Today’s episode features track coach and acupuncture student, Sam Wuest. Sam is finishing his acupuncture degree at New England School of Acupuncture and is a track and field coach at Tufts University.
Sam is a former NCAA DI athlete, and holds multiple certifications in strength and conditioning and track and field. Sam has worked with a diverse array of athletes and has also studied under Ukranian Olympic coach, Alex Ponomarenko. He coached the recent NCAA DIII high jump champion in the 2018 indoor season, Stefan Duvivier who jumped 2.20m.
Sam has blended Western sport performance with Eastern practices, such as acupuncture, Chinese medicine, Zen Meditation, qi gong and tai chi. When it comes to Sam’s coaching philosophy, as well as this podcast in general, the goal is always to find a blend of ideas from different ends of the spectrum, from the quantitative, data-based realms, to the qualitative and intuitive end. To this end, this episode is largely about Sam’s outside the box thinking in coaching and recovery. From his incorporation of multiple planes into basic track and field drills, to feel-based integration of Frans Bosch style stick drills, to avoiding the visual bias in athlete feedback via iPhones and iPads, Sam has a coaching style that is holistic and effective.
Sam also has connected training with common concepts in Chinese medicine, including his thoughts on recovery modalities, as well as linking of the seasons and human response into our own models and thoughts on training organization (noting the similarities observed in the practices of Dr. Yuri Verkhoshansky). Another coach who has done just this was the late Charles Poliquin, an absolute legend in this field. We’ll get into these topics and more on a show today that is certain to expand your perspective on training athletes.
Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.
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Key Points
- Ways to incorporate and create awareness of rotational mechanics in sport movement
- The faults of a “brace” oriented core movement model in athletics
- Sam’s utilization of various sensory feedback drills in sprinting
- How Sam utilizes rhythm and timing in his programming and why we tend to be “over-visual” in how we train and coach athletes
- Sam’s utilization of recovery modalities
- Things Chinese medicine has taught Sam about training and recovery
- Ideas on periodization and training organization based off of seasonal effects on athletes from a holistic perspective
Sam Wuest Quotes
“If you watch the best sprinters in the world, they are not going straight forward and back, there is a rotational element”
“There are a whole lot of extensions going on when you push off the ground, and one of them is that lateral plane, and if you aren’t not getting that, you are operating with shorter legs than you need to”
“The same still frames that you got from USATF level whatever back in the 90’s is still true, you have to make sure that what happens in between (tri-planar actions) we really optimize”
“There are only so many KPI’s that you can show statically. There are other KPI’s that are going on that you can’t show (on a single frame) because they are dynamic, they are a motion”
“If you are holding a stick on your shoulders, you know where your shoulders are, you know where their hips are”
“Sometimes in order to get an athlete to change what they need to do, you need to put them in an environment where that bad habit no longer works, and they have to feel that”
“I almost never do stick (on the back) drills, and (finish) on a stick drill….. I’ll have the kids drop halfway through”
“If your timing is off, there is no chance you are going to hit (the position you want)”
“If you are not hitting a rhythm when you jump, your position will be off”
“I spent a whole year last year, taking away video… if your line of correction is going to a video camera, saying “what can I do”, you are screwed”
“One of the things I think, especially being in the Northeast that is undervalued, is the power of heat (in recovery)… we use this thing called Moxa”
“We look at your tongue, we look at your radial pulse and the qualities of it, and we look at the abdomen… and we look at those things to determine how your energy is circulating in your body”
“If don’t breathe out, you aren’t going to take anything in”
“(Verkhoshansky) essentially followed the seasons: he did a whole bunch of conditioning stuff in the fall, a bunch of strength training in the winter, a bunch of elastic in the spring, and in the summer they competed. That in a lot of ways makes perfect sense based on the seasons”
“The winter is more consolidating, strength building, it hones to the kidney energy system… weightlifting corresponds to the kidneys”
“Spring is the “liver” season. The liver in Chinese medicine controls the sinews and tendons, so that’s a great time to do elastic work”
“Summer is the element of the summer… fire, competition”
“Ultimately our body does want certain things at certain times, our energy does go inward in the winter”
“Your blood is physically circulating more inwards in the winter than it is in the summer, (if you live in a place with seasonal changes)”
“If you are trying to recreate a coaches training plan, if you are in a different climate or different season, then be careful”
About Sam Wuest
Coach Wuest is currently an acupuncture student at New England School of Acupuncture and a track & field coach at Tufts University. Previously an All-Conference Division I athlete, Wuest holds a Master’s degree from Boston University in Education & Coaching. Certified as a Strength and Conditioning Coach and Coaching Specialist in multiple event areas from the US Track & Field & Cross Country Coaches Association, he has worked with a diverse array of athletes and coaches from coaching in Boston Public Schools to working under Ukrainian Olympic Coach Alex Ponomarenko. Wuest has played sports all of his life and practiced Zen Meditation, qi gong and tai chi for nearly a decade. Learn more about his unique approach at daodesport.com
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