Impact on Coaching

One of the biggest takeaways I learned from Devan is that coaching is an "Art and a Science." Knowing the science behind the training is important, but it is much more valuable to get the players to buy into what you are instructing. If players don't trust you, they won't trust the process or the science behind your instruction. When I interned with Devan, the first several days he told me to go around, talk to the players, and get to know them. I learned from Devan that working with people means getting to know them personally in order to provide them the best care for them.

The way Devan was able to capture the player's attention and motivate them to engage was a sight I had never seen before. I learned through Devan that coaching requires an instructor to get on the level of their athletes to find what best encourages and challenges them. Because of this, I focus on building connections with athletes on the personal level as Devan does in order to provide them with the best support.

Coach Boyle is one of the most intelligent people I have ever had a chance to learn from and continue to learn from. His internship program has by far made me a better coach. The entire MBSC staff had weekly meetings to go over what we are doing well with, how we can improve going forward, in addition to a bunch of educational pieces. I learned something new every single week that I carry with me.

I've learned from Mike that sometimes you need to help manually put athletes in an exercise position. Let's take the hang clean for example. In the hang clean starting position, telling the athlete "to get their shoulder's back" won't always be effective. By appropriately bringing their shoulder's back with your hands, the athlete now gets the "physical sensation" where their shoulder position should be.

The biggest way to learn a program is to actually go through the program yourself. Performing the workout in the morning what the kids' would do later in the afternoon greatly improves recalling the exercises from memory versus always looking at the workout sheet. I believe it shows the athletes your confidence coaching.

Ryan may be the most personal, positive, fun person to be around. He INSTANTLY makes the room that much brighter. I worked with Ryan as a patient years ago when I had severe patellar tendonitis. He broke everything down and explained what we were doing and how we were going to achieve my goals.

Most recently I took a physical therapy rehab aide position working under him. We constantly challenge each other with trending science topics, funny puns, and military training thoughts. His positivity spreads and it feeds into my caring mannerisms in the clinic.

As a strength and conditioning coach I look to become the best version of myself. To become a well rounded coach I must challenge myself to understand the rehab side of things. He teaches me tests, common "mechanisms of injuries", and regressed exercises with patients who are not athletes.

Dan is a very challenging but fair coach to work with. If you respect him and put in the work, he will respect you back. He threw me in countless unfamiliar situations to ultimately help me grow as a coach such as commanding a top tier NCAA Division III Men's Lacrosse team filled with 50 players+ through their pre-season 300 yard-shuttle test. I am beyond thankful for these scenarios because they taught me to work through foreign situations by relying on my knowledge and my communication skills to instruct the athletes clearly and effectively.

Coming into the fellowship, Dan knew hockey was my ideal sports team to work with. He gave me the opportunity to warm-up, motivate the hockey team pre-lift, coach, and debrief them. In addition to this, he also allowed me to create and implement my own hockey post-season phase workouts for the team. This gave me the chance to work on my programming skills and execute them to the best of my abilities.

Josh is one of the most intelligent physical therapists you will ever come across, not to mention how caring and compassionate he is. He was my physical therapist through most of my micro-injuries in the past and was my primary pt post PCL surgery. Josh is a PCL specialist which anyone knows in the sports medicine world is fairly rare to find, especially a "knowledgeable" one. Post surgery was one of the most challenging times of my life not only physically, but mentally. Going from exercising 5 days a week to being sedentary for 3 months. Josh helped reassure me I was on the right track and told me when I needed to push through the pain since I would tend to be on the ultra-conservative side.

A quote that he said to me stuck. My post surgery rehab is "A marathon, not a sprint". By this he means the strength and stability in my knee isn't going to come back over night. Each day I need to strive to get 1% better because that will add up over time. I rendered this back to my personal coaching beliefs.