Better Coaching, Better Athletes: The Missing Piece with Stephen Whyte

What if the problem isn’t your athletes… but how they’re being coached?

In this episode, I sit down with Coach Steven Whyte to break down what actually drives performance in youth athletes—and why the traditional “push harder” approach often misses the mark.

We dive into how gamification, competition, and smarter coaching strategies can create real buy-in, better effort, and stronger long-term development.

This isn’t about making training easy.
 It’s about making it effective.

We also cover:

•  Why athletes lose motivation (and how to fix it) 
•  The role of fun in high-level performance 
•  How to communicate with different types of athletes 
•  Why perfect reps aren’t the goal early on 
•  Understanding pain, overtraining, and recovery 
•  Building consistency without burnout 

If you’re a coach, parent, or athlete looking to improve performance without losing engagement, this episode will change how you approach training.

👉 Instagram: @coach_whyte

Transcript

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Coach 0:16

Steven, thank you so much for joining us.

Steve 0:18

John, thanks for having me on, man. I've been looking forward to our conversation

Coach 0:22

I really wanna dive right in and ask you like what happened to the fun in the coaching world and in the training world?

Steve 0:27

You know, I think it's always been there in some senses. And, and like anything else with, with training, I think come and go with waves, just like fashion, things coming in, fashion and out of fashion. I know when I was coming up, my coaches were all fans of Herb Brooks. If you've seen the movie, movie Miracle, not a lot of fun and not a lot of smiles and laughing during the during the lead up to the Olympics the coaches that coached me when I was growing up seemed to all be fans of Herb Brooks because there was a lot of high intensity and yelling, and not that they were bad coaches, but this was just what was in vogue Which, you know, had its place and had its values and, and, and I definitely derived a lot of value from it whether it was from actual, you know, positive outcomes or from learning things that, that didn't work for me or didn't work for people around me. So that was very much my experience coming up as, as an athlete I just emulated the coaches that I had growing up. I didn't, I didn't have my voice, I didn't have my style. And none of us start off that way. Like the, you know, we all start copying what we experienced growing up. I'm not inherently a hard ass or someone who takes themself too seriously. So it did not it probably didn't come off genuine when I was trying to. Play that way to my players early on and, and, and emulate these coaches who, who were that for me.

Coach 1:42

Gimme, gimme an example of that. I'm really curious.

Steve 1:44

I mean, it just didn't feel authentic for me. And, and I know a lot of it was probably, you know, working through the nerves of being a younger coach and feeling that, you know, feeling like I had to prove myself. You know, I, I wasn't comfortable in who I was and, and, and didn't have that validation yet. That's not to say I'm someone without, without standards and without expectations. I am consistent and regimented and disciplined with many areas of my life. So that's not to say I, I don't have expectations for my players or for my athletes. Like, I, I want you to have success and in order for you to have success. Like it can't be all sunshine and roses. Like we need to have expectations that we uphold. But. I found that we can achieve that without it being scary and miserable all the time. All the time. But you know, through reps and through experience and through time, I found my voice and became more comfortable in, in who I was and my style, and found that my style can be effective if I do it the right way. It doesn't have to be, you know, drill sergeant coach in order to get things done.

Coach 2:46

Let's, let's talk about gamification, because that was the, the first thing I saw from your page

Steve 2:53

You can elicit the same outcomes, if not better outcomes, as like, you know, the, the hardass drill sergeant approach where it's all intensity all the time. You can elicit that intensity and that buy-in just as well, if not better, when it's things are gamified. Like it'd be be, we're all athletes, we're all incentivized by, by competition and by fun. It it elicits that exactly what I want. It's gamification with a purpose. You know, nothing's random, you know, there's randomness, but controlled randomness. So I'm getting the stimulus, I'm, they're getting the inputs. I'm getting the outputs from them that I need to get the things that I want for them in the way of adaptation. But it looks oftentimes it looks like fun. And, and, and, you know, some sessions look a little bit more what you light might expect, like a traditional s and c session to look. You know, if I give a kid a tennis ball and some challenges to do with a tennis ball, they're gonna be 10 times more bought into the session than if we just get on the line and do a dynamic stretch back and forth and go back. You know, that just, it makes me wanna fall asleep. They've been sitting at school all day listening to directions. I think the last thing that they want to do is come into to our sessions and then listen to me give directions rather than I'll give you a task and a challenge, something that I know that's gonna light you up and, and, and create this rich environment that you're interacting with. And I can kind of just sit off to the side and let you. Wake up and engage and then we'll flow into our session. The gamification of you know, there's games that look like games, but then gamifying the training too. As far as the jumps you know, that's what really gets big outputs as well. We, you know, we have all the, the cool toys. We have the vault equipment, so we can track sprint, we can track our jumps. We've got the vertex for jumps, all that stuff. Great for collecting data, but in my opinion, better for eliciting buy-in and big outputs from the kids. So using the tools, you know half the time I, I'm keeping note, you know, kind of mentally of like, okay, this kid's times are getting better, their distances are getting better, their jumps are getting better. They just want to compete with themselves and with their friends. They're just so, they're, they're getting this data and it's, it's a game for them. Yeah, there's a bunch of different ways we, we, we use it in the gym and I, I think, again, as effective, if not more of effective of a tool than you know, the other end of the spectrum,

Coach 5:13

What have you seen from the kids the number one benefit to, to gamifying

Steve 5:18

just the buy-in and the willing, the want to go and do another rep and do it better,

Coach 5:24

Hmm.

Steve 5:24

Without me having to, to push it's intrinsically motivating. If it's a good drill. can sit back and then they just let it rip. And I, at a certain point have to be like, all right guys, we gotta stop and move on to something else. And

Coach 5:35

Right, right.

Steve 5:36

a drill that I have to like, reel them in and be like, Hey, we gotta do something else, because, you know, we only have so much time. That's a, a good drill. So a good game will do everything. I, I need it to do with, you know, you can look at it like, like lazy coaching. I look at it like that's, that's a good drill. Whatever the constraints, whatever the rules are of the drill they're getting, it's getting them to do the thing they want to do. I forget where I heard this. We're also willing to do for longer without really realizing that we're

Coach 6:04

Yep.

Steve 6:04

It's, it's less fatiguing. Like we only have this like bandwidth or this well of, of grind, right? How many kids are gonna do an extra sprint because it's something that's fun versus just being on the line and going back and forth.

Coach 6:19

Yep.

Steve 6:19

you know, we're getting quality work, we're getting more work and it doesn't feel as fatiguing 'cause they're not having to push through something that, that they hate doing. Now, now there's value in pushing through things that are uncomfortable and, and discomfort and there's places for that in training as well. Obviously it's a big part of training and I'm a big proponent of that. But it doesn't have to be all misery all the time.

Coach 6:43

No, I think it, it could, it could be easily misconstrued as that's kind of how training is. And I think for a lot of people it can be that, and especially for kids. They're just, they're kids. You said something about the numbers too, and them seeing the numbers that are, you know, all their, their runtime, their jump scores there with all of that. It's easy to get lost as a coach in the numbers, and we need to improve the numbers. That's, that's what matters. But I don't think people realize, parents and, and their athletes to hit a PR on anything, the stars have to align that day. You've had to have great sleep. Your nutrition's gotta be on point. Stressors gotta be low we can't really say what's gonna give you that pr or beat your time. So how do you combat that and how do you have communications with the kids?

Steve 7:28

Funny you said that there's been a number of teaching moments for exactly what you just said. Like testing days, we will test at the beginning of, of, of the season and at the end of the season. And by and large we see upward trends. That's what you wanna see, but not always, as you said, like the, as you said, the stars have to align. So this is that exact thing has resulted in a lot of teaching moments of me talking through kids of, you could jump one height one day and then jump a totally different height the next day. You know, and, and then we talk about the factors that might lend themselves to a good day versus a bad day. So it becomes a teaching moment I can spin it that way, and they walk away having a better understanding of stress in their body and recovery and what, where big outputs come from. So that's kind of a positive spin we can use on it. And then the other way we can bat it is we have, I, I, like, I bake those things into training all the time. So there's not just like a, Hey, today's the big day. Today's the combine day where you know, it's do or die today and nothing else matters afterwards. We're getting jumps on the jump mat, on the vertech. We're getting sprints with the, the sprint timers every week. And, and I'll do different versions of it, different distances, I'll make different games with the things. So they're always getting data and, and so if they hit a pr it's kind of a surprise. And that, as you said, we do it frequently, the stars are gonna align a number of those days. So they'll get chances to see good scores. They'll have days when they have bad scores. And then again, that will just result in a conversation about, okay, well how did you sleep last night? What did you do this week? Are you, you know, did you drink any water yesterday? What did you eat yesterday? So it, it can be educational. Largely because we do it with such frequency, there's not these big devastating moments where like, oh, this was the only day to get the score. And then there's that big let down.

Coach 9:16

I wanted to talk about experience, your experience as a teacher and how that's helped you translate that into the strength and conditioning world as a coach and to be able to be a communicator to your athletes.

Steve 9:28

I've been in sports and, and teaching and coaching for a long time, but I feel like in some ways that my my strength and conditioning career is, is kind of in its infancy. I've only been doing it professionally for five years, full-time, only for three years, but it's always been a part of my life in some capacity. But all that to say that there's times where I wish you know, I wish I started it sooner. I wish you know, I majored in some kind of science, something helpful, exercise science. Can you see something in college? But that's just not that, that, that wasn't my path. I was a special education teacher. And during that time, I, as I mentioned, I also coached hockey and I also coached unified Track, which is Special Olympics track. So as much as sometimes I wish that I started, you know, in on the X's and O's of coaching and strength and conditioning my time teaching was pro probably as valuable as, as all that would've been. You know, may, there's always time to learn the X's and O's and the, you know, we're all perpetually learning those things. There's, there's too much to learn, to know it all. So we're all gonna be perpetual learners with the, with the X's and O's. But as far as developing my communication the delivery of the X's and O's, my, my teaching and and coaching experience before strength and conditioning was just, was invaluable for that stuff. Having experience working with a bunch of different learners and different personalities none of those kids came from awesome situations. There, you know, stuff was going on at home. You know, not in the picture. Mom's not in the picture. Mom or dad is an addict of some kind or has their own issues going on. Nobody finds the, those kids don't find themselves in situations because they come from awesome situations. So all that to say some pretty difficult moments at times with, with that demographic. But I found if, if I can. Make connections or communicate effectively with those kids. And I certainly didn't do it perfectly all the time. And I don't still don't do things perfectly all the time in the way of communication, but that was really formative in, in, in cutting my teeth with learning how to communicate with people who don't always necessarily want to be communicated with. And I think particularly, and maybe uniquely so in, in the special education world where you're, you are communicating to learners of, vast spectrum of abilities. Some kids are, you know, more auditory learners, some kids are more visual learners. Communication is prob is your number one skill as a coach. You can have all the information in the world. If you can't effectively communicate that information, then, then you have nothing. Sometimes effective communication is backing off and saying nothing. What you want out out of the moment not mean beating someone over the head with, with words and trying to get to them if they're not ready to receive that thing.

Coach 12:16

How do you go about communicating to different learners and using different kinds of languages?

Steve 12:22

I, I mean, you need to know the person first, obviously. So I think doing the, laying the groundwork of understanding who they are and there might be a fair, you know, you get better at this and, and kind of I guess for lack of a better term, profiling different people and saying, you know, okay, this person reminds me of this, or I can kind of put them in this bucket to maybe expedite my time to learning how to communicate to them effectively. And with all generalizations, they're not always a hundred percent accurate, but usually they're useful in, in speeding things up. But. There's a fair bit of trial and error that goes with it. And, and sometimes you try stuff and it, it doesn't work again. Like, you know, hearkening back to my, my teaching days, like, you have a thing or a method or maybe a coaching cue that, oh, this works with everybody. This is like a no-brainer. And then you get until you get to the kid who it doesn't work with. So you gotta, you have to get creative and, and, and, and give yourself grace too and be patient with the process. Sometimes don't, things don't click in a session. Sometimes things don't click in a month. Some kids walk in the door and they, they're right at home and they warm right up and they're, they're, they're the easy ones. You know, you could say anything you want to 'em, and, and they, they figure it out. They can take anything. And then there's the kids who are a little bit more challenging, a little bit more reserved for, for whatever reason. And sometimes you find out why and sometimes you don't. But I, you know, I've had kids that have taken a month or a couple months to, to warm up, you know, especially if you get a kid who only comes in one or two times a week you're, that's only a, a few hours a month that you have to, to build your rapport and, and, and figure them out. So sometimes it just, it takes time and, and, and I think understanding that and respecting that it helps as well, and not feeling like you have to, you know, get everything perfect on the first day or in within one session.

Coach 14:08

How have you navigated the personalities individually versus when they're in a group setting? What have you seen and how have you navigated that?

Steve 14:18

Well, yeah, I mean, you hit it on the head, like there's, there's individual personalities and then there's the personality of the group. And, and it's usually the bigger personalities will dictate the personality of the group. Usually it's, and again, not all generalizations are a hundred percent accurate, but usually it's the good athletes who tend to be a little bit louder and dictate the, the mood of the group or the personality of the group. I think making an ally in those athletes is a good play. Even if they're you know, being, even if they have that kind of arrogance, that kind of turns you off at sometimes making an ally of those, those players and almost enlisting them to be a captain of the group. Having them demonstrate the drills 'cause a, you know, they're gonna do a good job. But then, okay, now I have some purpose and I have something that I, I want to show to the group. If you get them on board and you get them engaged with the session then that's, you know, that's gonna have a huge bearing on how the session it goes, goes for everybody else. And sometimes you gotta nip 'em in the bud, you know, if they're, you know, doing things that are fun and, and, and, you know, we talked about the gamification, but if they can't handle it or if they're, they're behaving in a way that's a, a detriment to the productivity of other people in the group. Sometimes you gotta just be blunt and, and nip 'em in the bud. Nobody wants to be embarrassed in front of the group. I've learned that from teaching too. So you can call the person out in front of the group. N nobody enjoys that. And, and that might turn into a little bit of a power struggle, or I don't want to look like I just got, you know, told. So, you know, just having a quick word with them off to the side Hey man, let's reel it in a little bit today. Let's have a good session. You know, whatever, whoever it is, whatever you gotta say to 'em. Depending on the kid, what they need. Most kids in the gym are, they're there for a reason. They, they know why they're there. They, they, they enjoy the process. So it's much, you know. of the time I'm not having to do like a tap dance to try to get them to buy what I'm selling. More often than not, it's reeling in excitable kids who are just kids.

Coach 16:21

Yeah.

Steve 16:22

online and just having a semblance of control within the chaos. Like, I like a fair bit of chaos. I like a fair bit of games but as long as it's productive, chaos and, and productive games.

Coach 16:34

Well, and let's, that kind of leads into the next thing that we talked about and I really wanna discuss with you is the, the ego being checked at the door, especially as a coach, because there are gonna be times, and I know I've been through this, where you write up a program, you have everything set, but then not everything turns out the way that you expected or the way you envisioned. So I wanna talk to you about the ego needing to be checked at the door and why it's okay for an athlete to not do something exactly like you planned for them.

Steve 17:01

Oftentimes as coaches, we, we see our role as like needing to fix and perfect every little thing. And to a certain degree, like we do need to facilitate like good techniques and, and things that things done in ways that we see to be productive or moving them towards their goal or, or, or physically moving in a way that's more efficient. But I think oftentimes we forget. How many crappy reps that we did in our career growing up, and how many times we didn't do things the right way or, or did things inefficiently. And certainly our job is, or part of our job, is to try to expedite the process from A to B. You know, not that that B is some, it's not, it doesn't exist, there's no finish line. We can always get better, but try to expedite the time to mastery or to improvement. But a big part of that is failed reps and doing things not well and doing things that look ugly and, you know, deadlifting with a gross, you know, form, you know, whatever the thing might be. Let them get some crappy reps and let them, and, and have our conversations about it and not, you know, just be so quick to jump in and try to adjust and move everything. You know, if somebody does something that I think is, is dangerous or they might get hurt, then yes, I'm gonna jump in and I'm gonna, I'm gonna put a stop to it. But again, we, we, if we think back to how many really reps or bad decisions or bad, you know, whatever crappy technique that we went through ourselves and survived and maybe learned something from it, maybe got a little bit banged up, but we learned something from it and, and that's how we got to improvement or got to mastery of the thing as part of the process. There's value in that and, and I understand like, yes, we, we should try to expedite that a bit and, and maybe help them avoid some of the pitfalls. Yeah, some of those pitfalls are necessary too. So, and that there's a, you know, that's kind of a moving target. There's a balance to that. But letting kids do things that look ugly sometimes and stepping in and guiding and kind of bumping them in the right direction. But understanding like, this is a process. It's not gonna be perfect on day one. It's not gonna be perfect in this session. It's, you know, some athletes might get it right away and right away and others might not. Not feeling like you have to, you know, back to the ego like you have to, everybody, everybody under my supervision in front of me has to do it perfectly right now. That's a little bit of an ego trip, a little bit of a power trip. So remembering that all the crap you went through, all the bad reps you went through, and, and, and, and that's part of the process.

Coach 19:34

Our job as coaches is not just to teach the X's and O's and to teach squash and bench press and how to jump and run. It's really lessons and it's really getting the kids through all the movements, but then understanding things, teaching moments. You made a post and I loved it because it's normally looked at as negative to overtrain, but you turned it into a positive we can take something from that as a lesson. How have you used over training and your experience with over training to help your athletes?

Steve 20:05

I love this topic. First and foremost, you know. Where the line is unless you cross it. And now that's a tricky thing because don't want kids necessarily to cross the line at the expense of their health getting hurt in the gym under your supervision. That's not a good thing to do. But anybody who's honest that's a coach would admit that they have crossed the line themselves at some point in time and maybe bang themselves up. You know, maybe we're a little too sore for too many days after maybe tore their hamstring doing sprints Through all these experiences, every coach, if we had a diagram of their body, could, you know, show you a map of all the ways that they got injured, all the thing, you know, all the bad decisions they've made.

Coach 20:49

Yep. Yep.

Steve 20:51

But through those things, we've probably learned more than the average bird about our body our, our bodies and, and injuries and working through them and expectations of, you know, return to play and what that actually looks like. So there's so much value that's been derived from it. And then from a training standpoint, now I have data points of what, what, what happens when I do x? What tends to happen when I do X? So you get to know like, you know, what's acceptable discomfort and what's discomfort that I need to respect I gave myself patella tendinopathy, jumper's knee in both knees I was just training hard for, for too long. I was peaking everything, I don't wanna lose my numbers. I gotta keep going. I gotta keep jumping. I was dunking, I was hitting big lifts. Things were good from an output standpoint point, but I just had it revved up for too long. So I, I gave myself jumper's knee in both knees. There were warning signs leading up to it that I, I, I failed to pay attention to. Because I, I have meathead tendencies. I ignored the warning signs and kept going and kept going until it became a real problem and I still have, you know, I, I, I'm still have to respect, my knees and, and do things differently and, and take things into consideration. Now, take my, you know, my number of impacts into consideration. There's been so much that I've learned from that injury essentially rehabbing myself. And so I learned a bunch about tend, I learned about how to, how to progress myself. I learned about expectations. I learned about timelines. All these things I took away from it. Now I have this, this wealth of knowledge that I can impart on, on athletes who might be going through the same thing. Again, the warning signs, things discomfort that you can work through versus discomfort that you need to respect. So now I have these data points of like, okay, like. you know, in this realm, in this area, that's a discomfort. That's okay. You know, that at, at most, that will flare me up tomorrow and then I'll be fine for the rest of the week. Or that's, I need to shut things down right now. That's, that's not a good feeling or this is not a good day for impacts. I'm not demonstrating plyometrics in the group, you know, for, for the group today. I'm, I'm having someone else demonstrate them for me. So yeah, that, that's just one example of you know, the, the acceptable discomfort versus the the red flags that you gotta pay attention to.

Coach 23:17

You said you had some warning signs with your knee It's a really big skill that gets overlooked as a trainee, someone who is train, you have to understand your body and everyone's different. Your signs are probably gonna be different than mine. And I do think it's really important for athletes, kids, parent, everybody really to understand pain and the nuances of it and how your body operates. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

Steve 23:43

Sure. Yeah. I mean, I, I always think just kind of as an overarching principle, like we should be working to work ourselves out of a job as a, as coaches.

Coach 23:53

Yeah.

Steve 23:53

way of, you know, I don't want my kids to have to come to me or my clients every time they have an ache and pain and be like, what does this mean? What does it mean? I want it to, to, to truly like squeeze the most out of strength and conditioning and out of training requires. Understanding of oneself, as you said, like I, I can listen to you, I can, I can guide you, I can provide suggestions, but I'm not in your body. I don't feel what you feel. I don't know what's going on. So if I can build understanding with those things, then, then we're gonna be winning on both fronts, because you can make decisions outside of the gym that are going to help you out. And, you know, whether it's a performance thing, whether it's a recovery or a health thing the more that you know, and the more that you're in touch with your body, the better results we're gonna get. So we're both gonna be winning. Like, I've, I've done my job better. You, you know, you're, you're jumping higher, you're running faster, you're doing it for longer without injury. Those are all good things and you are performing, you're healthy and you're feeling good. The gurus who are like, oh, I have all the answers, and I, you know, they, they, they kind of, lord that that power trip over the clients or over their community or over their athletes, whatever it might be. And try to make things as confusing as possible so that only I have, I have the knowledge, I have the sacred knowledge red flags there. I think a, a, a good coach is trying to do the opposite. They're trying to make things as digestible and as understandable as possible. Because ultimately, if you truly want results for the person, you want them ha to have the best understanding of the process and of themselves, and of stressors and of, you know, recovery modalities, all the things, all the ingredients. The better they have that understanding, the, the, the more you're both gonna win.

Coach 25:32

Man, I, I, if I could go back and really think about all the, like you said, the dumb things we did and learning from our mistakes and being able to take something away from it, knowing oneself is the number one thing. You can listen to people all day. They're gonna tell you what works and hey, pieces of it might, and it might actually work for you. But you really have to catalog what your body feels like mentally, what's happening when you're in pain too. Because I think it's really easy for people to just stop when there's pain. And we've been told for a long time, right? You rest, you don't, you don't touch it. You gotta ice it. And, and pain is bad. I do not believe that at all. I think pain is an indication and I think it's a, a, a warning symbol signal, just like you said. It's a, a measure of where we're at and being able to stop for a second. Find what's tolerable, and stay just below that. Because you want to have that threshold somewhere near where you're training. You wanna be in that threshold, but not so much to where it's intolerable or you are causing more harm. What you feel and what you know about your body is gonna be the most important thing because you're the one who's gonna have to navigate the process no matter who's helping you.

Steve 26:41

Yeah, no doubt, man. And, and, and people get into these cycles of like always shopping out to other people, which you should, as you said, like you, you should seek a professional, you should seek a good professional or a professional's help, but a good professional, big part of their job, I I if they want to be effective and not just have you on the hook to have to come in every week for, you know, in for perpetuity should be that education piece where they're building that understanding. People get into these cycles where it's always shopping out their feelings to to, to other people, and never really taking the time to build that understanding themselves. And then they're just on this endless cycle of, I feel pain, I go to someone else, I feel pain, I go to someone else, and really not building like the, the tools to be able to handle that themselves. And they, so they, they're dependent, forever dependent. And oftentimes they, they wind up limited. And rather than seeking to understand and kind of poke into the pain and, and get it, and rather than avoiding, seeking and re as you said, re rebuilding that tolerance and, and, and convincing yourself, you know, you know, again, these are all things that a professional should help you do, but not just building capacity back in the tissues if things are injured, but also the confidence in yourself and reassuring your nervous system. Like they, this is okay, we can do these things again without all these pain signals going off. It is interesting to see at different levels with different athletes and different people, you know, from youth all the way up to adults, people's relationship with pains, relationships with their pain, and, and, and how it dictates their decision making. It impacts their life.

Coach 28:20

It does.

Steve 28:21

you might have a kid that, you know, falls down and, and, and like. looked like it hurt a lot, and they bounce right back up in their, you know, they're in pain, but they, they want to keep going versus someone who's like, oh, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not coming in today because something kind of, you know, my whatever is aching or, you know there was endless examples, but it's, it's interesting to see the different relationships with, with pain and, and and, and how it drives people's decision making and, and, and their quality of life.

Coach 28:49

Yeah, I think the quality of life thing gets overlooked a lot because we first go to, oh, well now I can't train, and we don't think about what that effect has on our daily lives. But I mean. Literally it's everything. And I can, and I'm sure you've been through your, your injuries, I've been through mine, and the mentality you have to have to be resilient against it. You have to be very understanding of the process and respectful of that process. Because no matter if it's pain that you're trying to get out of, if it's, you're trying to pr your bench, press, your sprint times, whatever you're working towards, you need to be, as you said, rigid in consistency. And so I want to ask you, what does that mean to you rigidity, in consistency.

Steve 29:32

From a physiological like xs and o standpoint, like you, you, you're always getting exposure to the stimulus or the things, and we can extrapolate that out to anything that we're trying to get better at. But constant exposure. So we're getting the adaptations. We do, we we're building the, the capacity to do the thing. Again, whether it's a, a, a physiological thing, a psychological thing, you know, public speaking, whatever, whatever it might be, you're getting exposures to the thing. More and more. It seems important to do the thing frequently and to do the thing consistently consistently more than it is to do a huge dose of the thing all at once. So having those routines in place, that discipline in place to continuously, and it's such when you, when you step back and zoom out, it's such a no do thing, right? If you, you want to be good at something or you want your body to change what? do it a lot. You do a lot. So you, you, but you can't do too much at once. You have to do it in a way that's sustainable over time. So you get the appropriate doses at the right times, at the right intensities. And you, and you do it consistently over time. So being rigid within that. Our previous conversation I think we talked about variation within consistency too,

Coach 30:47

Yes,

Steve 30:47

also important.

Coach 30:48

yes.

Steve 30:49

so f finding ways to make the same stuff feel fresh and feel new and feel engaging. So, you know, we could tie this into games, like I'm having the kids sprint on the same 30 yards of turf week. week we're sprinting on the same 30 yards of turf. So how many different ways can I make that engaging and feel? We're still getting sprints at the end of the day. We're just, we're sprinting down the, the, the turf. But how can I, how many different flavors of that can I come up with? And, and, and, and you know what? And sometimes it's, it doesn't feel fresh all the time. You know, how many different times or different ways can you, you squat? There's plenty of different ways to squat, but ultimately, you know, there's only so many patterns of human movement. So we're not reinventing, we're not finding new patterns. And if anybody's finding them, then I, I don't know about them, that there's the same seven patterns that we're, that, that we're doing. And there's only so many ways to do that. So they're also embracing those moments where it doesn't feel and it doesn't feel engaging. And I, I mean, I, I go through that myself. And I think that it's a big part of why it's important for coaches to train too, is, is understanding that concept of, you know, it's not gonna be, there's gonna be ebbs and flows to your enthusiasm about the process, but finding ways to stay with the process. For the vast majority of people, if you can do something consistently enough with the right intent and the right purpose, like you're probably gonna get pretty good at it. Certainly better than the average bird. I'm pretty damn consistent with, with not everything in life, but the things that matter to me and the things that I care about. But there's periods too where our, I, I'll fall off too and, you know, whatever, you know, life happens, right? We all know that life happens. You, you know, you have a greater stress load than than other weeks. And, you know, maybe you only got two sessions in, you know, on a bad week or, you know, whatever the thing might be. But so the other skill too, is able to get back on the horse because momentum is powerful in both directions. I recently had a little dip. I'm good for like a, you know, a maybe a. Biannual or maybe quarterly dip in like where I just feel flat and you start to question things you don't have the enthusiasm for the process, whatever the process might be, if it's training, if it's career, if it's whatever it might be. And I'm just coming out of one and, and finally feeling good that it only lasts a couple days and I'm down and I'm like, I know it's gonna be okay. being able to course correct quickly and have faith in, in yourself that I'm not gonna ride this negative momentum into and, and it's gonna turn into a week, into a month into, and then, you know, you get, and then you, you're so far off the path, it's, it gets harder and harder to get back on.

Coach 33:43

Do you have anything that you turn to that helps you that you know that'll get you out of that?

Steve 33:48

For me, lifting weights no, no. For me, it's it's interesting man, because when I, when I get into those, funks and, and again, I don't know if it's seasonal, I used to always have one after hockey season when I was coaching. I would call it like the hockey, the hockey hangover. 'cause you're just going for, for three and a half months and like, you're the captain of the ship, so you can't have an off day. So you gotta bring it, you gotta bring it when you're sick. You gotta be the, you know, it's not perfect every day, but you have, you're steering the ship. So then hockey would end. And then I feel like I would just like deflate and I'm out of dopamine, I'm out of enthusiasm and I, I, I'm not the person who I like to think I am all the time. during these times, I always feel like untethered my routine, like my identity, who I think that I am, who I like to think that I am on a day-to-day basis. I feel untethered from that. If I could wave a magic wand and like, snap myself out of it, I would. I found that it, it just, it takes some time and the more I can cling to like my big pillars, which are really simple things, dude. Exercise going to bed on time eating good food,

Coach 34:55

Yep. Yep.

Steve 34:57

during these times too, it can be easy to be like, oh, you know, I, I'll just get drunk. I'll just get high, you know, whatever the thing might

Coach 35:03

Mm-hmm.

Steve 35:04

look for like quick fixes, quick dopamine, hits, and, and, and you can do those things. But we all, you always feel worse afterwards. 'cause like now, you know, maybe I felt good for a moment, but now I feel the down that you get that rebound and now I feel down again and worse because that's not actually good for me.

Coach 35:24

Wanted to talk about and this is gonna rub so many communities the wrong way, but you know what, I don't care anymore because I've been sitting here watching, like you said, ins Instagram and Facebook. And wherever we see our social media stuff and posts, there's gonna be controversial topics. There's gonna be people just trying to get attention. But it seems like as coaches, especially in the training world, that there are so many modalities. And instead of building our toolbox with all of the different modalities and using them for what they're supposed to be used, or when the best scenario is, it's like I, hey, there's a nail there. I'm probably gonna use a hammer. The fitness industry may be like, no, the screwdriver here can do everything. How do you navigate all of these different realms with respect to what they offer? And then also utilize them in your toolbox.

Steve 36:10

How much time do you have? Couple things there, man. I don't even know where to start. If someone is all in if they have, you know, the magic wand and all other modalities are, you know, no good a I think they're telling on themselves. They're more concerned with marketing and with sales than they are with actually educating. They're either are, are shameless and just business and wanting power and wanting want to portray themselves as the all-knowing guru. If that's their motivation or they're telling on themselves that they are ignorant and they don't actually understand, and conditioning, fitness, the human body, how dynamic it is, how different each person's body is, and how you can elicit a bunch of different ways and get people better or moving better or performing better a bunch of different ways. There's so many ways to skin a cat, every single good coach understands that. We should be seeking to, to, to work ourselves out of a job, to not be the guru, to empower the people. 'cause they have how many hours in the week we only get them a few hours a day or a few hours a week. So to actually, to actually get people better, to actually have them recover better and perform better and understand stress, we, we need to educate them and empower them to do that thing. So if I'm the all known guru who has the one thing and the one answer, and I, I only have the answers that you're trying to keep people on the hook, you, you, you, you are running a cult and, and, and you're, you're, you're not actually, you don't actually have the people's best interest in mind. What drives me nuts is that like you, you'll see these different communities, they'll have these, like this, this. following of people who will like, go to war for them. And that's not even a slight at their modalities,

Coach 37:59

Right.

Steve 37:59

actually do. Like,

Coach 38:00

There's so many positive things that you can gain from their modalities. It's just a matter of how they're approaching it to explain it and teach it to others.

Steve 38:08

Exactly. In my opinion, it's promoting more confusion in an already like, muddied, confusing industry. It's just adding fuel to that fire getting people less connected with themselves and with their bodies and more dogmatic than pragmatic, more just in on the tools than what's actually happening in my, happening in my body and understanding stimulus and inputs and all these things that actually affect me. You're just hyper fixating on one, one piece because one guy with, with, with who speaks with confidence and has good marketing tactics is pushing this one thing.

Coach 38:43

Yep. Well, with all that said, now I do want to hear the positive side in how you could take these kinds of methods, theories exercises how can you utilize them in, into your own training and your coaching.

Steve 38:57

That's my, my favorite part of, of, of strength and conditioning. And probably what makes it really hard to actually market strength and conditioning is, is that it borrows and steals all the great things from all the different arenas. You know, you got your, your, your power lifting, you got training like your sprinting, your plyometrics, you've got your mobility stuff joint health stuff. You could be, if you went all in just on one of those, right? All if you went all in on the, the meathead stuff you know, the nose bleeding, which I have a bias and a tendency towards. But if you went all that, that could be a cult in and of itself too. If you're all bought in on any one modality, you're, you're missing pieces of the pie, right? We're complex. We need different inputs. Performance is complex. Probably have some really low hanging fruit in some other areas that you're missing out on. So just, and, and, and again, that's the beauty of SNC is it takes from all the different camps. The, the goal is, is performance and health and feeling good. So we measure the effectiveness of the tools our performance. You know, if you're doing these, if you're part of whatever movement cult or you're doing whatever classes, not to, not all classes are bad but there's really no measure of like, are we actually getting better? Are we actually getting stronger? Might feel better, and that's a good thing. That's a positive thing. You might feel better. There might be something that you enjoy doing that that adds value to your life. And those are positive things too. Like there's, there's absolutely as much value in that as there is in the physical things. Strength and conditioning is held accountable to those qualitative and quantitative things. Like we're, we're, we're measuring, we're checking in, we're doing assessments. We, we have number data. I have anecdotal data. I have feedback from my athletes of how we're feeling, and I can see how you're performing. So we don't have the luxury of being dogmatic in, in our approaches. And if you are, then you're, you're probably not gonna be in business for very long.

Coach 41:03

All wise words, and I've learned a lot from this conversation. I know parents and athletes and other coaches are gonna take a lot away from this as well. I want the people to be able to reach out to you if they want to connect. So if anyone wants to connect with you, where can they find your content and how can they connect with you?

Steve 41:20

Yeah, probably the easiest is Instagram. I'm Coach White and that's white with A-Y-W-H-Y-T-E coach underscore white on Instagram is probably where I'm most easily accessible. And if, if you want to connect, shoot me a DM and I'll be pretty good bit getting getting back to you pretty quickly.

Coach 41:36

Awesome. I will put all that in the show notes as well. So if you're listening right now and you don't have a moment to write this down or you, you don't have the hands free, you can click on the links in the show notes. Just go on ahead down there and you'll be able to connect with Steven that way. Steven, man, thank you so much for, for connecting. I really appreciate your time and your knowledge

Steve 41:54

yeah, likewise brother. Thanks, John.

Coach 41:56

Appreciate you man.