508: Sarah Miller on Movement Archetypes and the Missing Layer of Athletic Development

Sarah Miller is a strength and conditioning coach at Georgia Tech Athletics, blending a background in dance, theater, and stunt performance with collegiate S&C. Her work emphasizes coordination, rhythm, and adaptable movement alongside traditional strength and power development. In this episode, Sarah Miller shares her unconventional path from dance, theater, and stunt performance into collegiate strength and conditioning, and how those roots shape her coaching philosophy. She explores how movement is deeply tied to psychology, emotion, and rhythm, challenging traditional, overly mechanical approaches to training. The conversation dives into habit, inhibition, and awareness, emphasizing the importance of freeing athletes from rigid patterns and reconnecting them with more natural, adaptable movement strategies. Today’s episode is brought to you by Hammer Strength and the Vert Trainer Use code “justfly10” for 10% off the Vert Trainer Use the code “LILAJUSTFLY10” for 10% off any Lila Exogen wearable resistance gear. For this offer, head to Lilateam.com View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. (https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-home/) 0:00 – Introduction to Sarah 8:08 – The Art of Falling 9:40 – Movement and Psychology 13:04 – The Role of Rhythm in Performance 19:54 – Exploring Movement Patterns 25:02 – The Interplay of Mind and Body 30:51 – The Trying Self vs. Non-Trying Self 37:03 – Integrating Exploration into Training 42:45 – Movement Archetypes in Dance 51:56 – The Challenge of Bound Movement 1:02:22 – Coaching Individualized Movement 1:15:21 – The Complexity of Movement Quality Sarah Miller Quotes "If you don't have complete awareness of your own physicality, of what your body communicates, you don't know what things you're selling and how that's being read." "Psychology influences movement and what I call affective qualities of movement... even in something as basic and foundational as a squat, your mental state is going to influence your execution." "We often want to chase automaticity, but you can really become a slave to habit. There's really great freedom in being able to break from what is habitual, especially if you're unaware of what's happening in that habitual action." "If you believe that the body and mind truly are one, it's not that you just have a body that's controlled by your head or a body that influences your head... there can be an emotional reaction to doing something physical." "The trying self is just focused on achieving an end goal. Rather than being grounded in the present moment, rather than being grounded in your senses and having an awareness, you're in your head because you're thinking about something in the future. The non-trying self is entirely in the moment, grounded in the senses, aware of what it's taking in from a touch perspective, sound, and what it feels like." "I don't want you to focus on getting the rep up; I want you to focus on the process of getting there and feeling the right things." "Ideally, they're not rigid; they're expressions of movement. They give the color to movement. I do find that athletes naturally tend toward one or the other, both in their personalities and then in how they move." About Sarah Miller Sarah Miller is a strength and conditioning coach at Georgia Tech Athletics, where she works with collegiate athletes to develop speed, power, and resilient movement. She brings a unique background to coaching, having started in dance and theater before transitioning into stunt performance and strength training. Her path into S&C blends artistic movement, body awareness, and high-performance preparation, shaping an approach that values coordination, rhythm, and adaptability alongside traditional strength work. Miller’s coaching reflects a fusion of creative movement roots with applied sports performance in the collegiate setting.