Down the Rabbit Hole

DC Sports Training

Things outside of the conventional strength & conditioning stuff.dcsportstraining.substack.com

  1. Mar 25

    Paul Gagne - How Posture & Breathing Effect Performance

    Send us Fan Mail If you’ve ever watched an athlete dominate in games while looking average in the weight room, Paul Gagné has an explanation that cuts deeper than “talent.” We’re talking about posturology: how the brain uses vision, the vestibular system, and foot pressure to place your centre of mass before you ever push into the ground. When that system is organised, speed and skill feel effortless. When it’s not, you can train hard and still leak power, recover poorly, and get hurt at the worst moment. We dig into eye convergence, VOR drills, and why a simple figure eight pattern can shift posture fast enough to change a training session. Paul breaks down anterior scapular plane and how it shows up in hockey as weaker first steps, skating on the toe of the blade, and a head down style that kills awareness. He shares how he uses force plates, lasers, and quick sensory inputs to open a “window” where athletes learn and lift in a better position. Then we go practical and a little wild: white pucks and even golf balls on the ice to train soft hands and peripheral vision, plus a PGA Tour story where a major champion uses eye exercises under pressure. We also connect posture to breathing mechanics, diaphragm function, hypoxia and CO2 tolerance training, and how better breath control can restore calm focus between shifts. If you care about sports performance, hockey training, injury prevention, or the science of posture and breathing, you’ll leave with tools you can test today. Subscribe, share this with a coach or teammate, and leave a review with the one drill you want to try first. Support the show

    1h 4m
  2. Mar 6

    Jesse Danger: The Movement Creative, Parkour, Play, And Purpose

    Send us Fan Mail What if movement was your first language? We sit down with Jesse Danger—coach, builder, and founder of The Movement Creative—to explore how parkour can turn a city into a classroom and frustration into the felt sense of learning. From a rough ride through school to discovering parkour as a pathway to agency, Jesse shares the frameworks and stories that helped him build one of New York’s most innovative movement communities without a permanent gym. We dig into a practical coaching model shaped by two axes—autonomy and complexity—moving through drill, exploration, challenge, and game. You’ll hear how this structure helps students manage difficulty, navigate fear, and stay curious, whether they’re learning a precision jump or rethinking how they approach any skill. Jesse also unpacks the idea of parkour vision, the mindset that transforms benches, ledges, and stairwells into opportunities. Along the way, we talk mental health, resilience, and why celebrating effort over performance changes the culture in classrooms, teams, and families. Beyond philosophy, this is a builder’s story. Jesse explains how his team designed modular equipment for tight city spaces, launched weatherproof roaming classes, and partnered with schools to bring movement into PE and after‑school—then adapted during the pandemic with QR‑coded park challenges to shift how people see their neighborhoods. We even touch on a signature “impossible” challenge—backwards-crawling the Empire State by proxy—and the new parkour game card deck that turns hard‑earned pedagogy into playful, ready‑to‑run sessions for coaches and parents. If you care about movement education, youth programs, urban design, or just seeing your environment with fresh eyes, this conversation will give you tools you can use today. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs a spark, and leave a review to tell us: what challenge are you ready to embrace next? Support the show

    1h 29m
  3. Feb 13

    From Dictator To Guide: Building Adaptable Athletes Through Ecological Dynamics

    Send us Fan Mail What if your athletes actually got better at the game instead of just better at drills? That’s the question we chase with Coach Javi Miller Estrada—co‑founder of Ignite Performance, team member at Emergence, and host of the Adaptable Athlete Podcast. We unpack how ecological dynamics and a constraints‑led approach help athletes perceive what matters, set clear intentions, and discover solutions that hold up under real pressure. No fluff, no guru talk—just practical ways to make training look, feel, and transfer like sport. Javi explains why “roll the ball out” is a myth and how the coach’s job actually gets more intentional: design representative tasks, scale constraints, and guide attention without over‑prescribing mechanics. From quarterbacks who crumble under constant internal cues to basketball players stuck on beef-era shooting rules, we explore how focusing on perception and problem solving creates robust attractors—multiple effective ways to win the same play. You’ll hear concrete examples: live, opposed football work that replaces empty indy periods; jiu-jitsu progressions that bridge drilling and sparring; and simple tweaks athletes can use when team practice is still stuck on rote patterns. We also step into the messy, rewarding reality of coaching as a business. Javi shares straight‑shooting advice on parent education, testing for validation without losing the “game speed” focus, and hiring coaches who care enough to keep learning. His Modern Coach’s Planner was built for that purpose—session design, debriefs, athlete notes, and bite‑size explanations of key concepts that turn curiosity into consistent action. If you want athletes who adapt instead of memorize, who can win routes in many ways and solve problems at full speed, this conversation gives you the blueprint. Listen, take notes, and try one change this week: make a drill more representative, set a clearer intention, or remove one unnecessary cue. Then tell us how it went. Subscribe, share with a coach who needs this, and leave a review so more people can find it. Support the show

    1h 7m
  4. Jan 30

    How Olympic Sprint Coaching, Chinese Systems, And Wearable Resistance Shaped Elite Speed

    Send us Fan Mail Two coaches at the sharp end of elite sport pull back the curtain on how speed really gets built. We sit down with Olympic sprint and jumps coach Randy Huntington and Exogen’s Joseph DeSetti to unpack the methods, measurements, and micro-loads that turn good movers into great performers—safely. Randy walks us through his global journey: rebuilding Chinese track and field with timing systems, load-velocity profiling, and individualized technique, then carrying those lessons into the NFL with athletes like Christian McCaffrey. The big reveal is deceptively simple: proprioception before load, technique before intensity, and measurement before judgment. You’ll hear how mini hurdles, activator belts, and wearable resistance create “compliance” so athletes feel front-side mechanics, fix high heel recovery, and apply real force into the ground. We go practical and specific. Learn how placing grams on thighs or calves changes torque and awareness, why many pros are strong in the weight room yet weak in key patterns, and how to progress from drills to sprinting without spiking soft-tissue risk. Randy shares a step-by-step logic for acceleration and max-velocity coaching, including when he refuses to load calves, how he resolved years of Achilles pain in days using tools and microcurrent, and why finishing sessions light locks in clean movement. The conversation widens to return-to-play and water-based solutions, from deep-water running with targeted loads to building tendon capacity with simple skipping. Joe explains the “assistive vs resistive” framework and why acclimatization over four to eight weeks is non-negotiable at high speed. Throughout, the message stays grounded: no single method wins; a complete, measured toolbox and coach humility do. If this episode reframes how you think about speed, share it with a coach or teammate who needs it. Subscribe for more candid, high-level conversations, and leave a review with the one coaching shift you’ll make this week. Support the show

    1h 36m
  5. Jan 16

    Dr. Bricot: Posture Is A Brain Story

    Send us Fan Mail What if posture isn’t about “standing up straight,” but about how your brain reads the world through your feet and eyes? We sit down with Dr. Bernard Bricot—orthopedic surgeon and pioneer of posturology—to rethink back pain, performance, and the myths that keep people stuck. Instead of chasing symptoms or relying on phasic muscles to fix a tonic job, we examine posture as a sensory integration problem: the nervous system blends signals from the foot’s ultra-sensitive skin, the extraocular muscles, and the vestibular system to set tone and organize movement against gravity. We dig into why tonic muscles quietly do the heavy lifting, why frequency-based foot stimulation can recruit better support than rigid inserts, and why testing eye convergence all the way to the bridge of the nose reveals asymmetries most exams miss. You’ll hear how disharmonic feet can tilt the pelvis, load L5-S1, and ripple through the thoracic spine and C2—patterns that return unless the upstream sensors are addressed. Fascia takes center stage as the tissue that “locks in” bias, explaining chronic, recurring misalignments and why gentle, ongoing sensory inputs can override those fixations more reliably than forceful adjustments or isolated stretching. We also tackle the genetics debate with an epigenetic perspective: uncorrected sensory imbalances may echo across generations, which reframes prevention as early, sensory-aware care rather than late-stage correction. Along the way, we challenge the “correlation isn’t causation” refrain by highlighting silent lesions—objective tissue changes that exist without pain—and how relying on symptoms alone misguides treatment. If you’ve tried posture drills without lasting change, this conversation offers a clearer map: assess the feet, test true convergence, tune tonic support, and let the nervous system reorganize from the ground and the gaze up. If this rethink resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who’s battling stubborn back pain, and leave a review with your biggest aha—what part of your chain do you think starts the story? Support the show

    37 min
  6. 12/22/2025

    A Year Of Rethinking Movement

    Send us Fan Mail What if the fastest path to better performance isn’t more sets and reps, but becoming more human first? We close out the year by unpacking the ideas that changed our training and our lives: primitive reflexes that still shape adult movement, posture as a whole-body strategy, and the feet as powerful sensory hubs that influence pain, speed, and power. It’s a candid look at what worked, what didn’t, and how we’re refining everything for a stronger year ahead. We dive into the difference between exercise and movement and why the brain grows through varied, playful practice. You’ll hear how parkour, roughhousing, and nature-based challenges brought joy back to training, why consistency in sleep and light hygiene drives nervous system health, and how local food and water quality affect performance more than most programs admit. We revisit standout conversations on transfer of training and motor learning, connecting high-level sport ideas to daily practice in clear, actionable ways. Two frameworks anchor the recap. From Rafe Kelly, a culture of practice built on play, presence, nature, connection, and community. From Ido Portal, a simple method for any problem: isolate, integrate, improvise. Layer that onto our core lens—humans first, movers second, specialists third—and you get a roadmap that ends arguments and starts progress. Whether you’re a coach, clinician, or curious mover, you’ll leave with tools to assess what matters, fix constraints at the root, and build a body that learns fast and performs under stress. If this resonated, share it with a friend, subscribe, and drop a review. Tell us which topic you want explored next or who you want to hear from, and we’ll chase it down together. Support the show

    32 min
4.8
out of 5
13 Ratings

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Things outside of the conventional strength & conditioning stuff.dcsportstraining.substack.com

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