Automatically transcribed, so expect the odd wrong name or word.
Welcome back Virtus Podcast. We're back season four again another episode. Today we are very lucky Mitch has made his way down the down the highway from all the way down Footscray way. So today we have Mitch Greaves from MFP Performance. Correct? Correct. Have you gone with that? Mitch is also the rehab coordinator. What's your actual title? Head of Strength and conditioning these days. Oh you have strength and conditioning? Yeah. That's a spicy title. All titles are made up. A tad different. Yeah my last one was performance preparation coordinator. That was the one I was like I don't know if it's still that.
The fakest title you could ever hear. Maybe we can talk about all titles and meet up. Head of strength and conditioning at Hawthorn AFLW. Previously at Carlton, probably seen it on a bunch of other stuff as well and a conversation I'm very excited about because we have similar views on some stuff and we've already we've talked about a few of those over at Common Folk Coffee which is delightful. We should have recorded all that really. Oh man maybe we can open those can of worms now we've got some practice. What do you do Mitch? What's your day-to-day look like?
What do you do for the people? My day-to-day is very different to what it looked like two to three years ago really. What was it? It was during the second lockdown I think that I bought in at MFP, Melbourne Fitness and Performance. Timelines get a bit blurred for me when COVID comes. Oh mate, doesn't it ever. So yeah a lot more business stuff these days but it probably still only takes up maybe 30 to 40 percent of my weight and then yeah kind of my year is split into two halves. One half of the year is AFLW full-on plus MFP and then the other half of the year is kind of summertime.
Yeah. Which is gross these days I'm glad they made the shift when they did. Yeah I mean I'm so glad to not have to stand in 40 degree heat three times a week for too much. Although pre-season is a very different ballgame now that it's winter. Yeah. It's a whole different ballgame. I'm lucky I get to stay in time most of the time. True. Very very true. I get the very very good end of the stick. Indeed. What is MFP? What do you do? What's your niche specialty? What's the business been set up as? What's that kind of look like?
So we started set up as kind of like a hybrid. So we had like our gen pop program and then we kind of had our athletes plus like sport rehab would kind of fit into there as well. And then during COVID we kind of pulled the trigger on just really streamlining and getting after the the athletic population both from a sport rehab and a performance standpoint. So we purely do that there now. We do have like a few gen pop and stuff floating through but they're in there because they add to the energy, add to the vibe more than anything else.
So yeah big youth emphasis now. Youth has really taken off over the last six to twelve months because we pushed for it and then sport rehab is is about to explode now. And you're heading up that right? Yeah yeah I kind of oversee the the senior athletic performance side of things as well as the sport rehab. What's the general makeup of your clients? Do you have a lot of niche of one or is there kind of mixed? I know it's quite mixed but what does it have like an area where you I would say specialize in or just because you come from those backgrounds it's kind of what you guys do?
Yeah probably our biggest streams to this point have been basketball because Mitch Craze is heavily involved or has been heavily involved in basketball and still is. Tennis because Ryan Plavin is was a tennis coach before he became a strength and conditioning coach so those were kind of kind of the two footholds we found early both from those two being involved in those sectors as well as kind of sport coaches that we started to develop relationships with. So they've continued strong and then obviously my background in Aussie rules that more bled into kind of the rehab
side of things and then yeah from there we've kind of added a few other sports starting to take off in kind of like combat also and we've tried to like breach the netball and soccer markets as well so yeah very very mixed. Is there an area you want to branch into as an area you're currently looking at from a business point of view? I want like I think netball and soccer to continue to push into that we're probably at the stage where we've got maybe four or five from each and we think if we can yeah breach that a little bit further.
They're two markets that don't traditionally have a lot of strength and conditioning focus, tend to get a lot of their input from F45 or body fit partnerships so yeah both from what we think we can really help those sports as well as yeah they're just big markets. Yeah it's such a huge like area for growth that especially like a lot of the stuff we do there's not really those big rocks that you can kind of tap into and I agree with like that netball soccer like there's so much untapped potential in that sporting environment that just is so powerful that it just doesn't get done.
Yes and we're Western suburbs so soccer is just massive so we do have a couple of soccer specific facilities around us but I mean with the amount of soccer athletes there are there football athletes sorry football athletes. See I don't work in any soccer football yeah but I can understand where that comes from. Exactly so yeah that'll be big moving forward I think. Yeah what about yourself will you do away from work so obviously today we're topic for today for those listening will be obviously if you haven't read the title will be like systemizing and
approaching field-based rehab or return to play and what that looks like so that's what we're gonna dive into a little bit later but a lot of today's conversation obviously Mitch and I are in the same field so it's easy to talk talk shop I guess you could say yep and get carried away yeah talk shit and go down tangents and I've already warned Mitch that's podcast you do whatever the hell you want but what about away from sport life what's what's life look like for you? Life we me my partner recently moved to Altona so
we're currently settling into that area we were in Yarraville so we're full West now and so how like our day-to-day life has kind of changed a fair bit now we're able to kind of go for morning walks down near the beach and even Cherry Lakes really close as well so it's been a really nice move it's a lot quieter feels a lot more suburbs II but it's still really close to the city so that's been really good and then I've also made the move I still play Aussie rules still play footy myself so I spent
from under 12 under 13 at the one footy club up until last year at Knox where I grew up so I finally made the move out to Altona footy club which has been really refreshing yeah actually just kind of drop the bag on the table and said oh we want you that's that's that's not exactly what happened I don't think I'll probably just yeah badge at the coach until he took me in so but now that's been really refreshing really good it's kind of going back up a divisional too so the stand is really high
of training which is a lot more enjoyable and I'm just looking forward to a bit of a fresh start from from that point of view give me a next question what are you looking forward to so obviously there's so much that you are involved in and so much exciting stuff you're doing both personally business-wise but also in your own profession yep what's a few things you kind of looking forward to not necessarily just issue and then we're early into the year but the next kind of two three four five years what's what's exciting for you
for too many things too many things do you like that I do yeah yeah yeah for sure I'm loving my 30s like just yeah relishing it I think it's really yeah really really cool phase of life that that I mean at the moment and and I'm enjoying it and like there's so many things like professionally and privately that I'm looking forward to one is like me my partner going to Europe for four weeks in May June so Tyler when he goes over there yeah exactly yeah yeah I was over there in 2014 2015 so it's
last time I was overseas so I'm looking forward to getting back over there I'm looking forward to like I for W season kicking off again looking forward to little things like hiring our next junior athletic performance coach I'm diving into I'm finally doing reflex reflexive performance reset RPR level one course which I'm really excited about as well something I've had my iron for four to five years and thought it might be a bit too voodoo but I thought I'll take the plunge and see how it goes so yes yes yeah heaps of things what's um
what's on the horizon what's what's now what's for you now what's now it's kind of a weird time of the year for us hey it is it is it's it's less weird than it normally is though normally like it's just four or five months of no women's footy and I've just usually have just like a little off-season crew that they just train their ass off for four to five months but I'm actually at the club to two nights a week so it's been really good to kind of get frequent touch points with the girls over
there which has been great but it's meant that I'm more busy yeah no which is a bit of a catch-22 but it's but it's nice but between that and MFP like yeah we've had 10 really strong applicants for our junior junior AP coach position so looking forward we've never actually put a job out out that cool for a coach it's just kind of fallen that way yeah we've just had six really really consistent coaches for since we since we started basically so it'd be fun data and you younger coaching in the mix and yeah and
see how they go yeah cool is it is it what void are you trying to get them to fill we spoke a little bit about this lunch but what's the you bring on another new coach which is young and exciting it's not that you guys are old by any means yeah it is kind of in a way the next generation I guess a coach like what's what's the most exciting part of that and what are you excited to teach them and let them kind of grow into if they want to to an extent as well
yeah I think it's kind of that sweet spot between interns your you're really trying to fill gaps that haven't been filled through undergrad and show them what real life as a coach is like so it's kind of that rude awakening for them so I'm looking forward to kind of people like someone coming in that's kind of already been through that I know where they're in for they know what they want to do and we can kind of have a little brother or sister on side of the facility and kind of go you know bit of
energy bit of energy like this is just thrilled to be there thrilled to be working with athletes and just hungry yeah I mean that's the thing that a lot of junior coaches won though they want athletes and I think yeah you guys in particular now you've like really niched into that athletic side of things and I mean the sporting population out that way is massive huge yeah so much to tap into that I'd be pretty excited to follow them yeah I hope so I'm sure ten people will tell us that they're excited for sure so
yeah we'll see what's your what's your application process look like so we've we've just been through the physio yep that physio hiring process probably only three months ago yeah Tash Netten who's been fantastic since she come on so it'll be quite similar in the past we probably we got two attached to one or two applicants early based on either recommendation from someone else or resume CV yep and kind of discarded the rest and went boom let's just interview was one or two physio we went okay let's let's really do our due diligence and go after
four or five make him do like a practical segment face-to-face interview write us a program before you come in all that sort of stuff so it'll be pretty similar which is great because you kind of get a little bit of an insight into in all different facets yeah but above all we just want someone that yeah we're gonna get along really well with day to day that's hungry to learn because we can fill in the gaps from from all the other viewpoints what what do you do really well at MFP what's your strength yeah I
think our strength our strength is like energy vibe energy vibe and just really pushing athletes to to be better not just from a in the gym standpoint but outside life yeah as well which is really cool I think it's it's very easy to get people strong in the gym yeah it's it's it's pretty simple once you've been in the industry for for a fair while but actually being interested and invest in your athletes and and guiding them with you know things like sleep nutrition all that sort of stuff but not telling them what to do
yeah guiding them is very very different make their own good decisions I guess yeah yeah you're just kind of planting seeds and hoping that they pick up and and start to implement some of those things themselves because yeah you can tell people as much as you want but it doesn't mean that they're gonna actually do it yeah I think those things we do really well and then I'm biased I think like a sport rehab side of things is just phenomenal for a private a private setting yeah it's uh where it's about to explode which will
be interesting because we'll have to scale up what we do right now but yeah the the system that we have at the moment by providing access to field as well as gym and all that sort of stuff I think sets us apart from a from a sport rehab from the outside looking in like I haven't actually been down there I will make the trip up to like that's something that I really envy about well you guys do is you do that really really well and it's not something that lots of people do do well hence
which is what I want to talk about with a bit later on like systemizing and approaching field based training not even just to play I know that that is highly specific to you from like a return to play perform side of things but just generally improving those athletic abilities like that's huge yes you know we have the conversation of strength and conditioning as well as strength and its conditioning is different aspects and I think you can even branch that out into when we're talking about field based versus gym based and that's again that's another different
area and I think that's I know from the outside looking in like something I really envy that you guys do and it's something that you do really really well it's great I love it yeah it's it and it's probably not a smart business decision because you could have two coaches in the gym yeah more people in the gym and and financially it'd be better off but from a service point of view I'll tell you what you just can't get the same results particularly from a rehab point of view but we think even more so yeah
from a performance point of view as well so and and going back to your strength and conditioning point of view we deliberately made the decision to call our coaches athletic performance coaches yeah because we feel that that term encompasses much more of what we do and doesn't pigeonhole us into two very very specific areas of athletic development we also didn't want to go athletic development because we feel that that kind of pigeonholes us with junior or youth we felt that athletic performance encompasses all of those areas but then also allows for areas such as like
tactical SNC as well like the fire isn't all that sort of stuff to still feel like I can come and get coached by us as well so yeah well I will stand by that name that name choice I think it's it's much better and I'll be trying to have that conversation at Hawthorne very soon yeah yeah yeah and I think I mean from a value point of view as you said before like getting someone strong is it's not hard to be fair and especially we've been involved in it for so long like writing strength programs
power programs like that's water off a duck's back like it's quite easy and a lot of people can do that really really well yeah whereas I don't think a lot of people can write field based sessions well full stop at all and you know having knowing that you that's what something that you guys do really well I mean from the outside as I said before like that's something that I really really value and like if I have anyone out that way like I'm sending your wife for that reason it's it's something that from an athletic
ability point of view it's way more valuable for the most part than getting someone strong yeah at least because you know your opponent doesn't cash on you are it's whether you can get away from it around them and yeah up and down and all that kind of stuff yeah and can you apply that strength quicker than the person next to you yeah yeah absolutely wonder you have it's another thing how do you utilize that or how to use it which I think yes super undervalued for sure or not even I don't think it's undervalued actually
I think about it I don't think it's something that's undervalued I think it's something that doesn't get taught that well correct it's scary yeah I'm saying it's scary as a young boy it's not because just to sprint someone is scary yeah when you're a junior coach you automatically think I don't want to hurt this person yeah how do you get or how did you or how do you get over that hurdle potential with you coaches and there's there's two ways you get thrown into the fire which Josh Milner did to me yeah basically when I
came on bodies like you're not just a rehab coordinator you're a performance preparation coordinator whatever the fuck that means so part of that was on field speed agility speed agility and quickness and so yeah from there it was like I got off to learn this to not look like a phony yeah and apply it pretty quickly so it was dive into the content or whatever I could find and then practice myself which is I feel like is the biggest step that people don't do and probably why people end up hurting people and then just avoid
it all together and then yeah just just try and start to apply it but I think coming from a rehab background helped because being in a rehab setting you're naturally very risk-averse so when I had to start applying this stuff I was also very risk-averse it probably took me way too long to actually expose people to maximal if it's sprinting then what it then what it does now spreading compared to high-velocity running slightly different exactly exactly so probably dive too much on the on the drilling and the technical side of things yeah without getting straight
to like the performance enhancing stuff but you know you got to start somewhere and you build the foundations and naturally you just get better and better at it over time so yeah what are some valuable resources you tapped into early on we did exhaust is that the point one of a second difference course I think it was another one talk about it was it was great yeah it just basically goes here's a bunch of drills that we get your athlete quicker for a combine which had nothing to do with us but we just wanted a
drill yeah something they're really good at that's what they do exactly and it was phenomenal we picked up some great stuff and then from from more of a broader overview point of view we looked at like we did I think the old Altus not the need for speed course we did it was one of their covert webinar series or something I can picture it yeah so we did we did that and that was great from like a conceptual point of view and then what else did we do and then I think a year or two
later we looked at play had their like online learning platform for a bit there and Gary Schofield did a a change direction agility course and that was phenomenal I remember I did it so good right oh and it's gone now I know anyway it's funny sex actually looking for it the other day putting together a presentation to do it to school yeah great little resource go back and try and find it and find anywhere yeah vanish shit why don't I save this stuff we found one guy on YouTube that like just ripped off and just
recorded a heap of these exercises and I mean we coaches that's what we do exactly let's be real we probably haven't had an original idea not a chance you just good faves great honest thieves honest yes absolutely don't claim to create anything that's the biggest thing so that was great that was really good and that was very that was directed at a high school level yeah so again very very foundational but so applicable particularly in rehab like bridging the gap between actually exposing people to you know full-blown change direction agility and how to kind of
bridge that gap so those those were three big ones I'm definitely missing one or two but yeah you know what the first program the first one we did was man Mike bought a program off Nathan Keeley oh hi yeah it would have been 20 maybe 2018 or 2019 and yeah we bought a three-day three-day speed program off here and it was basically just Excel themed a max face theme day and then a cod it was great we just went and did that played around with some drills he was quite good at just messaging back if
we didn't know what something is good with that stuff I'm tapped in yeah and then yeah we just kind of went from there what do you are what'd you find the most valuable not necessarily content-specific stuff but the way that those resources set it up like what did you find I'll take away from that going hey this is like from a foundational point of view to look at and go yeah I think I can import this kind of stuff very very progressive just it was clearly written by strength and conditioning coaches who had picked up
methods or philosophies from track and field coaches and systemized it the way that speaks our language yeah so you know we could sit down and go okay what's our progression towards a back squad or a front squad or whatever it is do the ice clothes ah don't even feel that whiteboard over there with with a million progressions you know based on whatever you wanted to and it was kind of similar it was like okay you know how do I build towards a 20 meter acceleration effort what are the drills that I think improve that and
then here you go this is the sequence that you put them in it was brilliant because yeah it's one of those things that conceptually or theoretically you look at that stuff and until you feel it you don't know no there's no way to know yeah and I that's something I really really trying to instill in our interns here is get yourself out of the gym first first get yourself in the gym because that's a nice easy really clean place to start because it's easier yeah but also like get yourself outside like sprint run like it
run fast like not just like run fast but sprint yeah there's a difference wake up the next day and have your hip flexes absolutely torched yeah what the hell that session took me 30 minutes I feel I felt fresh as yeah and you've got to understand how aggressive that stuff is one of those things as you said before you don't know until you know and me coming from a bit of a track background like it's I pick things up a little bit easier in that aspect yep you know I've done some pretty grueling track sessions
and sprint sessions but also know what it feels like to run fast not that I can do that much anymore yeah bit washed up like some of my interns like I don't care if you're not gonna go play sport if you're someone who wants to work in performance at all full stop whether that's with weekend warriors whether that's with endurance whether that was with team sport you need to know what some of this stuff feels like yep and everyone always harps on hey get yourself in GMP self under a bar cetera like pick up a
deadlift know what that feels like but I think again everyone forgets that feel bad side of things for sure sport is feel based for the most part or corporate store anything like that it's it's moving your body through space it's not picking up bar for ground no absolutely yeah it's where it's where you can literally apply what you're working on in the gym and feel it in in real life sporting movement yeah and then go and apply it in a sporting context yeah what do you want what do you find most valuable from you own
personally besides feeling what it kind of feels like but you're getting out there and trying different things what are some things you pick up on while you're doing it yeah so many things like from I'm coming it from a point of like had you coach it like from what are the little things like you pick up when you're doing it you think I'd actually realize that yes is there any some general concepts or things that you feel while you're doing the field based sessions ago didn't think that was gonna happen yes I think that the
first layer for me was the timing coordination yeah side of things and how hard that could be to start off with but how quickly the learning effects can be with that side of things and then how much that bled into and this is one of the benefits of still playing sport myself is how much how quickly that bled into my sport which you know it again it's local footy but you feel the difference yeah and and how that's accumulated over kind of my footy career has has been quite amazing to watch and and while I
believe in that side of things so much so I think that but then also from a nervous system point of view like again everything one of the biggest things I hop on with our interns coaches and all that sort of stuff is we're training the nervous system we're not training muscles and it sounds so simple but it's just something that can be so easily forgotten when you're thinking movement patterns or muscle muscle based programming so it literally super charges your nervous system so you can get more out of everything else yeah Mike Boyle calls it
the ultimate power exercise and you can do it multiple times a week like so I think I think those two things from a rehab point of view I think understanding the the position Pacific the position specific strength that you can build up both globally and and and isolated I saw that there was a link between the gym and the field based on that particularly in rehab so like we use basic things like wall holds like doing cutting shapes and crossover shapes and all that sort of stuff on the whole on the wall in rehab from
day dog yeah and you would walk in and if you don't explain the significance to the athlete they're kind of like why must mama doing this but they feel it once they get back onto the field they're building up you know position specific strength through the foot ankle complex through the knees starting at exposure to those gentle rotation forces before you're even taken to the field so they've actually done return to running stuff four to eight weeks before they've even started to think about running you can't put a price on that yeah I have this
conversation a few times more athletes are coming here than they do at St Kilda but I say to someone sometimes getting injured is the best thing you do because it teaches you it takes you back to a foundational level that you learn all these things that you're never ever gonna get taught like yeah if you go through your whole career and not get injured great fantastic very very jealous of you but god it's good to get injured sometimes because you get that exposure which you don't normally get hundred percent and and you've got the the
cognitive space and energy to actually absorb the information that the coaches are giving you without thinking about your own performance on game day training day looking at footage trying to fit into tactical systems and all that sort of stuff you're able to actually absorb the education side of things from a performance training and lifestyle point of view which is going back to the I for W now that can actually be involved through offseason I can't talk to them about you know making sure they're having protein every day or stuff like that in season they're already
overloaded and overwhelmed to think about they got five or six weeks before they're into practice matches they don't want to hear me talk about the importance of getting your elbows up in a front squat you know five to six months of clear time and space where I go through that is such a great and rehab is exactly that such a great time for development of different qualities yeah you mentioned before how do you how do you sell your athletes on the importance of this stuff when they just want to come in and lift or they
want to come and run fast like what's how do you how do you get across the line I guess to those that aren't necessarily receptive to it to start with maybe yeah it's a great question I think nowadays we attract a lot of people who come because of that yeah so I probably don't have to sell it anywhere near as much as what I used to as MFP Hawthorne yeah Hawthorne is a different ballgame Carlton they got very used to it sure that's what I kind of picked up as well absolutely and and that's because
Josh valued so much which is which is critical and and Liv Knowles values it heaps as well which which is great so they've they've all bought in but they're still learning how to do it yeah they do it they're very good at ticking boxes yeah and doing stuff consistently but they'd still don't quite understand the intensity with which to bring to those sorts of drills and exercises to actually get the most out of it because it is a very different thing to train yeah versus the gym first one to three years in the gym slower
controlled learn learn your tempos learn your positions like it's not until a while later that you learning to lift with intent unless they're a very very good lifter and and yeah they're accelerating pretty quickly whereas speed stuff it's like I know I need you quick and bouncy and you know yeah it's it's different in in what way what's the process are you trying to combat that for the next one for preseason potentially now off season now what how are you trying to accumulate that I'm trying to get the girls in yeah yeah this step number
one yeah which again I think having the private the private experience gives me a leg up on probably other coaches in terms of getting them in so like creating little little groups on Microsoft Teams and stuff like that and just drip feeding information or like hey we're gonna test you know a counter movement jump which is gonna allow us to do XYZ for your next block like giving incentives to come in and actually train with you that's step no one once I can get the girls in consistently is to just get them in there and
then from there I just just need a coach the hell out of it and and just get them used to the rhythm aspect and the timings aspect of that athletic development section and I think once I've got these timing gates in yeah which are hopefully coming in the next month I'll hopefully be able to show them what it looks like what it looks like it and why it's important because yeah from a GPS standpoint it's yeah you can show the max V but how much does max V tell the story probably not that much as
representative I don't think exactly so I'm looking forward to that and then looking forward to just micro dosing a bit more education as we go along in it from from why it's important in different scenarios yeah is there obviously your whole thought was your first year program what was a first year program yeah is there anything that you notice potentially from the girls that are new to an AFL program that you probably haven't been experienced to before necessarily is there some common deficits or things that they're lacking that you may have noticed and this obviously
goes for your time at Carlton too but those that are coming out of I'm thinking like 16 17 18 snap leg something that they if they listen to this can go I think it's a pretty good idea need to tap into that I might be struggling with is there something they come to you with that's deficient or some common trends you might notice well they just don't know how to do potentially yeah it's a good question I think if you asked me this in in another year's time I'll have a much much better answer it
was kind of a weird period which which you know where we kind of only got access to those freshies we're still at school real light and then only once or twice a week so yeah the amount that I get to or got to see them versus the other ones was very different and I think that it's probably a bit skewed in the fact that our list manager and and recruiting team probably went after some athletically gifted players so yeah probably lucky yeah I think a lot of them are starting to get taught how to lift
better earlier which is great and a taunting kind of they're being taught what it kind of takes to be a professional athlete so they're kind of coming in with a bit more of that mindset earlier than some of the other girls but yeah from a deficit deficit point of view I'm not sure what point of view like is there anything you even like we're talking about foot ankle like complex that the positioning and I think around that kind of space that they just haven't been exposed to potentially I think yeah I think the majority haven't
been exposed to much of it yeah yeah not much and if they have it's it's probably like you know really skips really simple things like a March I skip I run and then sprint but yeah oh yeah I'll come back to you with with something I'll mark a date down yeah yeah it's one of those things that and I the the programs are part of Napoli and schools and stuff now especially for female a 4w obviously it's really relevant for us they're getting like way better than what they were but I still think and this
is again why we're talking about this today is that field based side of just being able to move fast is something I think that unless you come from a track background or you go to a school that has a pretty good track program you don't really get taught that you either naturally got it but there's no progression to get better at it to an extent I even think for like a lot of our girls we get in for first year and I finish coming for VFW programs like they are taught to lift and some of
them come in pretty strong like oh so nice it's a nice change but I get I think it's that moving your own body through space that that's still a little bit lacking big time yeah hundred percent yeah well I'm where I'm lucky that I've got a direct view into the Nabli side of things so Dave answers who works with us is the HPM at Northern Lights cool with the boys and then Michelle Andrews my girlfriend's sister is the HPM with the girls and all the nights so watching those programs almost double their investment for the
women's program and and match the men's or the boys yeah that'll be game-changing in terms of developing the girls moving forward so yeah we will read the rewards of that I reckon let's let's dive into some systems and some processes because again that's something that's highly valuable but you do quite well when you are starting out where do you start so I know it's a big broad question but what's what's the thing you get directed to to start with when we talk about field-based training field-based training are we talking rehab performance maybe maybe each or
she kind of similar like what's maybe let's start with rehab because yeah that's that's foundation that's fundamental yep rehab is is yeah from from the from day dot we are getting them to do some form of athletic development section what's that look like it literally will just look like wall holds on their unaffected side straight away so they're just doing isometric holds we typically just hit an acceleration base position a cut base position and a crossover base position if they can tolerate all three of those those positions and then they'll go straight into basically an
upright sprint three position wall cycle again whether they can do that unaffected side or affected side from from the start or whether they bleed into it as they get healthier yeah it's kind of where it goes from there and then it's it's basically as as tolerated or as got above physio so we will get them from there working like basic hip lock positions we'll get them like into dribbling as soon as we can like as soon as we can how good can you dribble can I dribble I've done them to it's one of those things
you need a murder to actually work it out yeah exactly and it does not know what dribbling is hasn't done it for please go try it yeah it's not this form of drilling it's very very different that's normally what I do so we basically we have like our return to running protocol and by return to running protocol I mean returned to dribbling protocol basically and that that involves can they tolerate impact on that affected side and can they hit the positions we need them to hit on that side do you have metrics or things you
look at for those two specific things now like the like physio and and Dave will both have a look at at the testing point of view I have been doing it by feel for the vast majority of my career so far I'm lucky now that I'm gonna have the data to back that up which is gonna be great but I kind of I don't envy coaches coming up who are gonna have to rely on data from early on and not be able to develop the feel for you and we're talking about this over lunch yeah
that's a whole different can't each feel kettle of fish let's not dive that no that's a podcast in itself exactly so like that's that's literally as simple as just going through like it we might go through a total short progression of like can you hit double leg splits dance single leg I'm talking like two to three reps of each can you do it and then we go through like our wall max velocity drill with can you actually get the knee flexion position required to do an ankle shin or knee dribble and we kind of go
based off of where they're at from there so like within people always ask me like when do you get like an ACL back to back to return to run and it's kind of such a fluid process that often I forget to celebrate the first actual run yeah okay oh yeah you just did a you ran for the first time kind of even though you're running sort of four weeks ago yeah I just think the value in in training whatever the affected joint or muscle is in those positions from day dot allows for a really smooth
transition from a coordination based standpoint back to when they are actually able to get back and run yeah what's I have no idea if that answered your question no no no absolutely I think a lot of people understand to an extent like the return to run protocol and what that looks like but I think they miss the starting point I think they go straight into the a marches in your bitter hopping and things like that yes the impact control and things you were talking about which I'm glad you brought up because I think when we
talk about you know returning someone back in it squatting anything like yeah we can do that without a shot but again feel bad stuff I think it's kind of voodoo science a lot of people that too scared of it because a lot of them haven't been exposed to it to be fair well you have to have time in the trenches to actually understand you have to have made mistakes yeah yeah fuck it up yeah exactly to get the feel or develop the feel and you talk about impact impact is huge my impact is massive like
depending on what you're coming back from like the difference between doing an a March for let's say an ankle come back from an ankle sprain versus coming back from a quad strain yeah two completely different things like where you put that drill it might not be that much different but it also could be very different yeah yeah that was actually a nice little segue there what's what changes depending on the injury yeah which way do you shift yeah I talk a lot to our guys about how the the athletic development space or the speed agility
quickness timeline doesn't change too much in rehab it's just probably you start off with a lot more like max velocity based drilling and tip that to the start versus a lot of the acceleration like base work but again it's so to so dependent on the injury like like Jordan Mendacchio does some fantastic stuff on on early early acceleration drilling post hamstring strain because it just views it as such a safe space to get that work in versus yeah coming back from from an ACL and looking more at ground reaction forces through the knee starting off
with very very ankle dominant work because we know that has a really good protective factor on the knee joint and we can get some good work in there early yeah it just it changes a lot but it also doesn't change that much which is which is a terrible answer yeah no because it's right and it's and it's one of those things that people want the black and white but when we're talking about especially rehab like rehab is never black and white no as much as even training itself like as much as we want to clear
to find start and finish you're never gonna get it no and you know you'll have this I'm sure you answer a lot of questions similar to me it's depends like this and lots of people get frustrated by the answer it depends well you just need time in this room keep going back to is you need to get exposure to the different things to understand what the outcome is yep and you can't unless you actually stick your head down and ass up and okay you know they're gonna be certain situations where you get exposed to this
which is very lucky and you know somewhere you getting an injury you've never had before and as you said sometimes you go to trial things for sure this is what it comes back to the systems and processes around this is where we start typically and then we're gonna shift left or right depending on what's in front of us yep and I think again it's one of those undervalued things is people don't know where to start yep we know our agility progressions we know we have like running progression we know them to death but it's the
impact control it's the smaller stuff that is foundational that pays off big time in return and I think as I said before it's something that's highly value that is undervalued to an extent that it's missed and I think what my next question is gonna be is like when you're let's say your hate they can come to you and say hey Mitch I want you to put together a unit on field-based training what do you start with how you gonna teach that and I had this question pre-loaded before you even started because it's something I think
that you know tapping into how you think about this stuff and I can see your brain working it's so good I'm gonna zoom in on that later because it's one of those things that there's so many places to start with yeah for young coaches it's something that I couldn't recommend highly high enough physiology yeah physiology I think the unit that was the question well yeah if I had to develop yeah if you're gonna start a unit or it would be yeah physiology and and looking at sporting movement and going okay how do we yeah how
do we train that yeah and yeah a big component of that is is yes speed agility quickness training yeah and and then from there like it would just be so heavily practical yeah and I hope that you all injure yourselves at least once throughout the unit because what you can learn from hurting yourself doing some of this stuff is just worth its weight in gold yeah because then you have to work around what however you've hurt yourself and you bring yourself back to quote unquote back you never come back as a worst mover ever there's
a reason for that yeah yeah I mean like so we we run our need for speed workshop which is designed to be quite flat about that actually yeah it's yeah we love it it's it's really great and it kind of brings it basically brings all the stuff that we've stolen from every other good coach into kind of like one one day or one bundle and yeah we just roll people through just over and over again practical examples of things but then always bring it back to kind of the theory side of things yeah and I
think we we try and do a really good job job of I always talk about zooming in and zooming out over and over again we do I think we do a really good job of zooming out and understanding and accepting that that speed itself people talk about game speed is such a highly complex and multifactorial thing that it's easy to get overwhelmed but at the end of the day you can dial it back in and implement some really really simple stuff and get really really good results so yeah I think if you like when I'm
designing field-based sessions like I'm thinking okay what what kind of theme does this day have or what what is the big rock that I'm hitting and how am I preparing the athlete to get the most out of that big rock so like early on with our like developmental athletes or year one two athletes like I like blocking or theming the day sure again coming back from a motor control a motor learning point of view I don't want to overload them with them a mixed theme day and try to teach them max V concepts Accel concepts
you know in the one session so I like doing it that way either by doing like an acceleration themed blocks you might be hitting that twice a week for like a four-week block or six-week block or having like Accel max V cod across the week and then later on like with like pure performance based training in this space like two year two year three year four athletes like that's when I feel like I can get some really good bang for my buck in terms of expose them to more change direction agility which realistically is acceleration
yeah work anyway so I feel like everyone's really really hung up on straight line speed and has been for the last little bit which is great like everyone needs to start somewhere and if that's where you're starting that's perfect because a lot of the concepts are very applicable to change direction agility but people are undervaluing the importance of change direction and agility do you think that comes back to complexity again just straight line running again scary yeah it is horrifying yeah terrifying yeah hundred percent because it's it's also if you look at how some people
train agility it just looks chaotic as all hell and it looks like a space where people can get hurt and no one wants to end up with a hurt athlete at the end of their session but I think again it comes back to how how bold you are and how willing to learn you are to try and implement that stuff and then also having people above you that are giving you this like time space and creative freedom to actually try stuff and you know say it doesn't work that's fine I'd rather you try it doesn't
work and then because then you're gonna make it better sure yeah yeah yeah love it awesome how do you do micro dose you wake box maybe not necessary family paid stuff but yeah we do we do so Wednesday nights was typically our max V exposure day where we'd hit some form of fly or max effort sprint looking for total volume or just effort we were trying to touch somewhere between 92 to 95 percent max V like two to three out of four weeks every four weeks and again it was a brand new program so we
didn't have existing data of course also I'm not patting myself on the back but you know there was at least eight to nine kind of PB's or spit max V increases across the the and like no soft tissues directly related to those those exposures which it was as good as we could hope for yeah awesome how do you how do you go about planning and programming change direction or Julie what's your kind of progression not necessarily progression of like where you start where you finish but what is kind of like one of those sessions look
like to you when you're putting it or writing it out from market process point of view yeah we start with like post-warm-up some like neural prep work we just find that the neural prep work is just critical to bridging the gap between yawning mobility work and actually the first couple of drills so we'll do some form neural prep work whether that's coordination ladder fast feet work quick hips all that sort of stuff yeah then we'll go into some form of pre-planned pre-planned very basic movement that is gonna form the foundation for the next more complex
or chaotic drill so that might be something as simple as like a lateral push-off band resisted lateral push-off like deceleration wheel drill just really really simple stuff like that to kind of yet not just for the teaching component but also for like a tissue prep component as well because again this stuff's just so aggressive if you do it with with intensity yeah against one of those things it's harder than you think it is absolutely absolutely and then we'll go into some form of like reaction based agility drill whether that's really simple like some form of
mirror drill with the connecting cord in between where one person is trying to create space one person is trying to close space and break or keep the keep the velcro together or the other thing I'm really enjoying using the moment is the velcro tag yep set as well which is more of like can you invade or close space again so like we'll do that after we've done like you know a pre-planned drill like a basic end drill and drill some some curve curve running or yeah basic stuff like that that bleeds quite nicely into into
the aggressive stuff yeah last question before we finish out with some questions from the crowds before you have to leave what's let's say at local local sport yep even div 3 div 2 yep trying to just train good qualities you're interning you're volunteering you just want some exposure when we're talking about field based things what are some like key rocks you'd love to do at that level you think pay off big time yeah apart from just getting exposure to running fast yeah something I think is again missed a little bit local sport is running fast
that's why you have so many books to your hamstrings and set those yep but let's say yeah I'm a second year uni shoot I'm gonna volunteer in a not knocks because I won't use knocks but haha morning today yeah I wanted to football I want to get my hands kind of involved in that where do you start what are some things that yeah first of all what a place to start yeah like so much what a place to start and get out of your coaches don't get to start at local level versus interning at elite
or sublete yeah chalk and cheese humps get in there local get your hands dirty make mistakes they're gonna do it anyway you were handed a ticking time bomb oh yeah it's one of those things it's like because a lot of those places don't have access to to the gym yeah what an impact you can have in terms of just building some baseline level of strength just with five to ten minutes of work post a warm-up like unreal I think it's one of those spaces that just you just need to get out of your own way
and get dirty and because God it's so valuable yeah hundred percent and you probably hate thirty percent of it that's fine like you know yeah yeah exactly what you're gonna get is far out ways what what it's gonna get take away from your life the big things would be like just nail the fundamentals like video as much as you can so if you're just hitting really really simple things like you're just teaching them how to accelerate so you know just going through basic things like two-point starts half kneeling starts all that sort of stuff and
going okay what are the positions I want them to hit knowing that it's not gonna look anything close to what you want it to look to yeah but if you can get even two to five percent improvement in those guys easy work once you get to the early I also think it's such a great environment to just as we talked about at lunches coach reps and see like I'm gonna see so many different things at local level that you see one guy that does it really well but you're gonna work out how to get that
other guy closer to that yes and typically when you're moving into a sub elite lead environment that generally moved pretty good that's why they're there yeah so you don't get the chance to break it right down to someone who moved who's a McKenna maniac just moves like shit yeah very rarely you get one of those because they're good enough what they do that's why they're there and I think again it's super valuable at a local sport level to get exposed to just different parts of spectrum but not only that also how to organize the sessions
you talk about having that one person that's good then you are gonna rely on like hell yeah to get out the front of demo everything that you don't want to demo yeah because you're gonna pop a cough because you warm up probably before the session or you know what I mean like you want to set a really good example and and this is I think one thing that I value a lot having done a lot of that stuff early on is I can demo the hell out of a lot of those drills and athletes are
so visual that they will literally try and do it the exact same way that you do it so this works against me in the gym where I have just the worst ankles possible I got no dorsiflexion so every time I go down into a squat my heels are off the ground yeah so the girls always go oh do you want me to keep my heels off the ground I'm like too literal too literal yes I'm trying to demo squats less and less in the gym but going back to that point if you can get yeah
you're good athlete out there demoing what you want it to look like chances are that the guys at the back of the line turned around at the last moment it goes okay I'm doing what that guy's doing they didn't listen to anything you said before that so it's not okay after no exactly so they're gonna have a good movement example to practice from which is gonna be great learning how to use that learning how to actually set up the grids so that no one runs into each other yeah so that people have got enough rest
time starting to use constraints and it's fun harnesses like yeah someone sees that you someone sees it that you run it and they haven't done it before like oh this runs so easy it's like no shit cuz I fucked up ten times before that exactly yep and even simple thing is setting up grids and setting up kinds of people just don't run into each other not 100% and I think again coming back to that local level act it's such a valuable place to do that stuff because if two guys but heads doesn't matter exactly exactly
so like I think at that level if if you can be just nailing the basics of pre-planned change direction exposing them to some acceleration and some max velocity work I'm talking like you could hit one drill one effort post warm-up one drill one effort on like you've got how long those local league seasons are like so long so long 16 to 18 games with bi weeks yeah and then you've got preseason as well so you've got a lot of time to experiment so you don't have to jam it all in there at once yeah I'd
be trying to do that film it watch it back see how people move what's the difference between the good movers and the not so good movers yeah and then also have a look at oh actually but that not so good mover is actually a best player yeah so putting it into context as well yeah yeah love it excellent all right two questions from the gallery yeah I'm from T rock and one from jazz who's actually downstairs right now cool just answer that one on the way out so jazz jazz wanted to know what's the difference
between your alright if there is difference between your process or your ability to approach rehab in a clinical space but in a team spot space like what are the differences that you notice and is there any you need to overcome from the difference because obviously as we know in a more of a clinical performance based space is a bit more time yes at this sport where sometimes you'll be hampered by that and they've got three meetings and two other things they need to get to yes differences between the two and what does that look like
and how does your approach change yeah jazz is also involved in both spaces so this one comes from yeah logistics is is the biggest one you can pre plan in the private setting exactly how you want their session to flow from start to finish and be pretty confident that it's going to go that way with with some modifications along the way have time to talk to them pray pray workout you have physio and well wait we're lucky enough to have physio and and you know Dave as well who's a great rehab coach who have eyes
on our athletes as well so and then just more like direct attention so I can you know spend a little bit extra time with someone in the private setting during a field-based session or gym session because I've got another coach on the floor with me or I've only got three people at field whereas like team sports setting and some of those days at Carlton where like you have like eight people in rehab you're like all right I've just got a fire off some some pretty safe template conditioning off leg conditioning sessions for you too while
I work with these two while I send you two off to do some skills with the sport coach that doesn't want to work with you like so much on the you someone Griffith put it once where you're basically learning to be a high performance manager at a smaller or a micro level yeah it's a great way it's honestly it's yeah fantastic exposure to actually managing athletes and what they're doing because yeah you'll get ones that sneak off to physio to get treatment because they said oh you have got a free spot now you're planning on
doing the ad work damn they needled them so now we can't do any work we have to do some gym based stuff like it's just chaos but at the same time that's the fun of it yeah exactly you learn to think on your feet you learn to be reactive and and you learn to know you're not not do dumb things which which is critical but I think like the team sport thing is the integration back into the sport stuff which is the it's the fun but it's the tricky part private you have absolutely no control
over it which is hard they go off and do this their sport coach told them to do 75% of the session even though you told them to do 25% yeah you're not there you're just dealing with whatever happens in the aftermath whereas team sport you've got a little bit more control over that stuff whether that's you've given the instructions to the high performance manager and they're monitoring it or you're directly monitoring it you're going okay you're gonna do this drill this drill and then I'm gonna fill in the gaps with our ad work yeah yeah
two very different spaces but both very very valuable to learn in they can make you a really good practitioner in whatever setting that you end up in awesome last question t-rock tell me how did your experiences at Carlton changed what you now do at Hawthorne cuz how long he's been at Carlton three seasons three seasons yeah how or what did you learn from that experience that now you take to Hawthorne it's just normal practice oh so much like the athletic development stuff like I literally only started that you want a Carlton so that would be
the biggest thing people stuff that I learnt from other people like I learnt so much from Riley I had physio Carlton in from a rehab point of view so much I learned so much from Josh Milner high performance manager in terms of load management and how critical that can be you know it doesn't matter how right you get it in the gym if their loads are way off on the field so yeah learning that side of things from him was great as well as our sport science guy Tommy and then and Matt Mattie Whittaker afterwards
I learned hates from heaps from Steve in terms of group programming you're gonna touch the Steve yeah the superstar is yeah learning that there's a huge difference between programming for groups versus you know individual rehab rehab calendars totally different you got it's all logistical for group group programming versus you can do whatever the hell you want in rehab yeah which I think is another topic in itself we can just you've got so much room to experiment in rehab and try different concepts and stuff yeah so those would probably be the biggest things and then the
biggest one biggest things that I learned at Carlton were just how to work with female athletes yeah yeah full stop like and what I've taken from Carlton over to Hawthorne yeah that that would be a massive one as well excellent love it thanks for coming down my man cool thanks for having me man first lot of fun first official podcast technically you enjoy it loved it yeah like talking shop I like talking shop big time yeah well we're definitely do this again on a different topic because I got so many things I can talk to
you about but no I appreciate you taking the drive down again some highly highly vocal information mainly not necessarily for our vertice community to an extent but more for sports science students coaches us everyone again so many people in your network coaches things like that that you know you're one of those people that have so much untapped things that you know and pro do really really well so I'm glad you came down made the drive do you think so no no everyone knows so don't worry you're a favorite among the people that's for sure so
appreciate you come down thanks man thanks for me I'm really looking forward to the outro by the way yeah all right we're out of here have a good day incredible
