422: Joel Reinhardt on Advancing Game Speed Development in Football Preparation

This week's guest is Joel Reinhardt. Joel is an Assistant Athletic Performance Coach and Sports Science Coordinator for San Jose State Football. He has extensive experience from his previous roles at Stanford, UMass, and Nicholls State, where he was involved in sports performance and sports science. Joel has been a previous guest on this podcast and has an intuitive and data-based approach to preparing athletes for the specific demands of sport. As the integration of training with on-field practice becomes more prevalent, the dynamics of physical preparation are undergoing a significant shift. The weekly layout of a team sport preparation is now mirroring the systematic approach of a track and field cycle, addressing key qualities throughout the week based on specific areas of emphasis. This evolution is a key aspect of today's discussion with Joel Reinhardt. Joel has built brilliant training systems based on sports science and the integration of key athletic qualities. In today's episode, Joel covers many aspects of physical preparation in football, emphasizing key attributes that lead to improved robustness and game speed. Joel also discusses the nuances of multilateral speed and deceleration, weekly training layouts, overcoming fear and downregulation, and much more. Today’s episode is brought to you by TeamBuildr’s Gym Studio, Plyomat, and Athletic Development Games. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Main Points 9:03- Tailored Training for Optimal Player Performance 17:28- Optimizing Athlete Performance in Summer Camps 19:05- Optimizing Athlete Performance through Training Adjustments 29:04- Strategic Directional Variation in Athletic Training 30:12- Game-Like Speed Development Drills for Athletes 44:47- Organic Deceleration Training for Athletes 52:09- Optimizing Football Performance Through Game Speed Training 54:12- Game-Specific Drills for Speed and Agility 59:19- "Fearlessness for Enhanced Athletic Speed Performance" 1:05:16- Preseason Training for Football Performance Success 1:13:06- Maximizing Performance with Reduced Collision Exposure Quotes "I like thinking of how. I mean, to me, the variability of play and sport, it's. It's like magic. It's just the way it ignites an athlete." - Joel Smith “And we intentionally would script that to be much more open field. You know, receivers getting downfield more, that sort of work. And then the Tuesday Thursday, they still have football work. So they're, you know, it's different than summer one that was truly extensive on the Tuesday Thursday, like, hey, summer two, Tuesday Thursday, I'm gonna, you're gonna have moments where you need to run full speed” “And it can be scary sometimes because if you don't do a controlled burnt, I, you know, fall camp ends up being a true forest fire that, you know, burns down houses and whatnot, and then everybody's injured. Or you can do the opposite and go a little too crazy during fall camp or during summer, too. And then guys don't make it to the starting line, but it's that happy medium of, like, really pushing it. But then it's still a little intimidating as a performance coach because you still have to light stuff on fire to do a controlled burn” “So it's like, how fast can we accelerate on Mondays? What's our top, top speed on Wednesdays? And then what's our highest deceleration capabilities on Fridays? Because then we were able to compare” “I think he used it specifically talking about the increased chance of falling, which that goes into not looking forward, but it's like your body is going to regulate you down a certain amount if he thinks you're going to get hit or you're going to fall to the ground. And so how can we desensitize you to those things and then also give you physical qualities to help you in those scenarios?” "The more you can be aware of, the faster you can perceive it. And the less you can be afraid, the faster you have capability to move." - Joel Smith" "If we can get all of our quote unquote conditioning from playing ball, let's do that." - Joel Reinhardt About Joel Reinhardt Joel Reinhardt is an Assistant Athletic Performance Coach and Sports Science Coordinator for San Jose State Football. Previously, he worked at Stanford Football as the assistant sports performance coach and applied sports science coordinator, overseeing sports science and data tracking. Prior to Stanford, he served as an assistant sports performance coach at UMass, handling sports science, practice planning, and return to play for football, along with performance training for women's lacrosse and men's soccer. At Nicholls State, he designed and implemented strength and conditioning programs for football, agility work for off-season development, and performance training for various sports. He also managed Playertek GPS data. Reinhardt graduated from Springfield College with a Master's degree in Strength and Conditioning and from St. Olaf College with an undergraduate degree in Kinesiology and Exercise Science. His experience includes internships with Total Hockey Minnesota, Springfield College Athletics, UConn Athletics, and Western Michigan football.