EPISODE 3: ACHIEVING YOUR BODY'S PEAK POTENTIAL WITH STRENGTH & CONDITIONING COACH, DARYL RICHARDS

To be an athlete means to commit yourself to finding every advantage, even if it’s worth 1-2%. Understanding sleep, recovery, training techniques and hormones are all vital factors in mastering your body. Joining me to break down the myths and misconceptions around all of these is my former strength and conditioning coach, Daryl Richards.

We delve deeper into the specifics of training, the difference in approach for athletes vs regular PT sessions and the essential steps to allow your body to recover. Whether you’re an athlete at the top of your game or you’re just starting your fitness journey, this episode will certainly give you lessons to up your game…

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IN THIS EPISODE OF THE PERFECT ATHLETE:

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EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

“For me, the difference between the mindset of an athlete and the mindset of the ‘average Joe’ is the fact that athletes know that they have to do it – it’s part of their training camp and their job, they have to train. Actually sometimes, that’s a good and a bad thing, because they don’t always love training” – 12:17 – Daryl Richards

 

“It always comes down to: What’s your goal. If you’ve got that clear goal and you’re going for it then, whether you like it or not, you’re going to put the effort in. I think on the athlete side of things, that’s where you see the guys that will succeed. When they hate training, but they put 110% into every session, that’s someone that’s going to achieve something.” – 15:22 – Daryl Richards

 

“There’s 168 hours in a week. If I’m only seeing somebody three hours of the week, they have to take some ownership, and I think it’s so important to get that across to your clients that they have to take ownership of their results because if they’re dumping it all on you and you’re only seeing them three hours a week, it’s going to be harder.” – 17:52 – Daryl Richards

 

“Golfers are looking more into stuff, rather than just playing golf or just practicing their swing. Obviously specific is important, and it always will be number one, but the strength and conditioning side of golf now is huge and I think we’re seeing longer drives because of it. Sport’s always changing and sports science is always changing.” – 20:55 – Chris Billam-Smith

 

“Most people are aware of using breath work for mindfulness. So slow inhalations and exhalations. And this could be nasal breathing, which helps to switch on the parasympathetic nervous activity. That can calm the nervous system, so for de-stressing – I think most people are in tune for that. But you also have techniques for ramping up the nervous system.” – 21:42 – Daryl Richards

 

“The nervous system is sympathetic and parasympathetic. So the sympathetic is the fight or flight mode where it’s subconscious, almost a reaction. Whereas the parasympathetic is more being calm and being more in control.” – 23:08 – Chris Billam-Smith

 

“With sleep, and especially with fat gain, or weight gain, is the hunger hormone. So we have ghrelin and leptin. In simple terms ghrelin increases hunger, and leptin decreases hunger and makes us feel full. So what happens when we’re sleep deprived is that they become unbalanced, so people become hungry when they shouldn’t be and this can lead to over-eating.” – 32:37 – Daryl Richards

 

“So muscle tissue, tendons and ligamentous tissue are all different layers of fascia. And so that’s how you start to see that everything is interconnected. You might have a shoulder problem but that could be coming from something further down because you’re not moving properly.” – 38:38 – Daryl Richards

 

“Just work on staying healthy. If you’ve got some injury problems, make sure you’re working on them from an early age because you can get away with things when you’re 21, but when you’re 30 you can’t get away with them anymore. If you want to have a real long career, you’d better really look after yourself.” – 44:16 – Daryl Richards 

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