Today’s episode features performance coaches James DiBiasio and Collin (CT) Taylor. James and CT work at T3 performance in Avon, Ohio, and have a progressive approach to athletic performance training, encapsulating strength, movement, athleticism in a holistic manner that fits with the progression of athletic skill, and leveling up one’s abilities as a human being. James and CT were both college athletes in baseball and football respectively, and CT played arena football after his NCAA years. In addition to their coaching, James and CT have been running the “Cutoffs and Coffee” podcast since 2020, having interviewed nearly 50 different guests.
It’s been enjoyable to see more elements of chaos, risk, perception/reaction, and overall athleticism, emerge in the sports performance process in recent years. Humans are the species on this planet with the greatest overall dexterity of skills, and yet, this dexterity is rarely leveraged in the average “training program” to a shade of its potential. “Training” is something that is traditionally heavy on data, but low on chaos, and yet, sport, as well as the array of FLOW inducing human movement practices, are quite the opposite. Yes, we still want to perform movements that improve the strength of muscles and tissues, while increasing capacity, but at the same time, we also want to give athletes challenges that allow them to expand their athleticism.
On the show today, James and CT get into how they have incorporated a variety of athletic skills, flips, and calisthenic movements into their training, how much their athletes enjoy it, and how it links to dynamics on the field of play. They chat about how to leverage principles of intuition and chaos in the training day, and even week, speed training constraints, and finally, James and CT finish with an insightful view on the role of “difficult” training routines, and higher volume capacity-oriented training sets. This was a fun podcast with a lot of take-aways, and highlights the ways that the field of athletic performance training is expanding and evolving.
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Timestamps and Main Points:
3:58 – Who wins the “bang energy” drink quantity competition between James, CT and Will Ratelle
6:49 – How James and CT use calisthenics, flips and tricks to level up their physical abilities
13:02 – How training movement skills and a variety of abilities has inspired the linking of these various flips, tricks and skills with traditional athletic performance
26:15 – How risk becoming involved in a skill changes the dynamic nature of that movement
36:00 – How James and CT look at training in its ability to prepare an athlete for working with other coaches, or situations where the work may be unpredictable
38:36 – How James and CT’s evolved training programs are perceived by parents and other coaches, and how they have gained trust over the years
43:05 – Moving through an “intuitive warmup” into a more programmed primary strength training session, and how a powerful warmup with a lot of “human” elements can make the strength training portion much better
52:31 – Changing the environment and the drill to get an outcome vs. trying to coach and cue excessively
1:04:07 – How to put difficult/capacity training exercises in context, and how to utilize higher volume training to athlete’s advantage
“We’ll play around on the bars when we are in a training session with athletes, we’ll goof around and do different warmup styles, front flips and rolls, exciting and non-normal movements that can pique curiosity, and maybe after the training session, those kids will pull out the mat again” JD
“That’s another way to get immediate buy in (the ability to do muscle ups, flips and tricks) because they know we are exploring training and we are training just as hard, if not harder than these kids are, and it can leave the 4 walls of the weight room” CT
“I tell our young coaches to train like your career depends on it; and that doesn’t mean, “increase your back squat”” JD
“There is an addicting feeling that first time you go to try something you are not sure if you can do; the amount of nerves that you get, and the physical response that happens in your body” CT
“If we are only working hard in the same direction all of the time, the diminishing returns are going to happen really quickly” JD
“We have your traditional speed work which is a traditional day for acceleration, then we have small sided games, and open games” JD
“Our small sided games could involve med ball tag, 4 on 4, 4 on 1” JD
“Kids come with a lot of tension, and one of the first things I do is make fun of them, or make fun of me; and they see the guy in the coach bucket cap doesn’t take himself too seriously” CT
“No matter what we do in the weight room, we’ll have success, because we are coming in with that intent, and coming in off the field where we were sweating (laughing) and working hard, and we are ready to produce those outputs in the gym” CT
“We want kids to laugh, we want kids to fail, and we want to show them that we do that too” CT
“That’s more powerful for me to change the environment than to cue the same thing over and over again, and not get a result, and when I realized that, it opened up into pretty much every category of speed we could do” JD
“(Rotational sprint philosophy) is not going to work with a 12-year old kid, and it’s not going to work with a college kid who has been taught that acceleration is at a perfect force vector of 45 degrees and moving like a robot” JD
“I try to intentionally get away from the point where I am talking more, and I am listening” CT
“Now, the next time you are faced with something difficult in life, understand that with a little bit of intent, you can now accomplish it” CT
“Doing things because they are hard is not a good enough justification” CT
“We do 15-minute lunges to warm up on Wednesday before we play a game” JD
Show Notes
CT Wall Flip
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About James DiBiasio
James is the chief development officer at T3 Performance in Avon, Ohio. He graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University with a B.A. in Human Health and Kinetics and minors in Education and Psychology. At OWU, James was a 4-year starter for the baseball team, and 2-time All NCAC selection. During his freshman season, he was awarded the NCAC Newcomer of the Year award. James also played football at Ohio Wesleyan during his final semester, helping the team win their first conference championship in over 25 years. James spent two summers playing with the Ironmen in the Prospect league, earned a spot on the All-Star team, and was selected as the First Team All Prospect League Second Basemen. He graduated from Westlake High School in 2008 with a 3-time all SWC selection, and was named to the Mizuno All-Ohio team for baseball.
About Collin Taylor (CT)
Collin Taylor is a performance coach and offsite training director at T3 Performance in Avon, Ohio. CT earned his bachelor’s degree in Sports Broadcasting with a minor in Communications from Indiana University. He also played football at Indiana. CT has his training certifications in A.C.E. and is also USAW certified. He has been a coach at T3 and has continued his education with T3 Performance over the past two years. After Collin graduated in 2009 he played Professional Arena Football for 7 years. His last 3 seasons were spent with the Cleveland Gladiators, where he led the team in receiving yards over the course of those 3 years.
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