Loren Landow | “It’s About Service.”

For many coaches, there comes a point when coaching can become less about proving yourself and more about serving others. Loren Landow, Director of Football Performance at the University of Notre Dame, shares how that shift informs his approach to training, hiring, and leading in elite football. Landow distinguishes workouts from training; every block has a targeted goal, and every off-season is a chance to build brotherhood, uphold standards, and compete in everything they do. Landow also reflects on his path from cardiopulmonary rehabilitation to the private sector, the National Football League (NFL), and the University of Notre Dame. For him, when you can “weather the storm,” no career step is wasted. On the technical side, he argues that movement is his largest key performance indicator (KPI). Landow explains that deceleration is trainable, and athletes need movement literacy before reactive work. Listen to help solidify your standards, coach movement with intent, and adapt a service-first lens to last in the profession.

Connect with Loren on Instagram: @lorenlandow or by email: LLandow@nd.edu | Find Eric on Instagram: @ericmcmahoncscs and LinkedIn: @ericmcmahoncscs

Join the NSCA Football Special Interest Group (SIG) on LinkedIn to connect with other coaches and stay current on football strength and conditioning best practices.

“I make sure that I check all my references and make sure that this person is going to be great rowing in the boat with us. I like it and goes back to some of those values being on time. No excuses that you hold players accountable for. It carries over to staff as well, and they obviously have to set that pace for their position groups, their teams and all the way across the board. And I need to have people that understand it's about service, it's about serving. And that's probably one of the more important qualities I look for and I pay attention to in an interview. Does that word come up? Do you understand that your job is to serve?” 9:20 

“There's not one part of my path where I thought, man, that was a wasted two years. That was a wasted three years. Everything has led me to this point now where I take all my collective wisdom or experience past failures, and I use those to fuel my direction and ask better questions and ultimately use it to help, you know, serve my student athletes here at Notre Dame.” 13:00 

“One of my coaches at my facility reached out to me not too long ago and asked me the question, what would Loren olderself tell Loren's younger self? And I said two things. Patience. Have patience in the process. But weather the storm. Weather the storm in this field because it's going to get hard. It's going to get bumpy, it's going to get choppy. It's not going to be smooth sailing. But if you can weather the storm and you can really decide what it is that you're trying to do.” 14:35 

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:23:24 

This is the NSCA Coaching Podcast. I'm your host, Eric McMahon, NSCA Coaching and Sport Science Program Manager. Today, we connect with a familiar face at the NSCA, Loren Landow, a world renowned strength and conditioning coach specializing in speed development, an elite football performance from the NFL to his current role as the Director of Football Performance at the University of Notre Dame. 

00:00:23:24 - 00:00:24:20 

Loren, welcome. 

00:00:24:20 - 00:00:26:18 

Eric, thank you for having me on. My friend. 

00:00:26:18 - 00:00:48:12 

Yeah, always great catching up. I was looking back and you were on this show back in 2017. Episode number 14. And here we are about 200 episodes later. There's always excitement coming out of South Bend around the football program. A storied history and high expectations to win and perform. 

00:00:48:12 - 00:00:50:01 

How are things going this off season? 

00:00:50:01 - 00:01:05:21 

Good. The off season was good. You know, we, you know, I think our postseason run didn't go as we hoped. We missed out on the, playoffs. But, you know, one thing that we've done is we've made that one of our big, kind of monsters leading into the winter. 

00:01:05:21 - 00:01:26:04 

In the spring is. And leave no doubt. And, that's ultimately the mindset that everybody's come in with. For the last ten, nine weeks of, you know, eight weeks of the winter program. And then obviously we're second week into spring ball. So the mindset is good around here. Guys are putting in great work on the field in the weight room. 

00:01:26:06 - 00:01:28:22 

And, couldn't be more happy with where we're at right now. 

00:01:28:22 - 00:01:39:10 

Football's a huge part of strength and conditioning we know that. But it's a big roster. How do you manage that during the offseason across your staff and with all the training you're doing? 

00:01:39:10 - 00:01:42:21 

Yeah. You know, obviously we take the lion's share of the work in the winter. 

00:01:42:21 - 00:02:00:15 

And, you know, which is what I like. I like to, lead and develop and and that's ultimately the word I use. Right? Everybody wants to call it winter workouts, and I call it winter training. I tried to explain to our players like, a workout is what you may do on on a bike. On the peloton, you may go for a workout. 

00:02:00:20 - 00:02:20:01 

But training is something that has a targeted goal, and we use specific training at different times to elicit the adaptation we're looking at for the goal that we're looking to hit at that time. So I've really taught our players one. It's about training, but really it's about the opportunity to build the brotherhood and to compete. My staff does an incredible job. 

00:02:20:02 - 00:02:37:24 

You know, they're they're the ones that that put in really the hard work. You know, we sit back behind the scenes and we build out, you know, the model, the template. The runway is a little bit different every year in the off season, whether it was our national championship year, and then our runway was cut short for the following year or this year, where the runway is a little bit longer. 

00:02:37:24 - 00:03:07:00 

So, you know, we're we're ready and we're ready to adapt whenever possible. But ultimately, my coaches, they do a great job of creating, you know, competition, the winter competition and making sure that really the biggest thing is that we're upholding the standards and the expectations of my head coach and the other coaches on the staff. So by the time they get to spring ball like they are ready, they are ready to hit the ground running not only from a physical standpoint, but an expectation standpoint of how we operate at Notre Dame. 

00:03:07:02 - 00:03:19:06 

You mentioned competition. How important is that to instill that competition mentality in training during the off season? I know we compete during the season, but how do you do that during the off season? 

00:03:19:06 - 00:03:29:20 

Yeah, it's important to instill competitions, but also the values of the competition. You know, what we do is we build out our teams. You know, we we kind of select colors for the teams. 

00:03:29:20 - 00:03:53:23 

Your your team red, your team green, your team orange, your team white, your team gold. And what we do is we put them as colors and, you know, just kind of not not unlike what the, Navy Seals do. And then by the end of it, the the winner is team six. And so what we did is we really wanted to build off that military mindset, to have like, hey, you're Pro Bowl, you're Pro Bowl on the military side. 

00:03:53:23 - 00:04:12:21 

On the Navy side is is Seal team six. So we wanted to make sure that, one, they had to understand the big picture, the of the competition first and foremost, and what the goal was. And then the other thing, Eric, like, I'd run with, you know, three, three definitive rules in my room that really set off the competition. 

00:04:13:01 - 00:04:30:15 

Number one is be on time, right. And to be on time at Notre Dame, that means 15 minutes early. If you're not in the building at 15 minute early check in. You are below the standard line for your your team. The other one is, you know, no jewelry. No, no jewelry in the weight room, no cell phones. 

00:04:30:21 - 00:04:45:06 

You know, the typical things that we look at. But, you know, if you come in with it, you forgot to take out your earrings. You're below the line. Last one is. No excuses. You know, I won't let our guys have excuses. And if you come up to me with excuses, you're below the line. So that just sets off the competition. 

00:04:45:08 - 00:05:04:04 

From there. We have so many different metrics that we look at, whether it's the, the, on field testing that we'll do where we try to have fun with some combine type data, but we'll also utilize our tech, technology data as well. You know, we'll use, you know, different aspects of the force plate jumps. Whether it's Messi one day might be concentric impulse. 

00:05:04:04 - 00:05:23:22 

We may change it up, to maybe favor some of the bigs in some of those competitions, but also allowing, you know, nored boards get put into our competitions. We we allow everything in anything to be put into our competitions. But heck, we've had a spelling bee be part of our competition. So we want to show our guys that we want to compete in everything that we do. 

00:05:23:22 - 00:05:31:05 

And I always tell our players, the best thing for coach was Pepsi. So we want to drive competition and everything that we do 

00:05:31:05 - 00:05:49:23 

know of that and sport science, the technology piece, obviously playing that into the off season competition, that's a great tool for coaches. Lots of big topics and conversations in the area of college sports right now we have NIL we have transfer portal, obviously technology use, sport science. 

00:05:49:23 - 00:05:52:18 

What are some of the big changes you're experiencing right now? 

00:05:52:18 - 00:06:09:05 

You know, I think being at Notre Dame, we probably you know, we're we're we're not immune to the changes that you see on that landscape. But I would say this is that, you know, if you if you chose Notre Dame and Notre Dame chose you, like, it's not an easy choice because academically it's challenging. 

00:06:09:05 - 00:06:30:19 

And then the cadence that we're on, it's challenging. So I think because of that we have a lot less, transition, if you will. But like I said, we're not immune to it, and it does happen to us, but, you know, you just have to adapt. You have to plug and play. We had, you know, for our winter program this year, we had 24, mid-year. 

00:06:30:19 - 00:06:59:19 

Come in, freshman mid-year, and then we had nine transfer. So there's 31 new players on your roster. And so our job is to get them up to speed and to deal with the landscape that we see in college football right now. And that's that's really integrating them and finding out a little bit about them as far as their their previous injury history and who they are as an athlete and starting to understand their movement patterns and their movement signatures so that we have a good proxy to go off of when we look at our athletes in their developmental cycles. 

00:06:59:19 - 00:07:07:12 

But also, you know, if there happens to be an injury, we have something to go back and baseline in reference to, to be able to get them back on the field, participating. 

00:07:07:12 - 00:07:19:14 

So, a lot of moving parts is what I'm hearing. And to cover that across your staff, do you look for more a generalist role when you're hiring coaches or are these more specialists? 

00:07:19:14 - 00:07:38:10 

What are some of the characteristics you're looking for when you're hiring or bringing people into your team? Yeah, I need people on this team that are going to fit well. Like I'm looking for good people first and foremost, good people that that, you know, we're going to be in a lot of long hours together. We're going to be, you know, we're going to drive from, you know, June until February. 

00:07:38:10 - 00:08:02:01 

We're going to be pushing at a heavy cadence and a heavy pace, and you need people that you enjoy being around, but people that that are consistent each and every day, consistently good people, people who are consistently pulling their weight. I always use the analogy, whether it's on my staff or any high performance team. You know, I need everybody rowing in the boat in the same direction, on the same cadence, with the same effort. 

00:08:02:03 - 00:08:18:17 

And I think a lot of times, Eric, you'll find teammates that will you know, they'll row in a completely different direction than where you're going. They may actually put the the ore in the water, but they're not pushing at the same cadence. Or they might be on the same canes, but they're not giving you everything they've got when they're pushing. 

00:08:18:17 - 00:08:39:23 

So making sure that you have all three of those things in the same direction, on the same cadence and with the same effort, those are the things I look for, for my teammates. The resume is obviously important that you have the requirements and you have, a history in the field. But at the end of the day, like, I've got to have a good feel with you that you're going to work well with my team. 

00:08:40:04 - 00:09:11:13 

And that's ultimately what I, what I aim for. You know, we build out succession programs here at Notre Dame where really our goal is if somebody above you leaves, really what the goal is, is to be able to, you know, upload you to become that next person up. You know, whether, you know, we had a situation where we had an intern and we had one of our senior strength conditioning coaches positioned open up in our intern because of all the work he did and the the, you know, consistency of who he was as a team player and how the players really, really bought into him. 

00:09:11:13 - 00:09:21:12 

Like it was a no brainer to succeed him and move him on up. So those are the goals that we set forth, is just trying to build within, from within if we can. But also, you know, when you hire 

00:09:21:12 - 00:09:27:24 

outside you, I make sure that I check all my references and make sure that this person is going to be great rowing in the boat with us. 

00:09:27:24 - 00:09:34:19 

I like it and goes back to some of those values being on time. No excuses that you hold players accountable for. 

00:09:34:19 - 00:09:47:19 

It carries over to staff as well, and they obviously have to set that pace for their position groups, their teams and all the way across the board. Yeah, and I need to I need to have people that understand it's about service, it's about serving. 

00:09:47:21 - 00:10:10:01 

And that's probably one of the more important qualities I look for and I pay attention to in an interview. Does that word come up? Do you understand that your job is to serve? This isn't just, a stepping stone job. This isn't just to say you work at Notre Dame. This is truly here to serve not only our student athlete population, it's here to serve our coaching staff, all our other performance verticals and our administration. 

00:10:10:07 - 00:10:15:24 

Those are the things that are important to me that they understand. It's not about them. And it's not just about football. It's about the big picture 

00:10:15:24 - 00:10:21:17 

service. That's a good connection to just dive into your whole career a little bit more. 

00:10:21:17 - 00:10:31:16 

We're talking elite college football. You've worked at the NFL level, and a lot of times we see coaches who maybe have that background and then they go into the private sector. 

00:10:31:16 - 00:10:59:19 

But your career has essentially gone in reverse. You run your own business out of the Denver area. That's how you got started. You give a ton of presentations in the field, and you've really given back on multiple areas of this profession. Was it always your goal to navigate from that? You know, combine pressure, private sector youth training, MMA, all the different areas you've done and to kind of work into football or how did that evolve for you? 

00:10:59:19 - 00:11:18:11 

Yeah, I think that's a good question. And, you know, I've never had like this end goal mindset of of where I thought I would be or you know what what this achievement level. I was just trying to take it day by day. And I think a lot of people don't know this, Eric, but I started out in pulmonary and cardiac rehab. 

00:11:18:13 - 00:11:42:21 

And so that is exactly where I started. And, you know, from there I got into more of the private sector, one on one training and group training, working with athletes of all levels. And then, you know, after cutting my teeth on athletes and trying to figure out this whole thing of performance training that, you know, when I was coming out of school in my undergrad in 1995, 96, there really wasn't this field. 

00:11:42:23 - 00:12:03:19 

And you may have had some track and field coaches who are doing it on the side, but it wasn't this business opportunity that really presents itself now. So for me, it was kind of the path that I went into. I found a couple mentors who were already doing something like this, and it was a natural fit that I interned and I volunteered for them. 

00:12:03:21 - 00:12:26:01 

And, one of the gentlemen who I interned for his name was Jim is Jim Warren, and he was working with the cream of the crop. I mean, he had Barry Sanders, Jerome Bettis, Willie Rolfe, Steve Atwater, I mean, the list goes on. Eddie George, and, he let me, you know, really kind of cut my teeth, with him and being a part of his sessions. 

00:12:26:01 - 00:12:56:10 

And then from time to time, he would ask me to fill in form. So I was getting incredible experience. But, you know, I never really knew where I was going to take this thing. Now, the one thing I will tell all the listeners to this, I don't care how old you are, I will tell you there is not one step of my career that I still don't use on a daily basis, like I still use principles back from cardiac and pulmonary rehab, when there's issues in on a training floor, like I know how to handle those emergency type of situations. 

00:12:56:10 - 00:13:10:22 

So there's not one. I guess the reason I bring that up is there's not one part of my path where I thought, man, that was a wasted two years. That was a wasted three years. Everything has led me to this point now where I take all my collective 

00:13:10:22 - 00:13:23:17 

wisdom or experience past failures, and I use those to fuel my direction and ask better questions and ultimately use it to help, you know, serve my student athletes here at Notre Dame. 

00:13:23:17 - 00:13:46:10 

Yeah. That's amazing. I had a similar background in cardiopulmonary rehab, and I got asked that question in an interview for a job, and it wasn't a a rehab or cardiac rehab job. But it was. What did you take away from that experience that you used today? And I think that's a really good approach that you take, trying to pull things from every experience you take. 

00:13:46:10 - 00:14:08:12 

Because depending on your background as a young coach, you may have everything at your disposal. You may have a professional team, a college team that you can go intern, observe or connect with. But you may not have that. You might be from a small town or an area where you have a PT clinic, or a sports medicine facility, or a cardiac rehab facility, or a hospital. 

00:14:08:14 - 00:14:14:15 

Get that experience local before you branch out, because you might take something that makes you unique. 

00:14:14:15 - 00:14:32:00 

When you get into whatever area of the field you want to be in. I mean, you really, that connect to me. What you said is that you still pull from from that experience early in your career, and, yeah, I just think that's a really valuable lesson for our listeners. 

00:14:32:02 - 00:14:52:00 

Yeah. And for me, I had a, one of my coaches at my facility reach out to me not too long ago and asked me the question, what would Loren older self tell Loren's younger self? And I said two things patience. Have patience in the process. But weather the storm, weather the storm in this field because it's going to get hard. 

00:14:52:00 - 00:15:11:02 

It's going to get bumpy, it's going to get choppy. It's not going to be smooth sailing. But if you can weather this the storm and you can really decide what what it is that you're trying to do. And for me, it was ultimately the the word is serve. But if you can weather the storm, like when you get through that storm, it's beautiful on the other side, it's still hard. 

00:15:11:02 - 00:15:32:21 

It's still challenging. But the reward we have from what we do in our work is incredible that we can make a living and influence people's lives in a positive manner. Like, I can't think of too many career paths where you really get to have so much, you know, involvement in raising and developing young people as we do in our field. 

00:15:32:21 - 00:15:53:23 

now on that you share so much information out into the field. I know you are a quick call when we need a presenter at the NSCA. Always a very engaging hands on speed, agility, presentation or a number of areas that you've covered. Is that why you are so outgoing and putting that information out there just to give back to the profession? 

00:15:54:00 - 00:16:09:02 

Yeah, I if I'm answering it truthfully, you know, I would say early on in my career it was probably selfish. You know, I wanted to show that I belonged. I wanted to show that that I knew my stuff. I wanted to show that I have arrived. I think those were the things that were driving me when I was younger. 

00:16:09:02 - 00:16:39:05 

But then there was again, that shift that happened in my career because I would say this is it was any time I was trying to I want to present at the National conference, I want to be a keynote. It was never feeling filling my cup. And so ultimately, I think when I made it really about sharing information, challenging information and having people challenge my information when I made it about that and exploration, like those are the reasons why I do it now, is to really share information. 

00:16:39:05 - 00:16:58:19 

I think before, you know, it's like every young coach, you're trying to prove your worth and prove that you can be an industry leader or innovator. And, you know, I think when I look back at it with more wisdom, I think now I look at is I want to share and I want people to, you know, tell me, you know, how they built off my work and how they've made my work better. 

00:16:58:21 - 00:17:16:14 

I want to get into that transition. In your mindset a little bit. I think this is something we don't talk about enough as young coaches, because we're just not there in our life experience. And it's really, hey, I want to work in the NFL. I want to work in MLB, I want to work for Notre Dame. We see that logo. 

00:17:16:14 - 00:17:18:08 

We see the target, and 

00:17:18:08 - 00:17:29:07 

we build that confidence to make it attainable for us. And we, you know, through the NSCA, through other resources, we see that path. And that's that's what we create here. Right. Like that's a good thing. 

00:17:29:07 - 00:17:35:20 

What happens when when you hit a bump in the road. Or maybe it's just a change in your life. 

00:17:35:20 - 00:17:47:13 

Maybe you get married or have kids. And there's another set of values that play into the mix. Is, is that the transition you're thinking about? That kind of changes like the more 

00:17:47:13 - 00:17:55:09 

big life transition that happens, and then you have to relate it within your coaching. Or is it something, you know deeper on the coaching level? 

00:17:55:09 - 00:17:59:06 

No, I that's a, that's a I haven't really deep dived at that much. 

00:17:59:06 - 00:18:17:02 

But I would say that there's probably a correlation when you become a parent where you start to look things differently and you start to, you know, you start to coach people a little bit differently and you have maybe just a little bit more on the empathy side when you're when you're coaching or developing, you're also realizing that you've got to reach people in different ways. 

00:18:17:02 - 00:18:32:10 

So I think that's where I think the service side really started to build for me. But I also to think, Eric, it was one of those things where, as I mentioned, like it didn't matter who ran the fastest 40 at the NFL combine. I was still like, what's next? What's next? You know 

00:18:32:10 - 00:18:36:09 

what fighter wins? What belt like I was never satisfied. 

00:18:36:09 - 00:18:55:15 

And so, you know, people can say, well that's great. You're never satisfied. But I think I was doing it through the wrong lens. I was doing it more about how how it would help me versus how I could help others. So I do think that there was a shift in my perspective that that happened. And I see that with people, Eric, I see that with people a lot. 

00:18:55:15 - 00:19:09:20 

When things get hard in this field, they quit. And, you know, you know, I'm going to quit this field because, you know, it's not what I thought it was going to be. Well, you fell in love with it at some point in time. If you're expecting the field to fall back in love with you, it's incapable of doing that. 

00:19:09:22 - 00:19:29:13 

So at some point in time on your journey, your perception changed of what this thing should be giving you. And as I said, it's unable to give you any. It's unable to give you anything. It's all about what you pour into it. And then you'll get everything back that you want. And that's where I think a lot of young coaches are, or even middle of the road coaches. 

00:19:29:13 - 00:19:44:22 

They get so disenchanted with our field. It's a hard field. No two ways about it. But tell me a field that's not tell me a field that's not hard. So it goes back to choose your hard. But ultimately, I've learned that the more I pour into people, the more rewards I received. 

00:19:44:22 - 00:19:48:00 

I love the great, great takeaway, great message. 

00:19:48:00 - 00:19:57:15 

I think there's there's a lot of vulnerability in that. There's some wisdom. I think, you know, if you're a young coach out there, just know that what your values and what you're thinking about now, 

00:19:57:15 - 00:20:08:08 

things going to change in your life in the next five years, ten years, 15, 20, whatever it may be. You're also, yeah, shifting. You're you're expectations of the field. 

00:20:08:09 - 00:20:30:05 

Sometimes that's good. Sometimes that might not be the most positive thing for your development, your growth. You might have a gut check at some point and need to kind of go back on your why, whatever, whatever that is that called you into the field. But it's important to to reflect on that. It's important to to do that. And I think when you when you hear us talking about it, we've been through some of these things. 

00:20:30:05 - 00:20:37:22 

And I think it's a challenge to face that early in your career. But just know sometimes, sometimes it's really good to think, hey, 

00:20:37:22 - 00:20:49:08 

I want to do this for a really long time. That means I'm going to have to adjust along the way. Along the way, I'm going to have to pour into this profession, and I'm going to have to adjust what that means for me to do that. 

00:20:49:08 - 00:21:10:14 

And it's, yeah, it's huge. It's really important that we are able to reflect on what this means to us, you know? And actually, this kind of ties in even when you said, what, what staff I'm looking to hire, I'm looking to hired. I mentioned growth minded people, but also people who are passionate about the field. When you're passionate about the field, you can kind of you can get through that storm. 

00:21:10:19 - 00:21:24:23 

But if you're doing it because you like to be in sweats and you don't want to have like a typical 9 to 5, like it's not going to last. And so you have to have that deep rooted passion for it. And ultimately, the other thing that I look for, are you a good coach? Are you a good teacher? 

00:21:24:23 - 00:21:31:17 

Are you a good educator? And that's probably the other reason why I really love presenting Eric for the NSCA is 

00:21:31:17 - 00:21:48:02 

I want to share the platform and educate people. I want to I want to sharpen my coaches. I by education, I want to be asked the hard questions by a panel. I want to be asked those hard questions so I can really explain the why, even at a more in depth and a more in depth, in depth level. 

00:21:48:04 - 00:21:59:14 

So I think it really ties in a lot of different perspectives here, like the the more passionate you are, the more you're going to sacrifice, and the more you're going to sacrifice, the more you're going to be selfless, the more you're going to be selfless, the more you're going to serve. 

00:21:59:14 - 00:22:00:08 

I love that, 

00:22:00:08 - 00:22:02:01 

asking you the hard questions. 

00:22:02:01 - 00:22:15:10 

That's why you're on the podcast, man, I appreciate it. Absolutely. We we've covered a lot of football for, obviously the NFL a big part of your career. But I want to ask you about your work in the private sector. 

00:22:15:10 - 00:22:22:16 

What does that give you? From a skill set knowledge standpoint, it helps you in your role today? 

00:22:22:18 - 00:22:39:24 

Yeah. You know, like I said, I'm going to find pieces from everything. And, you know, first and foremost with what? You know, what it gives me my role today. I've got so many cool stories that I can share with our players here at Notre Dame. I can talk to them. What it feels like to stand on the sidelines during Monday Night Football. 

00:22:40:01 - 00:23:00:18 

I can talk to them. What it feels like to stand on the on the, pool deck at Olympic trials. I can tell them what it feels like walking out and cornering a fighter in the UFC. Like, I have so many unique experiences that I can draw stories or comparisons or parallels of how this may be similar to that. 

00:23:00:18 - 00:23:32:17 

So I think that's the biggest thing that I pulled from the private sector is the ability to share and story tell. But the other thing is, it gave me a really good eye. It forced me to truly understand KPIs, looking at each sport independently and breaking down and doing a, a sport analysis of not only what the sport is, but the practices and what are the volume and the intensities and, and what is realistic from training, and what are the important KPIs for each sport and each position playing, and how I can ultimately develop those. 

00:23:32:22 - 00:23:55:16 

Now, looking at the other side of that, saying, okay, now I've recognized what those KPIs are. Now I have an athlete in front of me now I've got to identify my needs analysis and how many gaps do I have to fill within that needs analysis for player X to fit into their KPIs. So I think it gave me a broad ability to look at KPIs and be able to problem solve. 

00:23:55:18 - 00:24:03:00 

I like that it's, building a motivational narrative that you can project 

00:24:03:00 - 00:24:11:19 

into your coaching with your players, with your other coaches, tell a story that might relate beyond the experience you're in. 

00:24:11:19 - 00:24:23:05 

Just pull from different areas of your experience. It's what makes you interesting to the players and athletes you work with. And it's, it's really inspiring to hear someone who's, 

00:24:23:05 - 00:24:38:14 

consulted as much as you have, who's presented and shared as much as you have, and one thing I will touch on is, you know, when I hear your name, I think speed and agility as kind of a specialty that you've carved out. 

00:24:38:14 - 00:24:45:12 

Do you think it's important coaches develop kind of a niche for themself that they give to a staff? 

00:24:45:12 - 00:24:59:15 

You know, and if so, how do you go about that? What was that for you? Sure. I think, speed and agility. I've. I've always fallen in love with movement. I enjoy watching all sports. I enjoy, just looking at the movement solutions that athletes come up with. 

00:24:59:15 - 00:25:22:02 

And I think, one it's, it was a topic that not a lot of people were talking about when I first came out into the field. So I think I naturally gravitated towards it because of the like I told you, the, my, my first mentor was, Jim Warren, who was very movement based. So I think I understood this, that if you look at especially football, like the biggest KPIs are movement. 

00:25:22:04 - 00:25:40:02 

And, you know, I don't care what position you play like movement is, is probably the largest KPI across the board. And I utilize the white room then to fill in the other gaps or add icing to the cake. But I do think it's important that you you have a niche ability, but you got to understand. You need to understand the big picture. 

00:25:40:04 - 00:26:01:08 

People would always come shadow me at Lambda Performance or when I was at Stedman Hawkins or Velocity, and they'd be like, man, I didn't know you lifted your athletes this much. Like, what do you think we did? You think we just ran and showed up on the field like you have to do it all, but you have to understand that movement is going to be the number one transferable quality that you can train. 

00:26:01:10 - 00:26:29:03 

And so if we're not putting good emphasis into movement efficiency and movement, expression and force expression and reactive abilities, then what are we doing? Because if you just spend time in the weight room, you actually might just be making that athlete worse if they're not becoming a more efficient mover. So even though I look at myself as the ability to to all, I think I really gravitated to the movement side because I understood in almost every sport it is the number one KPI driver. 

00:26:29:05 - 00:26:35:06 

In one way. You found an opening in the field, something that not a lot of people were doing at the time. 

00:26:35:06 - 00:26:56:17 

but it's interesting. We're all movement coaches, but where do we get that information? We get a ton of information about strength training and exercise technique. So for our listeners who want to dive deeper into movement training, footwork, technique, transitions on their feet, what where do you find that information? 

00:26:56:19 - 00:27:20:09 

There's not a ton of it. It's it's really exploratory, right. Exploratory. I think there's great movement practitioners out there. And you just need to make sure that they're within the scope of what you do. Where I think a lot of people in our field will just gravitate to track and field coaches, which I think are awesome because they set up so many great foundational, philosophies as far as rhythms and tempos and shapes and, and, you know, force production. 

00:27:20:09 - 00:27:46:17 

But also if you're working with multi-directional athletes, like, you have to take that same thought process that you hear from great track and field coaches. And how do I display that into movement? Organization. And that's what I think I've done. I think I was one of the first people in our field to really discuss and talk about deceleration is a trainable skill and something to implement into, into your movement, literacy. 

00:27:46:19 - 00:28:08:23 

And so now it's really cool to see people building off of that and really coming up with some really great research behind deceleration and understanding, like this is a highly neurological, fatiguing aspect of sport. You know, I think we've always looked at outputs and how much jumping and how much high speed running or shoot put on the brakes at full speed is pretty exhausting on the nervous system. 

00:28:09:00 - 00:28:25:07 

So I think it's really neat to be able to sit there and look at these qualities of training and know that, like, we really haven't scratched the surface on what we're trying to figure out. But as far as other resources, I think you have to become exploratory, but you have to have guide principles that help you in the process. 

00:28:25:09 - 00:28:45:13 

Yeah, in some ways, our athletes need to be able to react and move effectively regardless of the situation that you get thrown into. I mean, we I see that in my baseball background. You don't typically think of that as a speed agility sport. But across the board cutting change the direction. That's all. That's all the field sports out there. 

00:28:45:19 - 00:29:04:14 

I mean, that is a huge skill that like you're saying, there's still a lot of gaps to be filled in terms of how we're coaching this, what skills we're teaching with our athletes. Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah, to me it's like it's rudimentary. It's like restoring, you know, working on then working on angles, working on basic support early and often. 

00:29:04:16 - 00:29:23:23 

Eric, I'll always look at I always use, try to use like, metaphor for movement. I'll say, you know, when you think about movement, think about, think about reading comprehension, think about mathematics and think about music. Okay? All three of those subjects that I just mentioned, 

00:29:23:23 - 00:29:28:21 

you have to learn baseline fundamentals. I need to learn the alphabet. 

00:29:28:23 - 00:29:35:05 

I need to then learn how to build words. I need to understand those words. And then I can start building out sentence structure. 

00:29:35:05 - 00:29:51:16 

Well, I just don't come out of the womb and know how to read. Same thing with playing a musical instrument. You have to learn notes. You have to learn certain chords and keys. You have to learn these things before you can make it dynamic in nature. 

00:29:51:22 - 00:30:14:00 

And so to me, you have to have an underlying literacy of movement skills and traits and then open it up to the reactive side. I do believe that you need to teach movement, and I do think that you need to teach it. In general, locomotion strategies and then say, go figure it out, go play your sport. Use the dynamic systems theory model at that point in time. 

00:30:14:05 - 00:30:18:12 

But I do believe you have to lay the foundation with good movement literacy first. 

00:30:18:12 - 00:30:37:01 

Yeah, I like that term in our high school coaches professional development group is this is a hot topic with them right now? Obviously at the NSCA we want young athletes to get earlier exposure to strength and conditioning. A lot of us may have discovered the weight room as a college athlete, 

00:30:37:01 - 00:30:41:19 

how much better would we have been if we discovered that in ninth grade or seventh grade? 

00:30:41:21 - 00:30:54:17 

And those opportunities exist today? So that group is actually developing a K through 12 movement literacy curriculum that has foundational components in SNC, which 

00:30:54:17 - 00:31:07:20 

goes beyond a typical physical education curriculum to incorporate some of the intensity and volume components that that we would think of as movement practitioners. So I'm really excited for the work that group is doing. 

00:31:07:20 - 00:31:26:22 

And maybe some of the shift from early long term athlete development into where we can take this thing and really expand opportunities in our field. We care about jobs. We want more people to be able to work in these middle school high schools. If we can create jobs there and build curriculum around that, huge opportunities for the field going forward. 

00:31:26:24 - 00:31:36:10 

Loren, I really appreciate you sharing with us today. I know people are going to want to connect with you, not just at the conferences, but be able to reach out. What's the best way for them to do that? 

00:31:36:10 - 00:31:42:12 

Easiest way is Loren Landow, on my Twitter. I'm not Twitter. On my, Instagram handle. 

00:31:42:12 - 00:31:49:24 

Okay. And, you know, any of the other social media platforms, and then also email is fine as well. 

00:31:50:01 - 00:31:54:08 

llandow@nd.edu. 

00:31:54:08 - 00:32:02:19 

Perfect. We're going to include those in the show notes for this episode. As always you're making a huge impact on the profession. So thank you 

00:32:02:19 - 00:32:05:09 

Thank you Eric and thank you NSCA. 

00:32:05:09 - 00:32:14:02 

and thanks to all of our incredible listeners and a shout out to our sponsors, Sorinex Exercise Equipment, we appreciate their support. 

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