Erik Hernandez | Embracing Imperfect Mentorship

Mentorship isn’t flawless — and that’s where its power lies. Erik Hernandez, Associate Director for Sports Performance – Olympic Sports at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, has built his career on turning imperfect scenarios into lasting lessons for athletes and young coaches alike. For over 14 years at UNC, he has guided lacrosse, volleyball, and golf, adapting his voice to each culture while holding firm to shared standards of accountability and growth. Hernandez streamlines training into a three-phase model — explosive, strength, and remedial — yet emphasizes that delivery and communication matter more than complexity. He reminds athletes, “modifications are part of progress,” linking health, recovery, and seasonal demands to long-term development. For interns and early-career coaches, his advice is clear: earn mentors by serving others, and learn from every scenario, even the imperfect ones. Hear how mentorship, adaptability, and athlete health point the way forward for stronger teams and longer careers.

Reach out to Coach Hernandez on Instagram: @hernandezstrength or by email: ehhernan@email.unc.edu | Find Eric on Instagram: @ericmcmahoncscs and LinkedIn: @ericmcmahoncscs  

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“Once you feel more confident in your program, […] then you can get complicated with the coaching and the delivery and how you need to adapt that.” 9:00

“If you fail in it, we're going to have a conversation about it. But that's just our standard of growth. And the goal is to make you better for your teammates, make you better for your future husbands and wives, and make you better for your future employers and family.” 13:25

“Young coaches should seek to learn from every single scenario, and it doesn't have to be the most ideal scenario. I've been told before, you learn more sometimes by seeing things done the wrong way than the right way, because that's going to help in your longevity to see someone kind of burn out or something happen because they do things a certain way that maybe doesn't fit with what you think would give you the most longevity. So I think really being able to take something away from any situation that you're in,” 15:53

[00:00:00.00] [MUSIC PLAYING]

[00:00:02.60] Welcome to the NSCA Coaching Podcast, season 9, episode 12.

[00:00:08.12] Young coaches seek to learn from every single scenario, and it doesn't have to be the most ideal scenario. I've been told before, you learn more sometimes by seeing things done the wrong way than the right way, because that's going to help in your longevity to see someone kind of burn out or something happen because they do things a certain way that maybe doesn't fit with what you think would give you the most longevity. So I think really being able to take something away from any situation that you're in.

[00:00:42.26] This is the NSCA's Coaching Podcast, where we talk to strength and conditioning coaches about what you really need to know but probably didn't learn in school. There's strength and conditioning, and then there's everything else.

[00:00:52.83] This is the NSCA Coaching Podcast. I'm Eric McMahon. Today, an episode focused on collegiate strength and conditioning. We have Associate Director of Olympic Sport Performance at UNC Chapel Hill, Eric Hernandez, with us to share about his experience in coaching. Eric, welcome.

[00:01:10.29] Thank you for having me, Eric.

[00:01:12.51] Yeah, you have been at UNC for over 14 years now working with lacrosse, volleyball, golf, I'm sure a few other sports along the way. How has your approach to coaching and sports performance evolved over the years?

[00:01:30.96] That's a good question. So my background is in track and field. So I really have-- I feel like track athletes maybe more so, maybe it's not fair to say it, but have a really pretty good foundation in training. Maybe they don't know the X's and O's and all the coaching things around it. It's sprint, it's jump, it's lift, it's throw.

[00:01:55.95] So coming into my career as a strength and conditioning coach in my young ages, I had a good idea that this thing had to be pretty well rounded, because I would have the tendencies as a thrower to really focus on the strength and really focus on the power. And that's really important. But I still exposed to so much of the foundational and components of speed and jumping that I knew they were there, so I couldn't get away from them completely. I just didn't know him that well.

[00:02:26.84] So I think over the course of my 14 years, I've been really lucky to have pretty exceptional mentors who when I would watch them train, when I would hear them discuss topics, I would be very humbled immediately, realizing how little I knew and how much I needed to learn. So over 14 years, I've been really just trying to work on my weaknesses every year. Every year, I do an evaluation of myself as a coach, professional, personally. What do I need to work on each year?

[00:03:07.28] When you say 14 years, I'm like, holy smokes. I feel like I've been-- it's more just things have been just trying to work on is what passes the year that I need to get better at, whether it's speed development, whether it's Olympic lifting, whether it was professionalism, whether it was program design, whether it was administering program, whether it was trying to lead others. That's just how I've tracked the years. It sounds kind of silly to say it.

[00:03:33.53] So how have I evolved? It's really been how I've tried to evolve myself as a coach to try to be closer to what my mentors have established as what a coach should be. And each sport has also obviously really helped me, because each sport has challenged me, because it's been a little bit different.

[00:03:54.63] Lacrosse is a meet coaching 52 guys at once, plus or minus a few interns. Volleyball is 15 to 20 young ladies. Men's golf, 10 to 12 golfers. Same thing with women's golf. Very specialized, at least in what they perceive as the approach, because every group has a different perception.

[00:04:23.27] So while I've been trying to get myself better as a performance coach and where I need to get weaknesses, then I have to figure out how I serve these groups as well. Because even though the basics will always survive and they need it, now I have to find the delivery that's better for each and every one of them, because it only matters so much.

[00:04:44.92] I've heard it recently. I mean, I've heard this tons of times. An OK program coached very well is going to be better than the best program not coached well. And that's what I've really had to hone in on in each one of those groups is how I can coach it the best, each one.

[00:05:00.80] It's almost funny. I almost feel bad for our interns when they start and they see me at first, because I run the absolute spectrum of personalities sometimes within my groups. You have 52 guys that if you look away for too long, then they'll be pulling at each other's shirts and things like that. So I'm trying to create that. And then you have the next team where you have some really tall kids, you have some really short kids, you have kids from all different backgrounds, and they're all great. So there's one personality comes out where it's just coaching or trying to manage and manage things going on.

[00:05:41.82] And then I have my golf groups, where depending on the year, sometimes they're extremely motivated into the weight room, sometimes they're not. I'm trying to bring them along. Sometimes I'm trying to focus. I'm just trying to teach them how to do everything. So it's quite the roller coaster.

[00:05:58.63] But the thing that stays consistent with all of them, and the same thing that's been consistent with me, I think, from my starting and realizing my mentors and what I wanted to be was just how passionate I was about trying to help others. And those others are, including myself. How do I help myself coach those groups better? How do I make sure I put in front of each one of them the true thought of, all right, I'm here for you guys. I'm here for you gals, vice versa, all the way down or all the way across.

[00:06:30.39] How do I keep, not reinventing that, but communicating that differently but effectively throughout everything? And that's been the challenge, especially as years go on, especially as I get a little bit older, especially as they are younger, and there's just some generational differences. But it's the common thread of where I want to be, whether it's my mentors or how I'm going to deliver the message, and where I need to elevate those the entire way. But the sets, reps, exercises, they're not very different. It's just how can I be the most effective communicator for that group, for that year, for that session, whatever it is.

[00:07:15.13] Yeah. One thing that's really interesting that you're getting to is certain sports may be more naturally aligned with strength and conditioning than others. That might be the physicality of the sport. It might be, like you said in track and field, the number of different events that align with different areas of a weight training session or a conditioning session. Just the fact that we teach running mechanics in the weight room at times and then that carries over to track and field. So there's natural alignment in some sports.

[00:07:51.26] The team culture piece is what you're kind of getting towards. And what I'm hearing is you worked to adapt to your personality, your approach, your delivery of coaching principles to fit that team. Now, that's challenging to do. That's challenging to do, to be that adaptable, and it takes practice. And I think a lot of coaches often hear, hey, you need to be yourself. You need to know your philosophy, your coaching philosophy, your training philosophy.

[00:08:25.92] But what we don't hear a lot is be so adaptable that you can bring up different kinds of groups or bring a program to a different type of team or group setting. To simplify that, do you have any grounding philosophies, maybe with regard to your programming, that you've picked up along the way that maybe helps you focus on that personality piece a little bit more so that you don't always have to be spending hours on the X's and O's and the reps and the sets?

[00:08:57.09] That's a really good way of saying it. Once you feel more confident in your program because of, and I don't mean this in a bad way, but how simplified it is down, then you can get complicated with the coaching and the delivery and how you need to adapt that.

[00:09:15.54] So yes, over time, the template is probably the same as everyone else's template. You do something explosive, you do something strength based, and then you do something kind of remedial accessory based. So every sport will have the same one, because yes, every single one of them, every group that I work with, excuse me, has a different training culture.

[00:09:40.84] When I first started as an intern, I started as a football intern, and it's the culture. Everyone comes in, everyone's lifting long. But then I was exposed to men's lacrosse and women's lacrosse, and it was more, but it wasn't the same, necessarily. Volleyball, it's kind of more. Golf is 0. And then some other sports I worked with, it was a low entry.

[00:10:04.18] And you're right, it is a message we constantly give to be yourself. So how do you do that one? Like you're saying, simplify it down and don't get over complicated in the weeds on the program design things. That's one thing I've really worked on lately. I've just done the front end work of the program periodization program design, so that when I get there, I just let my coaching do the rest and let my personality ebb and flow with the group. So that's one thing I simplify is that program design.

[00:10:34.63] The other thing I try to simplify down is my standards and my communication. So I do this more and more lately, beginning of every training semester. So I will come back in a couple of weeks. I'll have the same talk. They've heard it before, but the two new people haven't or the three new people haven't. Same thing when I get back in August with the other teams.

[00:10:59.19] I'll have the same exact talk. One, introducing myself, introducing my coaching style. I'm very straightforward. It's not because I don't want to sit there and develop a relationship with you. I do. I'm telling you right now, I do. But I'm telling you, once the session gets going, my job is to make sure you have the most successful session.

[00:11:20.90] You execute things for a health concern. I don't want anyone getting hurt in the weight room. Bottom line. And a lot of times, if you're just not paying attention and if I'm not delivering you an effective message, injuries can happen because we don't know what's going on. So I'm up front with here is my personality, here's how I'm going to coach it, and here's the standard I expect from you guys.

[00:11:40.82] And then this is when they start to look at you, what do you mean? Oh, yeah, we have our team values. No, when we're in here, we are focused on an outcome. We are focused on improving ourselves the best it can be. Because you're not here just to mess around. You don't want to waste your time. I don't want to waste my time. If I'm telling you to do something, it's OK that you ask me. I'll usually try to explain it. If I don't, you can ask me.

[00:12:07.31] But we're doing things for a purpose. So our standard is this in the squat, is this in the chin up, is this in the thing. And here's what happens. You will not make that standard all the time. And here's how we're going to go about that. We are going to modify. We're going to modify based off of injury history, strength, or whatever it is. So I don't need you getting upset with me about modifications. Modifications are part of progress, and we are always trying to hold that standard up.

[00:12:35.30] It's not impressive when you walk in see people messing around and getting hurt in the weight room. That's not our standard. You're here because you want to try to be-- I try to also ask questions along the way. What are our goals? If our goals are this, then our standards have to be here. And the standard for me coaching is to try to push you towards your goals.

[00:12:53.87] And then there's obviously it's always pretty basic. Here's the standards, what I expect when you get coached. Here's what you should expect from me as a coach. And here's what I expect from you as an athlete. That's probably the more condensed way to say it. And they understand those three things.

[00:13:12.86] And I just kind of air it out. It sounds silly. It's not like I'm trying to have beef with anybody. I'm just airing it out. Hey, this is what it is. So there's no, well, Eric's just saying this today. No, Eric's trying to be the same guy every single day. And if I fail in that, I'll talk to you about it later on. I'll admit to it. But it's the same thing with you. If you fail in it, we're going to have a conversation about it. But that's just our standard of growth. And the goal is to make you better for your teammates, make you better for your future husbands and wives, and make you better for your future employers and family.

[00:13:49.53] And then when I simplify that message down, it kind of takes off a little bit of the excess that I need to deliver while I go through things. So that was a little bit of a tangent, but I think if I had to boil it down, I simplify the programming so that I can focus on the coaching. I simplify the standards of the expectations of them, myself, and the weight room. And then from there, it's just revisiting those as we go over things and then program design and that will come from your testing, your coaching eye, and all those things.

[00:14:31.15] But as a young coach, knowing yourself so you can make those standards. And just stick to it, because if you know yourself and you're explaining to everyone, hey, this is who I am. But also being vulnerable at the same time saying, hey, this is who I am as a coach. If I need to adjust a little bit for you personally, please let me know. I have no problem with that. I have some kids that I have to take a different coaching style to. It's not not me. It's still me when I do it. I just may have to remind them about something like that.

[00:15:06.70] Yeah, big emphasis on making better people, including yourself, making yourself as good as you can be for that athlete, that program. I want to ask you about coaching longevity. You're talking about 14 years at UNC, but before that, you had time at Arizona State, Tulsa. You worked at the high school level. You've done some work in the private sector. You've done a lot of different things. And going back on what you were saying about impactful mentors, advice for young coaches, what should these coaches be seeking in their early career experiences in order to find longevity in their career?

[00:15:52.28] I think young coaches should seek to learn from every single scenario, and it doesn't have to be the most ideal scenario. I've been told before, you learn more sometimes by seeing things done the wrong way than the right way, because that's going to help in your longevity to see someone kind of burn out or something happen because they do things a certain way that maybe doesn't fit with what you think would give you the most longevity.

[00:16:21.90] So I think really being able to take something away from any situation that you're in, as painful, not derogatory or bad as it may be, as uncomfortable as it may be. If it's just like, man, they just do something completely different. OK, well, I even tell our interns, hey, you're going to have the best experience here if you forget everything you've learned. You just go all in on what we're trying to tell you. And then when you're done, if you hated everything, you can get rid of it all if you want. But you'll probably pick up some things, but it's going to be really tough for you to learn unless you're really going in.

[00:16:58.99] So young coaches, if you're thinking about the long haul, just go in on what you're doing and be open. But learn from the good, the bad, but then also start to image what you want to be like. So if you have someone here that I could see me being like him or her, OK, what experiences have you had so far that drive you towards that? What may drive you away?

[00:17:31.14] And work towards earning mentorship along the way. And know that it's not going to be easy for the best mentors, probably. And you want a mentor that leads by example. So if we're picking that person, what example are they leading you to? Is it just because of their title? Well, then that's one thing, but look at the surrounding things.

[00:17:58.61] And not everyone is perfect. I don't have a perfect-- it's perfect for me, but it may not fit someone else. And pick up on those other things. And it doesn't mean they have to be perfect in everything, but the things that you're really excited about and know where the cost may be. Because every level you take, every time you pull one way, there's another pull that happens. Just be very aware of that. And that there's no absolutes and just kind of what fits you.

[00:18:27.26] I have probably like three or four people that I'm constantly trying to work towards their balance of professionalism and life balance, and they're all different. One person, man, I want to have a family life like his and whatever. Hey, I want to be a coach like him, how he coaches.

[00:18:48.55] I have a couple very specific ones that I'm always trying to-- how can I work towards this part of that spectrum, but then take this and then stay true to it? So just really be well informed by where your mentors are at, what fits with you about where they want to go, and don't look for the perfect situation all the time. Make wherever you're at the perfect situation of how you're going to learn from it.

[00:19:16.97] A thing that comes to mind, and as you progress in life stages, there's peaks and valleys In careers, there's peaks and valleys in life where people are overcoming things. People have different challenges. It might be as simple as someone trying to get their kids to school in the morning, and they're rushed and maybe not as present as they need to be. Or it could be a lot bigger than that.

[00:19:40.13] So what I'm hearing is embracing imperfect mentors. There's value in that for young coaches in realizing that they may look up to someone in the field. But like everyone, these mentors and people you look up to have challenges in their life, have things that they are facing on a daily basis.

[00:20:02.29] You always hear, and it's really valuable advice for young coaches, to take something off the plate of their mentor or someone that they're working with or working under so that they can build value and build that relationship. That can help them along. But at the same time, you're investing in that mentorship relationship so that you can, in return, get something with your career and your development. And hopefully, you find longevity in that process.

[00:20:33.90] Yeah, and I think what you said is an important part of the stage. We had a good question asked from our intern group of, yeah, it was around the longevity, work life balance. And then I asked some other professionals that I communicate with on a regular basis, and I asked them the same question. I don't know how to answer them on work life balance, because sometimes it doesn't feel like we have that, but sometimes it does. It's ebbs and flows.

[00:20:59.40] But what was kind of cool was how we discussed depends on how old you are. Depends on where you're at in your career. If it's early, it should probably be more, with every exception. So I'm not going to sit here and tell everyone if they have family issues or whatever, no, you only got to work. No.

[00:21:19.26] But in general, you got to work more so you build up your base and you understand what you're doing. It's just like training. And then as you get further into your career, then you basically work to create this balance later on. But it doesn't work typically the other way. Everyone's trying to find the cheat code. I think it's just rushing, building something. You rush, there's something going to break down later on.

[00:21:48.21] So the longevity comes from doing the work in the beginning. Hey, it's like offseason training. Do the work in the beginning so you can last longer in season. Do the work at the beginning of your career so that you have a good foundation to build on and you understand your systems, you understand these things. And then you can hopefully leverage over a little more family time. Hopefully you've leveled up your professionalism, your expertise, and you can vie for better, more lucrative jobs, to allow you to have more time in that family zone.

[00:22:21.85] And yeah, as a young coach, you should be looking to find opportunities. Every time I'm around someone of a mentor of mine, even at 38 years old, Coach, let me pick that up. I go visit a mentor of mine, Mike [INAUDIBLE]. And I'll go and pick up weights off the ground and rack them for athletes. I'll do anything I can to make-- bring coffee.

[00:22:45.28] I'll do anything I can to make their session a little bit easier for them so I can just soak up knowledge, so I can just be a fly on the wall, be a contributor there. And it can be as small as possible. And you don't know sometimes how helpful that is for professionals. I'm speaking to the younger coaches.

[00:23:04.78] I had a great volleyball coach at Loyola. He's actually back at Loyola, Shane Davis. I mean, this is back in 2010 in [INAUDIBLE]. And there was only two coaches on staff. Now everything's three, four coaches, interns, whatever.

[00:23:20.57] And the volleyball coach was like, I don't want more help to do less work. I want more help to offer more to our program so that I can focus on other things in the program. So that's the real important thing. I try to tell interns and young coaches. You're cleaning up, you're making sure things are organized, you're making sure I can grab a sled in two seconds easily not because that's just the dirty work that you should do.

[00:23:49.28] It's because you're going to make the session go by faster. I can be a little more lateral with my regressions or whatever I need to do, because these other things you've set up around there. You can do data entry, because you sitting there doing data entry is going to be a better use of your time while I'm trying to have a conversation with the coach or the trainer or something like that about what we went through that day.

[00:24:12.77] So it's never just like, oh, just do this because of this. No, it's helping. It's helping out a lot. So those things are valuable. And that goes back to earning your mentors. You got to put that work in.

[00:24:23.72] I like that. Strong coaching foundations, going back on what you said before, allows you to apply a more dynamic approach to your coaching later on. You have more to dig from. You have more experience. You might have a athlete in your past that you can compare to. This worked here. I can apply this now.

[00:24:45.96] When I visited campus earlier this year, you had an impressive group of assistants and interns. On this mentorship topic, how does your program approach staff development?

[00:24:59.40] So Alex Penner and John Lam are kind of in charge of our internship program, and they do an exceptional job of laying out a full curriculum. And it's impressive and it's more than I ever did when I ran the internship program. So I applaud them. They do a good job of laying it all out. I mean, we spend time on it's a different topic every week. You get a presentation from a coach. You have your assigned mentors.

[00:25:28.36] So coaches on the staff as an intern. You're going to be paired up with myself or someone else and they'll visit with you with the progress, like a program that started from the beginning of the semester to the end of the semester, and how you build upon it. And we go over and review it. Everything's covered. It's really comprehensive program for how they've set it out.

[00:25:51.88] And then we give a lot, a lot of, in my opinion, as you're saying it, coaching foundations. I don't want to seem like, oh, Eric's just been around for a long time, so that's how he got coaching foundations. Well, I've been around a little bit longer, so that helps it. But I'm diving in from a start of coaching anybody who I can.

[00:26:14.80] I mean, my first groups I worked with was fencing, cheerleading, throwers, and cross country. It didn't matter who it was. I was going to coach you. If friends wanted to be coached, I'd coach my friends. I'd coach coach's kids or whatever. I was coaching everybody. That's how I developed my coaching foundation.

[00:26:35.53] So that's what we encourage here. We're in an internship where it's not one of those things where you're going to show up and you're going to set up, you're going to tear down, you're going to do that, but you're going to coach the entire time. And I tell them, the plan is to make mistakes. You are going to make mistakes. If you're not, then you're not really trying. I make mistakes on a daily basis.

[00:26:55.46] But it is trial by doing. You're coaching. I want you to coach that person. I'm going to watch you, and I'll give you feedback. And we give immediate feedback, sometimes in session, sometimes post session, always post session where you go through a debrief on the session. But it is coaching intense. You are coaching. And if you're not, then you're going to be told, hey, here's how we think you can coach more. I filmed our interns coaching.

[00:27:24.78] This one young lady, she's done a great job. But when she first started, hey, can you run the warm up today? OK, yeah, no problem, no problem. She's great. Great on the floor. All right, you're running men's lacrosse warm up. 52 guys. You're out on the field. I'm just going to sit back and watch. So I took another assistant over with me and I said, all right, we're going to stay in here. We're going to watch her, and we're going to give her feedback at the end. So he's going through.

[00:27:48.85] And after I started, I took my phone out and started filming her from where I was standing, because I was by the last guy, essentially. Because you got to be able to coach to the guy at every field. And so I'd give her a cue. Hey, louder. Hey, louder. During the session. And then after that finished up, later on, we showed it to her and she's like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize what I really sounded like.

[00:28:12.88] And that's OK. I was probably worse than this when I started, and we didn't have cell phones, and no one was filming me back in the day where I could take notes on it and watch the film. But that's how we're going to do it is you're going to have to do it. You have to feel it, just like when you get a first time freshman trying to squat. You got to squat in order to feel it. I can talk to you about it all day, but you have to do it.

[00:28:33.60] And we build it. And we have good culture here of kids that they can do it. They're not going to get looked at weird or talked back to. So we have a pretty unique hands on experience here, in my opinion. And that's what I just keep telling people. Just keep going. You can't mess them up. As long as you don't tell them to add 100 pounds to the bar, you probably won't mess them up. But you got to give me something to coach you on. So I got to see you do something.

[00:28:59.30] You give them leeway to make mistakes. You give them feedback on their performance. You try to show them what they're doing, not just tell them. A lot of great value there. I like that you mentioned your interns giving presentations among your staff and department.

[00:29:14.58] You presented in the past at a number of NSCA conferences on the balance between health and performance. How do you view the role of the strength and conditioning coach within athlete health and rehabilitation?

[00:29:27.29] Oh man, it's a great question, and it changes all the time. I've heard this quote before. I know my friend Alan Bishop posted about it as well. It's like health precedes performance. So in that first talk when I talk about here's the standard for how we execute exercises and how we focus here in the weight room, because of performance, one, I don't want you to do an exercise. It's not going to help you perform better. And two, I don't want you to do an exercise that gets you hurt, because you're not doing it correctly. So if you do feel something a certain way, then you need to let me know so I can fix it. Because usually, it's technique or low driven.

[00:30:09.54] So they understand that from the beginning, health is integrated in everything that we do. And it's really, really hard for young athletes to figure that out, because there's so much I don't know what. There's got to be a term out there. You probably know it. I don't.

[00:30:30.54] So much bioflexibility or something like that they have as a young kid where you can just whatever and you'll bounce back. You're invincible for a while, until you're not, until you get an injury or till you get older. And then you realize, oh, I need to fix some things. I missed something in this foundation.

[00:30:50.86] Especially, we get a lot of guys and gals that are just so freaking gifted in their sport and physically. So if I'm trying to tell them how this is going to help keep them healthy, this and that, and then they're just like, yeah, but I'm already like-- they don't say this, because they're all really respectful. They're like, I'm the man, or I'm the woman. I don't need to listen to that necessarily. They don't say that, but I can see it in their head. Hey, your body's going to help your lower body and this, that. OK, OK. They go back and do the same exact way. All right, hey [INAUDIBLE]. OK.

[00:31:23.50] And then sometimes an injury pops up and then I can slow things down in the rehab process. So remember, I was trying to go over this with you. Oh, yeah. Oh, actually, that does feel a little bit better. But it's because health has been compromised, so they understand how important that's going to be for their performance and their health, and they pick it up.

[00:31:47.13] So along those lines, it's not I try to make everything fearful. If you do this, you're going to do this, because it doesn't work like that. Because we've seen people that are just unhealthy and do things the wrong way. They never get hurt. And you've seen people that are super healthy, super strong, and everything, and they do get hurt. So it's never that absolute, but you can educate them on it.

[00:32:06.33] Like I said, my goal is still the long term thing for them. I'm going to teach them about how we have a dietician that does their thing. We have sports medicine that jumps in when they need to. But I'm going to talk about the principles and how that fits all together and how something may have gone a certain way that day.

[00:32:26.22] Something like, hey, I can attribute to what at, [INAUDIBLE] have breakfast. That happens often. Nobody raised their hand. Well, yeah, well, that's why our session was terrible. You guys didn't wake up on time. You didn't even get to bed on time. So it's this health is driven and integrated in performance. And I hope we don't have to get the injuries in order to feel that.

[00:32:49.76] But the reality is that they are participating in something unhealthy, doing the same thing over and over and over and over again the entire year, with very little seasonal loading or unloading or completely not doing their sport. So they're choosing that. So we have to then do everything we can to buffer that unhealthy choice that they're doing.

[00:33:23.65] And that sounds kind of like, well, your sport can't be unhealthy. Well, if you're changing direction all the time, we're not meant to do that. We're not meant to be in the shoe and on turf all the time. And it doesn't mean that we don't still work on our skill, blah, blah, blah. That's the nature of it. If you get to what you can't handle because you've done too much of it and you don't put enough good stuff in, your sleep, your nutrition, your training, then you're going to break down with that sport. You're going to break down. That's where you're going to see the breakdown happen.

[00:33:52.19] So keep trying to find those moments where we're illustrating that, whether it's offseason training, we're talking about y, whether it's end of season training and talking about, hey, how do you feel at the end of the season? Here's why that happens. You spent freaking 16 weeks playing your sport and not having any energy availability to do anything else. Well, it's literally your body teaching you something.

[00:34:16.28] So I just try to take moments to educate it along the process, whether that's hopefully not an injury, whether that's just a seasonal phase, and tying it all together and using myself as an example often as possible. I talked about find leaders that are mentors that lead by example. With health and well-being, I try to do that as well.

[00:34:35.30] So with athletes, I'm not afraid to bring up my personal things, and say, we're not going to all feel this way, but hey, I did this and I had a good reflection on it. Maybe this will help with some of you. And occasionally, I get people that they like to pursue those conversations. You never know which one's going to hit. So just keep getting out there and educating them as possible in these moments where it is.

[00:34:57.33] It's hard to tell someone, hey, you got to do this when it's not even on the menu. It's not even on the spectrum. It's not even in their three to six week time zone of what they're thinking about. But when you do have that time, bringing it up and trying to harp on it, then once you get to it come back and talk about it later on, maybe, this is like a quick hit.

[00:35:17.58] Yeah, I mean, coaching has seasons. Obviously rehab and athletes coming back from injury factors into that and changes in athletes' season may change, training around a team or a group within the team.

[00:35:32.19] College sports are changing a number of different ways right now, and one area we don't maybe talk about a lot is the schedules we have as coaches to be accommodating to our head coaches, to our programs, to our teams. I think there's a perception out there that, OK, college runs during the school year and then you get these summers off. Have you seen a change with summer programs at the Division I level from a strength and conditioning standpoint?

[00:36:03.09] Good question. Not yet, but maybe. We've been pretty consistent. And I think it's an Olympic sport related. And I think it's going to be related to just a sheer whatever the money is doing. Is the money paying for athletes to be on campus in the summer? Usually not, unless it's football, basketball, or a select couple of university or conferences that are able to afford paying for that and getting the kids on campus. I haven't seen that yet.

[00:36:42.33] Maybe we'll see it in the future. Maybe we'll see less of it in the future. It depends on where things go. But I haven't seen anything that's been significant yet. I mean, we've been pretty consistent on what our summers look like over the years. Our fall sports usually come in second session in the summer to get ready for that season, which is extremely helpful.

[00:37:05.99] Yeah. And to your point, I mean, you're still on hand during the summer. You're still gearing up for that fall training phase. You might have a few athletes around. So I mean, strength and conditioning never stops. It's a year round commitment at every level. And so it's not like the day after graduation, you're just hopping on the plane to Cancun for a few weeks. You got a lot going on, and we all do in this profession. So no, this is huge.

[00:37:36.29] For our listeners, want to connect, learn more about you and talk to you after the episode, what's the best way to reach out?

[00:37:42.96] Best is to reach out either through my school email, or honestly, probably the fastest would-- maybe not the fastest. Either one works. Is my Instagram. My Instagram is @HernandezStrength and my email, which is a little more complicated, would be ehhernan@email.unc.edu. However, if you know anything about the internet, you can usually just to goheels.com and you can go to the directory and find my email and shoot me an email through there.

[00:38:16.68] That wraps up today's episode. Huge thanks to Eric Hernandez for sharing his journey, insights, and the passion he brings to sports performance and athlete development. Whether you're a coach, athlete, or just someone who loves learning about the processes behind elite performance, we hope you found value in today's conversation.

[00:38:36.24] To our listeners, thanks for tuning in to another episode of The NSCA Coaching Podcast. If you'd like to connect with Coach Hernandez, we'll put his contact info into the show notes. Thanks to our sponsor, Sorinex Exercise Equipment. We appreciate their support.

[00:38:51.89] Hey, guys. It's Dr. Bryan Mann coming at you from Texas A&M University. Hey, this is a call to arms. If you feel like there's something that needs to be done, something that needs to be changed, this is your call to go ahead and sign up for the volunteer opportunities within the sigs, the different committees, or just to get involved in your local chapter. Please go to the website for more details.

[00:39:15.46] This was the NSCA's Coaching Podcast. The National Strength and Conditioning Association was founded in 1978 by strength and conditioning coaches to share information, resources, and help advance the profession. Serving coaches for over 40 years, the NSCA is the trusted source for strength and conditioning professionals. Be sure to join us next time.

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