Today’s show welcomes back coach Michael Zweifel. Michael is the owner and head of sports performance for “Building Better Athletes” performance center in Dubuque, Iowa. Building Better Athletes focuses on building the athlete from the ground up by mastering the fundamentals of movement mastery, strength/power training, recovery modalities, and promoting ownership in athletes. Michael is also a team member of the movement education group, “Emergence”. He has been a frequent guest on this podcast, speaking on topics of perception-reaction, exploration in the weight room, creativity and more.
As I’ve grown as a coach (and a human mover/athlete) it’s been really enjoyable to experience sport, and movement in different ways. In working in a college weight room, it was also very interesting to pay attention to the defining characteristics of the best athletes. They weren’t always the strongest, or even the fastest, but they could move and react incredibly well in context of their sport… and they loved to play. One of the things I’ve been enjoying doing recently, is coaching youth sports (5 year olds, to be exact) and it’s a learning experience that impacts my philosophy, all the way up the chain into high level performers.
With play and exploration at the core of athleticism and sport, why is it that the culture of the gym (and in many sports performance settings) completely the opposite? So much of modern sport acts like athletes are robots, a culture based on lines and whistles, and a perception of needing to do everything one particular way.
On today’s show, Michael Zweifel goes into a deep dive on how his warmups fit with the key characteristics of elite athleticism. He speaks on how he connects his warmups to core human instincts and needs, and talks about how to develop a love for movement and play that transcends organized sport play. Michael and I also take on a broad-scope discussion on the over-structuring that is rampant in sport (and our culture in general). This show is truly important in light of our modern sport culture.
Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster and Lost Empire Herbs. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to www.lostempireherbs.com/justfly
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Timestamps and Main Points
4:50 – Michael’s thoughts on trail running, longer runs, and elasticity
13:20 – Michael’s biggest changes in his warmup process over the last decade
16:30 – What Michael would take back with him in terms of his warmups and training if he returned to the university sector of training
21:50 – Comparing “routine” warmups (lines, movement prep, etc.) versus a more dynamic and adaptive form of warming up for a training session
28:50 – Speaking on the different stages of the warmup defined by Emergence: Ownership, exploration and attunement
33:50 – If there are any general warmups that Michael’s athletes will actually do, and how he approaches that type of work
35:50 – A broader-scope discussion on coaching, creativity versus militaristic coaching
48:00 – What age groups and settings Michael feels sports performance coaches should work with to optimally learn the nature of training sport
52:50 – The critical nature of play for human beings, and how professional athletes are very play driven
– How Michael might lead up to a more output driven day in the gym from a warmup perspective
1:07:50 – Some more specific changes in the warmup process that Michael has made in the last few years: Applying “levels” in sport and human movement
1:14:50 – The sad reality of kids quitting sports early, and without preparedness for how to enjoy life from a movement practice at that point
1:20:50 – Key differences in what Michael has in the warmups of different age groups (elementary school, middle school, high school, etc.)
“What transitioned my warmup was being in the private sector. In the private sector, each and every day I have to win my athletes over… in the college sector my athletes will be back no matter what I do”
“If you think about the basic dynamic warmup, with the lines, we never do any of that stuff anymore; I think there is so much more opportunity to engage our athletes in a deep level…. We’re attacking the warmup from a perceptual standpoint, we are attacking the warmup from an emotional and social standpoint, we are attacking our warmup from a technical/tactical standpoint”
“The transition to transforming my warmups has been hard; every day is about reading the room, asking questions, giving certain athletes autonomy and ownership; the warmups are alive”
“If I value my athletes being adaptable, and I value my athletes being creative and having abundance in movement solutions, how is doing the same warmup day in and day out building that capacity? It’s not, it’s restricting it”
“Our three stages (of warming up at Emergence) are ownership, exploration and attunement”
“For youth athletes, exploration is the key to learning”
“I’m a big fan of allowing each athlete’s individualism to stand out, and ost team sports try to kill that”
“(speaking on militaristic warmups) What you are doing in a non-contextual environment is going to have no bearing what is going on in a game”
“People think people like Saban and Bellichek are really militaristic; if you actually study those guys, they are a lot more lenient, and give freedom and autonomy and they let individual styles show out, much more than people think”
“Do you think athletes are going to turn a switch, in our on fields sessions, and are going to turn this switch, and be this adaptable, creative, abundant mover, when in the warmup we stripped away all this stuff? I think that is why a warmup is a really, extremely important thing for our athletes”
“All my professional athletes, that’s all they want to do (play), at the end of the day, sports is just a game, it’s just play… we each have this deep, inherent desire for play”
“The big thing with our youth athletes, is they get superpowers… find ways for people to feel special in certain moments”
“What makes video games successful… they are inclusive, they tell a story, there are levels… so how can I do some of these things in my games, my warmups, so I try to tell more stories in how we design our activities”
“60-70% of kids are quitting (sports) by 12-13 years of age”
“As athletes get a little older, middle school, high school, that ownership piece will expand”
About Michael Zwiefel
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. He is also a team member of the movement education group, “Emergence”.
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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