- Speaker #0
Let me tell you about Arch, where I get all my clothes and honestly what I am wearing right now on this podcast. They nail that perfect balance between style and comfort without breaking the bank. From the first time I was in the shop, the experience with Arch has been incredible. The personalized recommendations, attention to detail, and delivery is what really sets them apart. Whether on the golf course, hitting the gym, or heading into the office, Arch has me covered with polished, elevated pieces that keep me feeling confident, comfortable, and stylish all day. They make sure every aspect of your wardrobe is taken care of, blending versatility with a premium feel, all while keeping it accessible. If you're looking for a brand that delivers an exceptional experience from start to finish, Arch is where you'll find it. Visit them in the Van Aken District in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and let them know you heard them on The Journey Podcast. Welcome to The Journey Podcast, a show dedicated to health, wealth, and happiness. Join us on the journey how we explore the world your health and wealth make possible. Welcome back to the journey podcast. Today we are joined by Buddy Hutanis. Buddy's a sports scientist with experience working alongside elite athletes, world cup winners, and professionals along with being a father, husband, son, and an athlete. Buddy, thanks for joining me today. I really appreciate it.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, thanks for having me on. I'm looking forward to us catching up a little bit and also sharing some of my experience.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. And you say catching up, you know, kind of set it up because you and I go back quite some time. I moved to Arizona in 2006. And I think I met you probably within 18 months or so of moving out that way. And, you know, when I would say one thing you and I, you know, got close over the years, a lot of it because of something I talk a lot about on this podcast, you know, running sports, Ironman, and all the other things. But I'll kind of take a bigger step back because I'm sure we'll get to that in more detail. But tell me how you got here, right? I use the term sports scientist to open up, but I know you've kind of served a number of different roles to get here. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about that.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, it's definitely been a little bit of a journey. I think within sports now, all of this is kind of a holistic approach, whether you have sports science. You have sports medicine, you have performance, different arms that are more integrated than ever now. But originally, graduating from college, I actually had a sports medicine background as an athletic trainer with a leg of sports performance. That led me to finding my first position out in Arizona, working in a PT clinic that did outpatient rehab, but also youth performance within soccer teams in the run. So it was a great place because I was able to kind of hone in on some of my sports medicine skills, but also led me to a little bit of a transition more into the performance side, while also being able to train for triathlon, get more involved in the endurance side of things, which I didn't really start until my senior year of college. So it was a nice spot. And then... It led me to meeting people like yourself and others, but to where I was able to not only train myself, but look at kind of variety of ways to train others as well.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, love to hear a little bit more about the training others. I could tell your story. I do tell other people, to friends that I run into about this friend of mine, buddy, who I've known for a long time. But, you know, how did that progress? I know when you left. You were doing a lot of that there in the physical therapy side, but then when you left Arizona, I think it was a pretty big leap into your track.
- Speaker #1
It was probably a bigger leap and a jump than I anticipated and expected. I always felt quite confident in myself. I felt confident in training myself. I felt confident in the youth athletes that I worked with. But it's, I think, a different side of things, kind of when you get to... a level where you're dealing with more experienced athletes, very talented athletes, especially whether you're at a university or the professional level, that comes with just a certain amount of expectation. And when I got to the University of Oklahoma, I was lucky enough to kind of get referred into a role there, working with the women's soccer team. And I had this grand expectation of like, hey, this is a Division I team. You know, all these athletes are going to be intrinsically motivated and great. I'm not going to have to really do a thing, but it was quite different from that. And it was also different for myself of what I... thought I knew and what I thought I could apply kind of completely got thrown out the window in the first two years. And luckily enough, I had a great boss who was patient with that. But it was probably the best learning experience that I've had within the five years that I was at the University of Oklahoma, of really understanding how athletes are different from the expectation of whether you're a Division I athlete or a professional athlete. you know operates a little bit differently and you can have to adjust how you apply your methods to that and also have to rethink some of your methods um to help to basically help every everyone optimize their training and to be at their best to perform yeah
- Speaker #0
i mean i think one thing you mentioned was the intrinsic motivation piece which is something i talk a lot about in my role over here right in the coaching space i talk a lot about intrinsic versus extrinsic motivations And I think it's interesting that you got, you know, on the ground, right? When you think about the glide path of an athlete, we all start playing sports at a young age. And, you know, then it dwindles down as middle school and high school comes around. And then you get into college, right? And you were at the D1 level. But, you know, it goes anywhere from across the spectrum, D3, D2, D1, and a multitude of other spaces. And then what I think is really interesting is your next pivot from there, right? Where you took that really big leap when it comes to... performance level or platform level. Talk a little bit about that next jump in career path.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, it's being there at the Division I level is, again, it's still pretty big across if you think about a national aspect. I mean, there's tons of teams. There's Division I, there's Division II. The next step within that was kind of finding more of a niche within U.S. soccer and the national level of teams and starting out within the youth level. And it was, again, it was really around a similar age of athletes that I had worked with, you know, the 18 to 22 year old. But these athletes that I was starting to work with with U.S. soccer were the best of the best. And looking to kind of make that ultimate leap to representing your national team, whether that be at the World Cup, a youth World Cup or the Olympics. So that my experience at Oklahoma definitely gave me a broader example of. I know I need to kind of learn the athlete that I'm working with and adapt to a little bit of their needs, but still also apply the principles that we know that are tried and true, but also along with the innovation that is coming out of the research. So transitioning to U.S. soccer allowed me to kind of express what I was doing, but also it helped me perform better myself. So I had to learn more. I needed to be able to... articulate different methods, explore different methods with athletes, and then apply those at a different setting, at a much higher level. And so starting out kind of with the youth age groups, I worked through that for a couple years, and that ultimately led me to working with the senior national team and being under Don Scott, Dr. Don Scott, who is, you know, a legend in her own right, and kind of being able to sit in a different seat where I wasn't. the head of the performance side of things but i was able to kind of still apply my craft but also watch and learn from one of the best yeah i mean again you know what's really interesting is some of the words you used um you
- Speaker #0
know the last few minutes and what i mean is right you're talking about hey you know understanding the athlete at whatever level and making sure there's some customization there but also bringing your expertise and knowledge in training and kind of giving that framework and then kind of tweaking within there. So I think, you know, when you think about it, you know, I'm 45. I am very far away from an elite level. But back to that kind of experience I had with you while we were both doing a lot of those kind of fun things. And you were my de facto coach or trainer for a lot of those years. And we'll come back. to your work within the soccer space, you know, from college to the USA Women's Program and to a picture I'll share when we put this out, you kind of holding the World Cup trophy at some point. But love to understand kind of those lessons and that mashup. And what I mean by that is, you know, you've trained at all of the high levels, but you've also kind of brought that down in your own performance training and for others, like, where do you see the the you know the the connections or the intersections there because what we do here at JourneyWell is try to bring a lot of that. And one of the two of the key pillars we talk about is mental and physical wellness, right? And that's kind of your expertise. So could you kind of take all that elite background and kind of bring it down to this side of it?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, I think it's interesting when you kind of look at the elite background side of it. And I think people get the impression that professional athletes have, you know, super highly specific training programs that are outrageous, you know, different than what we do on an average daily basis while we're at home, you know, with our careers, with our families, etc. But it still really starts with a foundation. And also kind of, I always refer to it as, is you're at where you're at. And I think it's really determining where, what your capacity is. at the moment and understanding how to work with that capacity to build a great foundation for your health and for your wellness to then take on some more of the specific type things that need to happen to then perform better. And we all know some of the benefits of exercise. We know the benefits of what it can do from us for a wellness. But if you don't have an understanding of kind of where you're at, and you try to do something outside of your capacity, usually there's going to be an increased risk of injury. And then what does that do? It kind of halts our process and then basically causes us to kind of start back over again. So what I take kind of within myself and then also, again, just within my peers and groups of friends that we have and when we kind of talk about training or we have, you know, friends that are doing a 5K, it's just, it's kind of setting your expectations and understanding that if you're consistent. and you kind of enjoy the process along with it, and you don't necessarily push with outside of that capacity, you're likely going to get to your results, one, feeling so much better. And then by the time that, say, that race comes along or that goal you've come so close to is really within reach, you're going to be able to perform a lot better because you've set the foundation by being consistent and understanding where you're at and then building upon that, which it's not comfortable. It takes some diligence. And there is some... Some uncomfortable parts and different stimuluses needed to kind of reach that goal. But really kind of understanding, hey, I'm consistent right now. This is where I'm at. And if I stay on that track, I'm usually going to find some success and be able to perform better. And it's no different with the elite athlete is they need to have a foundation to be able to perform. And if they don't have that foundation from the highly specific stuff they have, you almost need to. Like they don't really have that general kind of building block to help sustain a lot of that specialized training.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, I mean, I think that's really thoughtful. I love the phrase like you're at where you're at. And one thing you started with was, hey, they have these really elite custom programs that are intricate and detailed. Could you elaborate a little more on that? Because I think that is a really excellent point. And I think. a lot of people when they started especially within physical wellness when it comes to recovery you know strength and in cardio way like they get people can go down these rabbit holes and look for the most complex so yeah grams or saying i need you know in the recovery side right like i need normantec boots and i need a theragun and i need every other piece of equipment and i need the aura ring and i need the apple watch i need that new bed that measures my temperature And you, you know, it's funny, you know, hearkening back to those days, like you would tell me, like, you need a lacrosse ball, you need a golf ball, maybe a band. And like, that's about it. And you can get all that for about 15 bucks when it comes to things. So talk more about all of that, if you don't mind.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, I think it's like if we were to look at it kind of like on a spectrum of we know elite athletes and even elite endurance athletes. they have something very specific at the end of that spectrum. And yes, you do need some specific training to adapt to that. But to get there, you really just have to start within a general focus. And we know, like within research and literature will show you that if you strength train, if you, you know, do cardio, cardiovascular exercise, like you're going to have a lot of benefits to that. So When I kind of like state that, hey, you're at where you're at, and we're going to start here at a foundation, it's really basic, mundane exercises in different planes of movement for us to target all the potential things that may happen. And so if we're able to kind of control movements, get better at our proficiency with that, when we start to, you know, progress into some more complex things or more high intensity, we know that stimulus isn't going to have necessarily a negative impact on us. So even with athletes coming into an off season, right after the season, we would normally give them, you know, two to three weeks off. From there, they're literally working out. three times a week, three to four times a week. And I'm telling you, from a cardio side, it's, you know, a run, a 20 minute run with one minute on one minute walk, really basic stuff to introduce your body into that pattern of loading of, hey, this is what my body feels like running again, hey, I'm going to do a strength training workout, that it may just be four or five exercises in different planes, just going through body weight. Because we know by just starting with those incremental gains, it's going to help prepare them for when the high intensity or the more complex stuff comes later.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, I think that's really interesting. Like, just, you know, reflecting on it, your one minute run, one minute walk, like how simple could it possibly be?
- Speaker #1
And it's athletes get so frustrated at... at times because they're like, this is so easy. And it's like, it's okay. It's okay to be easy because when it's easy, you got money in the bank. And when you have money in the bank, you can show up the next day and you can still do stuff. And it's like, if you were to withdraw too much, you know, that may take two, three, four days to recover from. You're losing training days. And when you lose training days, it's much harder to adapt to that. And so that's been kind of just my common theme is like, Let's take a little bit out here. Let's take a little bit out here because we know the next day we can replenish them if we recover right. Do we get sleep? Yes. Do we eat well enough from a nutritional standpoint? Yes. Okay, there's two-thirds to it. Now it's like, what's our stress look like? And I think right now at the times, we know we have some holidays coming up. So if our side of things where we know we have family, we're going to have get-togethers, we're going to have holiday parties, we may have end-of-year deadlines for work. Because like— that's going to provide stress. And if we don't have the foundation from the physical side, that's only going to compound to that and lead to maybe some more fatigue, lead to an illness, lead to an injury. And that's something that we want to manage is, is, you know, did we, did we ease into stuff the correct way and kind of progress to it the correct way? Do we manage some of our stress knowing that I have a holiday party, I have a kid's game, my kid's game on the weekend? How do I manage that? because if I don't manage it or if I don't, you know, expect that it could potentially have a negative outcome on me, then it's going to be harder the following week to follow up on some of the goals or some of the things you want.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, that's great. I love, again, kind of that idea of like money in the bank and staying on that theme, you know, you've coached or trained kind of the spectrum, right? To the average individual to again, like the World Cup, you know. champions right what is like a good example you've seen in both in terms of where what happens when they don't align with that advice it's kind of afraid to kind of like oh well on
- Speaker #1
the athlete side they're generally gonna go down a road to whether either poor performance is gonna occur within their sport or they're gonna come and say i feel tired why do i feel tired or an injury at its worst could happen whether now the severity of that injury could be small or you may be able to get away with it a little bit or it could be a major injury and that's where that impacts a lot of their career and then from our side of things i think is is when you're kind of average you know i'm trying to push for a race and i'm trying to train and you know this week i ended up running 20 miles a week and the next week i ran 50 miles a week well because i had a lot of stress at work because I had a lot of stress on my body from the physical side of things. Now I pick up an illness. Now what's that do to me? What's that do to my family life? Like, am I able to go to work, et cetera? So those are kind of the ends of the spectrum that you can see, where if you're an athlete, you're losing out on playing time and performance. And if you're, you know, kind of along the lines of us is like, if we're sick and we miss days of work, what does that do? if we're sick and stuff, do we miss, you know, a family event? Do we miss a game, et cetera? So being able to kind of manage that. And if you, if you kind of go outside of. those where you're at within your capacity that's generally when you're going to see some negative impacts happen within your performance as well as your wellness yeah i mean i think that that's a great example and that kind of leaps into the other one we talk a lot about here and i know you have seen this probably better than anyone is in that kind of the mental wellness space right like what
- Speaker #0
does the impact of that and you know how does it show up on that mental wellness side right
- Speaker #1
you know an elite athlete with that injury right or an individual training for a race you know what are the implications that you have seen yeah i think i mean from one end and i could even just speak from self-experience i think you just get demotivated at times and if if you don't kind of have at least that motivation of hey this goal that i've set for myself or part of you know, this training program can like actually help me and lead to a better quality of life. Like, and you don't, you just, you don't feel motivated by doing that. You're just going to extend the window that you don't train, which is going to overall reduce your capacity. So it's going to make the road kind of to start back up and to get back to that goal much harder. And from an athlete side, I think they start just to second guess themselves at times. And whether they come out of it, it's like, hey, I have this bit of adversity. And you've seen it both ways, some that are highly, you know, accepted, motivated and well beyond it. And then others that it does take a little bit of a process to get back to where they feel their best is. And they're back to their potential can come, you know, can take some time, especially if you're coming off from an injury. And it's, you know, I'm not able to do what I used to do. And I think as we age, we get to that point, it's like. well, I'm not able to run 50 miles a week right now. And it's no different from the athlete side as, well, I was able to run at this speed. And within my realm, we look at, you know, top speed, what they hit in the session. Well, I'm, you know, one to two miles per hour off of that, one to two kilometers off of that. Like, why can't I do that? And so you ask yourself a lot of why questions. And I think when you do that, you start to second guess. And you're not really involved in the process. You're going to be looking for ways to shortcut things. And we know that's not always the best.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, I think, I mean, everything you're sharing is, you know, sounds spot on. And I think what's really interesting, and I hope people take away is, right, we started with the idea of like, hey, there's, you know, elite level athletes, and then there's us, the average amateur, right? And there's this massive gap. And there is to a certain extent, right? I'm not playing in the NBA or pitching in the MLB. what I think is really interesting is a lot of the issues that they face and an average individual, right? They're the same. The injury, the demotivation, kind of the getting down on yourself and all the things, for example, that come from. How do you deal with that, especially at the elite level, right? Like in your role over this, you know, the many years you've been doing this, how have you dealt with that?
- Speaker #1
Yeah. And I think The places I've been at, we've been really lucky to have a really good kind of safe performance team. And it's like if you were to look at high performance and a holistic approach to that, where you have, you know, medical professionals within that, you have mental health professionals within that, you have the performance side of my role within that as well is I know that. From some of the objective things that I look at from a performance side, if things aren't adding up, and especially within the return to play cases, you know, I can refer out or I can, you know, within our team, we can guide that athlete into certain situations. And then that becomes a communication thing within your team. Your team kind of behind the team is, hey, these are things we see. Why is this happening? How is it impacting the athlete? How can we impact? How can we, you know, set that athlete up for some success? And by doing that, by understanding, hey, I have these resources available to me, we can kind of pass those along. So it's been I've been really lucky to have that within the NWSO in San Diego, also within the U.S. national team. And even at Oklahoma, I had great resources for us to kind of, one, collaborate from my side of things, the performance side, but also the mental health side of things, as well as the mental health side of things.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, I noticed you've used the word a few times, holistic. It's something we talk a lot about here. I think you and I inside conversations outside of this podcast have talked about, well, we talk about the four pillars, physical, mental, spiritual, and financial wellness. The financial wellness, of course, shows up. especially if your career is forward but it's really more integrated around time and what's important to you which shows up for a lot of amateur right also and i think that's what's really interesting you just said hey how do you set up for success and it's all of these kind of holistic resources that support the individual from an elite perspective to an amateur perspective how have you seen that even change since you have gotten into this space right from your early days at Oklahoma all the way to kind of the Women's Professional League and now kind of in the world you're in now which is really the data and analytics side?
- Speaker #1
I mean information's available and I think at times information and the way you can kind of go about gathering that information is available but then the next step is okay we have this information well how do we apply it? I think that's where some of the steps in literature, even from a mental health side of things, and it's like, what can we help or what resources can we create? And what information can we gather to help flag some of these potential risks? And I use risk as a term because for me, it's like, you know, if somebody's not feeling so great today, or if we do a wellness questionnaire with a lot of our athletes at the beginning of the day, and they come in and they say, I'm stressed out. you know, I'm stressed out, I have a bad mood. Okay, well, why is that? Like, we can flag that all it does is help create a discussion. And having that information and looking back on that information and then following the trends helps us hopefully be proactive within any type of issue that may come about. And if we're proactive, and we can get better help earlier, and the sooner the better, we can hopefully, you know, set that athlete on a better path to kind of get back to where their norm. And that's one thing within the data that we collect is like, we want to kind of be within the norm more often than not. And so it's like, how do we identify when we're outside of the norm? And then, okay, what is the process to then get back into the norm?
- Speaker #0
Now that's really, I mean, right, because really, you're really talking about is like, there's this continuum. And if you're on the continuum, you know, how do you move up and down the scale, right, ideally, to your point, using that term, the norm, you're sitting here. That's a great space to be because when we need to go up, up the continuum, right, we can do that on game day. Yeah. You know, certain practices, but you can't thrive at that level all the time. Definitely going to have days where you go down that other side. How do you address that? Because I think what you're really talking about is just so much that parallels to kind of just people like you or I, right, who have, you know.
- Speaker #1
exercise for a very long time or have careers and families and jobs but also trying to pursue many things at certain points in their life how do those run in parallel with what you've seen at the elite side all the way down yeah i think it's like when i when i talk about the norm and i think especially kind of what i do within my role of sports science is if you hit it right on the head is if we want to go up or progress in one way it's more manageable to do that or if we need to scale back a little bit, it makes it more manageable to do that. When the elite side, when you have massive swings or big spikes in whatever you're doing, that's where it either adds a lot of stress or you don't get stressed enough. So you're constantly going between two different extremes, which then ultimately could lead to burnout, could lead to an injury, and so on. And then if you scale that back on the other side is... is... we have to kind of set our expectations a little bit differently, whether you have a family, what's your career demands? You know, what are you trying to schedule within your week to also like chase those performance goals? And if we don't have some of those right, then we can't necessarily progress or it's not a right time to progress or go up that continuum. It's being able to, okay, identify, hey, you know what, I'm sitting a little bit more, you know, on the low end of my norm right now. How do I just get back right? to where I need to be? And then how do I, if I want to go beyond that, how can I progress in that way? So I think when you see it kind of from the athlete side of things is as we're going through a season, the more we're in the norm, I think it maintains performance. And if you can maintain performance more often than not, you're going to be consistent. And the same side of things is when we're able to maintain kind of our lifestyle and balance and still be able to get in our exercise. but still manage some of the outside stressors that we have, then generally we're probably going to be in a better headspace and be more enjoyable and be able to do a variety of other things that we want to do.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, that's, I mean, that's really well said. And again, you know, we've chatted, you know, countless hours over the years. And, you know, in some of the stories you have shared, I think it's really interesting because you've coached in a very interesting time if we look at like the last 10 or 15 years, right? Like, when you talk about stress, so from an athlete perspective. on the field and all the things they go through. And then outside of that, right, the world has gotten way bigger, right? More is now included in that. How have you seen kind of elite athletes deal with that or start to deal with that? Or what have you seen show up? And then how would you apply that to just someone like myself who's experiencing those things, right? Who's trying to run, you know, some marathon in the spring, but then has a career and has kids and...
- Speaker #1
they're in sports and all the stuff that goes with that yeah i think from you know the elite athlete side of things it's it's they're more open and they're more aware of it now which is good which helps the conversation be had that if you're coming into you know your practice week or your game week they're okay with sharing the information to help kind of find that and then they understand that there's resources out there to help them i think from our side of things it's you know, you still know that, hey, this is in the age of information, in the age of resources, that people have been able to identify this. And I think it's kind of accepting, hey, this has happened, or this is currently like a situation that I am, what can I reach out to do to help that situation? And it's much harder, I feel like, from, you know, our side of things where it's like, how do we kind of go about that? And it's tough. too because you're trying to put on a front every day and you're trying to go through you know your career your daily work task you're trying to go through you know your daily family tasks that that may go on it's hard to stop and identify that and say hey i may need to go to this resource i may need to put a pause on some of my physical goals right now to help realign myself with that from the mental side or from the stressor side or how do i how do i reduce some of the stress we know stress is going to be there But I think it's really identifying or trying to be a little bit proactive when it's coming, how to adjust the other side of things.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, I think that's really thoughtful. I think, you know, I love the fact that you mentioned you guys do like a wellness assessment. Potentially each day someone comes in or asking that question. What are some of those questions? Maybe not specifically within the wellness elite athlete perspective, but. How would you translate that? Like what should someone start to ask maybe each morning or each week?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, I mean, it's pretty standard. Like, and you can find a lot of the information out. Like there's a lot of, you know, literature out on it of just subjective questionnaires. Again, it is subjective. It does require you to be a little bit consistent and then kind of like learn the trends or see the trends of whether that be yourself or, you know, if you're evaluating somebody else. But I think is number one, did you sleep well? Okay. How, like, if you slept, was that quality sleep or were you tossing and turning? Two, you know, what's your stress like? Are you, you know, do you have a high amount of stress? Do you feel even keeled? Do you have a low amount of stress? What's your, the next question, kind of what's your mood? You know, are you irritable today? You know, sometimes we go through weeks where it's just like, you're not feeling it. It's tough to kind of communicate. It's tough to put on that pace. And then the later side of things is if we're. We're in a performance business and we need to know how you're going to operate that day. It's like, you know, are you sore? What specific areas are sore? And then that would just help us identify, okay, well, we may need to just modify some of your training session today. And then from like, if you're taking this in within yourself, it's really simple just to say, you know, did I sleep well? No. Am I stressed? Yes. Okay. What's that going to do to my workout? especially if you're training for a marathon. I have a 20 mile run today. Well, that's a lot of stress. So maybe if you had, you know, a couple of days where you ask yourself those questions and you're saying, I'm still stressed. I'm still stressed. I haven't slept well. Is that 20 mile run really going to help you? I think in part potentially, but maybe there just needs to be some modification to that. So whether if you had some marathon race pace, you know, intervals put into it. Maybe we just need to scale back on that and it becomes kind of a run walk. Find more, find how you can get through kind of that high stress physical task. you'll still get the benefit from it, but also you're not going to put yourself in a much further hole because of the other two days or work stress or life stress that has come up.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. I think that's, that's great. I mean, I think just the idea of like asking those questions, right. Whether you're training for something or not, like asking those questions in general, they can, they can show up in a lot of different ways.
- Speaker #1
And it's not that it's going to have to dictate kind of what you do next from it, but it's, it's. identifying and being aware that it's okay to have a little bit of modification. You can still do whatever you had planned, but just be okay with modifying it because that's going to get you to the next day. And then ultimately you'll kind of come out of that and you'll feel much better from it.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. I think, I mean, cause everything you're saying runs very much in parallel, right? From an elite perspective all the way down where someone's there talking about, you know, how do I show up in my, my life? I didn't sleep well, I'm not eating well, I'm not feeling great. How am I going to show up in dealing with my kids? Or how am I going to show up in dealing with my spouse? How am I going to walk in the door to the office, right? All of that impact. So how do I even scale back? Maybe not even talk about the work? How do I scale back? What I'm going to do this day, from a professional perspective, or, you know, being very conscientious about how you show up with that mindset.
- Speaker #1
I think And part of my career in my last stop when I was in San Diego, I was in a camper van. So, you know, adjustment from family life is like a work day could be pretty hectic and busy from the time you kind of walk into the office with meetings, with training and so on that, you know, I just didn't, I didn't have the drive to want to go out and be, you know, go through my daily workout. and get some sort of physical output, because that's almost like the face that I have to put on. So at times, what has helped me just, and I still do to this day is like, I just go walk, like, even walking to me is still some sort of physical exercise, that again, you can walk for an hour, you can walk for two hours, that's still going to be a pretty big stressor in your body. So that was a way that I kind of managed that within myself, even though, you know, almost every day. I was working with some sort of specific workout or planning with that for other people. And also somewhat demonstrating it to myself that by the time it, you know, it came around to take care of myself, I just I lost some of that motivation. So what helped me a lot to reset that was just going out and walking and kind of clearing your head.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. And I think I want to I want to take all this because I would be remorse if I didn't ask a couple of questions just based on your expertise and background. you know a lot of what we're talking about we can apply as individuals right you know i'm someone who is in my old age still trying to chase some of these uh races but i'm also a parent now and you are too and you know for example at the firm here we we work with parents and i do within the coaching side but i think it's really interesting when we talk about what is kind of playing out in this space too when it comes to young athletes and you have a lot of expertise in that space how are you seeing all of those things we just discussed showing up in in kind of the youth sports space or the youth athlete space like how can we take a lot of these lessons and start to apply them there because this is a this
- Speaker #1
is a big one for me specifically yeah i mean and everybody's aware of it like everybody is aware of you know sports performance sports science you know it's now just become part of our everyday, you know, if you have a youth athlete, it's in there. And the kids are aware of it as well. But it still applies to them of kind of understanding, you know, what's their capacity? And then what do they ultimately want to get to? Like, is that the goal that they have set? Is it more of, hey, I just want to be better. So by the time I get to high school, I'm going to be on varsity, I'm going to be able to perform and compete on varsity? Or is it, you know what? I just want to win our championship in this three-month Little League season that I have. But I think it's putting some perspective on that and understanding that, you know, the more aside, the more specific we go, at times we lose out some of that general foundational building. And within youth sports, there's, you know, things go around year, like you can go for basketball, to football, to baseball, like things can happen. And we know that, you know, youth... baseball can go year-round, soccer can go year-round, because that's still specific to the sport itself, is what are you doing on the other side to help kind of get that general foundation? whether that be movement proficiency, you know, whether that be, you know, stress regulation from a lot of these games that they're playing two or three times a week, to also just reset and then allow them to experience a little bit of different stimuluses and different movements. And so I think it's still there to manage, but I think it's like, what's the capacity that we have right now? Do I want to go? all in on that capacity or do I want to kind of manage that? And I hope that makes sense. I'm trying to get around it is, is it's okay to kind of slow things down with it and then just lay that foundation.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. I mean, I think what, what I'll, what I heard for example, was, wait, it can be a lot, you know, in terms of not only the, the performance part, you know, playing the same sport, for example, year round. can put a lot of stress both on you mentally and physically you know especially physically right this shows up and as an avid reader and follower of baseball right you're seeing it for a lot of pictures right a lot of injuries are showing up yeah earlier because of that repetitive motion and some of the things from the data side about um exit velocity and um you know some of the other kind of the stress on the elbow right that is showing up in that person You soccer, right? Like, you know better than anyone, like, when you're making that cut over and over and over again, what that does to you physically.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. And it's like, I think the biggest thing that I've seen within high school, kind of like junior high to high school athletes, is they still have, you know, at times a heavy academic load. And whether it's if you're kind of requiring, you know, practice to be from four to six, and then that dinner range comes within that. A lot of times it's just kids miss out on kind of... you know, some, what's that nutrition look like? And then they're starting their homework, which is another stressor outside of that, you know, 10pm and then trying to get through that and then trying to get up and do that the next day. And sometimes they may have an early practice. So we're almost doing them a disservice by not kind of organizing that schedule. And I think it's fine to kind of, if your choice is to go year round and play one sport, but you know, how are you going about the ebbs and flows to that? How are you managing that? It's like, are you optimizing when they look at their academic workload? Are you trying to help optimize their sleep, making sure that they're getting enough food? Because all of that, it's like if we don't manage it, that's where you tend to see a lot of the youth injuries come up. And especially we know within female soccer, ACL is prevalent. It's prevalent with all soccer, male or female. A lot of that can just be, you know, to me is, are they just fatigued? And then they have.
- Speaker #0
just another stressor to go to and we just we didn't manage that fatigue well enough yeah and i think what's really interesting is is kind of like when you take everything that you shared throughout the day right because like linking that back to things that i also feel or talk about with you know again i'm an adult right is hey if you're if you're doing those things it's time away from something else right so you mentioned like hey four to six practice come home and do homework um you know whatever else may be layered on that. Do you have time to kind of like mentally turn down the volume a little bit? Yeah. Missing out on time with family or friends, right? Like all of those things. So it's back to like why I think where we started with like, hey, what questions can you ask yourself? How do you check in just to make sure you're in the right space? How do you get back to that kind of like baseline or normal that you referenced or referred to?
- Speaker #1
And that's still coaching to me. Like it's a different form of coaching. It's not, you know, it's not, yes, I'm a sport coach, but like coaching still applies in all aspects of life. Like whether you're at work, whether you're at with your family, it's still coaching. You're, you're educating in some sense. And that's to me, the definition of a coach is still, it's providing education to whoever you're working with. And that comes across all aspects of your life.
- Speaker #0
Well, I appreciate that because in my current career as a coach in a number of forms and fashion, I think that's something I talk to a lot of people about. Coaches in our life, right? It's ways we can learn, get insight, get expertise, be shown new things, open new doors. Coaches can serve in a multitude of ways. And I think that's a great transition to talk a little bit about. what you're doing now, right, is just another form of coaching. And I think it's really interesting because it kind of loops back to your glide path on your entire career. So could you talk a little bit more about the science part of your current path?
- Speaker #1
Yeah. So primarily I work with a wearable tech company, and it's GPS units that In all aspects, all different sports from soccer to American football to lacrosse to field hockey, it's basically no different than your watch. We're collecting GPS data, no different than when I was working in team sports. We take that data and we help try to provide analysis to help teams get the answers they want. So within my current role is I do work with a handful of teams and customers. and help them kind of go about, one, collecting data the right way, and then, two, interpreting that data, and then trying to help them answer the questions they want answered. Whether that be from a management side, a performance side, we kind of help them along that path, but also help give them the keys to interpret them itself. And part of our product, you know, is like, are we able to make this, you know, easy enough to use that... you don't have to be a part of a big professional sports organization to acquire it, to use it, to interpret it. We're there to help kind of get you on your way and teach you some of those lessons and teach you, okay, I've collected this session. What does that mean? Okay, well, here's different metrics you can look for. Here's what different speed zones you can look for and how does that potentially impact your players?
- Speaker #0
Yeah. And I think the way you set this up, I think it's perfect because again, it just kind of harkens back. to how we've started and chatted throughout this conversation right is you know a lot of your time has been spent at the elite athlete level but everything you have shared every story you kind of kind of laid out right like we can apply these principles at our level in everything we do right from a training approach from mentally and physically you know checking in and asking like where we are and what we're doing right you know things like recovery right the recovery can be the same and i think This last one is kind of the nature of where we are from a societal perspective, meaning tech and information, right? You know, GPS units, I'm not wearing the GPS unit, right, when I walk around the office to see how many steps I've taken or what angle I'm making a cut. But if I'm wearing my Apple Watch, it's kind of the same premise. We have access to all this information and data, you know, when it comes to all of those like glucose monitors and aura rings and Apple Watches, right? And I think what you said is like, how do we interpret it? And what do we do with it is a big question. Like data is everywhere. And I think now more than ever, how do we interpret the data and what do we do with it? So it's a very long winded to ask and throw it back to you is like you do it at an elite level. How can people start to access that even at that level?
- Speaker #1
I mean, like you said, whether you have, you know, a Garmin or an Apple lock, you're collecting data of some sorts. And I think it's. It's depending on is I always go, people want to see the performance benefits of that. But I like to say, hey, here's a way that you can kind of manage how your week is gone and stuff. And whether you or from a day to day perspective, whether, you know, I had 20,000 steps today. I'm kind of tired from that. That's still long winded. Or I did, you know, five mile run with some intense repeats is you have that data is. In a simplest way that I usually try to explain it is if one day seemed higher, if you've collected a week or two weeks, three weeks of data, like you still need data to be able to analyze and interpret it. You're not going to make a lot of decisions off of two sessions or two days collected. But you can see, well, three days in a row, I was high here or I ran 10 miles, 10 miles, 10 miles. And. Well, on day four, that like really made me kind of not feel great and stuff. So an approach to look at it is like if I had a high day of 10 miles, what's my next day? Is it going to be lower than that? Do I then get some recovery from that? And then can I go back up to a high approach and then to a low approach? So I think with just the information that you can collect, and especially from a workout, steps or running, whatever type of workout you did, was your heart rate high? for that window that you're working out okay well the next day if i try to maintain that same output it's feasible but that's going to still accumulate a lot more residual fatigue that's probably going to come in the next day or two and then if you try to keep you know keep out in that high approach it's generally you're going to start to dig a hole and then it's going to be much harder to come so really is if i have information i know this looked high to me And all the workouts I did, I felt hard. It felt hard. Okay, well, what's my next day look like? I need to scale back a little bit. Because you're then really providing recovery in the most general way that you possibly can. And that's just a high-low approach. You're not having to do the additional boots or targeted stretching. You're just managing your workload. And by doing that, you're recovering and adapting to the stimulus that you're providing yourself.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, I think, again, the parallels are kind of very interesting. And I think what I would love to do is take everything we've spent the last 45 minutes chatting on. But sitting in this chair or for anyone who listens in, again, harkening back to the expertise that you have and then all the work you've done with the elite athletes what are like two three four things that people can take away that's saying like look this is from an elite world this is what we're doing and this translates over this space like hey two
- Speaker #1
or three more lessons that people can start to implement into their own life understand where you're at from a capacity and and okay it's you know i think it's important to set goals If you don't have a goal, it's still kind of hard to manage that because to be consistent. So set a goal, understand where you're at, and then work back from there of how you apply that in terms of working out. I do think being aware of, you know, your schedule and what's coming up and what may happen and being proactive of that is another part. And that's primarily what I would do within my role is we would look at a calendar. We know we had. this game here, this game here, we know there was travel involved with that. Well, how do we set ourselves up to do that? And then if we know we have three holiday parties and then a trip, and then now I have to come back and work. So how am I going to set myself up to achieve the goals that I want or to do the things I want to do from a workout or physical standpoint? And the next part is just understanding that recovery is not linear just because you did a workout one day that the next day or next week, you're going to feel magically better. There's a lot more things that go into it. But understanding to go off how you feel and to do things that make you feel good. Generally, when you kind of stay consistent with that and go off of, hey, I'm not feeling great, but I'm going to do something that makes me feel good. Whether that be, you know, a walk, recovery, socializing with friends and stuff, that would generally kind of add some recovery to you and help you bounce back. but understanding that different things are going to come in. So from one week to the next week, it's not always going to be the same.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, I mean, I think that's great, right? Like I think the idea of whether you're coaching someone at Oklahoma, the World Cup, you know, pro soccer within the women's world, like these are the same things you told your athletes then and you're telling an individual now, right? These principles apply.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, a lot of the principles have also just been kind of you guinea pig on yourself. And then it's like, okay, well, that kind of worked for me. Well, this potentially could work for somebody else. But then if it doesn't, then you take that lesson and then you know, okay, well, how do we tweak this a little bit more? And then how do we get a little bit more? You know, it's just conversation and communication with that athlete or with that client that you have. And the more you can kind of understand. them on an individual level, that's where you can tweak your application and your methods to ultimately help them.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, that's great. And, you know, I think I really appreciate, you know, the way you framed it. I loved some of the things you referenced, right? Like, you know, things, money in the bank, and you are where you are, right? Those are all things we can apply in our own lives, you know, checking in, just asking yourself, like, hey, did I sleep well? How am I feeling? And then we can go look at that plan, right? Like, to your point, like...
- Speaker #1
20 mile run or five mile run or anything in between for someone right like you know understanding that no you know you can't do that every day we're saying hey i'm gonna back off back off but you're also you're also not gonna lose a lot from it if you reschedule it on another time it's like i know you have that marathon plan it's like if you just if you don't do that 20 mile run on saturday november 20th like you're gonna be okay if you adjust it or if you break it up. So I think it's like just because it's on the schedule doesn't mean you can modify it and adjust it. You can still get the same benefit.
- Speaker #0
That's a hard lesson I had to learn in my early days as you well know.
- Speaker #1
You and I both.
- Speaker #0
We could share a bunch of stories, but I would love to just kind of ask a few additional questions. One, I would Again, you know, all of your time spent in kind of an elite athlete world, like any favorite stories, any favorite experiences? I know I've used that picture of you holding that trophy. But anything like that you could share?
- Speaker #1
I mean, my experience at Oklahoma was great because I think it really shaped how I went about my career and kind of the things. And I was lucky enough to have, again, a head coach, a boss that ultimately was a mentor that was definitely patient the first two years as I was a young 26-year-old thinking that, like, I know everything. I know this is going to work. And then really by the third year. of my stint there really having to kind of uh adjust almost everything and like learn a different way and it's not learning it's just i had to change some things and i think by it just that helped then kickstart everything and we we were successful that year at least making the ncaa tournament and then my last year at oklahoma we ended up program record for wins and then also the first ever ncaa tournament for um the team so i think That was probably from an experience standpoint when I look back at it of, hey, that's where I really kind of shaped and molded who I was as a coach. And then along the way, I wasn't afraid to take a step back, to take a step forward. And I think I've done that to whether, you know, and luckily I also have a partner and a wife that has been patient with some of those decisions to whether I'm moving to San Diego, living in a van or throughout. the 2019 World Cup being gone 152 days of the year is doing some of the dirty work. And then you still get it, like you're a part of it and you learn everything. And I was still able to apply, but also by doing some of the dirty work or being kind of uncomfortable or finding some of the struggle, I think you come out on the other side and you not only respect it more, I think when you then come across those situations again, you understand how to handle them a lot better. And so I think those are two probably the biggest experiences that I've had in my career that really shaped and molded who I am.
- Speaker #0
Well, and I think, I mean, everything you just shared, all right, that's from a professional perspective. What I think is really interesting is knowing you as well as I do, right? Like, that applies in like, the race world, right? Like,
- Speaker #1
100%. It's still you're like, I mean, you want to compete against yourself and i think depending on you know i've had great highs with with racing and stuff and i've also now in this latest challenge you know with our son hank being born in october it was probably the longest stretch i wouldn't say of the inactivity but definitely not the activity level that i was used to and then now i've kind of started back to that where in the last 10 weeks i've been more consistent and i have been you know normal to kind of what we were used to. So I think that goes back to what we said. It's like I had to understand where I'm at. And then also the different things that have come into my life have caused me to adjust and be aware of, hey, I need to go about things a little differently, which is okay.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, and I was telling my wife, Allison, as you know her very well, that you were coming on and we were sharing the one story talking about stressors i think it was you beat me by like i can't remember what year it was so you beat me by like five minutes at iron man oh i think i think it was less than that i mean i think it was like you were 10 of four and i was a 1001 uh you got 2011.
- Speaker #1
we got sick on the first like two minutes of the run because i decided to take the thumbs to think that it was going to help me and it did not so lesson learned
- Speaker #0
the funny part is we were sharing the story because like you come in i come in and we're we all hopped in the car she drove us both home but the part we were laughing about is i think we stopped and got you like an ice cream sundae because you could show you yeah i think it was froyo that was the only thing that i could eat and
- Speaker #1
you're over here like a just crushing down fries yeah those are my i was just I felt really good that day and I thought I was going to do it. And then within the first two miles of the run, I was on it.
- Speaker #0
I remember, yeah, they would serve those fries at the end. It was like just a fried potato, but then it was like a bag. I've never probably had more than a single one in my entire life.
- Speaker #1
I mean, we definitely had some good races. And I feel like that's something.
- Speaker #0
In terms of what you could take for your life is in the pro side of things, you're within a team environment. So that's why I absolutely loved it because it was, you know, everybody is searching for that common goal. And I think as we become adults or we're training on our own, we oftentimes don't have some of that community to do that. But you'll see that when you do find, you know, a couple, whether that be one person, two people, you know, maybe a group that runs together. It's like it's usually going to drive your performance and you'll see. a much different like you not only push yourself but i do think you end up adapting much better than when you're kind of going on it alone yeah i mean you know something i preach here is community right like when we go through change and transformation it's so important to have community and
- Speaker #1
the right tools and or resources around you right because there's no basis we don't we are never standing still and that's an important part and I think that maybe sets up, you know, perhaps our last question before I turn it over to you to kind of close everything out. But my favorite book, people have heard it on multiple occasions, or one of my favorite books is The Comfort Crisis. And in that, it's talked about the Masogi story, right? Like, hey, these just really big thing. There's a few rules, according to Michael Easter, it's, you know, 5050 chance of success. have fun, don't die, right? Like those three pretty good rules. Do you have one of those on the horizon in the next year? I know you've gotten way deep into golf recently.
- Speaker #0
I've kind of gotten, you know, back and forth. Also, I mean, my wife inspires me quite a bit. Like she was a former collegiate runner, you know, she's coming postpartum off of our first child and she's about to do. She actually just did her first kind of like real race. It was a 5K a couple weeks ago and absolutely obliterated the time that she was going to think she was going to get. So she's doing a half marathon here in a couple weeks in San Bernardino or the Big Bear half. But she is so disciplined and every day is just I'm getting up, I'm working out, doesn't matter. So that's kind of helped motivate me a little bit to get back into. I didn't, I qualified for Boston. to run in in 2020 but we also we all know what happened um and then so from back there it's like i did a fair amount of work to kind of run like a bucket list race that i ended up not doing so i do think that is on the horizon but for me that is definitely 20 25 goal but in the same time i am very dedicated to golf right now and it's it's another thing you're competing against yourself and once you get that little bit of a bug i would i would like to do um you 18 mile run and 18 holes of golf in one day walking so so run and then do a full walk of a course would be kind of can see if i can play well doing that because to me what marries like do the things that i love and and that's you know endurance training and running and then do i have enough of capacity in me to then go out and execute a golf swing and to be able to do that for 18 holes
- Speaker #1
Well, I think that's the mashup of the two. And I think a former elite or professional Arizona athlete, Eric Burns, did 24 hours of running with playing golf at the same time on a course or something?
- Speaker #0
I mean, I did see a guy do an 18 and 19. So definitely, to me, it's enough of a carrot to know that, okay, I can get the best of both worlds, right?
- Speaker #1
I love it. Well, I'm going to hand it back to you. Where can they find your company, information, things you're doing?
- Speaker #0
Playerdata.com is the best way if you wanted to learn any bit of information, whether that be from a team standpoint or we do sell the unit that is an individual unit, that if you're a youth athlete and you want to start to get access to your data, we do provide that. And that's the cool thing about Playerdata is what an individual user gets. is no different than some of the information that the team gets as well from the professional teams and college teams that we have um you can look at me for on linkedin buddy atanis um and then just even reach out email buddy hutanis email.com yeah
- Speaker #1
and i think i think it's really interesting because like it's all coming right like to your point team down to individual all of that data is on the way it depends on where you want to be on the curve yep
- Speaker #0
And it's, yeah, and it's just, it can be a little bit overwhelming, but again, I don't, it's like, it's still, it's, you can see trends and you'll be able, if you're open to kind of learning a little bit about it. you can actually get a massive benefit by collecting it.
- Speaker #1
Man, it was so good to see you again. Catch up as always.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, no, it was great. Exciting. I appreciate you having me on here. I'm definitely stoked with what you're doing with all this. It's definitely exciting to see, and I know you've been here for a while. So I always kind of push a needle to be on some of the podcast side of things. The other type of things of pushing your boundaries is a lot of that influence does come from you. So I appreciate that. And I appreciate you having me on.
- Speaker #1
I appreciate it, man. I learned so much. I was the knucklehead trying to run 20 miles every day or something like that. And you're like, no, that's probably not a great idea.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. For your listeners, I do give Adam sound advice. I feel like at times, whether he takes it or not, it's completely up to him.
- Speaker #1
I didn't then. I'm old though now.
- Speaker #0
But hey, but that's, that's part of coaching. You know, sometimes you gotta, you gotta learn on your own, but if, if you at least kind of give them the right direction, they tend to figure it out.
- Speaker #1
Well, thanks man. I really appreciate it.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. I appreciate it. Take care. Bye.
