Today’s episode features founder of Achieve Performance, Jeremy Frisch, and guest co-host, Tommy John. Both of these individuals are making a big difference in not only the world of youth sports, but also in teaching the importance of global human movement skills, as well as in bringing the importance of movement as a necessary and healing force to the general population.
Jeremy Frisch has been a past guest on episodes 100 and 134, and Tommy John has been a guest on 101 and 139. These two guys both have a passion for redeeming what our sports industry has become in regards to not only sky-rocketing injuries, but also restoring the core of what it means to be a kid, an athlete, and a human being, which is creativity, play, and free movement, before external parameters, competition, stress and judgment are all added through early specialization and over-coaching.
We spend a lot of time zooming in on things like sets, reps, exercise modalities and training blocks. At the end of the day, these factors are important, but the long term process by which athletes are facilitated, and the joy that happens when this is done correctly, is an area of our industry that truly demands our focus and attention. Knowing how to progress youth athletes, and also how to integrate sport coaching with physical preparation on all levels of performance helps us all become more aware and well-rounded in our coaching process.
On today’s show, Jeremy, Tommy and I discuss changes in coaching emphasis from youth through adult, the importance of a thorough warmup that covers a variety of movement skills, how Jeremy’s experience as a youth sport coach has helped his process and integration in physical preparation, the importance and relevance of free play for children vs. organized coaching, and much more.
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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View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage.Key Points
- How perception of watching adult athletes changes when you have experience watching children learn and play
- How moving non-injured body parts and joints is critical in the process of injury and recovery
- How coaching changes from working from youth to high school, to adult trainees
- How to structure a warmup to provide a powerful strength and movement stimulus, as why this is the most important part of the total workout in many cases
- Jeremy’s experiences as a youth sport coach (e.g. football, baseball, tennis), how he incorporates physical preparation methods, and how this work has impacted his physical preparation coaching
- The reasons that un-structured play is superior to organized sports for athletic (and personal) development in children
- Why pickup basketball is crucial for creative development in basketball players, even if it seems like a “lazy” pace
- Is it possible to build skills later in life if a kid missed the window of development early on
“When we were kids, when we got hurt, what did we do? As quick as we could we got back outside trying to play… it’s like we knew intuitively that moving around makes you heal”
“When he got done squatting, when they took the cast off his arm, his arm had more muscle on it than when he started… he did 20 rep breathing squats and that… like 3x a week (being unable to train his arms in that time period)”
“The majority of young athletes coming in, their feet are shot, and if their feet are shot, their hips are going to be shot”
“When you start with a kid, the change from play to more organized stuff starts when he or she is ready… I’ve had kids who are just studs physically, are they are the most immature kids in the whole world, so I pulled them back because if I tried to organized things to much, they shut down and they don’t come back.”
“For ages 13,14,15 it’s more technical based, for ages 16-19 we are cleaning, we are throwing weights around, we are squatting heavier, we are trying to put more weight on the bar. With the younger kids we are trying to create a more technically proficient athlete before we get to that point later on”
“I definitely start to load kids as far as strictly strength training, later on”
“(With more developing athletes) We might do 45 minutes of movement type stuff, and there might be just 10-15 minutes of strength, because that’s all they can handle”
“That’s the new thing we say at the gym now, “warmups are for champions” (given that Jeremy’s warmups are extremely tough and harness many different skills and movements)”
“The warmup is the hardest part of the whole workout”
“A baby’s consistency (in regards to) getting to their next step, is manical”
“I could probably take a lot of athletes and not even attempt to lift weights until their later in their teens, and just do warmup stuff and bodyweight things, and they would probably be better off”
“The people that don’t mind the 45-50 minute warmup, who thrive on it, they have a martial arts background, the actual discipline that fairly pure principled (not American martial arts)… the majority of their discipline is movement based and then they go through the actual specifics of what they are doing”
“What I do (in youth sport coaching) is take the first 10 minutes, for the older kids, my 8th graders right now, the first 20 minutes of our warmup for football practice every day is fundamental movement skills, we go throught a series of skips, shuffles, backpedals, different types of run and rolls, we might do some crawling things like that. The next 5 minutes we do grappling, push pull, things like that”
“We’ll do sprints from different distances, different stances, long rest, kind of like feed the cats, and then we’ll go do practice”
“People freak out, parents freak out that their kids are going to fall behind if they don’t start (organized sports) early enough, but the reality is that if a kid spends enough time at the early stages doing the right thing (lots of free play), when he does enter the sporting arena, he might be behind at first but as the years go by he is going to catch up and be just as good as those (other) kids”
“(Free play) makes kids so much more creative because they come up with their own rules, and they come up with their own ways to move…. And there is no one there to say “no you’re doing it wrong”.
“Kids playing tag is the most natural thing in the world.. you want to talk about perception, action and reaction, that’s it right there!”
“That ability to have a wide movement skill, it only happens when you are able to expand your skill set by trying new things out, and the only way that happens is when there is no coach there telling you what is right or wrong”
“I think those types of sports where there is a lot of skill involved, it would be hard to pick up that sport later on. Football, if you are a kid who is big fast strong and athletic…. I’ve seen kids pick up football who haven’t played anymore who are just good athletes”
About Jeremy Frisch
Jeremy Frisch is the owner and director of Achieve Performance Training in Clinton, Mass. He is the former assistant strength and conditioning coach for the Holy Cross athletic department. While there, he worked directly with the Crusader men’s basketball team, in addition to serving as the strength coach for Holy Cross’ men’s soccer, men’s and women’s lacrosse, baseball, softball, field hockey, tennis and women’s track & field squads.
Prior to joining Holy Cross, Frisch served as the sports performance director at Teamworks Sports Center in Acton, Mass., where he was responsible for the design and implementation of all strength and conditioning programs. He also served as a speed and strength coach for Athletes Edge Sports Training, and did a strength and conditioning internship at Stanford University. Frisch is a 2007 graduate of Worcester State College with a bachelor’s degree in health science and physical education. He was a member of the football and track teams during his days at Worcester State and Assumption College.
About Tommy John
With Master Degrees in Health and Exercise Science from Furman University, Tommy John brings over 17 years of health experience to the table. At completion of his studies Tommy played professional baseball for three years with teams such as the Schaumburg Flyers, Tyler Roughnecks and the LA Dodgers.
Tommy was drawn to chiropractic because he realized there was a higher element missing from the healing, performance process and proper function of the human body in the innate intelligence and the nervous system: brain, brain stem and spinal cord.
The primary goal ofTommy John Performance and Healing Center is to provide entire families with integrative, individualized care plans and treatment to improve their quality of life by reducing physical and emotional pain from injury and aging and minimizing the use of pharmaceuticals or surgery.
Tommy John also has a book, “Minimize Injury, Maximize Performance: A Sports Parent’s Survival Guide” which is a unique program: a diet, lifestyle, and movement plan (Rethink. Rebuild. Replenish. Recover) for injury- and performance-proofing young athletes in every sport. John’s book is a fusion of thousands of hours of research, clinical experience, and personal experimentation he has used with kids and clients alike for years, merged with the same simple philosophy of healing his Dad used 40 years ago. But his book isn’t just about injury avoidance—and it’s more than just sports. It’s about correcting the developmental deficiencies that are happening right now in youth athletes. It’s a return to traditional methods and techniques—through making the right diet, exercise and lifestyle choices—to reestablish the functional movements lost today.
It’s not just about saving an elbow—it’s about saving a life. And it’s about finally attaching the name Tommy John to something positive again.
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