Mastering Gymnastics Off-Season: Nick Ruddock's Best Coaching Tips

So you've been like foot on the gas for so long and you've accumulated that stress , like these are kids at the end of the day , like they need to reconnect again with like coming into the gym without that level of stress .

So , if we start thinking about goals straight away and this is what we've got planned , this is what you're going to be doing and these are all the changes we're going to be making we're actually not removing the stress . We're changing the stress .

My name is Dave Tilly on the podcast , very excited to be bringing on one of the legendary guests that we've had on many , many podcasts my good friend , wonderful mentor and also a just fantastic coach and guy all around , to be honest .

Nick Ruddick is back on the podcast because when this podcast comes out , we are approaching the off-season in the kind of large training block for many , many people around the world . So there are many people here in the States who are getting close to the end of the season to plan their off season .

Many people around the world are kind of on the precipice of that as well , and so it's around this time of the year that I get a lot of questions , emails , dms from many different people across the club level , the college level , the elite level , the international level , and people always have some sort of questions on what should we do about our strength

program ? How should we plan our practices ? How should we make sure that kids are recovering from maybe a hard season and are healthy ? What should we do to improve on our basics or our drills ? There's a lot of people who have these types of questions and everyone's in a great kind of approach to self-reflection .

They want to think about what went wrong or not as great in the season . What are they going to improve , what are they going to fix . And it's very great that they are having these questions .

So I'm usually very busy these two months of the year doing consulting work , kind of getting together and traveling for speaking , but also in the off season doing consulting work with different programs .

And so this year I wanted to get a little bit ahead of the curve and I wanted to try my best to put together a lot of content that is going to help people with these problems way before the summer starts or the off season starts .

Because the problem is people have these things they want to go to Con Ed places , they want to go to Congresses , but they get to the Congress it's halfway through the summer and they kind of put some drills in it . It's tough , right . How should you think about strength ?

What should you do to think about your goals and structure things , talking to people on the team , but then also what I've gone ahead and I've done and I've taken three different lectures and I've put them in the Hero Lab for people that are existing members .

The Hero Lab is our kind of monthly membership model where we put all sorts of content , education stuff , and there's like 60 lectures in there for gymnastics stuff . There's a whole bunch of different resources PDF , circuits , drills , whatever you want to find in there .

But I put three new ones in there , so one of which is going to be a strength and conditioning lecture on how to train for the off season , with what types of exercises , what drills , what shaping . Another one is planning your entire season .

So how do you make sure the off season is structured well and what are you going to do in there for blocks of the season ? How should you focus on strength or basics or skills ? When should you change into routine mode ? Because I get that question a lot . And the third one is a kind of debrief lecture .

So what do you do at the end of the season to reflect back and talk to the coaches , the kids , the parents ? How do you change your practice schedules , how do you change your planning , how do you make sure you're fall and the kind of upcoming season ?

So one in-depth one on gymnastic strength training , one in-depth one on season planning and one in-depth one on kind of year-end review , and all those are now inside the Hero Lab when this goes up and we're offering 25% off everything that Shift has to offer . So we have the Gymnastics Culture Curebook was very popular . People are using that quite a bit .

The lectures for the hero lab . We have a bunch of strength conditioning courses , a bunch of flexibility courses , a bunch of other things that we've done from past symposiums many , many things in there , and I wanted to just give everybody access to , you know , some more content that if they want to dive in and check out some stuff .

So everything on the store is at 25% off If you just use these . Code summer 25, . So S U m m e r 25 .

Because here in the States it's going to be the summer for the offseason , but you can get anything you've possibly wanted to , you know , get your offseason going well , whether that's drills and skills and stuff in the symposium , or whether that's going to be a flexibility or strength program , whether that's these new lectures in the hero lab , which is a pretty

great value there . It's all inside there , and so I wanted to do this podcast with Nick to get him on to share that , but also just to announce to everybody else that that is live for the week , that this episode is going up . So I hope you have a wonderful episode experience listening to this , taking home some knowledge from Nick and myself .

I hope you dive into some of those lectures that are on discount this week and I hope you have a fantastic off-season training . I'm sure I'll see many people out in the wild as we travel and start to get going . So hope . All right , we're live . We're back in action after a little break .

Nick , my friend , as of course , whenever I want to do a podcast , you're the only one who I want to start talking to . So I'm just kidding . What's up ? I'm good . How are you ? I'm good man . I think this makes your 10th , 12th , 15th , 20th podcast , you know something up in that range . But no man , things are good , things are very good .

I think we have uh , we've struck the balance on the podcast and with shift , of delivering really great information but also not being at a relentless pace every day , every week . That is the summary of my last six months of working with shift . How are you ?

Some restructuring um , yeah , you know things have got to continue to evolve right , otherwise life gets stale and business gets stale as well , so always looking for new opportunities , which is my downfall as well . But , um , yeah , it's been a good few months . Yeah , made some big changes and uh , enjoying life , which is nice nice man .

But did I see , I think through instagram , you were over in canada with ellie and that group ?

Uh , this year , I should say already I've got um at least three more planned Um , so just really enjoying that kind of collaboration and relationship with with uh , with Ellie that are kind of flying into work with us , and obviously just collaborating with with Dave Kikuchi , who I'm sure you're familiar with I think you've had on the podcast as well .

So , yeah , it's been fun , it's been really fun .

So you've got someone like Scott with tremendous expertise , of course , in strength and conditioning that I could just learn a lot from . Um , you know Ellie amazing athlete , amazing human being and , again , you know , I can learn so much from that .

And uh , and Dave Kikuchi also is , uh , you know , ellie's personal coach just a tremendous guy with a really refreshing mindset and attitude towards coaching . And um , yeah , I consider him a great friend and a great colleague as well .

So just a massive fan of spending my time with those people and obviously , um , I'm able to contribute as well to kind of what they're doing . And and uh , yeah , it's been fun . So , um , yeah , looking forward to continuing throughout the rest of the year that's awesome , man .

This is like all my favorite people in the same room , so I'm sure it's the same . You guys must have a blast yeah , and there's other benefits in there .

Um , actually it's ironic that you , we were talking about that as the the uh , the segue for me was that I was getting to the point in the year here where things are getting uh pretty busy with post-season championships .

So here for the club program states , regionals , nationals you know we're approaching Olympic trials not to date the episode , but I'm not sure if you have this as well but usually in the three months of the season we're just about to end one and just about to start the next , the number of DMs messages kind of gets ramped up around certain crap issues and stuff

like that . So that's where it came to mind for me was that like I'm like all right , this is like a time of the year .

People want more information , they seem to need some help , some common questions and I was hoping to talk to you about like some ways people could best prepare for the off season , uh , whether it's , you know , here or coming in a few months a different part of the world , to then have the best next season , right ?

That's kind of where my head was going to , so I'm not sure if you have thoughts on that too , if you get a similar uh , influx of people kind of interested , or if it's , uh , just just my dms uh well , you're more popular than me , dave , so you probably get more dms in general not what I was setting up , not at all um , yeah , I mean , I guess it is

a topic that I am asked about whether it's within my sort of membership community um , probably more so there than anywhere else .

It's interesting because I think coaches move to a state of reflection , don't they ? When one season closes , they're immediately .

As coaches , we tend to just look forward straight away to what's going to happen next and , um , that's probably again the kind of uh , one of the superpowers of what we do , which is like we're always on , because we're always thinking about like , where's the opportunity , how can I improve ? That's also one of our downfalls as well , because we're always on .

I think I'll come on to that in a bit . But yeah , it's a it's a common thread and a common discussion point , but it's nice that coaches are thinking about it , right ?

So , particularly with my , my work here , like college and university level , is oftentimes we'll get a team or or a group that reaches out and wants to consult because they're like hey , you know like we were really frustrated with blank , you know scores , with our cardio wasn't great on floor , our injuries were too much , we couldn't get a full squad ready for

the last you know couple weeks of the season or something . They're coming to you with things that are frustrating and are very , uh , context specific , whether it's form , injuries , whatever .

But in my opinion , from the years of doing this thankfully is I actually find the system for how in which you go about and solve those problems is pretty universal in terms of what you should do , what steps you should take in the off season are pretty pretty .

Uh , you know , set in terms of what you should do , what steps you should take in the off season are pretty pretty , you know , set in terms of , like , how should you go about that ? So maybe one person's problem is injury , one person's problem was floor cardio , one person's was , you know , form deduction or artistry .

The system in which you use to kind of dissect that and improve upon it , I think is pretty universal , and that's kind of what I want to talk about is share some of the things that you and I maybe see commonly program to program that , like this is what you should be doing to make the best of that situation and improve on the next one .

Does that sound good ?

process of actually like , what opportunities are there for us to learn here ? Um , where can we actually improve what ? What can we , what lessons can we take from last season ? And movement to the next season as well . So , whenever , whenever those questions are being raised , that that for me is like a green flag .

It's like there's obviously a group of people that are actually wanting to push things on and evolve and , um , there's nothing worse than just kind of regurgitating the same program and getting the same results .

And , um , one of my favorite quotes I'm pretty sure I've said this seven times on your podcast before um , but 10 years of coaching without reflection is one year of coaching repeated 10 times .

And , like , we just see that so often , you know , you just see coaches doing the same thing every single season , every year getting the same results , and that can only come from either a lack of uh , reflection or a lack of action , because you can reflect and you can draw out all the lessons and you can strategize , but ultimately you've got to put that into

place and you've actually got to deliver on it . Um , so I find that you know , reflection and action together are absolutely critical .

I think in with that in tandem , I see , is people get to that point of maybe like a pain point where it's like frustration or something goes wrong and they really get excited and they like inhale like a ridiculous amount of information and knowledge and maybe a week or so , when the season is winding down , or they have a break and they go to Congress , they

take a lecture , take whatever , and then unfortunately , they get so overwhelmed and they feel as though they're the only person who's trying to make positive change in their gym that maybe other people are not really open to it or not doing it with them . And then they just kind of go back slowly to what they were doing , to go back to the same drills .

They go back to the same conditioning , they just continue to kind of live in their own little echo chamber , they don't reach out to people , and then they find themselves back in the same kind of uphill stream by the end of the off season and then season's right around the corner , got to start routines and they really didn't make any progress .

You know , that's what I see , unfortunately , commonly sometimes is people get really excited , they get really fired up education and then just like slowly slide back downhill and so I'm not sure if you also see that kind of as well .

Um , you know and this happened at the weekend I obviously delivered a conference online and , uh , one of the questions I got was you know , would you recommend that we implement all of these , all of this work and all of these templates straight away ? And I was like well , actually , it's a really great question , because the answer to that is probably no .

Um , you've got to start to like , introduce this slowly , get buy-in from the team , help other people understand , because if you're the change maker or you're the one bringing the interventions and you've got the motive , you're like I've just learned this and I've got this idea , but other people don't have that energy behind it .

They don't even understand exactly what you're trying to achieve . You're just throwing things at them . Um , so change should always be gradual either way , whether it's ramping up or slowing down , like change has got to be made gradually , I think .

before things wrap up and then from there it's may , you know , and that's kind of where things really start to get off to the races .

So the first point that I want to offer , that I think I think I'm finding myself as like the mediator , maybe like the counselor of sometimes in group settings is having like a very large coaching staff and then coach to athlete and coach to parent , like season debrief about like the good , the bad and the ugly .

I think sometimes people are reluctant , like you said , to maybe dig into things that didn't go well , because it gets into like a little bit of sensitive . You know , if you do it the wrong way , it looks like you're just you're playing a witch hunt , you're pointing fingers at people well , you didn't do this , this score was lower , or like these parents .

But instead , if you make it a regular system of like okay , every season , after the last meet is done , we're going to have a week where we're going to let everyone just go , do their own thing , be a kid , go on vacation , you know , come back , get yourself together .

But that first day back , you know , maybe there's a lighter practice or not practice , but we're going to have a two hour . You know what things went really well . We are proud of what things didn't go really well . That we were maybe frustrated with Um , you know .

And how can we all just kind of move the ship in the right direction , towards the biggest , the biggest one or two or three things to focus on Um .

And I find that personally , you have to do that in a group setting first , where everyone can kind of just air it out , get some coffee for everyone , you know , pay for their time if you're a coaching staff , and then individually , it's good to set up meetings with 20 minutes with this coach , 20 minutes with this coach , and just to kind of get on a personal

level , because sometimes people are nervous to speak up if they're not , you know , an open personality . So I think a combination of a group setting , debrief and then individual , one on one meetings .

We would take two full days at the last gym that I worked at and we would do that with every coach and with every athlete to really understand them at a granular level , and then collect all that feedback and be like , all right , like now , now what can we do next , you know ?

So that , I think , is the most important thing is it's almost worth maybe a week of your time to go through all those individually . You know that's my personal opinion , but you obviously work with a lot of teams , you consult with a lot of people , so what's your approach to that ?

.

Um , I do believe that , uh , it's important to structure those so it's almost like you've got a recurring agenda for those meetings which would happen after every single competition or season , and what that allows is an element of consistency and people would understand , like we've got a process behind this , so we do the competition and then you know two days , three

days later , whatever that is . These are the questions that we ask ourselves and if people can get into that pattern , I think it , um , it helps to smoothen the process for people that you know particularly .

Um , well , I guess what I'm trying to say here is that some people see these things , you know they get quite anxious about it and , um , like we , we want to take , we want to normalize those discussions . So I think the more you can structure it so you've got consistency , the better . So , having the same questions which get answered .

Um , you know , obviously it's got to be delivered on a bed of psychological safety . You know mutual trust , you know all of that . That's a given um , yeah , but then that normalization and that familiarity with those conversations I think is quite powerful . So , yeah , I do believe in everything that you've just said there .

Now , depending on the level of performance , of course , and the um , how high the stakes are will depend on how formalized or how detailed those meetings need to be . I mean , like some athletes and coaches or teams , you just don't need to be going into like horrendous amounts of information .

But if you're working at um international level , you know those debriefs are super , super important and they will be more granular . You will be looking at um . You know every single one percent opportunity . You'll be comparing scores , of course , from what you might have achieved over that period to other teams as well .

Uh , you'll be digging into opportunities , the . You know the score data is analyzed a lot more intensely . But you just don't necessarily need to be doing that at that level for your younger development kids that are just doing a few hours a week . Of course we don't want to go overkill on this .

super tense , but like you know , it's a meeting about something that didn't go well .

And so if somebody offers a solution or says something out of the world and like you can feel like this kind of gossipy nature to like bickering a bit and it's like clearly you guys aren't based on like this kind of aspect of like we're all working together to raise the bar and try to make everybody happier at work and kind of make the kids happier too as

well , and so if that's not first , you know you need to really set that in stone .

And I can just speak from example of obviously not saying the teams , but like I'll have a meeting with a zoom caller , I'll go to a university and it will be the head coach , the two assistant coaches , the volunteer coach , the strength coach , the physical therapist and the medical staff right or another like doctor or something like that , and the nine of us

will sit around here and talk about , you know , reflecting back on the season of what went well . And I can promise you that the teams that are like making the best of the time and are just the ones that are really just crushing it year after year after year , that that conversation is open , no one's fault .

We're not pointing fingers , we're just trying to all figure out what needs to be done to get things to move forward , you know .

And the other thing I think I want to highlight on this , before we move on , is once you find out what you want to work on , you have to very quickly say am I capable , do I have the knowledge base to do this myself , or do I need help ?

And so in those programs , those university university programs , they have a strength coach and a pt , and at mental health , nutrition , they are constantly working in that circle and being like , okay , this is outside my scope of expertise , I need to ask somebody to help me .

Or maybe I'm really good at , you know , strength conditioning and I can figure this out myself . So those are my two parting thoughts .

Is is don't be afraid to have those conversations and make it open and honest , but also be very open about your edge , of your knowledge levels yeah , yeah , I've got just probably two things I'd like to add , if you don't mind , um .

And that's going against the culture which we want to encourage , which , as we've discussed , is one of safety and collaboration . It's when we can challenge each other and discuss things without there being fear of repercussions .

So ideally , when people are looking at their competition schedules whether that's for next season actually scheduling these meetings now rather than waiting for something to happen before going . We need a meeting , and that way people again understand that , ok , this is great .

We've got like a pre-competition discussion and that might take place a month before , and then maybe another one a week before . That's in the diary , locked in , and then we've got the actual event itself . We've got a cooling off period .

So , like , never do this the day after um , have a few days to cool off , and that means cool off from success as well as failure and then have your proactive meeting afterwards and then that framework can just be replicated throughout the year . Um , and I think that cooling off period is important because , like , ultimately , competition is emotional .

Uh , when you have great success , you ride the high of the emotion of that and you start to feel invincible and you start to pat yourself on the back and think like everything was great and I told you we could do this and our plan was perfect . Let's just do it again . But that's not reality . That's actually not the way that things work .

And then when we fail , when we make mistakes in competition , we can be emotional as well . Like I'm terrible , I messed the plan up , nothing went right , I'm quitting my job and it's like , and that's not right either , yeah , but that's normal .

Like we , we react as like because we're so invested in the performances and results , right , so , having either parent conversations or like serious athlete meetings or these coaching discussions , like I do believe that there needs to be a planned delay between the event taking place and then the formality of the discussions and like , on that note , I've just got a ?

Um , a principle or a policy behind that that you know , I'm just not going to have coaching discussions with parents , like at the competition itself . So , um , um , there's got , there's got to be that allowance for the time now .

The final thing I wanted to mention was about the importance of recognizing where success um has come from , because success leaves clues , right , and so these meetings shouldn't be just seen as like what's gone wrong , like where are the gaps , you know , where are the opportunities . That stuff's great , but we need to learn from well .

What did we do really well throughout this process too , um , what have we done which has been successful that we need to make sure we continue to do throughout the next season as well , and that is equally as important , so we can learn a lot from success and a lot from failure we don't want to disregard either yeah , I love it .

pretty well . So what is your first tip for people that you have ?

The demands on us psychologically , or the athletes psychologically , is high . There's a level of stress involved with that process . You know it's all well and good coming back to the gym , doing a strategy and a plan and going right , cool , let's get straight into the next season . But like , ultimately , like people need to rest into the next season .

But like , ultimately , like people need to rest , um , you need to like , allow and plan for a period of down . So you've been like foot on the gas for so long and you've accumulated that stress , like these are kids at the end of the day , like they need to reconnect again with , like , coming into the gym without that level of stress .

So if we start thinking about goals straight away and this is what we've got planned , this is what you're going to be doing , and these are all the changes we're going to be making we're actually not removing the stress . We're changing the stress . The stress is no longer about like you've got to deliver this routine next week for the competition .

Don't mess it up . The stress is now where you've got these goals that you need to achieve by this deadline in order to be ready for the next competition , and I just don't think that's healthy for the children and actually I don't think it's healthy for us as coaches either .

So , allowing the athletes to come into the gym and just to like really reconnect with , like the fun part of the sport , so um , playing with skills , exploring , exploring new skills , being creative , like not having that pressurized training , I think that's tremendously important and that's going to prevent burnout from both athlete and coach , because the predictability of

training in a competition season like it wears off . And you know I said about the importance of reconnecting with the sport and the passion . Now , that's not to say that competitive season is horrible , but actually , like , let's be real about this , there's a lot of athletes that don't particularly find that process like super fun .

They're not like I can't wait to go in the gym today and like do eight routines on beam . Like there's not many athletes that will feed off that . What they're looking forward to is like the result , that like they fixate on the outcome quite a lot of the time .

I think when it comes to competitive season like I'm doing this because of the outcome , that I want , and like let's not lose sight of like we want the athlete to walk into the gym excited for training and just ready for the unpredictability and the playfulness and the creativity that the sport can offer them , and I think that's really really powerful .

Now that could be a game , it could be team sports and activities with them . It could be a little bit more autonomy and training , so a bit more freedom to explore . It could be just experimenting and playing with new skills that you're not actually taking that seriously . So I just think that that period is really important .

Now , for some people that period might just look like two weeks , and it doesn't need to look like any more than that . Like two weeks might be 10 training sessions . For some it could be a little bit longer .

Um , you know it all depends on the , on the competition structure , but you know there might be listeners thinking , well , we don't have time to do that . You've got to make time and you've got to . Um , you've got to make sure that that stuff gets into your training .

So , like you might not go from one extreme to the other of like highly structured to no structure , because the pendulum would swing too much . Maybe you just find that balance point where you're staying on top of foundations , you're still bringing the intensity down , but you're also exploring and having loads of fun , like that's . That's what this is all about .

So , like , is training fun enough ? That's that's got to be a key question that we're asking ourselves .

And the second piece to it is you have to as a coach , as a parent , maybe even as an athlete too , if you're older is you have to like understand why that's so valuable and why that's so important .

Because I don't know , the States is famous for this , but gymnastics as a whole is like you just get in this hamster wheel of success where , like , you just constantly need to be running towards the next thing , and I feel like when everyone sprints on a hamster wheel to nowhere , everyone just kind of falls apart and we like we lose the , the like you said ,

the enjoyment and the reason why we're doing it . I can tell you that , as someone who is very busy in this time of the year with everyone getting ready for States , regionals , nationals , end of the year show , whatever there's not a single person that I work with .

It's like I feel great , I feel is kind of like just trying to get by and get through the end of the season , cause it's hard , man . It's really hard emotionally and physically on your body , even if you have a wonderful gym and culture and pressure .

So I will personally say that I recommend everyone takes a full week off if not two weeks off if they're younger in particular , because they just really need to give themselves a break and then a full week of like what you said , of like , get in the gym , play , do skills that you want to enjoy , just have fun , just relax a bit , keep it loose .

More open gym structure with some like conditioning and stuff can still be a little bit more , you know , maintenance care type stuff . But , um , if you plan these things early and you get ahead of the ball , so , say you , you end in the middle of may for our competition season .

You could take two full weeks off and then have a week of play , and you still have three and a half months before a routine start . It's like you got plenty of time right . So if you don't plan for these things , though , you don't really ever , uh , give the opportunity to educate parents about like , hey , this is when you take your holiday .

If you want to take one cause .

We want you to be a kid and enjoy yourself Like you never really get there and then you feel like you're behind the ball middle and I appreciate you said that and I think the next one that I have is something that I stole because I knew it was important and I think we both religiously are that important of a structure , for it is the time in the off-season

is the only time in my period that you can get significantly stronger . I think that physical prep there's no problem . Someone has come to me at the end of season with whether it was like culture , flexibility , injuries , scores , cardio .

There's not a single problem that I've ever worked on with a team or consulted on that didn't have some solution in physical prep . You know like it's . Physical prep can mean basics and body lines and just going back to kind of like fundamentals .

That can mean better accessory work for your ankles and your Achilles so that next year your ankles don't fall apart . That can mean you know all sorts of stuff .

So , um , I think that the the two months in particular when you come back from that three week or two week , uh , kind of like downshift , um , you have very limited time actually to get like substantially stronger legs or core or body .

So I feel as though a full , in-depth , robust strength conditioning program that is blended between you know , general preparation with weight training and into general specific pressure stuff that you have offered with daily dozen and gymnastic stuff . I personally find that like this eight weeks .

Maybe you have there's only one time to do it and I think that it comes up then . So I'd love to hear your thoughts first , because this is obviously something I've learned a lot from you on .

I mean , we , we recognize that we can work on external load and producing force and things throughout the entirety of the year , but when we were looking at that window of opportunity to exponentially expose the athlete , I guess , to those high forces and really push them through strength , yeah , that window is smaller because you just don't want to be doing that

whilst they're being exposed to the load or the volume and the intensity of actually doing routines and doing hard landings and and all of that . So , yeah , that's , that's absolutely key . And it kind of sounds counterintuitive , doesn't it ?

Cause we say , well , we're going to go on a rest , but then hang on a minute , like now , we're ramping up the physical , but that is what needs to take place , and , um , you're like the whole season and the success and the robustness of the athlete will be built on whether or not we've done a good enough job at developing that foundation of strength as well .

Now , one thing I want to add , which does link back to the previous point about taking time off , because , I wholly agree , after a competition finishes is the ideal time , of course because you're the furthest point away from the next season to take time off .

What I would discourage people doing , though , is literally going away the next day , and I often find this that , um , you know , clubs or parents might assume that as soon as the competition's done , let's say that that's on a sunday , that monday is the best time to travel and to go away , and , as I mentioned earlier , any changes , both up and down , need to

happen gradually . So I can I'm pretty sure there'll be a lot of coaches listening to this that recognize that when they go on vacation , they get sick straight away .

So their body , kind of like , all of a sudden , the stress and the intensity of life just stops , and now they're , um , you know , they're sitting by a beach in mexico sipping mojitos and like everything's changed , and their body just , you know , they get sick straight away .

Now this can happen quite easily with our athletes , and so , actually , that that recovery week or that vacation time is now spent with illness , and so it's an important factor that to taper off as well as taper up , to prevent injury and illness taking place in the first place .

So I just wanted to add that in there because I think it's an important point and it's something that I've certainly learned um working within the kind of the high performance community that they've always recommended science and medicine teams . That you allow a good few days of lower intensity training to kind of gradually bring the body down , okay .

But back to your point strength training using that block , completely agree no , I like that .

So people come back on a Monday after a holiday or a three day or a four day week and they're like all right , you should be fresh , we're going to crush you , right . And they go so hard on Monday that like by the next week and the delay , people sh in my life . So that's it . Two is that do you think they put basil in their mojitos ?

That was also something I was going to ask . But the third point is that I'll just summarize this .

Okay , so I know people want practical , like nitty gritty things , and so I believe and I think you've shared this with me is that it doesn't matter whether you're in the gym one day per week or six times a week , with doing two days on a national team . 33% of all of your time in the gym should be physical prep in some way shape or form .

I feel like that's basic flexibility , whatever you want to call that . A third of your time should be on physical prep for a rec class . That's like the warmup and some conditioning at the end right Of an hour .

But I and then within that too , if we're talking about a competitive program , that's kind of got more uh , um , high level goals , um , I think that within the off season block , half of that time should be between general training , where you use a cross training , weight training , dumbbells , barbells , whatever kind of GPP .

We call that general physical preparation and 50% of your time should be gymnastics , specific training , whether it's every day in a warmup . You're doing Nick daily dozen or you're doing circuits that are just gymnastics a couple days a week .

I have some programs that are only two days a week and they do the same exact thing One day is one , one day is the other and they have their warmup and strength conditioning inside there and I think that that should be like not a rule but a very close guideline you follow and I think that everything I've ever studied from the science of gymnastics and sports

performance and this and others , says that the combination of general training and specific training in the off season , when properly done , is the best way to get explosive body weight power , which is what everybody wants , and it's the best way to get anaerobic conditioning for a floor routine or a bar routine or a ring routine .

So I know people want some like hardcore things to kind of like jot down and bring to their next meeting . And that's my guide , that's what I tell the people I consult with .

So you've referenced the daily dozen a few times and for those that are unfamiliar , it's a baseline program which has got your cast handstands in your rope climbs , your presses , it's all of that kind of content , and so that is almost the entirety of our young athletes' physical prep and of course , as they mature , we integrate a hybrid model of course .

So we've got now the introduction of external load and like true strength training as opposed to body weight strength training . Now what I see when I'm working with some of the you know , really high level athletes is that the the ratio is completely flipped .

They're actually only doing about 15 of gymnastic specific preparation and they're getting the rest of their physical prep entirely from strength and conditioning . That doesn't necessarily mean it's like really like high level strength stuff .

It could be power training , like rate of force development , for example , but it's done in a fitness gym , it's done with a strength and conditioning coach and actually you hardly see them do any gymnastics preparation back in the gym because what happens is their gymnastics takes care of that anyway when they're working at that level .

Doing a bar routine is physical prep , like they don't need to necessarily do a rope climb or a set of press the handstands when they're doing so . Many cast the handstands in routines and high level

skills . So for the listeners just to be really clear on this , I am referencing high level athletes with high level . The listeners just to be really clear on this , I am referencing high level athletes with high level programs here , not your kind of mid-level athletes .

They'll still need probably a lot more specific gymnastics preparation , but I think it's an interesting point that that ratio really does swap around with the modern day high level performer , at least with many of the athletes that I've worked with anyway , not everybody .

But if you're under the age of 10 , I would say maybe even like 11 , like I'm actually probably 80% of your time should be on gymnastics specific preparation , because shaping and basics and skills and drills like that is like the foundation of your entire career .

And then vice versa , when someone gets to university or college and they've done , you know , 12 years of elite and then they did a bunch of other things on top of that , and like they've never weight trained ever before , I want them to spend more time in the in the weight training gym with really good , seasoned strength coaches , because , uh , like a small drop

in that bucket makes an exponential return . Just learning how to properly deadlift and load for six to eight weeks sometimes makes a massive improvement in their power . So , yeah , it's very context specific . I think it's probably the summary there . Um , yeah , in the essence of making sure we get through all these , um , so we have , uh , reviewing the season .

We have making sure we have time for play , we have strength conditioning robustly , and then , uh , what's your second one here ?

And again , when I say don't rush , I'm not saying that you put this off for weeks and weeks and weeks , but I'm saying like , don't be too too quick and too eager to start throwing goals at your athletes and like even your coaching team , because you just want them to be able to walk into the gym with that unpredictability and that , um , that kind of sense

of energy of like , oh , what are we going to be doing today ? Um , and so I think having a bit of a delay there is is going to be important . Now you're smiling for some reason , dave , so what have I said ?

Like yeah , like wait till you get that double on floor , like that'd be so great . We can move up , we can work like level nine skills . Now I'm laughing at myself being a dingo , or a Muppet , as you would call me . I think back to my younger coaching years .

It's good for the kids to come in thinking they're going to have a heavy session and just saying you know what we're going off program today , like that just can bring a great sense of energy . Um , and it's just , I guess it's about experience and knowing , like , when you should pull that lever and when you shouldn't .

Because there'll be there'll be a lot of coaches listening that don't have anywhere near enough structure as it is and they need the opposite . They need to be more goal focused and task oriented and to bring a level of structure so that you have more purposeful practice .

But there'll be other coaches listening that are so regimented and militant about what they're doing that they need to do the opposite , which is that you're actually going to get more out your kids by by reducing structure and allowing a bit more freedom and autonomy . Um , always context specific , like everything that we've discussed is .

But , uh , I think that's probably like another little nugget that I'd like people to take away . Allow a bit of time where you don't have that set out .

Right , they just grinded for eight , like eight weeks straight to really get prepped , to really peak , and then they got to the meet , they got super stressed , they hit their routines , are so excited and the first thing they hear from a well-intentioned parent or coach is like , yeah , like can't wait for you to get these new skills and that is very good .

Yeah , we kind of hit that one before . But , um , the last one that I have that I think is is really , uh , overlooked . Uh , sometimes I would say there's errors on both sides . Some people are too paranoid , people are not .

Is you have to really think in advance of the next year and work your way all the way backwards to what you're going to be doing in broken down down ? But for the well seasons coach , it's just having a really good idea of what's coming down the pike .

And I think the way you do this is you start from the next year's most intense competition or what you want to peak for , you work your way back into three month chunks of the season and then you break those down into individual months and weeks , and I find that in most places that I work with college , university or maybe club level two is like season gets

done . Kids are still in school , they're busy with academics and so like they kind of have that two week or three week break , which is great , and then all of a sudden like kind of just like all muddles together to like not really having a plan .

We're kind of working new skills , we're kind of doing our physical prep , and then a month goes by , we get the holiday of 4th of July here in America , so like then people are gone a little bit for that , and then you look up and you're in August and you're two months into the off season .

You only have one more month to get ready and people start to panic . They start to panic about like what they should do . They start throwing a lot of routines , they start throwing a lot of drills and stuff for the kids and people break down a bit .

And so I think for us we've talked a lot weeks where we're going to really pull back quite a bit , maybe do a lot of these kind of unstructured play , but then two weeks we're going to ramp up slowly .

For our strength program we have a full four month block of really hard strength and physical prep and drills and then we're going to pull back for a week , then we're going to push for another month , like that level of detail is really important , and the only thing I want to offer before I hear your thoughts is the reason you need to do this is because

everyone needs to be prepared Parents , coaches , athletes . They need to know what the next eight weeks looks like so they can strategically put their effort into these few weeks and then know that I have a break coming down the road . Parents can take their holiday , kids can have birthday parties or whatever they want to do .

If you don't educate them and give them a plan in advance of the next 12 weeks , loosely , I think , what happens is sometimes they just like feel really , really overwhelmed all the time and they just feel like they're constantly running uphill non-stop .

So really sitting down in those meetings and planning what does the next three months look like and what are we going to do within those three months ? And then , what does pre-season look like ? How are we going to transfer over to routine mode , like really far in advance .

. What usually happens is you work backwards and then you realize you really don't have much time to be like relaxing . Yeah , I mean , like your competitive season in the States is slightly different than what happens here .

But you know , like we , we compete again , like , where there's kind of two periods really it's it's the spring and then the autumn of two periods really it's it's the spring and then the autumn , um , and so for most athletes , if they're going to go away on their family vacation , by the time they get back there's very little time between them and then their

kind of first competition . So it's always a bit awkward really , um , and then when you take into fact , like that into consideration , and you work back in your blocks and your months and things , you don't like , geez , we've only actually got like a few weeks before .

We need to be goal orientated again , um , and that is a good thing to do , like to be to realize that and also remember that's where the stress comes as well , which is why it's , as I've mentioned already , so important to capitalize on the small window of opportunity that you do have to take your foot off the gas , because that that window of opportunity will

go very , very quickly . Um . So I absolutely agree in reverse engineering that process . Now I'm always asked . I'm always asked this how many weeks of competition preparation do I need to do so ? How many routines , how many numbers ? When do I start ?

And it's way too context specific to ever answer that , because it depends on how , how healthy and fit is the athlete , how competent are they , how prepared are they for the routines they're going to be doing , how many days do they train , etc . But what I would encourage coaches to do and we've talked about this really it's the process of plan , do review .

So if they've just done a competition season or a block um , and none of the athletes were ready in time , then the the answers are there . You've just got to go . Well , we need to get them ready earlier . So we only did six weeks of preparation . Now it needs to be eight . Let's give eight a go and see if that works for us .

As you know , this time around , maybe eight becomes the sweet spot that you then replicate with that crop of athletes , um , and there'll be some athletes , of course , that need more time or less . But you've got to learn from what you do , and that's the best way of ever getting to the answers that you're looking for .

It's not to ask someone else who's you know . So there's someone that you might ask who's only coaching ? Five athletes got a huge gym . Their athletes are training twice a day . The ratios of coach to athlete are amazing . The kids don't go on vacation in the summer because you don't let them .

You can't compare that to your own circumstances , where you've got 20 kids , a busy gym . You're training three times a week instead of twice a day . You've got to learn from your own program and going through the process , interrogating it and analyzing it and then going cool .

Now these are the changes we're going to make next time and let's just find that sweet spot and it really shouldn't take many seasons for you to work out . How long do we need to prepare these athletes for a company ?

I think by the error on too rigid . As people make a plan , they write it down . They never sway , they say we can't , we're doing this many routines , we're doing this many strength . This is what Simon is like you have to do . Really ever write things down .

They kind of like let's do some rope climbs , let's try some handstands , let's try this drill I saw on Instagram , like , and they find like they're just floating in the ether and it never really has a concrete structure to it . So I would say just be careful on either sides of those .

So you said before you know and I've been this guy as well but like the competition finishes , you get really excited and you go cool , wait till you do this . And like now we're going to start doing this . And um , and actually you just need to take a minute and pause sometimes and go good job , you know , well done . Uh , I'm proud of you for this .

Or this was fantastic , and like let's just sit with that and stay with it without saying well done , but . Or you did a good job on this , but and like we just I've done that loads , like we probably all have .

And it's just having that moment , like celebrate the success , and then say nothing else , just like let the athletes enjoy what they have done and achieved and accomplished .

And , by the way , if they haven't got something to enjoy , maybe they're feeling really bad about their performances and like nothing came to plan , like then they need a bit of time to kind of get like , come to terms with that , and they need the support as well before you even start to think about the next period , because they're just gonna , they're just gonna

freak out like well , I didn't even manage this , like now you want me to do that , so we've just got to be , um , I guess , empathetic about that . So I apologize that probably all of my things have kind of like linked in probably too closely , but I'm quite passionate about that and I'm passionate about the items that you've shared .

You know the importance of structure planning , reflection , you know all of that . I think it's crucial , absolutely vital .

You need to make sure the athletes have time to play and kind of enjoy the training process Again , not so structured , not so hardcore with routines . Be very diligent about your strength conditioning and your physical prep program .

You need to make sure that you have not rushing your goal setting and throwing too much at the athlete right away for planning for the next year as soon as one stops , and then really make sure that we have an in-depth approach to what we're going to do each month all the way through the next year and then , lastly , trying to make sure that we're not doing

what did you say ? Sorry , last one , I can't read my own handwriting . Just celebrating success , really , yeah right , sorry , the c's man , the c's in my handwriting really get me sometimes , um . So yeah , I think that's pretty good to kind of chew on and I think most people are going to be looking for some more um , in-depth kind of things here .

So I know you have wonderful mentorship programs , online stuff , gym

con stuff . Can you tell people about where they can find any information from you ?

They'll be able to find all my events and activities and podcasts and stuff there as well .