pre workouts. Are, are going to be either not effective or potentially harmful depending on the dose. Yep. And most of it is not tested or regulated or at least third party tested. And I think there have been studies that have come out. I can't, I don't know where they are at this point, but you know, found lead and protein powders. And so you got to really be sure that you're getting high quality supplements as well. Yeah. And that's. Luckily here Major League Baseball, it, everything has to be NSF for Sport certified. So anything that we provide to our athletes has to, has to have the NSF for Sport logo. So luckily they, they do testing for banned substances, but they also do heavy metal testing and things like that. So everything is clean and that, that our guys are getting, which is good. But yeah, anything like you go to a GNC or vitamin shop and you buy something off the rack with no third party testing and you don't really know what you're going to get because it's so unregulated. Yeah. Yeah. You got to be able to read the labels. Do you research? And you know, there's, there's tons of research you can find online. Absolutely. You can find some stuff telling you which brands are going to be the best. Yeah. Tell me about working over at Cressy sports performance. How was that internship? How was that that time there? That was great. It was really my first real experience hands on coaching athletes and as an intern there, you get a lot of reps doing it. So you know, I, at the beginning of that, you know, go back to our point earlier, I was, I was scared because I was like, man, I don't know if I really know what I'm doing here. And I probably didn't. My exposure to strength and conditioning at the time was mostly what I had done myself as an athlete. So learning from the staff there was great in terms of picking their brains on programming or evaluations that they do, but also just getting on the floor and spending hours and watching people deadlift or squat or do any, pick your exercise and coaching the technique and understanding what's good and what's not good and what are some progressions and regressions that we can give somebody on the fly. Those three months that I spent there really, really helped me with that. And I walked out a lot more confident in my ability to, you could have put me anywhere and I would have felt like, okay, I can at least coach this session. Yeah. Yeah. Did you, what are some of the, what are some of your. Biggest learning lessons with programming and I know obviously things are contextual to the situation But just generally what what have you learned about programming over the years? That's a that's a tough one I would say That rarely if ever is anything a one size fits all and rarely if ever is there one Solution to a problem. They, you know, they say there's a thousand ways to skin a cat and that's true. So what I think the biggest mindset shift that I have had over my career and it's really like one of my core principles as a coach now is my first question. If I'm programming for somebody, what's the adaptation I'm trying to get? I think too many coaches in general, but more so young coaches, they, they have this, they try and pick the exercise. And then fit that to their adaptation, which is backwards. Because if I want to say build, you know, upper body pressing strength, okay, I can now go choose, then I'll further dive horizontal, vertical press, something in between, like a landmine. But I can choose, I can choose any sort of exercise. Under the sun there. And once I know my adaptation, then it's, it's very easy. And then that's fun. Cause then you can get creative and you can try new things and say, does this work? Does this not work? So that's probably my biggest thing I've learned is, is. Find your adaptation that you're trying to elicit and work backwards from there. Don't just have a toolbox full of random exercises and piece them together and say, well, here's a good upper body workout or here's a good full body workout or whatever it might be. I love experimenting with movement. You know, sometimes I'll just grab a tool and I'll just start moving and just seeing kind of, all right, I played multiple sports. I know what multiple sports are going to feel like. So it's, I love being able to say like, all right, well this would work for this. Right now, I'm specifically working with a lot of baseball guys, so I see a lot of split stand stuff and I'll just kind of mess around with different tools. I love seeing what works, what doesn't answering the why. How could I use this? Who would this be for? So how do you like to experiment? What process? What thought process do you go through when you're experimenting with movement? A lot of it's very on the fly. So in my own training right now, In terms of, uh, I guess both in terms of energy systems and in terms of just lifting. I don't follow a specific program. I kind of get in there and, and I know what my general goal for the day for myself is. So maybe I'm doing a lower body strength day, but maybe I'll try a different variation of a deadlift that I haven't tried. Or maybe I'll try any sort of exercise that I'm like, Oh, maybe there's some, maybe this will have some transfer and I go try it. And maybe I'll try it again. And I feel like, yes, no, maybe I'll have the athletes try it, see what they think. So I'll do that. I'm currently training for a half marathon myself, just because I used to hate running and kind of got into doing more aerobic work this year. I picked a half marathon because it's challenging. It's not easy. And that has opened me up to a lot of different ideas in terms of energy system development in terms of like another recent shift I've had is that I don't think running poles is actually that bad for pitchers if done correctly. It's funny you say that because I just had that thought last week because I've recently had to start doing a lot more zone one zone two to lower my inflammation because I was way too on the other spectrum and I've been dealing with an injury. So I'm just trying to get the inflammation down. So. I had that thought as well, like if you program it properly and you're within the right zones and they're working on things with proper form, I feel like that's, it's an easy go to, but let me know what your thoughts are on it. Yeah, I think, I think it's absolutely, like you said, if programmed well, absolutely can be a part of a player's program. How could you see it being programmed? So, in terms of energy system development, that'll be contextual based on time of year, but say we're in season. And say we're working with, I don't know, starting pitcher. Okay. Well, pitching is actually pretty aerobically demanding. Pitchers will get up to 90 plus percent of their max heart rate throughout an inning. And an inning can be anywhere from five to 20 minutes. So right then and there, if you do that. 567 times in a game. That's a like you have to have a robust aerobic system to to handle that adequately and also again to recover. It's not just it's not just on the surface. These are one second bursts 100 times. If you throw in 100 pitches, um, your heart rate is elevated and stays elevated for a long time. So can I build a robust aerobic system? Can I build some capillary density, some mitochondrial density that is also going to supplement my, my anaerobic and my, my PCR systems. So I think for starting pitcher, if they were to do that one to two times a week in conjunction with some lactic or a lactic anaerobic work that it absolutely has its place and absolutely should have its place because having that aerobic foundation. It is kind of paramount to being able to replenish your your phosphocreatine system, and it's not just one second rest for 10 or 15, one second rest for 10 or 15. It's, it's a lot more complex than that. So I. Once I stripped that back, you know, that's been my thought is this absolutely does have a place. The long, slow distance training as modern baseball S and C has bastardized. Yeah, no, it's funny how that happens, right? I feel like there's been a couple trends like that across the strength and conditioning board that now it's like. I'm kind of backing off and going, well, how could it be a benefit? Or what, you know, when could this actually work? And I don't know, does it make sense to look at the average amount of time spent between innings between them getting into the dugout, sitting down, going back out to the mound, and then trying to mimic an interval system set up like that? I don't know if any of that would help at all build that. But what do you think about that? Yeah. Again, it's, it's a, it's a programming principle there where, okay, let's choose our work to rest ratios. Let's choose our zone, our intensity level, and then program our volume accordingly. And I, I think that's absolutely that's absolutely doable. I also think the off season is a great time to build that aerobic base for baseball players, not just pitchers for baseball players in general. So a lot more of that zone to zone one stuff. Especially early off season when guys are not training hard, but they can still be doing stuff. That's a great time to build that aerobic base and that's also going to serve them well playing that lengthy season where you have to play 162 or 140 games. How am I recovering on a day to day basis? Because that robust aerobic system is going to play a huge role in terms of that. How do I handle these little bumps and bruises, these little dings throughout the season and keep myself on the field instead of needing to take a day? as many days off as I might need to. Yeah. Yeah. I love it, man. I love the, I love the rabbit holes with that. So with movement, I think it's just, cause it, it, it makes it a more accessible. It makes it much easier to be creative and to, to bring about, you know, new ways of doing things. And I feel like you said, like I've never written a program and I do it a hundred percent. Like there's, it's just never the, it's a, it's a guiding system more than there's anything else. Right. I mean, that's, that's the way I see it. And there are times where I'll. Right. The program or have someone write me a program, but right now it's more. So, okay, what do I want to accomplish in the gym, but let's have some fun doing it. And let's try some new things out. And maybe it'll benefit myself, but hopefully it benefits the athletes because it's maybe I'll find something or I'll play with something and like, oh, now this is a new tool that I have that I can implement and help these guys out. I love it, man. I love it. Got a few more questions and then we'll be good. We didn't talk about VBT. I do like, I do like VBT a lot. It's something I've learned a lot more of you guys using it a good amount or yep. Oh yeah. We actually, let's talk about this then. Velocity based training or also known as VBT is, has become a. Big thing I would say over the past couple of years, you know, it's becoming bigger. It's becoming more relevant in the strength and conditioning world. And you guys use it in your organization. So can you talk to me about VBT and how you guys use it and why it's a great tool to use? Absolutely. So, yeah, we use it across the board. It's, it's a hugely important tool for us to help players auto regulate throughout their lists. Instead of doing, say, percentage based programming where I have four sets of five at 80 percent of my one RM we'll, we'll give, I'll say, you know, hey, we're going to do four sets of five and I want it right around 0. 6 meters per second. Which allows the weight to dictate the speed of the bar. So guys are always trying to move it as fast as they can. That's one of the underlying principles of this. You can't just like take 1 35 if you're dead lifting and try and move it slow. You're always moving as fast as you can. So that way the load dictates the speed of the movement. And it's great because on a day to day basis, you're gonna experience massive fluctuations, or you can experience massive fluctuations in terms of central nervous system fatigue and readiness, peripheral fatigue and readiness. And there's some research, it's from a while back that I saw that. They stated that 80% of your one RMM could be as plus or minus 18% on any given day. Hmm. So that 80%, depending on how good or bad you feel, could feel as light as 62% of your one rmm. Wow. Or as heavy as 98. And I think everybody can relate when they, they've done a weight that they've done a thousand times and it's just Yep. It's just not moving. Yeah. Or maybe. The days when you're feeling great and you do 20, a 20 pound PR and it flies and you're like, what the heck is that? So VBT is great because it allows players to capitalize on their best days. and to not run themselves into the ground or risk injury on their worst days. Education is massively important there. So we're not just gonna give you four sets of five and you're gonna start with two plates and then you're gonna do two plates in the 25 and then three plates and then three plates in the 25 just because right. And then going deeper, you can use those speeds of the bars. And like we talked about before, what adaptation do I want to derive? Okay, well, the bar speed is now, or the movement speed is gonna, is gonna be indicative of that. So, it could be something like max strength, where we're moving something at 3 meters per second, and it's heavy, and it's slow, and it's grinding. Or we could do something that's ballistic, like, like a landmine throw, for example, might move at 3 meters per second out of the hand. And those are two very different ends of the spectrum. And then everything else kind of fills in from there. And, you know, there's Brian Mann, obviously, has, is the pioneer of it. And has done some great work, but I would go check his stuff out if I'm just beginning to learn about it. Then, you can even go deeper into it with some advanced stuff. So, beyond just saying, okay, here's the speed that we're trying to work with. Let's try and get near that. If it's too light, or if it's moving too fast, add weight. Make a difference. Now, if it's moving too slow, take weight off. You can do stuff like velocity drop sets. So maybe I'm going to hook something up to the bar and I'm going, and my, my goal is hypertrophy. So I'm looking for a 30 percent drop. So as you're doing your set, each rep gets counted. And then once you drop below 30 percent of the fastest rep that you've done, that set is over. That's really hard if you, if anybody goes and tries that, you do a lot of reps before you drop 30%, but I could do that also for. Maybe I'm doing a power exercise like a trap bar jump, and maybe I'll set that threshold at 5 or 10 percent. So the second we start to fatigue, and we get below that threshold, boom, the set's over. So there's, there's a lot of different ways you can, you can really go down the VBT rabbit hole. And the more we've used it, the more we've kind of implemented those on a regular basis with some of our guys. Can you talk to me a little bit more about that? I'm curious about that. So let's say, so the five to 10 percent drop is based on are you going on meters per second? Are you going off of the height? What are you going off of there? Is it all velocity based? Yeah, it's typically velocity. So if I'm going to do a jump and I'm doing, you know, a 10 percent velocity drop and I'm working power, it will probably will either take the mean velocity meters per second or the peak velocity. If it's something where I may be driving hypertrophy with a 20 to 30 percent drop. I'm probably just going to take the mean velocity and again, it counts every rep and whatever the fastest rep is becomes the max. And once you're 30 percent below that or whatever your number is, then you're done. Yeah, no, it's, it's pretty cool. I, I, I, Brian man is actually the one, one of the. I started really following and reading. There was another, I think dbt coach is another one. But there his video is fantastic. And I started learning more about it. Last year we started with it, didn't really fully understand how to implement it. And now I'm like, Oh wow, this is an amazing tool. And we're using it in every single one of our every single one of our programs has some form of it. And it's, it's a really, really cool tool. So if you haven't heard of it or used it, definitely check it out. I work with a lot of high school athletes and, you know, obviously dreams of getting to the bigs. So what's your advice from a strength conditioning standpoint to high school athletes looking to get? To the next level college and then hopefully professional baseball. lEarn what the word discipline really means. Discipline to me means doing the stuff that you don't want to do when you don't want to do it. It's very easy as an athlete as a baseball athlete, say you're in season and you know, you're supposed to get two lifts in this week and you haven't done one and it's Thursday and it's like, okay, well, I need to get one of these that I need to start getting these in, get yourself in the gym and do that lift. Long term, that investment is going to pay off down the road. Discipline is also if you're a high school young kid, it's I'm not staying out till early in the morning on weekends. You know, I'm not saying don't have fun and don't have friends and stuff like that, but know what your limits are. Know what you gotta do. Like, how much do I have to sleep? How much do I have to eat? What? You know, college kids, you get to college for your first time. And the world of Bush light appears and it's very easy to get sucked down that rabbit hole of, okay, I'm, I'm going out partying four or five nights a week. I'm away from home. I've got this freedom that I've never had before. The guys who have a ton of success are super disciplined in that. They, they do the right things every single day. A lot of our big league team, they have a routine and they stick to it religiously. So that's another little piece that goes along with that. Develop a routine and stick to it, especially because when things start to go poorly, whether it's performance or maybe you have some outside stressors in your life, things always happen. It's like that routine is something that you can go back to and you know it's going to get you back on track. And so developing that and developing the habits and the discipline to do the things that. Maybe aren't sexy, but need to be done on a daily basis or a regular basis that are going to to lead you to success and everybody has an idea of what those are, because, you know, it's all over social media now. You can go read Twitter threads on anything, but find what works for you and then stick to that. Even when you don't want to stick to it. Well said. Well said. I love it. Talking to different coaches, talking to younger coaches, what are you telling them? What's some advice in wanting to work their ranks up and start working with higher level athletes, even professional athletes, maybe? First and foremost, get as many coaching reps as you can. It's invaluable. It's, it's very easy to see a coach who hasn't coached much. Every, when they say like when, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. You can tell that who that coach is. It's pretty obvious. So it helps you one, get better at coaching in the moment, but it gets better, gets you better at creativity, problem solving, all those things. So get your repetitions in. And then two is, is network talk to coaches, reach out to coaches. I mean, everybody can be found, not everybody. A lot of people can be found on social media, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, whatever it might be, reach out to people. Cause most coaches will be willing to have some sort of conversation with you and you can pick their brain. So talk to people, reach out, go to networking events. You don't have to go to every single little strength and conditioning conference that exists, but maybe pick one or two that you're really interested in that you think you'll get some value, not just from the content, but from the networking. A hundred percent. It's funny because I like, I feel like I've lived every little thing you said. I'm like, yes, yes, yes. Because I mean, networking, I, that's how we got in contact. I saw you on Instagram. I'm like, I would love to talk to you. Baseball would love to talk to you about what you guys do and you reach out and the networking, especially, you know, as a, as a coach, that's the way to do it. And I've never been turned down I don't think I ever have. Everyone's been so nice and welcoming. And I think it is a scary thing sometimes for coaches, especially younger guys to ask. And I get it. I totally get it. Cause I was there. Just do it, just do it. And if you get rejected, go to the next one. Cause you don't need that. That that was not meant to be whatever, if they said, no, right. And for me, I'm, I'm a little bit. introverted, more reserved. I'm not the loud rah rah guy. That's not me as a strength coach. So doing stuff like that for me is not the easiest thing in the world. But like you said, you've never been turned down. Yeah. It's pretty wild. And I think, you know, anybody who's ever reached out to me, who's wanting to talk about strength and conditioning or professional sports, I'll find some time to have a conversation or I'll respond to you. And most everybody is almost the exact same. There's not many people who put up the wall and say, no, I can't talk to you. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you being like that. Cause you know, it's a, it's nice to be able to share the wealth. All right. Two questions and then I want to get all your information so everyone can reach out to you. We got rapid fire here. Super simple, man. What's your go to TV show? Okay, so I'm a big Letterkenny fan kind of niche, but for those, it's a Canadian show. I was like, I've never heard of this. What is this? I would kind of describe it as like a modern day or a for a little bit. Modernized version of Trailer Park Boys. It's very fast, very quick witted. If you're not paying attention, you're gonna miss what's going on. It's not for everybody, but I love it. And then right now, my girlfriend and I are working our way through The Bear on Hulu. I've heard. I've heard. Okay. I, I like to cook. It's kind of one of my hobbies and so seeing like this high intensity TV show about the restaurant industry is really cool and it's, it's really, really well done. So it's worth the watch. Okay. I'll have to check. I'll put the, I'll put them on my list. Where, where was the the other show? Letter Kenny's also on Hulu, I believe. Okay. He said Letter Kenny? Like yeah. L E T T E R Kenny. Yes, all one word. Okay. It's not everybody's cup of tea. But it's my type of humor. So hey, I got to try the tea before I could say, I don't like it. So that's right. Got to give it a shot. All right. What's your favorite music band artists that it's a definitely a go to no problem. I'm a rock guy pop punk, any, any sort of rock. So I'll say blink one 82. Nice. You just can't go wrong. And I'm actually going to see them in 11 days. So I was going to say that they just played here in LA and we were going to go, but we're also thinking about going to the, when we were young festival. Cause I went there, I went last year. So like, it's funny, you're saying all these and they're playing there this year. So, but that's cool, man. I'm going to see fallout boy, actually this Sunday. So, okay. So I've seen them in 24 days. I got, I got a good nice of concerts lined up. I'm a big music fan. So when both of those, those groups come to town, I'm, I'm going. I love it, man. That's great. Dude. Chris where where can people reach out to you? Cause if they want to ask you some questions about your job, you know, if other coaches want to reach out or people are just interested in what you're doing. Yeah. So I'm on Twitter at, at Martin Chris 32. thAt's where you'll probably find most S and C content, it's a little bit less active than I would like, but every now and then I try and put a little nugget out or. At least some quality retweets. And then on Instagram at Chris Martin, 32 that's more personal stuff, but Hey, if you want to shoot me a follow, I always follow people back. So nice. I love it, man. This has been great. Thank you so much for your time, for your expertise. Love all the knowledge and the sharing of it. Appreciate it, man. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. This has been great. Absolutely. You got it.