Today’s episode features Tyler Yearby and Michael Zweifel.
Tyler Yearby is a Former Strength & Conditioning Coach at Northeastern State University and the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities who has delivered over 200 domestic & international continuing education courses, workshops, and conference presentations in 12 countries. Tyler has, and continues to work with athletes ranging from youth to professional. Michael Zweifel is the owner and head of sports performance for “Building Better Athletes” performance center in Dubuque, Iowa. Michael has been on a number of previous Just Fly Performance Podcast episodes, focusing largely on the development of reactive agility and transferable sport movement. Tyler and Michael are both a part of “Emergence” which is a movement skill education company.
When it comes to building athletes in the agility and change of direction space, attitudes are changing and coaches are realizing how important it is to teach perception and decision making in a variety of situations, to eventually transfer better to sport. Agility done for the sake of running through cones as fast as possible is very limited in what it can do for an athlete in a chaotic sport environment, and podcast #76 was the epitome of that information.
Today’s show takes those same ideas of reactivity and creative movement, and puts it into the structure of the weight room: resistance training and plyometric exercises. Tyler and Michael try to mirror their approach to an “athlete based” model of problem solving throughout an entire program, and in this episode they share how creative means are utilized in the weight room to not only improve movement and robustness, but also stoke the fires of athlete creativity. On the show today, we dig into what these sequences look like, and get to the core of “athlete centered” training in the weight room on the level of variability, 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
- What the motor learning concept of “repetition without repetition” means on a basic level
- How Michael and Tyler are using motor learning and “repetition without repetition” principles in the weightroom
- What a typical “repetition without repetition” weightroom training sequence would look like in the pre-season training period
- What “athlete centered” training and coaching looks like
- How ideas on variability affect plyometric and reactive training
- How to adjust training variability based on an athlete’s readiness
Tyler Yearby and Michael Zweifel Quotes
“Repetition without repetition is not the means to solving a given motor problem, but the process of that solution. It is the changing and improving from rep to rep and the means of that, so everything essentially slightly changes as we perform any type of motor action” Yearby
“We view sport as a problem solving activity… we view the weightroom as assistive to this problem solving activity” Zweifel
“(In regards of variables to change from set to set) One (variation) is tempo, the other is stance” Yearby
“(Regarding lifting in awkward positions) Don’t our athletes need to be able to express force, despite the compromised positions they find themselves in the field?” Zweifel
“The learning centered approach doesn’t mean that you let the athlete do whatever they want” Yearby
“For me personally, in my athletes, I’ll gladly take a 20% weight reduction in a compound lift to have on this repetition without repetition scheme (different types of repetitions each set or rep)” Zweifel
“My athletes have given me a ton of feedback that me allowing them to explore in the weightroom, to be creative, and to own their own movements in the weightroom, have given them the confidence to do the same things out in the field” Zweifel
“For an initial starting point, have your warmup sets be repetition without repetition” Zweifel
“I tell athletes, who is the best coach you will ever have? The answer is yourself… Sometimes the best cue is no cue at all” Zweifel
“Technique is going to change based on where a skill is being asked” Yearby
“(In variable depth jumps) a coach can ask themselves, what positions does an athlete seem to be landing awkwardly in?” Yearby
“With depth jumps, encouraging our athletes to not just go off of one box, quick off the ground, and jump onto another box, but every rep has to be different, so they can go off at a 90 degree angle, rotate in the air, etc.” Zweifel
“You want athletes to be in a position where they enjoy what they do” Yearby
“We may provide more or less variability depending on the individual, for the day” Yearby
Show Notes
Variations in depth drop landings
https://www.instagram.com/p/B5-mSW3n_G0/
Variation of tempo within each training set for barbell lifting
https://www.instagram.com/p/B4zqpTEnLA9/
The Movement Terminology Cheat Sheet
Emergence: Movement Skill Education Company
Twitter: @emergentmvmt
IG: @emergentmvmt
About Tyler Yearby
Tyler Yearby, M.ED, CSCS, PES
- Master of Education (M.Ed) in kinesiology, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
- Former Strength & Conditioning Coach at Northeastern State University and the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
- Has delivered over 200 domestic & international continuing education courses, workshops, and conference presentations in 12 countries
Is a frequent guest for various podcasts within the athletic performance space typically discussing conceptual ideas that pertain to the art of being a more effective Movement Coach - Has and continues to work with athletes ranging from youth to professional
- Has coached over a dozen athletes playing on the professional level
- 13+ years of experience
About Michael Zweifel
Michael Zweifel is the owner and head of sports performance for “Building Better Athletes” performance center in Dubuque, Iowa.
Michael is a CSCS, IYCA certified practitioner, and was the all time NCAA leading receiver with 463 receptions in his playing days at University of Dubuque.
Building Better Athletes (BBA) is committed to an evidence based practice towards sports performance, and attaching physical preparation from every angle possible – physical, mental, nutritional, soft-tissue, mobility. Our focus is building the athlete from the ground up by mastering the fundamentals of movement mastery, strength/power training, recovery modalities, and giving athletes ownership of the Other 23.
Using these methods and principles, BBA has been fortunate to help athletes to:
- 5 NFL Players
- 1 CFL Player
- 1 Gatorade State Player of the Year (Basketball)
- 7 Collegiate All-Americans
- 12 Conference Player of the Year
- 11 Division I Athletes
- 52 All-Conference Athletes
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