Elevating Athletic Performance with 5 Tool Connection: Learn what you need to do to succeed as an athlete!

In this info packed episode of the Coach U Podcast, we're joined by Eric Yavarone and Noah Huff from 5 Tool Connection, an organization dedicated to athlete development through tailored training programs. Our guests share invaluable insights into the science of honing athletic performance, focusing on body movement analysis and individualized program design to propel athletes toward their peak potential.

We delve into the intricacies of performance training, pulling back the curtain on the methods Eric and Noah employ with athletes across the sports performance spectrum, from new athletes to seasoned pros. The discussion spans everything from the importance of routine and consistency in athletes' training regimens to the critical role of recovery and nutrition in achieving optimal performance.

Eric and Noah also share their personal journeys, shedding light on the foundation of 5 Tool Connection and the vision that drives their work. Through rapid-fire questions, fun exchanges, and deep-dive explorations into the technicalities of athletic training, this episode is packed with engaging content and actionable advice.

Whether you're an athlete yourself, a coach looking to broaden your understanding, or simply someone fascinated by the mechanics of sports performance, this episode offers a ton of knowledge. Tune in and get ready to be inspired by the dedication and expertise of Eric Yavarone and Noah Huff.

Remember to subscribe to the Coach U Podcast and share this episode with anyone passionate about enhancing athletic performance and understanding the science behind it.

Contact Five Tool Connection here!
https://fivetoolconnection.com/pages/...

Transcript

Coach U : 0:00

Hey everybody. This is the coach you podcast and I'm your host coach you. This podcast is about being curious. Learning from others and using what we've learned to evolve every single day. Hey everyone. In this episode, we're being joined by the owners of 5 Tool Connection, Eric Yavarone and Noah Huff. Both Eric and Noah have worked with Major League Baseball players, and now they're taking their knowledge and helping athletes all over the world. 5 Tool Connection analyzes body movement, they check to see what you need, and they write up programs for you specifically. This episode will give you an idea what you need to do as an athlete for In order to excel in sports and using training as a tool to get there. So tune into this episode and remember to subscribe and then share with anybody else that you think would love this episode. Hey, what's up everybody. Welcome to the coach. U podcast. I'm your host coach. U we're being joined today by Eric and Noah Huff guys. Welcome to the show. Absolutely. Absolutely. Super stoked to talk to you guys

eric yavarone: 0:58

Glad to be here. Appreciate it. Thank you for having me.

Coach U : 1:01

performance training. We're

noah huff: 1:02

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Coach U : 1:03

you guys are doing with five tool connection. Before we start that, I want to go rapid fire just so the audience can get to know you a little bit better. Noah, you're going first. What's your favorite TV show?

noah huff: 1:18

That's 70s show.

Coach U : 1:19

That's seventies, Eric. What do you got?

eric yavarone: 1:21

I was really into Yellowstone kind of recently, so I guess I'll go with that one.

Coach U : 1:25

heard. It's good.

eric yavarone: 1:25

It is, it is good. Actually, I guess I'm a little, I gotta actually finish the last series, so it's kind of a big play, saying it's my favorite show I haven't finished yet, but I was enjoying it recently.

Coach U : 1:34

Okay. That's fair. Noah, favorite band or musician?

noah huff: 1:37

Mountain Joy.

Coach U : 1:39

Mountain joy.

eric yavarone: 1:40

Who is that?

Coach U : 1:41

Yeah. Tell me who they are.

noah huff: 1:42

It's a, it's a great band. They're growing a lot right now. So go check them out. It's good. It's kind of like a folk type of good music. You know, it's just feel good music. Puts you in a good mood.

Coach U : 1:52

I like feel good music. Eric, what do you like?

eric yavarone: 1:54

I'm in a weird spot, man. I used to like hip hop music. I think my horizon's expanding a little bit. Historically, Drake's my favorite, favorite artist, because he always, you know, has something for you, depending on what kind of mood you're in. But I've actually been listening to, like, Morgan Wallen lately and a little bit of country. So I don't know what's going on with me, but I'm shifting gears a little bit, but I still say Drake, I guess.

Coach U : 2:13

Taste buds change as you get older, you know, you always have the classics. That's never going to leave. All right. So then I'm going to go Noah back to you, your favorite thing about working in the performance training world.

noah huff: 2:23

it's just seeing the development with athletes personally and professionally. It's a good, it's a cool thing. Cause you get to see, you know, when you're working, whether if it was an 18 year old kid or even, you know, a 25 year old adult, you kind of see their progress and growth. Not just as an athlete, but just personally. And I really enjoy that.

Coach U : 2:45

Eric, how about you?

eric yavarone: 2:45

Yeah. Similar, like the process a lot, you know, Noah and I've been involved in kind of the team team environment a lot, and then, you know, five TC individual kids, but like baseball or sports kind of outcomes that they're shooting for and kind of seeing the process, whether it's a minor league guy turning into a big league guy or a kid. Going to college to play. Just kind of like, you know, being part of the development process and watching the process unfold and ultimately like hopefully they get to where they want to be. So seeing that those things happen at all those different levels, that's probably, that's probably it for me.

Coach U : 3:17

love it. We're definitely going to talk about the process. I want to hear about five tool connection and what you guys got going on there. Before we get into that, I want to get into real quick, caught the impact deck. So we have a couple of different cards from here. One's an affirmation. One's an action and one's a reflection. I'm just going to randomly draw. I'm going to pose the question to both of you guys individually, and then we'll rock and roll. So I'm going to pull, we got a, an affirmation card. All right. So as I take on new challenges, I feel calm, confident, and powerful. Noah, how can you utilize that in your practice? How can you utilize that in your life?

noah huff: 3:51

Yeah, I think as a coach it's really important to, you know, be calm and cool and collective and working with athletes and especially, you know we work with baseball players specifically, and it's a game of failure. And a lot of the times those guys are up and down emotionally. They're all over the place. Whether it's stuff off the field, on the field. So I think just. Kind of taking that calm, cool approach and keeping a level head and it can really impact the players and their careers and then, you know, my life personally as well.

eric yavarone: 4:23

I mean, honestly, kind of, kind of the same point like we have to be that person, I feel like for them, because the consistent piece. It's kind of like the, the process of getting prepared physically to do whatever task, whatever sport and Noah hit on it a little bit, but they're going to actually play the game, which is the part that has all the variables in it. And outcomes are going to be riding high, riding low, depending on where they're performing at. But we can be the consistent piece. So at least they know, like whatever noise is going on around them when they come to the gym or they come to the weight room, that energy culture vibe is going to be consistent no matter where they're at. And I think that that like, is a good thing and probably, you know, hopefully reminds them that even when they're going good, like, Hey, you still got to prepare and still got to tap into your process and do everything the same. And then when you're going bad too, like. Like, I don't care. Like, you could be old for your last 24. I'm still gonna smile when I see you and we're gonna go through our, our day and, and I'm gonna get you ready to play that night because tonight might be the night you go off. So I think that being the cool, calm, and collected person consistently for them, I think is a pretty important piece of the, of the role just for the, the culture and the environment. So that's kind of what I thought of with that.

Coach U : 5:31

So going into that real quick, what do you, would you say are things that help keep you calm, cool, and collected and, and consistent for yourselves? And then also, how does that translate into being a coach?

eric yavarone: 5:42

I, I kind of been on this a lot lately, like walking the walk and practicing what you preach is super important. So like for me, I know that like, I'm a routine oriented guy. And I think that doing the same sort of process every day is a good thing for me, like, it feels like I'm getting better at my own craft and taking care of myself physically. I'm doing all the things that I'm trying to instill in these guys too. So like kind of trying to be a model figure in that regard. So I think like having that process, having that routine like That sets the same way of we do our process before we get to the park or we do our process before we get to the gym to train the guys. I just think that that helps us me individually, right? And then that allows me to be the best version of me and therefore will help the guys. So I think that walking the walk, practicing what you preach, that sort of stuff consistently and have a routine with that. I think that that personally helps me be cool, calm and collected. So when it's time to. Train like we're prepared. So that's kind of what I think.

noah huff: 6:39

That's where me and Eric really aligned is practicing what we preach. And I know for me personally. Very routine oriented as well. But one thing that's actually, I just started doing a week ago was actually just journaling each day. And my mom's been harping on me about this for my whole life. I texted her and I was like, Hey, it finally, all the stars aligned and I finally listened, but I've just kind of like brain dumping, you know, and it's just kind of clearing out my headspace and it, and it's helped a lot, so that type of stuff. And Like Eric said, then, you know, on the practice and what you preach, making sure that I'm, you know, staying on track in my nutrition, on my training that I'm, you know, doing everything, meditating, so, I feel good when I'm telling athletes, you know, Hey, you should incorporate this into your routine. Cause you know, I'm doing it myself and, and you also learn a lot more by doing that yourself. So,

Coach U : 7:31

100 percent it's easier to teach that when you're, when you're living it, cause you can act, it's authentic. You know, it's interesting. You talked about the journaling and the meditation and stuff. That's something that like saved me. Talk about consistency and routine, like the things you guys are talking about. I appreciate the insights because that stuff matters as coaches. It absolutely does. Let's talk about five tool connection. Let's, let's talk about what it is. Tell me how it started.

eric yavarone: 7:52

All right so 5TC started way back when Was actually it was myself and a buddy who kind of worked more with hitting and we had this idea of making you know, this kind of like all encompassing performance thing with baseball and strength and conditioning and kind of started getting some elements of it going, never really went anywhere, but he kind of went a different route and started getting into some team stuff himself. So I kind of always like, and I kind of like put it to bed, but I always had the vision of like, all right, let's, let's find a way to bring. Higher level performance, training, testing, things like that to really kids is what the focus started on is giving them resources because not everybody has. Somebody like yourself in their backyard, they don't have a Cressy performance, like they don't have high level facilities. And a lot of them, I feel like did what I did when I was in high school, trying to train to get better at baseball, but I was just going to a 24 hour, you know, local gym for 10 bucks a month and doing bench press and not really having any idea what I was doing and basically skipping legs every time and just doing upper body. So it changed from performance to some other things, but you know, I think a lot of kids probably have that same situation. So always wanted to continue the S and C vision for it. And then kind of made the decision like, all right, why wait? There's no reason to wait. And then, you know, at the time, no, and I started working together, got along really well, started becoming very close. And, you know, I just kind of thought it'd be really cool to do something with, with one of your friends. So one day I asked him, I remember in the gym saying, Hey man, like I'm doing this. You want to get involved? And he said, yes. Officially like started the company in 2019, September of 2019. So again, it was just the two of us to get going and with the vision to bring better training to kids and it's morphed and grown quite a bit, but I think the nuts and bolts of the goal and the principles of what we want to do have always been the same. And that was, To to bring that program into kids virtually. And now it's kind of shifted more to like, we want to dominate the virtual space for you know, baseball, but rotational athletes, right. Dominate that kind of virtual space and bring good testing and performance.

Coach U : 9:51

Noah, what made you jump on board? You were like, yeah, I absolutely want to do this. What was the excitement? I

noah huff: 9:55

Yeah, it was that me and Eric hit it off really well. He's a extremely intelligent person, coach. Has a, a kind of see strength and conditioning through a different lens than anybody I've talked to. And Yeah. At the time, like I was learning from him and watching him work with players and then, and it was honestly just like, it was the energy between us. It was like the vibe we wanted to bring something cool. We want to be the best and bring the best service to, to everybody in a baseball and softball rotational sports.

Coach U : 10:24

What do you think is missing the most? In. The performance training world, especially for the younger athletes

eric yavarone: 10:30

I mean, probably resources, right. Like in all kinds of different forms, I think I mean, facility number one, right. I think like at the end of the day too, like. Much like the kind of story I was telling, like there's different you know, within the, within the training piece, the performance piece for, you know, baseball particularly, like, I think a lot of stuff that's kind of popular right now that we're utilizing and have seen big changes on and things that can really improve performance. Like they're not things that you find in a regular gym, you know, there's. Here's your benches. Here's the incline benches. Here's the, here's the machines over here. And here's the squat racks in the back and the leg press. And it's very traditional in that sense. So literally from like an equipment standpoint, there's some limitations, right? Because they know they have to train. They know that the athletes are big, strong and fast. So where do you do, where do you do that? Oh, you go lift at the gym, right? So. But if you go to the gym, you're only as good as the equipment as you have, because you can't you can have the perfect exercise that we provide for you or give you at the right time. But if you don't have a water bag, say like, what are you going to do? We can get creative with other things, but point being, like, I think the resources of literally the facility probably could be a limit limiting factor. And then probably the educational piece too, right. At the end of the day too, like against referring back to the same story, cause it was my experience. You go to the gym and. What are you going to do? I don't know what I was doing. Right. So you're going to watch what everybody else does or what your buddy did, or what an old coach of yours did when he played 15 years ago and got drafted. And here's the program that they gave me. Then go do it. It helped me. Whatever that means. And you know, just the education piece of it. So I think that's another piece of it too, of what we're trying to do now. As we've, I mean, we spent four years just refining the process. Like, cause Noah said, we want it to be clean. We want it to be pro. We don't want to have a poor product out there. So it's been refining the model, changing platforms, making more videos, like changing the way we adding things. Like it's just been. Four years of really growing the product. And now that we're happy with that, you know, in the last probably six months to 12 months pushing more of the social media and that's our goal within the social media is to provide education for kids, for people, and hopefully make it fun. So it captures their attention. They actually ingest the information, but those are two things that come to mind for me, at least is, is educational resources. And then. You know, equipment resources to

noah huff: 12:33

I think number one, education is a huge piece of that. Kind of like Eric was saying I know personally for me, and this is kind of going back to why we started one passion was that I'm from Knoxville, Tennessee, and at the time, and there's a few facilities there now, but at the time there wasn't a whole lot of resources. There wasn't very much education at all on training, on nutrition, on what you should do. This is what quality training looks like. This is what it is. And then you know, I'm gonna have to go the same, same route with facilities and, and those types of things. And that's the cool part about what we do is that, you know, you don't need a whole weight room to do our program. I was just watching videos that kids sent today and they're in their room with dumbbells and a few resistance bands and they're getting it done. We're able to provide that to kids all over with, with whatever resources they have on hand.

eric yavarone: 13:23

I got one more thing to add to kind of like within the, within the personal story piece, like when I played decent player played in college, like, so it was taking it very seriously. And on the one hand I had my AAU coach who like on the baseball side, maybe the player I was so like. Unbelievable there. But when it came to training, he said, all you need is Nautilus, right? And he bought these Nautilus machines. And in the, in the facility, they were just like your most standard first issued ever Nautilus machines. He's like, Oh, that's all you need. You look like the Under Armour guy and you're going to be great. And then on the other hand I had some friends that were fortunate enough to go to a really good facility in town that I ended up working at later, like mentor of mine, Mike Ranfone at Ranfone Training Systems in Hampden, Connecticut. And like that was the place to go to get the good training. And I remember getting the price sheet and bringing it home and, and my parents saying, Oh, well, we can't afford that. That's too much. So on the one hand, I have Nautilus. And on the other hand, I have, we can't afford it. So creating this model and this vision initially was okay. We can be the middle ground there. We can at least provide the testing and the programming that you can take to the 10 a month gym and not be lost. Right. If you can't afford the facility or you don't have the facility based off of your geographical location. Right. So just a little bit more of like a. Kind of, that came to mind at some point just in terms of how it all came about.

Coach U : 14:43

no, it's huge. I mean, it's, you know, you're also teaching, especially younger athletes and just kids in general for life. You're going to do the best you possibly can. Is it the highest possible resources? No, but maybe that comes one day. I love that. What's the first thing you're talking to them about?

noah huff: 14:55

Basically like a questionnaire basically of you know, What have you done in the past? What are you currently doing? What are your goals? And then from there, that's where we're gonna, we're starting our assessment process and that's where it really just gives us a roadmap of the athlete. There we can see movement qualities. We can see force production, you know, we can see how they move in different planes of motion. So it really kind of gives us a look under the hood and we get to see them as them as an athlete from a training standpoint. And then we'll kind of go from there and build up their plan individually. And then keeping their goals in mind too, cause you know, it's, what's going to motivate the kids, you know, if, if we see something that they need, of course, we're going to talk through that with them, but you also have to keep their goal in mind and let that fuel them as well,

Coach U : 15:41

How do you, how do you guys deal with that? Cause I think that is a very tough thing to deal with as a coach. Sometimes where you run into, you know, you need your athlete to do something specific and maybe there's an outcome you're trying to get, but I don't know what the block met the block is. Maybe they don't want to do it. They don't like it, whatever. How do you guys approach that?

eric yavarone: 15:58

Ooh, a lot of things come to mind. I think that one is showing that you have information to support where you're coming from. Right? Like, if a kid says, I need to run faster, I need to hit the ball harder, I need to get my velocity higher. Like, Yeah. And in their mind, they envision like, okay, if I need to get my velocity higher, well, what, what do I need to do? I need to throw like weighted balls, for example, because that's what's popular. It obviously looks the part and that does play a significant role in throwing harder. But if you can just say, well, I think you need to make your movement better because that's going to allow you to throw harder. Like they, they may not like buy into just the words, but when I put a report in front of you that says, We have objective information here that is showing that compared to your age group, you are in the 20th percentile in the movement category and you're in the 70th percentile in power. So you have incredible amounts of explosiveness in your body, but your movement quality is limiting your ability to express that in your actual throw. It's really hard to argue that. Right? And so I think within our process, that's always been the vision. We want to be able to convey to these people and kids and parents, how do we get that information? Well, we need to find a way to make it more objective. So How do we do that? We would look at throws we would look at swings and say like, okay, you want your velocity to be higher? We'll look at the way that your Lower half is working in your delivery, right? and based off of the movement screen videos that you sent us we're going to look at them and write, just type a manual report. That's where we started. But again, it was the same process of showing you like, Hey, look, your lower half doesn't work well in this squat, in this lunge or in your throw. So there's a high probability here that the mechanics of your lower half, the mobility that in your joints that coincide from the waist down, you're having an issue moving those and it's showing up in your delivery. So like speaking in their language in the, in the lens of like why. The training style is relating or limiting their performance on the field. I think that's probably the way that we've always went about it. And then within that goal, like I said, just trying to loop in piece of information and make it much more like clear cut, not arguable. But again, it's just, it's, it's educated, educating them on all the things that go into the outcome goal performance, and then just having some kind of assessment process for those to be able to show them like, Hey, this is where you want to go, this is where you're at now. This is how we're going to train you to get there. And they're like, okay, sounds great. Let's do it.

Coach U : 18:16

Noah, do you have anything to add to that?

noah huff: 18:18

Most of the time when any time in life, like when, when we disagree with something, it's just, it's a level of education that we don't have of that subject yet. And then once we get a better understanding of it, then we kind of pull back and we're not so, you know, this microscope view, but we get a more broader view of the situation. Then it's like, oh, okay. You know, it's, as you get older, you do that all the time. It's the same thing with athletes and it, and it's. Like Eric said, it's showing them, Hey, here's objective information. Now let's take this information. Let's look at your on field mechanics and we can point right here where it's showing up, you know, X, Y, Z right here. And then that information's right there in their face. But I mean, when you do have those athletes that are dead set on, I have to back squat, if I don't back squat, I don't feel good. And if It may crush them. It may all these different things. Like at some point, you kind of just go, okay, I'm going to give you this, but you're going to give me this, this and this. And then it's just a trade off in an exchange. And then everybody's happy. But I think at the end of the day, you never want to sabotage the relationship because it's development and you're going to be working with each other for, Months years on end. So you want to keep that open relationship and and be mindful of where they're at and kind of meet them where they're at.

Coach U : 19:33

I like that a lot. I want to ask about the mistakes. So what are some of the biggest mistakes you see in younger athletes when it comes to training?

eric yavarone: 19:42

Probably trying to layer like higher level performance qualities on top of like poor foundational movement patterns or lack of stability, right. In some regard. I think stability is like a little bit of a garbage turn. You're going to find stability. It's just a matter of whether you find it. In the right places, right? At the right time, or if you find it through adding stiffness and rigidity on top of like segments, right? So meaning like, You know, if you have good foundational movement patterns and then you load them up the quality of the movement, now you're going to lay all, layer all those performance, performance qualities on top of that. Whereas if you don't have that, your body is going to try to not get hurt and it's going to stiffen up in potentially the wrong areas. So now you've still created stability, but now it's in like the wrong places. So I feel like a lot of times we see older athletes with a lot of training volume under their belts that have trained for strength for a very long time. If they did it before they had good patterns. A lot of times we have to unwind some of that stuff and try to rebuild it up when they're trying to make a movement based change on the field, right? Because a lot of times that is a little, that is a little thing that's going to take them over the edge, right? Especially at the higher levels. So that would kind of be what I think is, I think if we did a better job at creating good movement patterns in general stuff, squats, hinging, lunging, moving in all planes, and then just like general. Variability in movements like you know, kids don't play different sports anymore, man. Like playing different sports, moving around to different planes, different environments, navigating those with physical solutions, right? I think if we did that they'd be in a much better spot because I also truly believe that like strength, unless we're competing for like a strong man competition, the amount of like requisite strength that's necessary. In team sports, for the most part, outside of wrestlers, linebackers. I don't know. I trained baseball players, but like, it's not that high. Like, I don't think it takes that long to gain. Right. So people that have been training for strength for seven years. Like, I think we could probably do that in an off season. We could probably get enough in a couple of years. Right. But it's gonna take way longer to unwind all the stiffness and rigidity that they've thrown on top of their bodies by doing that for the last seven years. And then you end up like me and I can't rotate. So I got a bad neck. So anyway that's what I, that's what I think is, is, is no one knows about my neck, man. Come on. Putting, putting,

Coach U : 22:00

part of it. This is

eric yavarone: 22:01

Yeah, yeah. Come on dad. Now what happened? But anyway yeah, putting, putting strength on top of a bad movement in a nutshell.

Coach U : 22:09

I just something came to me there when you were talking about that with moving quality. I was thinking about buckets. We have the strength bucket. If a lot of these athletes are filling their strength bucket, that's great. Right. But like you said, there's only a certain amount you necessarily need, right? So what are the buckets, what are the main things that you're seeing that do need to be filled?

eric yavarone: 22:26

Movement, movement is one of them. More on the like simple assessment side, general assessment side, things that you see done in the weight room joint range of motion testing, weight room movement patterns is one of them. I think strength is another one. Higher force production situations, traditional strength. I think power is another one of them. I think that we kind of divide power into two different pieces, one being more like higher effort feet in the ground, just moving a little bit faster in general strength movements. The other one being more elastic reactive power where there's, you know, deceleration qualities and you're springing off the ground, things like that. I think you probably split that into two. And then I think the capacity piece too, is another big one. In a sense of like conditioning, right? But being able to repeat efforts, do things over and over again, bounce back day to day, things like that. I think those are probably five five general ones. And then that gets into the. Actually looking at the movements on the field and depending on what sport it is, what position they play, you could probably break that down a couple different ways too. So like maybe for a baseball player, it could be the swing for a position player, and then it could be their defensive movement actions, right? As two more buckets. So now you have call it seven, six to eight different buckets that can all go into the resultant performance on the field. And then, you know, we just got to test them and kind of know what we look for within each one of those.

Coach U : 23:46

You can get, you can, you can start getting real detailed if you wanted to

eric yavarone: 23:49

totally. Totally. So yeah, you could spread them all out and then you can condense them kind of, you know, however, however you want. So we've taken them and we've kind of put them into put them into three movement, strength and explosiveness. And that's kind of the three that we test for.

Coach U : 24:02

what do you define as movement and what are the, what are the qualities that you look for in movement?

noah huff: 24:06

Obviously number one, range of motion having, having quality range of motion and talking about joint by joint through the body. Eric kind of talked about that, where you see compensations and different things and adding strength onto a poor movement quality.

eric yavarone: 24:19

Yeah, it's range of motion testing in the beginning That's like the most foundational component of it Just see what is capable period from a mechanic standpoint

noah huff: 24:26

So if you don't have good range of motion and control over that range of motion then you're going to put yourself in a, in a tough spot. Balance, stability

eric yavarone: 24:34

Like Noah said stability Which is just controlling kind of segments

noah huff: 24:38

coordination.

eric yavarone: 24:39

The coordination piece where now we're taking the different segments, putting them together, creating movement patterns at like slower general weight room speeds. Then it transitions more into the high speed movement stability component in like real time sporting environments. Really, you could probably say high speed environments and then uncontrolled random sporting environments. And you have to be able to move fluidly throughout all of these, but if you don't have good stuff here, it makes it much more difficult to do a good job here. It's kind of like continuum where we're starting on the table, look at isolated joint range of motion, transition them into more. Weight room movements, then higher speed stability, and then seeing how it all plays. You know, when it's actually, when a ball is coming at you versus a ball on a tee, right? When it gets a little bit more uncontrolled and dynamic. Movement is solutions, so how are they going to create Solutions to whatever the, whatever the task is, right? So seeing how it plays out in sport and then dialing it back across that continuum, working the other way to see what they're working with and then what we can, what we can change, if that makes sense.

Coach U : 25:38

Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna have to take notes while I watch this again. So I can like kind of try to break that down and what you just said, but we'll get there. That was, I love it. I love it. It's, it's it's such a, it's such a simple thing, but it's also gonna be very intricate. And so like hearing you break it down, I do appreciate. So talk about speed development. when you're trying to train a guy to get faster, what are you looking at first?

eric yavarone: 25:58

I probably sound like a broken record when we do enough of it, but it's the same thing. What's the resultant speed? Okay, I want to run fast. Okay, what are the, what are the pieces that go into, into running fast? There's a movement and coordination piece behind that, we need to be able to get into certain positions. Say acceleration mechanics, triple extension, straight line from head to, Back toe, those kinds of like main positions that you want to get into pushing the ground down and backs to propel yourself the other way. But there's a, there's a movement component to that, where if you don't maximize the movement, the timing of it, the positions of it, it's going to limit your result, which is the speed. There's a strength component a little bit more early on in an acceleration where you're, you're. It's you versus the ground. Who's going to win. And when you beat the ground, that means you're pretty strong where you can push through it down and back to again, propel yourself that way. And then there's a power explosive component to it too, that you can spring off the ground. Looking at like the whole thing in conjunction. First, I'm going to look at the movement component of it, number one, see if they get into the positions that we're looking for. If they don't, then look at the movement screen and the range of motion test and see if we know that they're limited in any of the movements they're trying to show. So let's say that triple extension piece, if they're limited in hip extension, let's They're not going to be able to get into triple extension. So we would come at that with a movement solution of getting more hip extension, working in the hip extension and turning it into a running mechanic, right? If they're really good at all of those and the movement itself is really good, well then let's look at the strength and power components to it. And if we know that they have good strength, but they're just not really an explosive athlete, then your, that athlete's solution to getting faster is. is power work and true moving fast stuff where maybe they're good at that and they have some strength, but the coordination piece is limited. And if we're gonna get this guy faster, we need to improve the movement piece. Those are like the big three, and the last one is weight. Probably when they get, a little bit older, high levels, like I do think, too, at some point. You probably reach a point of no return. If you do want to get faster, you might lose 15 pounds. So you're lighter, right? And you could accelerate that mass quicker, but it's kind of, it's really the same I go back to those same things, like, what are the, just reverse engineer, what's the result, what are the pieces that go into that, where are they at in each one of those? And then, then you could determine what that athlete's solution is.

noah huff: 28:13

Just kind of layering on what Eric just talked about obviously you want to first look at from a movement standpoint and then you want to, Kind of take a look under the hood and and see everything else that goes into that it's a skill and you need repetition and you need to do it. You need to do it a lot. I mean, the best way to get better at Running fast is to run fast and do it over and over. Obviously if that's all you're doing and you're like, Oh man, I'm not getting any faster. Well, did you go down the whole checklist that Eric just ran through? Once you start checking those boxes it comes down to just repetition. And, and as you're checking those boxes you can start to get that coordination aspect of it from doing it over and over and recording yourself and start to critique it and look through it just like you would. You know, pitching or hitting mechanics same, same type of approach.

eric yavarone: 29:02

So like we go through our, our initial checklist. And then like we look at the position two and then we can either even probably get a little bit more broken down. Right. So you take a, take a shortstop versus a third baseman. For example, the shortstop is going to be a little bit more upright, usually involve more of like a prep step into there. Move. And then, so they use the ground, they use some elasticity and then they start to move in either direction when they go to make a play, conversely to your third baseman, who's lower to the ground, feet are fixed in the ground and they're going much more from like a non counter movement position. Right. When they then go to feel the ball. So we see some athletes that are great at running in a straight line, but then when they get into the lateral movement component, they aren't great or the position could, could kind of affect them too. So if you have a a shortstop who runs really well in a straight line, but doesn't move well laterally, well then like now we have more of a situation where we need to, to do lateral quickness and doing it from ground contact environments, if that makes sense. Just because like when you get into more of the, the, the position specific piece after that, sometimes you have guys that are really fast, but like they get called slow on the field because They don't put themselves in good positions or they don't train counter movements, but the position they play excuse me, non counter movements, but the position they play requires them to be explosive from a non counter movement, defensive position. Right. So I think just that little additional piece, once you get past the original, the first layer of running fast. Then you can get a little bit more detailed and position specific stuff too. And then look at the qualities that go into that and maybe even be able to dial it in a little bit more just because speeds it's all over, you know, it's, it's all over the place. You get. You know, like I said, guys, yeah, guys getting called slow that run a 6560, but it's just because they can't use it in lateral environments in that particular situation. So just more stuff that kind of comes to mind as we go through the list.

Coach U : 30:48

Well, no, but it's true because I think, I mean, especially on the field, you don't know what's going to happen. You have no idea what kind of moves you have to make. You don't know what positions you're going to be in. You just react. And so going to that point, you know, why is it important then for athletes to be able to have, The ability to move well in all directions if they want to be great at their sport. So how, you know, training for that is important. So it takes time though. It takes time to stick kind of, you're talking about the movement quality. Why does it take time to, for the movement quality like that to stick? Why do you have to do it over and over? What is actually going on walking through the physiological process that our brain's going through to have to make this actually happen?

eric yavarone: 31:21

I think inputs matter. So in the sense of the body knows what's important and what's not right. So the more inputs you have in something. You're kind of telling your nervous system like this is probably important. Like if you're doing something over and over and over again, you're going to adapt to being able to do that more efficiently, right? It's the input of saying, this is what we have to do. And then that's like number one. And then I also think that the magnitude of the input is also a signal that tells the nervous system how important something is. So for example, if we do a heavy, heavy back squat or whatever, a loaded movement, right? The input on that is massive because it's, Loaded it's high intent. There's a humongous neural component to it. The input is massive So if we're trying to make like, you know improve just say the same same one hip extension And then I do a massively loaded Strength movement and then I pair it with a passive hip extension stretch for 20 seconds like what input is is bigger? Which one's going to stick the humongous one, right? So I think it's it's twofold of number one You The amount of times we do something is signaling the body. Hey, this is important. You need to be efficient at this because for whatever reason you're doing it over and over again. So it's got to be important. So that's number one. And then number two, like the magnitude and timing of the, of what the training intervention, the input is. I just think that like the ones that have more intent, more force, more, all that stuff, those are just the ones that are going to stick a little bit more because of how big that input is, if that makes sense. So I think if it's a, if it's a movement outcome goal. And it's a person that has high amounts of strength. Sometimes you do have to get like super, super super intense with it. And that's where like You know, like a end range isometric at max intent for 10 to 15 seconds and doing that for a couple of different rounds, like sometimes that's the input that's necessary to tell the nervous system, like, Hey, no, this is really important and you need to be able to get into these positions. So a couple of thoughts that come to mind in there, but I think, yeah, the number of inputs and the magnitude of them, I think that's, what's going to ingrain that into the nervous system. They kind of signal the body that, that this is important on the, on the neural side, if that makes sense, then you have the actual mechanical side that comes from that after, right? You put a lot of force through something you're going to build more from the physiological standpoint of like damaging a tissue to then remodel it and rebuild it. And that's how you get stronger. That's how you build more, more armor, so to speak. That's kind of the second piece of it too, of like, you know, if you've got to be safe in a certain position, you've got to build a lot of armor in that position. So putting force through, through the body in those positions is super important to build that armor. So I think those things combined create both the. Neural component to the physiological effect. And then also the mechanical of like signaling and building tissue to make sure that you're safe when you get in those positions over and over again.

Coach U : 34:03

Theoretically speaking, you could run that through pretty much any. Anything, right? Speed, strength, mobility, range of motion, right? Same concept.

eric yavarone: 34:15

A hundred percent, a hundred percent.

Coach U : 34:17

Speaking of mobility, Range of motion is important. The movement quality to get into that position to be able to control it is important. What are some of your favorite ways to train mobility and to increase this range of motion for your athletes?

noah huff: 34:29

it depends on the, on the athlete and kind of what that restriction is, I think that the most effective is. Actively working through these ranges, like a lot of the times kids will think they're just going to do a bunch of long passive stretches, you know, before they go to bed or something. And then that's it. And then they go load up a barbell on their back and they work out for two and a half hours on benching and dead lifting and and squatting. And then, you know, they do a couple hamstring, you know, touch their toes and all right, I'm good on the mobility, but it's, it's. Like Eric was saying, like, you got to continually have those inputs, have those inputs, have those inputs. And I think, you know, the most that I've seen with guys is, you know, having a combination of not just the passive, but the active and really like. Working through it and going for reps and going or going for sets and going for, you know, these long isometric holds where you're really contracting hard. I think that's what I've seen. It's been the most effective.

eric yavarone: 35:27

Yeah, I agree. A hundred percent. I think I think we're going less and less passive stuff, you know, as we go. Like sometimes I guess there are situations where. You know, like the overall movement possibilities, capabilities, like this is their box and like, I don't know if we're trying to expand the box too much anymore. Sometimes we still do absolutely. But for the most part, it's just making, making what's in the box work, you know, as well as possible. If there like is a clear cut, like. This guy just can't get in any positions on the field. And we think it's severely limiting. I'm like, yeah, we got to make the box bigger. But for the most part, it is, it's kind of just making the box better. Like I said, and Noah said of just, and using, using active components to that, and then just matching the intensity with You know, how, how big of an input we think we need. So I agree a hundred percent.

noah huff: 36:14

Just one more thing on that is I think that most of the time that athletes or coaches, everybody, I guess, in general, maybe we'll kind of think of those as like two separate things of like, okay, I'm going to work on my mobility and then I'm going to go train. But you can really incorporate both of those. And if it's a well thought out program and well put together program, you're attacking those movement qualities within the program, which is going to be active stuff, which is going to be continual inputs. And then you're going to start to see that happen a lot quicker than, you know, thinking of these as two separate things. So I think when you really integrate the two is when you start to see those results happen quickly.

Coach U : 36:51

Yeah, no, it's just interesting knowing, you know, how you guys think about it. I think the neural input thing and the impact that it makes really makes sense to me. Hammering the movement with more force and more isometrics. Talk to me about why that works and how the body responds to that.

eric yavarone: 37:06

I think you get two, you get two birds with one stone, you get both the neurological component and you get the mechanical component, time under tension creates hypertrophy, so the longer the isometric is, the more time under tension, the more remodeling that will go into that on the back end, which covers that mechanical piece. And then conversely, the other way again, when you can build up specific contractions, in those different positions and hold them and build them up for extended periods of time, just builds up the signal,

Coach U : 37:34

I'm sure it changes all the time, but just out of curiosity, what's a ballpark theory that you like to use? Time wise.

eric yavarone: 37:39

yeah, no. It really follows the rules of strength, hypertrophy and muscular endurance, if it's more of a recovery based effort or more of a mechanical driven effort, longer and less intense. So called 60%, 70% whether that's how hard you're actually pushing or how heavy you're loading it. If it's a squat, a lunge, whatever That would be the the prescription for that if it's like hey, this is a high intent day high intensity We're pairing this with a true strength effort a true power effort then well I don't want to do too much time where I fry you. I want to make sure that it's a strength effort And I want to make, but at the same time, it has to be big enough to match whatever we're inputting with the strength loop. That's going to be like five to 10 seconds, one time, five to 10 seconds. And then you got that middle ground where it's like, okay, maybe this is the secondary block or the third block of a lift. And we're getting more into the accessory stuff, more of the movement stuff. We already did our, our heavy duty for the day with the strength and the power. Then maybe that's kind of like your middle ground, which is like your true hypertrophy range, right? So maybe that's like a 15 to 30 second effort at a 80 to 85%, right? Again, whether that's load or internal effort being exerted. So I think those are probably the three that we go to the most frequently. There's just like, what's the, what's the goal? Is it high intent strength? Is it somewhere in the middle to just facilitate or aid into a more less intent movement drill? Or is it a kind of a recovery effort? And then I think that dictates which of those three. Three three plans we take out. If that makes sense.

Coach U : 39:10

Absolutely. It does know. Did you have anything to add onto that?

noah huff: 39:15

Nah, not after that Eric crushed it.

Coach U : 39:18

What does recovery mean to you guys? Like what, what, what is recovery?

eric yavarone: 39:21

We look at it in baseball for the most part, but whoever made baseball is kind of an idiot. They just made a sport that they said, Oh, this ain't that intense. No big deal. We can play it every day, but you're never going to be a hundred percent.

Coach U : 39:32

They didn't use to wear helmets, man. They used to be in each other with the baby.

eric yavarone: 39:35

Yeah, we're getting there. We're getting there. Maybe we'll get like a couple more days off here. But recovery is basically, I think in a training environment, recovery is your process, your ability to actually make the adaptation. So if we input training, that's going to cause a stress, to the body, a calculated one. That's what we're doing. That's our job as strength coaches to get a certain outcome, which is more strength, more power, more size, whatever the goal is. But if you don't have the recovery process, you don't create the adaptation. So if you come back the next day, if you, if you knock yourself down and you don't build yourself back up and you knock yourself down again, we're going the wrong way. We're going down, we're trying to go up. So on the training side, the recovery process is the adaptation process where you actually get the outcome that you're looking to get. So if you don't have it, You're effectively getting nothing. You're just making yourself tired. And then on the sporting side, how can you get yourself good enough to come back the next day? So if you knock yourself down to 50%, we'd come back at. 86 percent the next day. That's better than coming back at 60, right? That gives us a better chance of winning that night. If everybody on the team does that. So you know, recovery is either the actual adaptation or it's for me, or it's the, just, just try to come back as good as you can the next day to be in position to perform again.

noah huff: 40:47

Looking at it from like a nutritional standpoint and restoring energy. So, you know, helping with that adaptation process, restoring glycogen getting your body in the, in the best position that, you know, for the next day to have a great day with, through that, through rehydration, you know, every doing all these things the day before. So a lot of the times it's like, We think of maybe that morning routine, but like, what was your nightly routine that's going to lead to that good morning routine, you know? Cause if you wake up tired and feeling like crap and grumpy and all this, well, it's because you didn't do enough on the front end. The night before to affect and have a good morning. So how, how can we help the athletes have the best mornings you know, have quality meal of, of a balanced meal of protein, good carbohydrates the night before fluids, pumping fluids, but also getting electrolytes, getting sodium in there these different things, different supplements, or even just using things like tart cherry juice and. And these different things to really drive good, good recovery and good sleep where we have good HRV, we have low resting heart rate to really help that adaptation and have a good morning. So I think you know, that that's what recovery is for me.

Coach U : 42:02

Yeah. So from, youth to the pros you know, obviously the pros are going to have a lot different Routines than the young kids are going to have these kids who want to get to that spot, you know, what, what, what goes on at that level? What, what are these athletes like?

eric yavarone: 42:16

The best in my experience, they're consistent and they show up, it's not the the hard work is. When you went over three the night before and it was a long game and we're at game 120, and you come in the next day and it's super easy to just walk in get some food grab your bat and just get in The cage and start start whacking Like that you stop you come in the gym You take your 15 minutes to do your mobility work and mind you like a lot of these guys are type a people too So like they don't really Laying on the ground and doing some 90 90 hip switches is not an enjoyable task for them, So, like, that's important, too. Like, a lot of, a lot of them don't, like, like all the stuff that we ask them to do necessarily, but, they know it's important, and they know it's gonna, it's gonna relate to the game. So, like, it's, it's hard to do that. So, like, the hard work, it's still incredibly hard work. It's just in a much different form of, like, can you stay diligent, and can you stay consistent, and can you show up? To do your 15 minute mobility routine and your 15 minute micro dose lift when you don't really feel like it. Right. And that's the separator for them is, is they continue to show up and they continue to be consistent. They're not always throwing 400 pounds in their back squat and they're not always crushing themselves with workouts, but they show up, they're consistent. And that's really what the hard work is. And at least the game. To me, like baseball, where like consistency in the day to day is kind of the determining factor of what makes you great versus good. So I think just the, the hard work component of it. I don't know. I just think you get more out of showing up four to five days a week and doing something for 30 minutes versus. Twice a week for an hour and a half, you know, like this is kind of what it seems like that, that the more, the more frequent inputs the more consistent ones, that's how you're going to make the biggest change. So I think that's kind of, that's kind of the difference in my mind of, of what these guys kind of consistently do day to day.

noah huff: 44:06

There is this thought process of that. It's you got to grind it out every day and grind it out, grind it out, work hard, you know, all this, and it really does come down to that consistency of being a pro and just And that's, that's why baseball has a minor league system because, you know, guys, even if they go to the best college program in the country, they're not ready to, to be a big leaguer. And they, they can't handle that type of environment and workload. You have to really learn. Yourself. You have to learn your routine and you have to learn what it takes to be consistent, how you can, and I don't know if you've seen like those little memes of like, this is what you think consistency is first, what it actually is, you know, and it's like, you know, it's like a week, you know, it's like seven buckets of water full and then it's like what consistency really is. And it's like full halfway, you know, three quarters, a quarter in it. And that's what it is. It's this continual up and down, but it's. It's sticking to your routine, sticking to those things and just being consistent with it. And I think the other part is that I think that people might think that professional baseball players think that it's do or die every single game or every single at bat or you know, every single inning pitch. Like I've seen players there is a. A player. So I mean, I worked with a player, Michael Grove. So he was a second rounder out of West West Virginia top, you know, got paid well, super popular, all this things through his whole minor league career before he debuted, he won two games. He went to his whole first year in professional baseball. He didn't win a game. And he was absolutely never one time did he say, Oh man, I don't think this is for me. I don't think I can do this. There was never any doubt. He never was negative one time at all. It was the most impressive thing I've ever seen. It was just tunnel vision on like Hey, this is the process. This is part of it. And you know, the guys pitching in the big leagues now. So I think it's just remembering that it's a game of failure and that, you know, you have to really dive into that routine and believe in the process.

Coach U : 46:19

What would you guys say takes you out of the game, takes you, you know, you've seen the guys succeed. I mean, is it the exact opposite of the guys who do succeed?

eric yavarone: 46:27

Yeah. I mean, definitely in a lot of cases I mean, there's obviously a big skill component and you gotta be just incredibly. And there are guys that as much as we're making it seem like everybody comes and sees us every single day and everything's great. Like there's some that don't, or there's some that do just, they are that good, you know, and maybe the longevity piece of it, you know, and taking care of their body in that sense, like. See how that plays out. Some get away with it. Some don't. And that's probably one of them actually now saying that to answer your question, some of it could be you know, injury and things like that where the skills there, but the body breaks down and that kind of gets them out. For other ones. Yeah, we have seen it's unfortunate sometimes, but some guys just don't ever kind of figure it out. And by the time they do their backs against the wall and, and they're on their way out, right. Cause they haven't performed yet. We always kind of talk about there is usually like an aha moment for a lot of them and you see it and you just hope that that aha moment kind of comes before it's too late, you know? But yeah, I do think a lot of times there's the skill component, there's the health component, and then there's the, there's that last component of being the exact opposite of what we're talking about. And just either guys putting way too much pressure on themselves and that inhibits their ability to perform where the other guys are cool, calm and collected going back to the real part of the conversation and that, that confidence is what allows them to perform. Or they just, yeah, it just never really clicks for him. The whole holistic picture of the resources and the things that kind of go into having that high level performance. And it never really clicks for him and maybe they don't maximize their potential performance. So, yeah, those are a couple of things that, that at least I feel like, you know, I've seen in terms of, What doesn't work out for guys sometimes.

noah huff: 47:58

I think sometimes maybe guys will, they were always the best player on the field and they don't realize, you know, that they have to continue to evolve. And continue to develop that routine and, and to, you know, maybe take a different approach to their training than they had in the past because they are starting to get older and they're starting to play more games. So I think that that could potentially be another factor. In addition to everything Eric just talked about.

Coach U : 48:25

Well, as always, every time I talk to you guys and I see you guys, I learned something. I appreciate the insight. I appreciate you guys bringing things down. Cause you know, one is a, as an athlete, you know, I want the athletes, I want you guys to keep bringing the videos, keep bringing the product because I'm going to share it. They're going to learn. We are going to keep putting out the good stuff. Cause there's a lot of stuff out there that I think Young athletes can get inundated with, and it's not important at all. And it's actually probably going to do them more harm than it will, you know, good. So I appreciate you guys taking the time to do this and you know, help make me smarter and help make our listeners smarter and athletes, hopefully who take in all this information a little smarter too. I'm going to drop any links. So if anyone wants to reach out to you guys

eric yavarone: 49:06

yeah, totally. I think we're most most active on Instagram of the social media platforms. Maybe once we get good at that one, we'll branch out a little bit. But I think if, if anybody wants to talk to us, that's probably a, where we're putting out the most content, the most information and be like most likely to get back to somebody pretty quickly. I hope I do it right. It's at five tool connection right now, all written out the word five tool connected as the Instagram. So you can go there, send us a DM. If you want to talk to us there and then our website too shows kind of different offerings we have, that's five tool connection. com. And then if you wanted to email us, we do for athletes, like we do, we do 15 minute kind of strategy sessions with, with parents and kids that you just want to learn more about yourself as an athlete and ask a couple of questions of what we would kind of. Think might be a good route for you. You can send us an email at the letter or letter, the number five, and then the letters, TC five, TC at five tool connection. com. And we'll get right back to you on that. And we can get on the phone and we can, we can talk through some stuff to there.

Coach U : 50:02

Awesome. I love it. Noah and Eric. Thank you guys for joining and giving us some great information. I appreciate that. Thank you guys so much for joining.

eric yavarone: 50:11

Thank you, man. I appreciate you having us. This was fun.

noah huff: 50:14

You. Appreciate it.