358: Mark McLaughlin on Play-Based Warmups, Athletic Mastery and Aerobic Capacity Building

More show notes at https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-358/ Today’s podcast features Mark McLaughlin.  Mark is the founder of Performance Training Center, and currently works as a physical preparation/strength coach in the Lake Oswego school district. Mark has had a diverse sporting history as a youth, and has been active in the field of physical preparation since 1997. Mark has trained over 700 athletes at all competitive levels, from Olympic to grade school athletes, and has worked with organizations such as the NFL, MLB, NBA, NCAA universities, high schools, and youth sports. The field of sports performance makes a lot of pendulum swings.  We go from over-conditioning athletes to denouncing conditioning.  From static stretching, to not stretching, to reconsidering stretching, to name a few.  In the process of the swings, we do trend upwards (such as saving athletes from over-conditioning based practices with poor motor learning tactics).  At the same time, I don’t believe we ask ourselves often enough if we are letting the pendulum swing too far. What I’ve found is that for every rule that seems to be created, there are instantly going to be athletes, or entire training groups that break that rule.  The only way to understand it all, is to constantly be expanding your viewpoints.  We need to look at the broader mechanisms of biology, psychology, motor learning, and the long-term developmental principles of athletes to really gain wisdom in our guidance of athletes and individuals to their highest potential. On today’s podcast, Mark talks about the polarity of his physical preparation process, on one end, giving the kids a dynamic pedagogical, free play-oriented training experience, and on the other, using technology to assess biological readiness markers and preparation levels for their sport.  Mark finishes the show speaking on aerobic readiness as a recovery marker for explosive sport training.  No matter where you are on the sport training spectrum, be it sport coaching, motor learning or purely physical development, there is a lot to be learned from Mark’s broad spectrum of knowledge in this episode.  This show connects physical preparation with a depth of true sports development Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for FREE (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com.