On Episode 7 of this podcast I sit down with one of coaching and sciences most brilliant minds, Dr. Matt Jordan. If you aren’t familiar with Matt is a sought after presenter on return to sport after injury, training program design for elite athletes, and creating interdisciplinary high performance practitioner teams and the information we cover on the episode is mind blowing.
I wanted to get him on the podcast to talk about some of the uncomfortable topics that aren’t often asked in the coaching and research communities like how to create value, get your rhythm and avoid the imposter syndrome and I think we nailed it. Check out the episode to find out for yourself.
Other topics covered include:
- What role speaking plays in the atmosphere of strength and condition
- Being yourself as a coach and presenter
- Topics that are overbastardized
- The problem of having too many dismisses coaches but not enough skeptics
- The importance of asking questions and not being “too cool” to be ask something dumb
- The anatomy of a great question
- Failing to connect and bombing as a public speaker
- Gauging impact beyond performance
Learn More About Matt Jordan
Links From The Show
Walter Herzog’s citations
Simple Decision Rules Reduce Injury of Quad Strength
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TRANSCRIPT
Brett Bartholomew 0:00
Hey, what’s going on everybody? Welcome to another episode of The Art of coaching podcast. I hope you guys have enjoyed it so far. This episode is a bit of a unique surprise. So one, I do owe you an apology. For any of you that are audio files out there, you’ll have to be patient with me on this episode as it was shot on the road. And one of the oldest towns in all of Portugal, Ponte de Lima. And it was a unique circumstance where I had my good friend, Dr. Matt Jordan, who is the Director of Sports Science for strength and power mountain sports at the Canadian sport Institute in Calgary. And we had very limited options of where to shoot this episode. And listen, we want this podcast to be real, absolutely valuable, but also real, first and foremost. So given my travel schedule, some parts of the year, there are going to be some episodes where it’s on the road. And if I have access to a person like Matt Jordan, we want to make sure to get that information out to you. This isn’t something where I’m always gonna have a studio, I’m a strength coach, like many of you, I want to get you the information. So while I will continue to invest in better microphones and things down the road, the truth is, one of my travel mic got smashed in my luggage. And thankfully, I was able to use my phone as a backup here and get you guys some tremendous content. So the audio isn’t gonna be that bad. I’m just kind of a perfectionist. And I want to make sure that you guys have a great episode to listen to. Now, but one of the unique things about Matt Jordan, before we get into it is this guy is easily one of the best presenters I’ve ever seen. And in this episode, he talks about some of the inadequacies he feels some of the things he struggles with as well as his process of taking the uniquely difficult and complex research he does in his strength lab and bringing it to a broader audience, which is I think, is an art that benefits more of us in strength and conditioning performance and management in general if you’re not in the world of human performance directly as it pertains S&C So I hope you guys love this episode. Again, if you can imagine a small closet of a room right next to a busy city street in almost kind of the middle of nowhere, which is paradoxical in itself. This is where we are. We are in a bedroom, there is a phone between us. It couldn’t have been more awkward. I was almost worried my wife was gonna walk in and wonder what the heck was going on. But I hope you guys enjoyed the episode. Thanks so much for listening.
Dr. Matt Jordan 3:16
Now you’re gonna ask me my favorite books, I wouldn’t be able to answer you would be one. It’s the first two books.
Brett Bartholomew 3:23
He’s the first PhD that doesn’t read books. Matt does have a lot of interesting, different articles and projects that he works on, though it’s not easily one of the best presenters I’ve ever seen both in terms of content, and just presence. But we’re not gonna go into that too much right now what we want to talk about is kind of the difficult stuff that most people shy away from when it comes to getting into a career. And not just like finding your niche because I think niches can be overblown, but more so how to like create value, kind of find a rhythm with what you’re doing, being okay with what you’re doing. And even sometimes the imposter syndrome that comes with that.
Dr. Matt Jordan 3:58
Sure.
Brett Bartholomew 3:58
You know, times where you maybe feel like even though you, I think you’re amongst the top in your field, has there ever been a time where you feel like, I have no clue that not I have no clue what I’m doing, but you just don’t feel like it’s adequate enough. Have you ever felt that?
Dr. Matt Jordan 4:13
Yeah I mean, Brett, I don’t want to get into a situation here where, you know, I kind of create this context of all you know, it’s so difficult and so challenging, but I have to be completely blunt and completely honest, I have more days feeling like that than otherwise. And I think it’s because when you surround yourself with good people and you’re in an environment like I’ve been fortunate to be in over my past 15 years doing this, I’ve been surrounded by excellent people and I set a high benchmark for myself and I think that any good person in any profession is going to have a certain amount of self reflection and criticism for what they do more for what they missed than what they did well. So absolutely. I’ve absolutely been there
Brett Bartholomew 4:53
What have you felt that the most and when is it time whether like, I know anybody listening like anytime I present I know anytime I get off Sage, I’m pretty self critical, I would imagine you want to absolutely. And there’s times where you feel like even if the audience loved it, you’re like, I bombed
Dr. Matt Jordan 5:05
That’s the losses, man. I remember the losses
Brett Bartholomew 5:07
What did it feel like? And like, why do you feel from a perception standpoint? That a certain thing you did sucked? Like, do you think of a specific time?
Dr. Matt Jordan 5:17
Yeah I can think of two specific times. And actually, interestingly, you were there for one of them. But I won’t bother going into specifics about it. But I think when I felt like that, I felt like that, because I have not done my homework in terms of preparation and understanding what I was there to deliver to the group that I was delivering to, and I failed to connect. And I think that on some level, I feel responsibility if people are bringing me in to speak and I’m somebody who’s going to have an opportunity to share some knowledge, that it’s not my job to get up there and give a knowledge jump dump of all the things that matter to me, but on some level, try and you know, scale that and bring the messages that I think you’re going to be the most impact for the audience.
Brett Bartholomew 5:58
So that brings up a good point to some that I think is kind of controversial right now. Or at least it hasn’t been from my perception. When I first started speaking more, I got a lot of snarky comments, people saying like, Are you a strength coach? Are you a speaker like all like, you know, Mr. Rockstar now, like, but you, and I have traveled a good bit of these things many times, like we’ve run into, you know, each other and others. What role do you think, speaking now plays in the atmosphere of strength and conditioning? Or this? Like, do you think that try to figure out how to phrase it. Like, I know, for me, I felt like there was only so much of an impact I can make being on the floor day after day after day after day, and I still am for a good percentage of the year. Right? But like, if I can take a month to go speak a good bit or a month and a half, like certain times of the year? What role do you think that plays in expanding now and the opportunities for other coaches or researchers in the field? And even when I say researchers, I mean people working in the sport science side and or academics, what have you? Or, you know, don’t you think that affords people more opportunities, unique routes to explore and kind of test their own capabilities and learn at the same time?
Dr. Matt Jordan 7:01
Oh, yeah, I mean, I think and I think that’s, that’s part of the responsibility of people who’ve had opportunities given to them by others, as at one point in your career, your job is to help bring about the growth of others. And, you know, like when I was at the University of Calgary, and this was, at the time, literally just high performance strength coach for Olympic level athletes. We ran a practicum there for strength and conditioning students for the university. And we I think we put at the last count, I think we had 100 students go through that practicum. And Brett, I didn’t get paid a single penny for That endeavor. I did it because I loved it. And I think that for me when I get up. And this might be kind of interesting, because I actually hate public speaking on one level. I’m a guy who can get up there and I can freeze. I can, go into shutdown mode. I can forget where I am and what I’m saying. I’ve actually had that happen numerous times in my career, even as a student. I remember my very first presentation to Dr. Ben Hoenig in my biomechanics 463 class at University of Calgary. I remember freezing, I remember not even knowing I couldn’t even tell you my name. Like that’s how bad the stage fright would have been at the time. I’ve even had that in lectures teaching at the university where I’ve had to sit down and be like, Oh, my God, I need a minute. And so with that said, it doesn’t come naturally to me. And it’s actually not something I really enjoy. But what I feel my job is to do is to get up there and say, and I kind of like have a little thing I say is that I have a message to share. And the message is important. Not for myself, but for the people that might be listening and who might find something in there that they resonate with. And so that’s the motivation for me. And that’s why I do it. And I think it’s a responsibility for all of us.
Brett Bartholomew 8:53
And that’s something that and it gets tricky, because I do know why some people are critical of it. I mean, feel free to disagree with this. It’s the type of podcast where you can openly disagree. I do think that there are some people that really get lost in the clinic speak side of things where they go up and tell people what they think they want to hear.
Dr. Matt Jordan 9:10
Sure.
Brett Bartholomew 9:11
But like I know there have been times where like, you see or hear somebody and it’s like, okay, like none of us you don’t have to be perfect like a lot of times these audiences just want to hear the shit that you’re struggling with. Yeah, and I think that’s been the coolest thing is like I know today when I give the Medeco lecture like you guys all have incredible facilities and if you haven’t seen you know the facility Matt works out the Canadian Sports Science Institute CSSI right Canadian Sports Institute Calgary sorry. Or even you know, Mike young, like amazing facilities and like where I train guys in Atlanta. Pretty basic. Yeah, but like the guys don’t give a shit, right? Like they want coaching and everything is gonna suit its purpose. But sometimes I think people get on stage and they feel like they have to fill this like persona or this idea. Yeah, but it always goes better when you’re just you
Dr. Matt Jordan 9:55
totally I mean, you know that’s, I think that from there’s Very, there’s a handful of messages that stand out to me in my evolution as a coach. And the one message that stands out is from a professional hockey coach, who reflected on a story where he came into a dressing room halfway through a game, flipped over a garbage can scream at his players, because his players were sucking and a backfire. And his reflection was, you know, in hindsight, reflecting back 20 years after his team had just made a Stanley Cup run, is I wasn’t being myself, and you got to be yourself. And I completely agree. On some level, you have to do what you do, you know, you can’t try and pretend to be somebody else. And I think it’s when you start to pretend to be somebody else, that messages aren’t authentic. You don’t believe in what you’re saying, you can’t stand in front of an audience and ground yourself and say, I’ve got something to share here. And what I’m about to share really matters to me.
Brett Bartholomew 10:54
Yeah.
Dr. Matt Jordan 10:54
You know, I think that’s a, that’s an important stuff, right? So I’m with you.
Brett Bartholomew 10:59
And that’s pervade. And by the way, sharing things, if you guys are hearing some ambient noise, that’s because we’re literally doing this outside of, or just inside of a main street window here in Portugal, again, you know, I know there’s some audio files out there, and then went really smooth, clean audio quality, all the time. But again, there’s gonna be some times on the road where you have the chance to talk to amazing people like Matt, and I straight up, take a digital recorder, and you’re hearing the good, the bad and the ugly, I think it’d be really weird to have a podcast that we claim is transparent. And then it’s like, oh, we’re in a soundproof studio in downtown Portugal that we rented out for the evening, when you get ready to give a talk just for somebody that, again, is interested in maybe I want to get started in speaking, What’s that process like for you?
Dr. Matt Jordan 11:41
The process is actually, pretty involved, like I, spend an ordinate amount of time on my slides in an ordinate amount of time tinkering and tweaking and changing the layout and changing the flow. And I will, at the very least practice each talk at least two or three times through
Brett Bartholomew 12:03
How do you practice you practice in front of a mirror with your family,
Dr. Matt Jordan 12:07
No, when I am, if I have a high pressure scenario, where I’m not comfortable giving a talk, I will literally give the talk out loud in my office to my PowerPoint, as I’m clicking through. And I’ll practice for hours trying to get it right and trying to get the flow rate and trying to get my tone, you know, all those things.
Brett Bartholomew 12:23
That’s iImpressive.
Dr. Matt Jordan 12:24
Well, I know, but I feel like if, you know, anytime I’ve blown it, right? Anytime that I haven’t been there, it’s been a lack of preparation,
Brett Bartholomew 12:30
Is there anything, you can do a little too much on that and, kind of overthink it,
Dr. Matt Jordan 12:33
Maybe, but I feel like you know, I’m the type of guy that you know, and I have the same attitude with my athletes, I kind of have this attitude. And I used to do this before, if I was in an Olympic Games with an athlete, I would, try to go to bed the night before their race and feel like I could not have done anything more for them. Like to feel like, Hey, I gave it 110% That I could give to help them on their journey. And so that mentality of being prepared, and you know,where I don’t think that helps very well is when you’ve got to give, you know, when you’ve got a lot, and I’m just trying to think of an example. And I can’t really think of one at the end of the day, that sort of preparation, I feels like what I need to do. And, the talks that for example, I maybe give, recently, like the ones that I gave here, you know, I’ve given several times, I still rip through, you know, maybe not actually saying the words out loud, but I actually work through the slides for at least, you know, 30 45 minutes before I kind of get up there and actually go for it.
Brett Bartholomew 13:34
Yeah.
Dr. Matt Jordan 13:35
And I feel like that’s the flip side, I really appreciate people who do that. And, you know, I another thing that I find I’ll do, and I think it’s I actually learned this through my PhD, but I get a lot of clarity and mental reinforcement when I do that, as I like exercise and do stuff while literally, you know, envision my slides and vision, the flow and work through that. And that’s something I do regularly. And that’s I think that’s sometimes when people don’t see with all the you know, when you see a really good presentation I think rarely has that happened without that person putting in a crap ton of effort to make itself. So, you know, if I could say one thing is that I do try to prepare as much as I can. And you know, and I know I realize it’s still a presentations I give where I’m like, Oh, that wasn’t quite as good as it could be. And I have some times where I do all that preparation and still doesn’t go well. But at the end of the day, I think that that’s how I walk in with the best piece for me to be able to deliver something that’s from the heart is I know I’ve prepared I’ve got a message that I think is important to share. And you know I can get up there and just be like alright, you know, and this isn’t about me right now. It’s about what I’m here to share with these individuals that are here in attendance watching and listening. So yeah, it puts me in a good headspace
Brett Bartholomew 14:57
Through your travels and through your speaking what topics you fingertip typically the most bastardize. And obviously you don’t have to use not looking for names of presenters or what have you. But like we’re trying to give people like real information and to give you a frame of reference, like anybody listening today, like I gave a med ball lecture, that was one of four lectures that I gave, right? And, and when we all get together, like, we’re given kind of an agenda, at least for this talk of who’s speaking on what so you try not to cross paths with somebody, right? Like Dr. Sophy NNPS was talking about agility and multi directional speed. Yeah, that’s a topic I love a lot. But like out of respect to her, am I gonna shoot a bomb, bro? Like, that’s not what the participants want. They don’t want three people talking on multidirectional. Right? So like I gave one on medicine ball training today predominantly, because like the Billy Madison seem like they’re like, why are you drawn a blue duck? Billy, I’ve never seen a blue duck. And like, I thought about this. I’m like, nothing I’ve ever seen a med ball lecture. Yeah, I think there was one that somebody called it a med ball election or something completely different. So like, I want to talk about ballistic training. I think that topic is sometimes been bastardized, or kind of put into an oversimplified format just like, hey, it’s just bands and chains, you know, or, like, you know, other things can fit in there, too. What are some topics that you think people, you know, in one way or another, just like hasn’t been covered deeply enough, or that you feel like could be done better? Even if they’re talks that you’ve given? Yeah, you’re being self critical?
Dr. Matt Jordan 16:14
Yeah, I mean, I think the, you know, that, my personal perspective is that the hardest place to kind of balance is the intersection between science and coaching. And, you know, some people see it as sort of like a dichotomous like, you know, binary or either a one or a zero. But, you know, my viewpoint is that it’s obviously a scale. And there’s an intersection point. And there’s an intersection point where you move more towards the science side, and you move more towards the practitioner side. And I think that that is definitely a hard part. And it’s a hard place to navigate. I think it’s a hard place to navigate, because it’s really easy for scientists to see inherent practical applications in what they’re doing yet. It doesn’t involve anything practical. I think its inherent, you know, and on the coaching side, we can make it into a bit of a pseudoscience and make it into something that it’s not
Brett Bartholomew 17:17
And what does that look like when somebody makes it into a pseudoscience?
Dr. Matt Jordan 17:19
Oh I think what it looks like is it looks like when somebody gets up there, and is clearly selling something that is not about like, you know, I’m gonna go back to your med ball presentation today just for the
Brett Bartholomew 17:36
evidence in my line of med balls, and I’m selling certain
Dr. Matt Jordan 17:40
Bartholomew med
Brett Bartholomew 17:41
Bartholomew balls.
Dr. Matt Jordan 17:44
Yeah, but you’re so your talk is interesting, because you reference some science, you talk about ballistic training methods, you talk about some neurological Egan’s for me, you bleed in some stuff. But at the end of the day, you know, you have you’re there to teach some practical pieces to the audience. And where I struggle is I struggle when I see somebody up there that is clearly trying to pull the wool over the audience’s eyes. And they’re doing it in a way that is not recognizing the power discrepancy that you have, when you’re a presenter talking to the audience, and it can come down to how people process information. Yeah, and you know, there’s the, you know, I think, I think it’s loosely classified as type one type two reasoning, possibly the idea that Yeah, where you have a critical appraisal. Yeah. And so you know, someone’s up there presenting, and you critically appraise their data, and you critically appraise their message, or you critically appraise whatever it is they’re saying. And the second scenario is like, I’ve been in a situation where I’ve been in a room before word experts present, and of course, only an expert would be up there. Therefore, what they’re saying must be true. And I think that that’s
Brett Bartholomew 19:03
halo effect. Yeah.
Dr. Matt Jordan 19:04
And I feel, you know, I won’t go into specifics. But there’s been some presentations recently that I’ve sat through that I felt were very damaging to the profession, because it’s claiming to have something that’s impactful and effective and measurable. But there’s no effort on the part of the individuals presenting to provide any basis for it. And so really, my viewpoint, it’s a way to kind of snow people into something that’s a profit revenue generation type scheme, right? You know, That’s the one piece, I guess, in addition to Troy, how do you navigate that coaching science interface? That’s the only other time that I get really kind of like, we need to do a better job of that. So I wrote this recently in a little blog post I did for another website,
Brett Bartholomew 19:51
jordanstrength.com?
Dr. Matt Jordan 19:52
No, actually, I think it was simply faster.
Brett Bartholomew 19:54
Got it.
Dr. Matt Jordan 19:55
Yeah. But I don’t think anybody read it. Actually. I frickin and you know what I wrote So much information, someone that I just had a couple of people maybe. But, you know, I think what we have is we have far too many dismissive coaches. And by dismissive I mean, you’re dismissive of climate change. That’s bullshit spoke right? Without even actually appreciating the science that underpins it. We have far way too many dismissive coaches, but non math skeptics, and skeptics just mean that you require more evidence or not even evidence. I’m not talking about scientific evidence, right. But you’re just saying, you require something more to really buy into what the person is saying,
Brett Bartholomew 20:34
You owe me 25 cents every time you use the word buy in.
Dr. Matt Jordan 20:39
But no, I really think like, that’s, something that our profession needs, right? Like you need to have, we need to have we need to maintain that critical mindset. And we need to maintain the healthy skeptic, not the dismiss. And I think sometimes in your post Brett, like I see, that’s right. That’s why they resonate with me, because I think you’re calling out individuals who are just dismissive if it doesn’t fit. Yeah, right. Versus being skeptical of something and being a healthy skeptic just means that you require a bit more, and I would love it if people presenting new ideas like nothing would be easier. If I had some amazing trick, or amazing device, or amazing technique that cured all your pain and dysfunction and helped you perform better, nothing would be easier than for me to say, Listen, what I did to meet remain unbiased here is I took two individuals, and I taught one person’s secret sauce. And I’d show the other one a technique that’s complete bunk. We brought in 20 different athletes, and we just randomly put them in each one. And we measured something before after we did our magic sauce technique. And see the data for yourself here was the change from before to after judge it for yourself. And if you and that wouldn’t require a publication, it wouldn’t require peer review, at the very least providing the person didn’t completely make up their data, you would have actually
Brett Bartholomew 21:58
Which happens by the way
Dr. Matt Jordan 21:59
Which happens all the time happens in science too. People can do this all the time. But science is self correcting. And as much as people want to say, and they harp on science and peer review, science is self correcting. Because the way we publish papers are meant to allow for reproducibility so people can reproduce what you did. And eventually science uncovers when things aren’t reproducible, it may take a long time, or there may be papers that people just don’t bother reproducing, because they’re kind of crap to begin with. But at the end of the day, I guess, you know, in our profession, where it’s like, we’re not presenting, as scientists, we’re presenting as practitioners most of the time. I would just really appreciate the recognition that when somebody’s out there and try and pitch something new, that’s related to a technique or a thing, or some training methodology that if at all possible, just let something stand for itself, that would help the audience at least to like, you lure them towards maintaining the healthy skeptic.
Brett Bartholomew 22:59
Yeah so so great. So one, I’m really glad you go off on that tangent, because like, so if anybody’s research, Matt Jordan by now, and there’s a bio in the show notes, and everything’s gonna be included. But this is one of the things we’re trying to do with the podcast, like, it would be very easy for Matt to come on and just talk about things that he’s done on every other podcast, what he’s doing in the strength lab, what he’s doing, in terms of helping manage and identify cemeteries, all the data that he collects, you know, that’s something that will definitely point you guys to, but what I don’t think you get a lot of and I know what I didn’t get a lot of his I didn’t hear experts like you your take on everyday stuff. Yeah. Like, you know, if I want to know more about what you’re doing in your lab, like I like, you know, I’ll go to your lectures and I’ll go to, you know, I’ll go to your website, and you’ve got an online course I will tell people about but like, this is the stuff I don’t think people get to hear about, they don’t get to hear about opinions of like, what do you think about these other topics, because it’s the stuff that other coaches are thinking about? They want to know, like, I wonder what Matt thinks about XY and Z. And it’s not always just the training side, it’s what you navigate. So there’s two points there. And if I forget one of them, I want you to bring me back to just say, the audience and I remember where I was going. But the thing that pisses me off the most about some conferences that you go to, is the defensive coaches, the coaches that get up there and they’re like, These people don’t know what it’s like in the trenches. I’m in the trenches, you know, the trenches, like I can’t tell for strength coaches, or we fought, like, was there another war, you know, like, every day in the trenches, and somebody needs to know what it’s really like for us in the trenches. And then, they start going into like, in our program, we clean like, awesome, okay, like, that’s glad that you clean like, tell us why you do things like what do you struggle with in your program? So that’s where I can’t stand like you’ll go and you’ll hear this it’s awesome, titled presentation. You know, somebody will make it up. It’s like an above the fold headline, that like a new station couldn’t write any more beautifully. And you go on and the person’s like, I’m a real coach. These other people aren’t real coaches, and you’re like, oh shit, I’m walked into an angry strength coach lecture. And you can’t leave. Because now you’re in the front of the room, like taking notes. And if you leave, there’s three other people that are like, Why you leave, and then they go. But like, I just think there’s, and you touched on, it’s just like not only be a skeptic, but like, Be Real talk about stuff like, gauge your audience. And that’s where I want to go. Now, like, whenever I come to these conferences last year, we did one in Brazil, this one’s in Portugal, I find and this audience is unique. Because what listeners what you guys gotta understand is there’s simultaneous translation. So we’re all speaking in English. And most of the people I’d say, well over what 80% or in 75, 75% are wearing headsets. All of them in Brazil. Yeah, here, here, because it’s more of a European mixed crowd, at least 75 80%. And they’re listening, while translators are like speed translating through it. And these guys still, like, ask questions. They’re not worried if they’re stupid. Yeah, they asked, they get up on stage. I mean, like, it’s awesome. Seeing somebody like, we have one guy, he’s from Poland, he may never get an opportunity to see somebody like you again. And so that dude doesn’t let the chance to ask you a question go by where I feel like sometimes, you get some clinics and audiences and it’s not like it’s necessarily an American audience. It could be anywhere where they’re reticent. And this is something that my friend Ron McKee free talks about a lot like, we all claim, we’re lifelong learners. And, you know, do this do that we tell our athletes to do all these things with their sleep, nutrition and training. Yet when it comes to like putting ourselves in the spotlight and asking a question, or getting somebody to demonstrate, it’s like chirp, chirp, chirp. And I think that goes hand in hand with being a skeptic. Like, try something stand up. you’ll find most presenters if they don’t know, we’ll just say, I don’t know. Yeah, but I think that, there’s an accountability on the audience, too. We’ve talked a lot about the presenter, but the audience like can’t be passive, right?
Dr. Matt Jordan 26:47
Oh, no, totally and you know, I’ve, that’s another thing that I’ve always done as well, that is kind of putting myself out on the, sort of looking for, just on a bit of an uncomfortable ledge is I’ve been in some environments with no business, asking the presenter, any question? You know, what they presented on was way over my head, and I
Brett Bartholomew 27:12
Put the hose over your head,
Dr. Matt Jordan 27:13
oh, I mean, tons of stuff. And I can I think, of scientific conferences I’ve been at as a Master’s student, and even as a PhD, you know, doing my PhD and stuff like that, where, you know, you get in there you’re instantly, you know, intimidated by whatever it is that’s been presented. And, you know, I’ve always forced myself to put my hand up and ask the question, go up to the mic in the room of 250 people and say, you know, you’re supposed to introduce yourself at these scientific conferences and say, you know, Matt Jordan, Canadian sport is to Calgary. Thank you very much for your presentation, I would like to ask and I sound like a bumbling idiot.
Brett Bartholomew 27:52
I have 50 peer reviewed journal articles that you can refer How many do you have right now,
Dr. Matt Jordan 27:56
You know, I am going to say peer reviewed publications are I might have 20 to 30.
Brett Bartholomew 28:08
Nothing, to shake your head
Dr. Matt Jordan 28:10
I mean, you know, I
Brett Bartholomew 28:11
Seven, seven miles an hour.
Dr. Matt Jordan 28:14
I went through a bit of a low after my master’s right, where I didn’t do anything. But you know, I want to say one thing about asking a question. And I can tell you one time, I felt like a complete friggin moron. And so this was at the start of my PhD. And so for anybody who’s out there at some point in your life thinking, I’m way too friggin old to go back and do anything. I went back old and I started my PhD at age 36. So I went back I’d been out of school for a long time and you know, not to get into the sag of why I went back but I you know, relationship change. And you know, I was on my own and I take care of my kid and I was coaching, but hitting dead you know, kind of at the end of my rope with that I was needing something to something new I was lacking mentorship, I think, but I went back and did my PhD and I bid it off and it was not one of those just like you know published three papers and you know, show up and give a little presentation and you get your degree, I had to go back and do coursework. I had to like, you know, write exams, and I had to dust off a hell of a lot of cobwebs. It’s a big difference when you’re reading stuff just for fun on the weekend, versus like trying to study for an exam or oral final at you know, I was out of my comfort zone for sure. And I can recall one of my very first PhD courses on kind of the basics of muscle mechanics, and our the person teaching this course who is absolutely one of my key mentors in my life is a guy named Walter Hertzog, who’s a very, very well known bio mechanist he does all kinds of ultrastructural research on muscle proteins. And I just love the way that guy thinks he’s a coach. Actually, interestingly, so many good scientists came from coaching backgrounds, by the way, in our profession, he was a track coach who moved to this did a PhD, kind of in the biomechanics of running. And now as a basic scientist, but he brings this guy in, and this guy is presenting he’s from, I believe, from Northern California. And he’s giving a presentation on muscle contraction. And he sort of presents a bunch of data and begins to go on this really interesting discussion on water. And how basically, at a cellular level water is this thing that you know, is abundant in our bodies, and this kind of Crystaline structures that it forms is what sort of basically is the basics for everything in the body and how it works. It was fascinating. And as soon as he was done, I was like, oh, you know, I have a question. I have a question. And so I rattled off questions about it.
Brett Bartholomew 31:03
Which by the way, I wish you guys could have seen the body like
Dr. Matt Jordan 31:07
I was, I felt like a real moron. So I rattled, and I dominated with probably another two or three dumb questions. And, you know, later on about a week later, we had a follow up. And so you know, Walters like Alright guys. So What did you think about the presentation? And, you know, obviously, was really interesting, it was great. And right away, of course, somebody who was paying attention and wasn’t just accepting the experts knowledge was like, Well, I was looking at the scale on that one figure that he showed, and there’s no way that his measurement equipment would have the resolution to be able to measure that small of a change. And then when the next one and you know, 10 others and you gotta remember these, students are 15 years younger than me. And I just sat back and I thought, I fucking blew that, like, I just walked into this, consumed the knowledge like a freaking tic tac, no digestion, no critical thought just pounded it back, and enjoy the experience and never really took the time to really listen and think critically about it. And yeah, I guess when, you know,
Brett Bartholomew 32:17
it can be hard to do. You know, especially if you’re getting if somebody’s given an hour and a half, two hour presentation.
Dr. Matt Jordan 32:22
Totally and so, you know, if I come back to kind of like being good audience member, which was kind of where we’re going with this, like, I think audience members can do a lot for themselves by putting them out themselves out on the limb. Yeah. And I think they can do a lot for themselves by being like, hey, I don’t care how stupid this sounds, I’m gonna go for it. But I think they can also do a lot for themselves by maintaining a critical mindset of what they’re seeing. No, obviously, nobody likes a guy who puts his hand up in the back and tries to trash talk everything you do, because that’s not the point.
Brett Bartholomew 32:51
But there’s always somebody that wants to play Johnny dickhead. Yeah, totally. So now it’s smart, the speaker and I think that’s the thing in and of itself to be discerning enough as an audience member, no one in 60 minutes, I’m not going to absorb everything, you know, like presentations, or snapshots. They’re a snapshot, right? Like, and I gotten caught in a rut once, where I almost tried to present as if I was presenting to like, the elite, like the most elite of elite of elite coaches in the world. And so I’d be like, I don’t know, is this kind of? What’s this person gonna think it is? And what’s this? And then I just started realizing like, that’s not your audience. That’s what you have conversations for, right? Like if somebody wants to know more about something in depth, like, come have that talk, come visit me as a coach, what have you, but like, there are sadly a lot of people that think like, if I give a multi directional lecture in 60 minutes, if I don’t show one thing that I must not do that thing. Yeah, you know, right. Or if you didn’t cover something that you do in your strength lab, like let’s say you have a 23 year old alpine skier coming back, and an ACL reconstruction. And you’re, you’re talking about specific biomarkers and things that you assess, but they didn’t hear one thing to like, I saw Matt Jordan, and he didn’t even reference that. Now, mind you, if he would have came up after or even emailed you today. Like Dr. Jordan. You didn’t reference that? Isn’t that oh, yeah, that’s in there, you know, and I like I even find that with my online course. Like, somebody was like, hey, is this only for athletes? Or is it for like, coaches, or parents or whatever it is? No, man, like the whole thing’s communication based. And he’s like, Oh, I didn’t hear you talk about communication. I’m like, Well, like I sometimes I read books by leadership, like I read a book by the CEO of Marriott. I don’t own a hotel, but like, I still get an idea that that’s about management of corporation. Yeah, totally. And so there are, there are people that will try to outsmart and there are dumb questions. I will say that, to me a dumb question is somebody it’s not the nature of the question. You’re asking dumb because that’s, like everybody’s gonna perceive a question differently. The only dumb question I think is the one that shows you were definitely not paying attention. Sure. Right. Like if you go over a slide like you had a matt, you had a series of magnificent slides, it talks about, Hey, these are prescriptions for loading for time under tension. If we’re looking at sets, reps, all these things if somebody’s like, Hey, I didn’t see something there with your sets and reps like I I’m gonna call bullshit. Like, yeah, you know. And so I think and it’s sometimes you can like miss things as an audience member. But I’d be more interested in like, and I think they would to like, what to you is the anatomy of a great question? Because it’s hard, right? Like, asking a good question is, I think more proof of someone’s intelligence than quote unquote, having all the answers. So what are some things that you think, guys, I’m putting them on the spot like this isn’t rehearsed? So like, give them a moment?
Dr. Matt Jordan 35:29
That’s fine. Because I have got a couple of thoughts, I think, one, anatomy of a great connection or a great question is to be able to pull knowledge from different parts, right? So if you’ve got somebody I mean, if you’ve got somebody presenting on the force, velocity relationship, or force Velocity Profiling, that somebody can draw on knowledge from other aspects of things that affect muscle force, to be able to ask a question around force Velocity Profiling, that maybe was overlooked. And it’s not meant to expose anything, it’s meant to ask a question in a way that is a broad view and making connections between things.
Brett Bartholomew 36:18
Can you give an example,
Dr. Matt Jordan 36:20
I can I’m just trying to think of one. And you know, again, I’m kind of going back to the types of question that you know, the dimension before Walter Hertzog asks, he’s brilliant at it. He, you know, he might, he might make a connection between, you know, somebody talking about force, Velocity Profiling, and then something that he knows in a related area that might either bring some support or bring a big question towards what was presented? And yeah, so I think I can’t, I’m trying to think of a of like, what I could give is like a, for instance, example. But, you know, the best thing I could be is, you know, or best thing I could say is, like, you know, again, force Velocity Profiling, well, if you want to look at the intrinsic force, velocity relationship of an athlete, and you’re gonna have to do loaded, jump squats on whatever system you’re using, whether it’s within LPT, or ForcePlates, or whatever, you need to have some way of controlling for all the other things that also influence muscle force. So if you’re trying to assess the force velocity relationship, but your athletes squat to different depths, during their jump squat, you have a confounder in there, which is the fact that they’ve changed their joint angle, and you clearly can’t make the same force at every given joint angle. If your athletes aren’t experienced in providing maximal effort jumping movements against load, that means there’ll be maximally activated when they jump without load, and sub maximally activated when they jump with load. So those are the sorts of questions I think that are critical questions that are the ones that can help expose a little bit maybe important things for everybody to consider. And, I would ultimately say the second questions are the ones that come down to you know, how things apply. Like, what’s the point? Yeah, I love those questions. So what’s the point? Like, you know, sometimes I hear this about injury prevention research, right? So it which I’m very passionate about, but somebody might ask me so Matt how many skiers really blow their knees each year anyways? And I might say, well, it’s basically five skiers per 100 athletes per season. Yeah. And so if I cut that risk in half, that basically means like two less skiers get hurt.
Brett Bartholomew 38:37
Which, by the way, you had a super interesting statistic, I think you’re saying for every 1% increase in quad strength? Yeah. 3% Decrease in ACL tear risk?
Dr. Matt Jordan 38:46
Totally.
Brett Bartholomew 38:47
Am I correct to that?
Dr. Matt Jordan 38:48
Yeah, that was actually
Brett Bartholomew 38:50
I’m gonna repeat that just so that well, why don’t you repeat it just so the audience can take? Because I know that’s a note people want to take?
Dr. Matt Jordan 38:55
Yeah, it’s actually, I wish I had the reference at the top of my head here.
Brett Bartholomew 39:00
They can email you and yes, he’s got a whole like, again, be discerning. Matt’s got an online course, a whole education platform in and of itself. And like, it goes hand in hand with what we’re going to talk about next, like the investment not only on the side of speakers that take their time to come do this, but like, a lot of times people want stuff for free and like what you hear audiences will pay I know what I’ve paid, like, I’m paying $3,500 to go to a conference in Phoenix next year, you know, and I think sometimes people lose track and they’re like, Oh, it’s a lot of money. I don’t have it, like I don’t have, do you have $3,500 laying around? No, like I don’t either, right, like but you look at that as an investment. You look at that as an investment. So don’t worry about the reference, but like just
Dr. Matt Jordan 39:39
I mean, in a nutshell, like, you know, essentially it’s in the paper first author is Grint him I think GRI n d h
Brett Bartholomew 39:48
Because I have the note
Dr. Matt Jordan 39:49
Yeah, but I mean, yeah, essentially, is that you know, I mean, what so kind of coming back to a good question is how does it apply? For example, does it really save the world Matt if You know, to less skiers per year, blow their knee or not.
Brett Bartholomew 40:04
So is their world.
Dr. Matt Jordan 40:07
It does Yeah, right? And if you can respond by saying, Well, yeah, I mean, because if we increase their quadricep strength, and in this case, it’s reinjury. And sure, yeah, first injury prevalence of reinjury. And skiers is pretty friggin high too. But if you can increase quadricep strength by just a minimal amount and get people back to a limb symmetry index that’s, like 85 to 90%, from one side to the other, versus like, 75. It has a really big difference on whether or not they’re potentially going to get hurt again. So I think that’s the those are the kind of beauty application questions and you know, what’s the point questions that I think we can always ask? And, yeah, I’m trying to think where else I have. You know, another obviously, this is the last point I’ll make on good questions. I think I think the questions that are my favorite are the ones I didn’t think of, and you know, somebody asks it, and you’re like, Wow, I never thought about that. But you know, and I think the most overused term in presenting is, that’s a great question. We say that all the time.
Brett Bartholomew 41:04
That’s a great question. I’ll get back to you.
Dr. Matt Jordan 41:07
Yeah, that’s a great question. You know, I mean, we say that,
Brett Bartholomew 41:10
Well, that’s a social kind of
Dr. Matt Jordan 41:11
Social thing. But I mean, sometimes there really are. It’s a great question. I have no idea. But why you got me thinking. Those are I mean, they come rarely,
Brett Bartholomew 41:21
I think there’s value to in some of the audience and have like, I encourage people, like start speaking for yourself, because a lot of times people think it’s really easy to get up there and present and do this. And it’s, you know, but then when people get on stage, like, here’s the thing, right? Like, when I started talking about how like some people would critique and be like, Oh, you’re speaking now, I’m sure you got it as a researcher, right? When you said not every researcher, not every sports scientist speaks as much as you do that not everybody’s gonna get that opportunity, some more, some less, what have you. But like, I think what people miss is it’s just like being on the floor. And that like you really your knowledge gets tested. Because not only do you have to take very complex information, and put it in an easily to understand digestible, sometimes even entertaining format. Yeah, but like you’re putting it out in front of the author. And this is what I always say to people. I’m like, well listen, like, Oh, you’re just a coach. Well, why aren’t you doing this? Because like, you talk about, like, the highest form of learning for like, he’s teaching. It’s teaching. Like, that’s where you’re like, you can’t just come up with a shit. Like you actually got to be when you’re in a room of how many people are here. 150. Yeah, that’s it. Yeah, at least 150 Like, somebody’s gonna fact check you or like something like, you have a million opportunities there. Were up there, like two hours, some of these, or you can mess up. And I know, I gave a presentation for the first time today. But like, I think that’s something that the audience misses a lot of times, too. You become a better asker of questions. You become a better skeptic, you when you’ve been up there. Oh, yeah. And you’ve had to put those slides together.
Dr. Matt Jordan 42:46
Yeah, there’s nothing better than that. It’s a great, great learning experience.
Brett Bartholomew 42:49
Where’s that helps you like even when you’ve created your online course. Like, and it’s your ad? It’s Jordan strength, right? Yeah. Like when you created that, what role did like knowing how to ask good questions, play in your content development? Meaning, like when you’re like, Okay, I’m gonna create something that helps somebody. Yeah. Like, did that come from questions you had inherently wanted throughout your career? Yeah. When it comes to a combination of that plus research you had been doing?
Dr. Matt Jordan 43:12
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, I, you know, what my interest has always been and I’m not saying this to make it sound as though we sit there. And, you know, I reflect in like misery about my lack of impact. But I would have questions with my office, the guys that I’m sharing my office with back in our heyday at the university when we had Stu Macmillan and a bunch of other guys in the office that, you know, we were literally, you know, grinding with all of our Olympic athletes into the Vancouver games where Canada crushed it, we got we did very well with the Olympic metal school metals. It was it was a great games for us. But we would have these reflection points about saying, what do we really do anyways? What’s the impact? Do the athletes actually benefit from me?
Brett Bartholomew 43:58
It’s a scary question to Ask yourself
Dr. Matt Jordan 43:59
scary question. Right. And I think what that naturally leads to hopefully is not misery and despair, like, Oh, my God, maybe they don’t. But it leads to a curiosity to be saying, well, I wonder I’m curious, what impact do I have and the only way that I know how to understand impact is by possibly the personal relationships I build. But I understand that’s not enough because there’s people that you have great relationships with there’s you know, crazy quack crackpot doctors out there you have, I’m sure their patients loved them. And they end up killing people with some crazy ass treatment,
Or there’s people like Stu Macmillan
Or Stu Macmillan. Yeah, there you go. A whole other
Brett Bartholomew 44:44
A whole another kind of species
Dr. Matt Jordan 44:48
But I think that yeah, I mean, I am curious how this works. Yeah. Full stop. I am interested in understanding how my programs affect change and athletes. And that may mean, you know, that may mean in lots of cases, just finding good types of measurements that I that I trust, and then applying them in a serial way to start to understand how that system is working. And I’m gonna say right now it’s obviously incredibly complex. So by no means am I sitting here trying to say that I’ve got, you know, anything like secret things figured out. But I feel like that quest is what makes it interesting. For me. It my job is literally just showing up, writing programs, account reps and high fiving people at the end of workouts. I love that part. In fact, those are the days and you know, not to get sidetracked here. But for about a year and a half. While I was wrapping up my PhD, I came off the floor, I had to just literally write and work. And I would come home at four o’clock at the end of the day. And I would say to my wife, I’d be
Brett Bartholomew 45:56
like end of the day in Canada.
Dr. Matt Jordan 45:59
Yeah. And it’s in Canada. So walking in the door for 4:30. Right? It’s administrators life. Yeah, that’s what I was leaving at time. And I’d be going out, I’d be going down to my office to finish my PhD and like I was going to, you know, whatever, like have tea and watch television. But
Brett Bartholomew 46:14
tea and television,
Dr. Matt Jordan 46:18
I don’t watch TV, but what I realized that those times in my life was how miserable I was. And when I got back on the floor, I had days that are now normal coaching hours, where I’d be rolling in at 7pm on a Friday, after coaching three sessions being on the floor from 8:37 and then walk in the door. And my wife would say how’s it going, and I would say amazing, I feel awesome, working way longer hours, but far more energized and feeling a sense of satisfaction for what I’m doing. So I love the coaching aspect. But I also love trying to understand at the end of the day, every program I designed is meant to change something, it’s having some sort of effect, whatever that is. And I’m just really interested at all possible being able to figure out what that effect is I’m trying to elicit and tracking that change through the program. I’m just curious, does it work like you’re trying to improve ballistic strength qualities? With med ball throwing? I, when you were giving a presentation today, I’m like, Man, why don’t we do that? Why don’t we just like, let’s just look at it. We don’t have to, do some crazy experiment on it. But like, let’s just track that. Like, let’s see what the influence of that is on ballistic qualities because we can measure those? Sure. And we can add a lot of data points because you can accelerate that or we can add med ball exercises in in different volumes and different strategies and different patterns. And it would be really cool to kind of go through that and say, I wonder what the effect of that is. Yeah, I don’t know. To me, that’s the fun part. So I love that part of like digging in under the hood or bed. And that to me is like you know That to me is a big drivers is trying to figure out, you know, figure out what we’re doing
Brett Bartholomew 48:03
those pieces. No, I agree. Yeah, I agree. I know I’ve kept you long enough. So we’re going to end this you get a choice one or two ways. Now I’m a big hip hop fan, you know, Stu is as well. I know and like Stu is a good buddy of ours. We like to give him a hard time it’s an inside joke. But like I one thing I always think coaches should be able to do is freestyle a little bit not free style rap but like Yeah, I think a lot of times these podcasts are rehearse. Yeah, people got it. So but I am gonna give you a choice, which I’m gonna say like straight out, I’m not gonna give you a lot of folks down the road. But you’re a very unique take on two things. So you can do one of two things. One, you can do kind of five exercises, I’m going to give you a scenario. Like again, let’s go back to the one I use 23 year old alpine skier, previous ACL tear in our right leg, what you can either choose what are five exercises that are never going to leave that individuals program, right? Or you can give me five pieces of like advice that you’ve heard given in the past to somebody else, anybody within this field outside this field that you think are bullshit. And the reason I’m giving you this choice is because that’s what this podcast is looking into deconstructing myths that have we’ve all struggled with, and it’s also on the science side of like, you know, you got to know your shit on that side too. So you can choose one of the other five dead rock exercises that you’ve learned in your lab with you know, peer reviewed literature backed by data you know have to be the cornerstone of a program for somebody in that situation Yeah, or five pieces of advice that like either you’ve been told or somebody else that you think are bullshit and actually hold people back because of the dogma That you think the listeners should not listen to
Dr. Matt Jordan 49:37
yeah, I’ll go I think I’ll have an easier shot with Option A
Brett Bartholomew 49:43
Go
Dr. Matt Jordan 49:44
full squats Okay. And can I justify why
Brett Bartholomew 49:47
Absolutely, you should justify why in a minute or less
Dr. Matt Jordan 49:51
because those Our job is to build a resilient athlete in all positions that they may see on the field of play or in this case the hill. These are Athletes have to be able to generate maximal muscle power out of bottom positions where they get compressed Oftentimes where they end up getting hurt. So if you’re not able to be strong, and have good posture and position out of the hole, it’s going to be incredibly difficult for yourself to find yourself in those positions and to have any hope of success, perfect trap our deadlift, because I love the trap bar deadlift, and I love trap bar clean pole. So I could actually throw that in there as well. Because I find it to be an excellent exercise to just to develop spinal erectors strength, which is also extremely important for a skier because they need to have that strength when you’re dealing with terms and compressive forces,
Brett Bartholomew 50:41
which is funny, by the way, because most strength coaches feel like you have to choose between tremor deadlift and a squat in America, like a lot of people. They’re very different. Right? But like a lot of people will say like, oh, you know, this is and there’s so many ways to performance rep are delivered to that, I think keeping you know, forest for the trees. But anyway, I know Brett
Dr. Matt Jordan 51:03
like yeah, I don’t, and I honestly am oblivious. I’m a believer, I might be oblivious to what if I mean, I keep it simple. Yeah, you know, a trap bar deadlift performed well, to me is irrelevant
Brett Bartholomew 51:16
One piece of the puzzle,
Dr. Matt Jordan 51:17
You know, and but I mean, I just like it. It’s a great movement and a full range of motion, single leg exercise of some sort.
Brett Bartholomew 51:27
So it doesn’t matter if it’s a squat to a bench, a rear foot elevated, split squat, about a step up, a full,
Dr. Matt Jordan 51:33
I love step ups. I love step ups and step ups find their ways and then my programs consistently, I think they’re fantastic. I always have two types of hamstring exercises, and one for the knee joint, one for the hip. That’s another one. I don’t know if people feel as a bunk thing, but like, I really think you got to train the hamstrings as a knee flexor. So that
Brett Bartholomew 51:56
we’ll even go classic, like good old hamstring curl,
Dr. Matt Jordan 52:00
hey, you know, I
Brett Bartholomew 52:01
Shouldn’t be showing you stick to Val slide and physio ball.
Dr. Matt Jordan 52:05
You you kind of made a joke hit me earlier today about my slides. And you know, love them or hate him. My strength coach in the day was Charles Pollock
Brett Bartholomew 52:14
I didn’t make a joke. I said I can listen Matt. Matt did a lot of time under tension seven, I said I can tell your Poliquin disciple time under tension.
Dr. Matt Jordan 52:22
But if there’s one thing that Charles can tell you about would be all the positions from a prone leg curl that you should do to hit and target the hamstrings. And I mean, he had probably 10 variations I can think of
Brett Bartholomew 52:35
Oh, I remember I remember reading.
Dr. Matt Jordan 52:36
Yeah. So I mean, you know, I mean, you do what works and I love the hamstring curl and I don’t do them myself.
Brett Bartholomew 52:45
Why not?
Dr. Matt Jordan 52:46
Because I don’t have a hamstring curl.
Brett Bartholomew 52:47
Well figure it out.
Dr. Matt Jordan 52:49
I don’t have enough space in my little gym. And if I’ve got half
Brett Bartholomew 52:52
put on a bunk bed so you can have more room for activities. fun for kids have the room. So we got three things we got squat,
Dr. Matt Jordan 52:58
We got four, we’ve got full squat, trap, our deadlift, single leg squat off blocks and doors, full depth, single leg, rear foot elevated, something like that. They actually single leg exercise to form and hamstring and I’m a big believer in training the hip abductors in an explosive way. So I find some sort of hip abduction movement. And I trained my hip abductors like I would be training your, you know a version of your med ball throw
Brett Bartholomew 53:26
example. So somebody can visualize listening in their car
Dr. Matt Jordan 53:31
a seatedbanded knee abduction wide stance and a sumo stance. knees drop in explode out overtop of
Brett Bartholomew 53:40
just like when you said when people do many banned warm ups and what have you,
Dr. Matt Jordan 53:44
but I’ve traded here and I tried to train the hip abductors, like I feel as though those muscle groups get trained in massively low load kind of like activation style. Yeah, I tried to train the hip abductors like a real muscle group that needs to be developed and both in terms of its strength and rate of force development. So basically, when I look at a skier and how they get hurt to me, that’s how you injury prove them. So and then, you know, just to say just throwing in one more thing. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think that was five on some sort of single leg amortization landing type, you know, could be a single leg snap down, drops off box, it could be a freeze, like a drop single leg squat of some sort into a lunge. It could even be a split snatch could even be a split joint
Brett Bartholomew 54:34
I love which by the way, very underutilized Oh yeah. Very underutilized even like a close grip split snatch like people shit on the close grip a lot. Like very under utilized
Dr. Matt Jordan 54:45
when I was trying to look for this video but one of my key movements one of my guys coming back right now after an MCL, meniscal tear, pretty nasty knee injury actually making it sound like it’s not that bad. Was splitters because I wanted him to I knew that if he dropped with load on his back, he was just going to compensate. Yeah. And he was gonna throw himself into a position that would not require postural control, because he didn’t want to go there. But when he does a split jerk, he has to manage that load from the top down. So he has to be in a good position.
Brett Bartholomew 55:16
I haven’t liked the landmine variation, which I’m not a big I’m never gonna be there’s always somebody it’s like, oh, we you said is landmine as good as a barbell and like, like, that’s scary that we haven’t gotten over those arguments like is this better than that? Like, I don’t know, like, who’s your athlete? What’s the issue? What’s your experience? What’s the low you know what, just switch it out? Right? If you’ve been doing split jerks with a barbell for a while, it’s okay to do with a landmine like you can do a single you can do a very nice contralateral landmine split jerk lock that in.
Dr. Matt Jordan 55:42
I’ve been trained as a strength coach and a sports science. I don’t want to say sports scientists because it’s not the term has been my terms just getting beat up right now. And oh my god, I get it. But I am a coach and performance oriented strength and conditioning person. Let’s just say that, who takes a scientific approach to what they do. And in that approach, the single question that one of my other mentors, Dr. Dave Smith, who is now in his mid 60s, but he’s a infamous Canadian Sports Science exercise physiologist has been around for decades. There’s pictures of this guy and serial evil in 1984. With his biochem mass spectrometer, going into the Sarajevo Olympic Training Center, taking blood samples from Canadian athletes, the guy’s got an unbelievable wealth of knowledge. And he is truly a performance practitioner.
Brett Bartholomew 56:39
What’s he doing today?
Dr. Matt Jordan 56:40
He’s got his own projects. He’s nearly retired, maybe like he’s kind of like, you know, does his own projects and does his own things of interest. And he’s got talking about people who’ve been around the block. mean, he’s been working for decades. And he would have one quick question for me. What is your training effect? Training effect?
Brett Bartholomew 57:01
Did he call you on it?
Dr. Matt Jordan 57:03
Yeah, you have to have an answer for my training effect is to improve this. Yeah. How are you measuring that? I’m measuring it like this? And did you achieve,
Brett Bartholomew 57:13
is it reliable is it value?
Dr. Matt Jordan 57:14
All those things? Yeah. I mean, those things like and again, from my training with those guys, like the reliability validity thing was just one of those things like, you know, I don’t like we go to insane lengths to establish the validity and reliability of our equipment. Yeah, I mean, if I told you what I put our AMTI plates through to understand the performance of them, you would be like, holy cow. That’s unbelievable.
Brett Bartholomew 57:38
Tell us.
Dr. Matt Jordan 57:40
I had done all my own load calibrations and reliability studies for my PhD. Coming, they work and they’re the highest quality, these plates are the best. We then came into our institute understanding that we were going to expand this. And we did weekly load calibrations on our Pascall plates, and our AMTI plates, three loads up to 300 kilos with stripped down three times, three times per session once a week for five months. So for every week, for five months, we put on 300 kilos, took it off, put on 300 kilos, put it off, took on three kilos put it off. And we we assessed whether or not in all those sessions, whether or not there was any deviation in that linear relationship on the plates. And we now have a reliability study in our scripts. We’ve put 109 athletes through reliability testing. So I can tell you with great confidence, when I say that the coefficient of variation for a given number is 1.4%. That’s not just me pulling on my ass, that’s 109 subjects who’ve been tested at two time points. And this was already done, like I already did this stuff, but we’re doing it again. So this is like my environment is an environment where I will not survive if I’m not adhering to the highest level of rigor and, we just believe like that’s the level that we do at our institute, and it’s a lot of work and but at the end of the day, you know, coming back to those questions. I mean, the validity reliability piece was just like your, you know, it was your first grind. And then the second, you know, that’s the question you asked everybody what was your training effect what training effect you’re trying to achieve? And the answer should be for every coach no matter what exercise you’re choosing, no matter whether it’s a trap bar, clean pole or trap bar deadlift or a split snatch or a split landmine or whatever it is, you should be able to say my desired training effect with this ACL reconsider this case MCL slash meniscal tear athlete was to work on eccentric deceleration ability and in order to reinforce postures and positions that he needs to be in. I was doing this by having him lift the mass overhead which requires him to find the right posture does it should have been, because if he’s out of place, he’s not going to be able to correctly catch that weight and be in a good position. So every aspect of one’s program is complete. Yeah. And it should have in it, you should be able to say, this is why we’re doing this. That’s why I’m doing this.
Brett Bartholomew 1:00:16
What I appreciate about that, for sure is there are two people that did that for me not to cut you off. One was Dr. Craig harms at Kansas State University. He like that was a big thing that underpinned a lot of my interest in strengthing conditioning, it was an adaptations to strength training type course. And I mean, you understood the underpinning of everything, where I now think a lot of coaches just focus on like, does this look cool? Oh, yeah. You know, they don’t understand what the adaptation is, like, even even people I’ve mentored have been like, hey, is this program look good? And I’m like, Yeah, I mean, what is
Dr. Matt Jordan 1:00:46
It’s the biggest comment I hear from my, and you know, I’ve got graduate students now. And I’m, you know, we’re bringing more of them in. And the idea is, you get a professional mentorship in strength and conditioning, in a trajectory as a coach, but you also get some scientific training as a master student. And it’s the biggest thing that I think they feel is they have no idea how to consume the massive amount of information that’s out there. Instead of saying, my goal isn’t to consume any information. My goal is to think critically about what the training desired training effect needs to be, and how do I apply the correct stimulus to accomplish that? And ideally, to have some way of measuring that so that I know that I’m on the right track. And I am not saying that it’s as utopian and perfect as that. Because we all know that you can’t measure everything. We all know that. There’s just like, I didn’t measure the effects of my friggin split jerk. But at the end of the day, I think it’s the thinking, right, and I think if, if more young coaches thought from that mindset about, what’s the adaptation, what’s the training effect? I think
Brett Bartholomew 1:01:55
And listen, they’re even old coaches that have gotten lazy with their stuff. I think a lot of times we think at young coaches, I think there are a lot of good older coaches that have snuck into positions that couldn’t tell you that stuff any more than somebody right out, you know, I think but totally do what you mean, it’s just a level of discernment. And like what you described, there was craftsmanship. And I think that’s the thing that we’ve lost above all is like, a commitment to craftsmanship in the field, whatever that is, like completeness, craftsmanship, respect, community collaboration, a lot of Cs it’s purposeful, and happens to fit. And I think that’s hopefully something that people can take away from everything that you shared, I do want people to know more about your course or whatever, certainly want to get in touch with you. Because it’s not just a course. And you put a ton of stuff out there for people to read, a lot of it’s free, which like, is dangerous, right? Because we talked about it earlier, like we are creating a little bit of a consumer society in and of itself. And it’s our job to put out free information. But guys, if you like Matt Jordan stuff, and you find it helpful, make the investment like this guy’s I have seen very few presenters, give me a level of completeness that he does with the information. I know what it’s like to create courses and books like this stuff. Nobody’s ever going to admit this, it comes on the show this stuff takes a lot of time and a lot of money, a lot of time and a lot of money. And so when they have people that reach out and say, hey, I want this for free, I want that for free. Do you have any of this, that’s fine, like consume that stuff. But make sure that you’re also investing in giving back by, you know, showing respect to the time and effort they put in complete resources to help you guys learn, because it is really awesome that we live in a day and age where you may not have to go to Portugal to see an event you may not have to travel. But when you have people with that have courses like he does, and it’s just sitting there and you say, Well, I can’t afford the $200 or $300, or whatever it is like there’s really that point and Alan Cosgrove talks about this like no, you can’t not afford to have that idea that his course and his resources might stimulate. This isn’t a sales pitch. This is me telling you to not be lazy and being stingy is coincides nicely with being lazy with a lot of folks. They think they’re entitled information. None of us are invest. And Matt, go ahead and tell us where they can find more out
Dr. Matt Jordan 1:04:02
yet, head to my website, www.jordanstrength.com. And you can also reach me on Instagram or Twitter at @jordanstrength. And if you head to my site, just email me and contact me or click on some of the resources for coaches and you’ll see what’s going on there.
Brett Bartholomew 1:04:23
Perfect. Thanks for your time, man. I know how to hunt you down. I know you’re catching a flight tomorrow. I appreciate it. My pleasure. Guys. Take care if you have any questions again, don’t hesitate to reach out and remember to go to artofcoaching.com To stay up to date later.