NSCA’s Coaching Podcast, Episode 116: Donnie Maib

This episode recaps one of the sessions from the 2022 NSCA Coaches Conference in San Antonio, TX. Head Coach and Assistant Athletic Director for Athletic Performance at the University of Texas, Donnie Maib, discusses “the Golden Connection” as it relates to working with rotational athletes. Tune in as Coach Maib shares stories with NSCA Coaching and Sport Science Program Manager, Eric McMahon, on lessons learned from a 27-year collegiate strength and conditioning career, including paths for aspiring coaching, being a good father and husband, and areas of the field he sees on the near horizon.  
 
Find Donnie on Instagram: @donniemaib and on Twitter: @coachdonnie | Find Eric on Instagram: @ericmcmahoncscs or Twitter: @ericmcmahoncscs

“For the Coaches Conference, the title of my talk is The Golden Connection, and over the years of just working with overhead athletes there. I have just found there's this connection between the shoulder and the hip.” 8:12

“I think that takes a lot of listening, really listening. Then being able to ask the right questions with that coach. Then if you are put on the spot, how do you how do you respond in a way that's not knee jerk or defensive? Where you can actually walk out of that room and actually have won their trust over versus erode that trust.” 14:59

“You need to find somebody who's got the core value that values you have, because if you're a better dad or better mom, you're a better coach. You are more compassionate. You are more understanding. You are more patient. If you can lead home really well, you can lead at work really well.” 19:24

“We need more strength coaches in administrative leadership roles in big organizations.” 27:35

“It's been more evolutionary, not revolutionary. So small changes over time, educating, being patient, understanding, giving a little bit more at the first, and then just being patient with the process, the frustration of that. So it does pay off. It does make a difference. And you're just, ultimately, you just want that 1% advantage over your competition. So that's what you've got to do to get there, but that's how it's changed us big time, just quantifying practice loads. It's been huge.” 31:44

[00:00:00.00] [MUSIC PLAYING]

[00:00:00.75] Welcome to the NSCA Coaching Podcast episode 116.

[00:00:05.04] We need more strength coaches and administrative leadership roles in big organizations. Basically, I'm just saying you need to get a seat at the table.

[00:00:16.12] 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.

[00:00:26.74] Welcome to the NSCA Coaching Podcast. I'm Eric McMahon. Today we're joined by longtime collegiate strength and conditioning coach at the University of Texas, Donnie Maib. Coach Maib, welcome.

[00:00:37.71] Coach, thank you so much. It's so good to see you and hear your voice, and I appreciate you having me on, man.

[00:00:43.41] Yeah, so you have been at the University of Texas for 23 years now. Is that right?

[00:00:49.85] Going on 24, yeah I've been a long run here so.

[00:00:53.70] That's awesome. Assistant Athletics Director overseeing Olympic sports strength and conditioning. Let's kick this episode off kind of in the usual fashion. Tell us your story in the field how you got started? And up to where you're at today.

[00:01:07.79] Oh, I'll give you the condensed version. But in a nutshell, I grew up in Tennessee, got into football, and just fell in love with the weight room. Was very undersized and just fell in love with the weight room, even at a young age. I grew up in a very, I'd say, dysfunctional home, wasn't very happy. So the weight room was a great outlet for me to grow and find a good community and just build some confidence and purpose.

[00:01:39.13] So went through high school, was good enough to get a full scholarship, played football at Georgia. Even fell in with the weight room, love with the weight room, more there. Got to a point in my career where I was just getting way too big and too strong. In fact, if you can believe it. I just was a meat head basically. And my performance was going down, and just kind of set out on this self discovery to figure out why am I not getting better on the football field.

[00:02:12.41] Led me to a guy by the name of EJ "Doc" Kreis my junior year, and actually trained with him the summer of 1991, and started doing a lot of speed, strength methodology training snatch, cleans, plyos, med ball work, a lot of speed interval work. Stuff that we all use commonplace now. And, man, my performance just took off, an. I had a breakout junior year and just was totally sold. And just transformed my playing time on the field had that big of an impact.

[00:02:51.41] End up blowing my knee my senior year in the spring game, and knew pretty much through my career was over. And had to figure out like, OK, now, what am I going to do for a living? And Doc had always told me like, hey, if you ever want to get into this profession, he says, I think you'd be pretty good, so I'll give you a shot.

[00:03:09.27] And so I ended up interning-- leaving Georgia in '93. January of '94, I interned at Colorado. And if you've ever interned-- back in those days, man, it was like-- it was abuse. We did everything from-- I did everything from pick up kids, personal things for my boss, work crazy hours with no pay. I mean, it's just different back then. But I really, it was hard on me, Coach, and it took a lot out of me. But kind of made me into who I am today I feel like.

[00:03:45.47] So interned there for about a year and a half, about six months. Then went to a part time for a year, another year, and then went to full time after that. And then came from Colorado to Texas in 1998, kind of as a bottom-of-the-rung assistant, worked with football and a lot of other Olympic sports. And just have worked my way up the ladder here at UT from '98 till currently, as we speak now.

[00:04:10.92] And just-- I still love the profession. I still get a lot of satisfaction and just significance out of seeing young people grow and develop over their 3 and 1/2 4 and 1/2 year span here in sports, and also just working with coaches. Just building a performance team. I think that's kind of how it's changing. But just still absolutely passionately love doing this so.

[00:04:35.21] That's awesome, and you've been at Texas for so many years now. I don't think a lot of coaches can really speak to that. Being at one institution for that significant portion of your career. And now you get to oversee the program. Talk about your staff, and how your department runs, and just kind of that evolution of how things have progressed over your 23 almost 24 years now.

[00:05:02.00] You know I was named as director of Olympic sports, it's been 10 years now, in 2010, 2011. And I was clueless on how to lead the department. Probably made-- feel bad for our staff when I first took over. You just of fumble your way through it. I mean, I had an idea, but you learn as you go.

[00:05:27.05] We've had some staff turnover over the years. Mostly, I would say, whether somebody just didn't work out, or they got a better job, or just even, we've had some older coaches change professions. And that's just the natural career path for a lot of coaches, I think.

[00:05:47.23] Our staff now, there's myself and 6 other staff under me. And we just promoted four of them because they're getting seasoned. And we've just done some restructuring here recently. Four of them to associate head coach-- and what that just means, Coach, is that they carry their same teams, but they pick up a little bit more administrative responsibilities, and they just start getting groomed. If they ever want to take that leap to be a director, to start grooming them for that kind of role.

[00:06:17.05] Versus back when I was an assistant, there was no kind of titles like that back then. It was just you're an assistant. And so definitely have progressed in just the way we even change our titles and give people responsibilities. So it's been very, very beneficial that way. So four of our staff just got promoted. Two of them are assistants again. I feel like we have an incredible staff here. I think first and foremost, we've got great character and integrity on every staff member. And then I think they have good chemistry, and they have great competence. Those are the three C's I always talk about. But just incredible staff here.

[00:06:53.02] That's great. What are some of the teams you're working with right now? I know you spoke at the 2022 Coaches Conference this January, on rotational athletes, your volleyball experiences. What are some of the other sports you're working with? And give us a little bit of a snippet from your talk at Coaches, for anyone that missed it.

[00:07:16.93] Sure, yeah those are my two teams I currently oversee and directly manage is women's volleyball and men's tennis. Prior to that, I had a lot of experience with football, over 17 plus years, with football. I've trained men's and women's golf. I work with track and field, women's track and field here. I had soccer for a little bit. And then I've assisted with swim and rowing over the years, just kind of fill in where I've needed to. So definitely, had my hands, whether it's directly leading and managing or just assisting a bunch of different teams.

[00:07:54.49] So, yeah it's been kind of-- I think that's always been the sweet spot for me, is just the challenge of learning new athletes, cultures, working with new personalities. I'm just figuring out ways to get kids better and make them really love and enjoy coming in the weight room. It's always been the challenge, I feel like.

[00:08:12.49] For the clinic, for the Coaches Conference, The title of my talk is The Golden Connection, and over the years of just working with overhead athletes there. I have just found there's this connection between the shoulder and the hip. And the coaches talk touched on-- oftentimes, we'll do a lot of shoulder work if we have a shoulder problem. And I got this from Dan Path years ago, but sometimes, where the injury occurs or the problem is occurring, isn't always the root of the problem.

[00:08:49.60] And so oftentimes, I found with these overhead athletes, they have an overhead. They have a shoulder issue, whether it's something that's anterior or more posterior. Or maybe there's some impingement in there or something. But oftentimes, it comes from the hip and vice versa. If you lack some anterior mobility in the hip down below, it's a little tight. Then you're going to have to overreach with your shoulder and kind of stress and strain that over time.

[00:09:16.98] So it's not always about just trying to do in rehab or getting things strong or more mobile up top or down below, but it's finding that connection. I mean, we even had one time, Coach. It's been probably seven, eight years ago, we had an All-American. He was a freshman at the time. Kept having these ab strains, that we just could not figure out in the front of his rectus abdominis.

[00:09:41.66] And come to find out it was coming out of his hip, his serve, and we started working-- I started working on some stuff with his hip, the anterior capsule in that hip, opening up lengthen that. And then just maybe, doing more postural work with the shoulder. Because he was already strong enough, but man, once we got that opened up-- Coach, I'm not kidding, I don't think he ever had another issue after that. Again, it was that hip shoulder connection, and it's a little thing.

[00:10:10.57] So definitely some of that I think. Scapula health, as well, it's going to be a big piece of your shoulder hip connection. Even, I think even today, I know it's kind of a big thing too. Your hip can really flow right into your lower back. And if you've done anything-- so we're talking the front right of the hip shoulder. If you go backside of the hip shoulder, you get into the lateral sling.

[00:10:40.77] You'll see with a lot of real big servers, they'll be really tight on one side. It'll come down and criss cross over into the QL and cross back over to the glute med And they'll start to get their hips rotated, anterior posterior rotation, just a little bit and then they start having back problems. So again, that's that hip anterior shoulder here, into your posterior hip on the opposite side. So again, I think that's the big thing. There's so many combinations that you've got to look for and know that, not only the anatomy but how it functions. And then also exercise prescription on things you can do, to not make it worse.

[00:11:18.93] I hear that and it's ringing a lot of bells for me coming from my baseball background. And one thing I think we overlook on the baseball side a lot, is there are other overhead sports that have a lot of unique physical challenges that we can learn from. Whether we're talking about throwers, or and now we're going into volleyball serving, jumping to serve a tennis ball, and just some of the unique demands there.

[00:11:46.33] So I think it's good that we're starting to expand to some of these other sports that are becoming popular that are putting strain on our athletes. And we can learn a lot by bringing together that conversation more collectively. And so I really appreciate you bringing that insight. One thing-- I've heard you speak a few times just from your experience. And now you're in this leadership role. You oversee young coaches, and you talked a little bit about that.

[00:12:16.17] I want to ask you about mentorship of young coaches and just experiential learning, internships, like you mentioned. That's a big part of our field. It still is today. And maybe graduate assistantships depending on where you're coming out of. How do you view the role of internships? And now in your more senior role mentorship for young coaches? And what advice do you have for young coaches getting into the field?

[00:12:45.62] Yeah, great question. I think how I view internships or externships, however you want to word it, I think to me, the initial maybe, if it's your first or second one, I really feel like you're just kind of testing the waters. I don't mean that you're going in there half-hearted, but I just mean that hey, is this something that you really would like to do. because I do-- not everybody may not agree with this, but I do believe there's value in an internship because you're going to get some interns that just don't work out. It may be better off for them to know now that they don't want to do this, that they're not going to be really good at it, than to wait later down the road.

[00:13:27.16] So I think there's value in good and bad, and if you have a tough experience as an intern, that maybe there's a different area, or lane, or venue that you want to coach in or do different things in besides strength and conditioning. So I think there's value in that. So that's what the internships with young coaches-- with full-time young coaches that, there's a lot in that one.

[00:13:54.69] I think it was several years ago, Coach. It's funny you ask that question. We would have, every time it seems like I'd get somebody in a good spot, they'd leave for another job. And I'd be like, wait a minute, now. This is not what I signed up for.

[00:14:12.21] But then one night, I was talking to my wife about it. She goes, babe, she goes like, that's your role. It's like, you've got to mentor young strength coaches and professionals and train them up and send them out. That's just part of your role as a leader, oftentimes, is just developing, equipping people, and pouring into them to make them better. And so I think with that,

[00:14:33.57] I think the biggest thing, Coach. What I've just seen that this young coaches struggle with initially, is just how to carry themselves when they get in these bigger meetings with head coaches that are pretty-- some of them can be intense. And so just knowing how to talk them off the ledge, so to speak, make them feel secure about the job you're doing.

[00:14:58.87] And I think that takes a lot of listening, really listening. And then being able to ask the right questions with that coach. And then also, if you do get put on the spot, how do you how do you respond in a way that's not knee jerk or defensive? Where you can actually walk out of that room and actually have won their trust over versus erode that trust.

[00:15:24.41] And so that's a skill that takes time to develop just like anything else, and you just don't learn it any other way besides being in the grease, so to speak. Sometimes you just got to get in there and go through it, and go, man, well, that was a lesson I learned. I'm not going to do that again. And hopefully, the young coaches can make some mistakes that they can come back from and not something that gets them run out of there. So I think that's the biggest thing, is just teaching coaches how to really think, to take the big picture and perspective, and how to really listen and ask great questions with sport coaches. It helps.

[00:16:03.90] Yeah, you mentioned taking some of these challenges home, talking to your wife about it. And I think coaches, we do that. We bring our work home with us. We were where our heart on our sleeve at times. I heard you on Christian Hartford's podcast recently Dad Strength, talking about the importance of family in the field. Share a little bit of that with us. Just how important family is to you, and just sort of the journey of family in this profession.

[00:16:34.60] Yeah, I would love to. I think something that's just been kind of-- it's the deep, I would say, core of my heart and who I am as a person-- as I mentioned earlier, I grew up in a divorced home. I have some pretty painful memories of that. I'm way up better now. But growing up, through high school, through college, probably even into my early years of working, I had some really painful experiences and memories and stress on me from my parents, just they didn't get along and just a lot of stuff that went on there.

[00:17:14.36] So when I started coaching back in the early '90s mid '90s. One of the things that I was very passionate about, I wanted to have a strong marriage. And I know that can be hard to do in coaching because you're gone a lot. I actually, my first job, my boss there, Doc, he went through a very, very painful divorce and walked through some of that with him.

[00:17:42.98] And I knew that I didn't want to work all these years sacrificing and then, all of a sudden, my family be blown apart because I just was an absent dad. And so I think that's something that's been so important to me over the years. It's just-- I don't know, Eric, I don't think balance is the right word to use. I think that's tough.

[00:18:03.58] I would say a little bit more just being a dad or mom that's engaged. Just like you work at your profession with passion, you work at your marriage with your spouse, with passion. You work to build that up just as well because it's important. If you don't put time and effort into it, it will get worse. And so it's so important to me that my wife and I, not only are we-- we get along but that we're really good friends.

[00:18:36.52] We're coming up now, Coach, I've been coaching almost 30 years. We're getting on the backside of this thing with my kids. We're going to be empty-nesters soon. So man, it's kind of life's coming back full circle. I almost feel like I'm back in college again when we first met. And we're having more time where we're just alone. And I'm thankful that we have a really great friendship, my wife and I even now. And it's something you look forward to if you do it right.

[00:19:03.39] So your career, I don't think it's ever worth blowing your family apart. No career is. I don't feel like-- it's never worth the sacrifice. I love what I do here, but if it was going to rip my family apart, I'd find something else. So thankfully at Texas, they support that. And so I would encourage-- Coach, I'll say the only thing of that is, it's not where you work. It's who you work for.

[00:19:24.00] And you need to find somebody who's got the core value that values you have in a healthy-- because if you're a better dad or better mom, you're a better coach. You're more compassionate. You're more understanding. You're more patient. If you can lead home really well, you can lead at work really well. But you just got to work on it and kind of figure out how to build those rhythms out.

[00:19:48.84] Yeah, some great advice there. Coaches are coming in at different stages. You're almost at that empty-nest stage, and I'm sitting here in a full-nest stage. I got four young kids counting, on the floor upstairs as I'm recording this podcast. And some coaches, young coaches, in the field aren't even there yet. They're not even thinking about family and kids.

[00:20:16.47] Maybe they're just pouring all their energy and heart and soul into getting that first full-time job or finding an opportunity. And it's important to think-- it's important like you said, balance may not be the right term, but you sort of got towards being engaged and in showing energy and that same enthusiasm on the home front as you do on the work front.

[00:20:41.82] And I think for us coaches that are so passionate about this craft, this field, dedicating that same energy elsewhere, that can be a challenge. And man, it's such a-- I'll be honest with you. That was a fear for me getting into this profession. I knew family was important. How was I going to have a great family life with all the moving around, or travel, or jumping at a new opportunity. And I think a lot of coaches face those challenges.

[00:21:16.72] Yeah I think practically speaking, there's times you're just going to have to schedule time. If you really want to build your family, Coach, if you got a good enough staff that works around you-- And that's again, credit to our staff here. I can very comfortably and confidently take time away if I need you to go be with my family. And they understand it too.

[00:21:40.08] And I'll do the same for our staff. if they need to get away and just get a re sharpen or refocus and refresh themselves for a few days or a week, I'm good to cover for them. And so I think it's all about-- We have a performance team for a reason. I'll never forget my first job at Colorado. Coach, this is crazy. The first summer I was there. Coach Bill McCartney, this is '94. Doc and the assistant Dave Plettl were wanting to go to Mexico for a little, just to go do a little-- they're going to work with a football team there. And basically, get away with their family a little bit.

[00:22:22.58] And Doc told Coach McCartney, I got this offer to go, but I can't go because I can't leave the room. And coach McCartney looked at him. He goes, well why do we hire him then? If he can't cover the room, why did we hire him? And so that was my first summer as a young strength coach. I covered the room for a full week. And man, I worked my tail off, but it was good for me.

[00:22:48.90] And so I think to my point is, you're going to have to schedule time to let some of the other staff cover for you. And you get away and spend time with your wife and kids, or go take the vacation, or go to the dance recital, or the football game, or the baseball game. Job is going to go on without you, so you might as well get somebody cover it. And go put time into your family, so it makes a difference.

[00:23:13.04] Do you think-- you mentioned Texas really values family and you being able to be well-rounded in your life. Do you think the field has evolved as a whole? Do you think we're better than we were years ago in giving coaches time for other areas of their life, or do we have a long way to go?

[00:23:37.49] I think we're more aware of the need for that. I think, again, it goes back to-- I always say, people don't quit the organization. They usually quit their boss. If you've got a boss who just grinds on you-- I've been there and done that. You've got to beat your boss in. You've got to stay after he leaves. I've been on that little carousel. That's not fun. And I'm not into just kind of collecting hours in the weight room just to be here. I've done that, got the t-shirt, got the water bottle. I'm good.

[00:24:09.34] So I think in many ways, we've gotten better. But I think in also, there's still some horror stories out there, so to speak. You know?

[00:24:20.23] Yeah.

[00:24:20.47] I think where we haven't grown is, and this is a whole other podcast episode, but just salaries are still just not where they should be. I think if you're good at what you do, not only should you have time to be sharp at that and be able to go home and have some energy for your family, but you should be compensated, so you're not stressed out with money. So I think that's the piece I feel like it needs to come up more than ever, is just coaches being compensated for their hours and the expertise.

[00:24:55.87] We're still posting-- I think I just got a job. Somebody got a job open somewhere for like 47,000. Most of these coaches got masters, and that's less than teachers make. And they're going to probably work 60 hours a week or more especially, for one of those more entry-level jobs. So I think we're more aware of it, but the salary piece has got to change at some point because people just can't do it. So anyway, another topic.

[00:25:25.33] No, I agree with that. I think that's something we pay attention to at the NSCA quite a bit. And it's easy for us to say things have improved. Jobs have gotten better. And maybe salaries have increased over time. I know we're coming up on our second NSCA salary survey here soon, and we're going to see how the numbers reflect and have changed over the past few years across different audiences.

[00:25:52.21] But I think anyone in the coaching profession knows we get a long way to go. None of us have ever gotten into this for the money. And we can joke about that, but we do work in overdrive a lot, from an hours standpoint, the 60, 80-hour weeks. I remember my gateway into coaching. I was a football GA. And I always joked in my pro-ball years, I was like, man, these 80-hour weeks are easier than my 100-hour weeks as a football GA when I'm sleeping under the desk breaking down VHS tape because it was the year or two before we went to digital tape break down.

[00:26:38.20] But you just think back on that, and we can all see growth. We can all see change. We know there's a lot of need still in that area. And I think it's an area I like when I see coaches come together and voice that and try to be constructive about it. And we're still making our institutions better. We're working towards it. We're advocating for ourself. We're advocating for each other. From what you've seen, what are some other areas we can better serve ourself on that front? Maybe speak to some of the leadership role you have when you're advocating for coaches.

[00:27:17.50] Yeah, no, I think the one thing aside from the topic we're on, we need-- and this is something I've been working on, and it's hard to do what I'm about to say. It's so hard to do. And there's been a few people out there that's done some of this. But we need more strength coaches in administrative leadership roles in big organizations.

[00:27:39.49] Basically, I'm just saying you need to get a seat at the table. Because the frustrations that I've dealt with, I'm sure you've dealt with this at some point, everybody has. You've got somebody in administration who's never coached before, typically. Again, I'm being general here. But they've never coached, never worked in a weight room. But they're making decisions on how we should do our jobs.

[00:28:07.36] And I'm not saying they can't have input, but ask them to sit down and write a six to eight week block, two cycles, micro meso cycle for different types of athletes on a team, with undulating periodization, with the mobility, change of direction, conditioning, recovery. And do that and be able to adapt and adjust that from game-to-game and week-to-week. Who can do that up in the business office? Nobody not one person can do that.

[00:28:44.43] So my point being, you need somebody who's got that kind of background and understands that language, that bridge and that gap between the weight room and then what's going on. Because then they can communicate how valuable those people are, how hard their jobs are, their needs, their pain points way better than they can. So I think that's the one area I see that would make a game changer in our profession is getting more, just even creating more, just those titles and roles in administration for strength conditioning will be a huge, huge.

[00:29:22.80] That's great. It goes beyond head strength coach now. I think when we got in, you were an assistant. Well, you started as an intern or GA, then you became an assistant. And you wanted to be the head strength coach, but now there might be an athletic director type role or performance director.

[00:29:41.94] Another area that's expanded a lot is sports science and the performance sciences area and technology. I want to ask you a little bit about that. What are some of the big areas that Texas is latched onto in the performance technology area? How has that changed programming and the role of your staff?

[00:30:03.00] Oh, yeah, that's something that has-- that's something that's definitely-- I'd say the last, specifically, the last two to three years, specifically two, Travis Vlantes is our Director of Sports Science here. He's expanded his staff. He's got-- let's see. Two new staff upstairs over the last year, year and a half. Think he's adding a data analyst soon. Dude, this thing is changing so fast.

[00:30:31.72] And so now, where you-- so you could quantify intensity, volume, sets, reps, and load in the weight room. Now you're really starting to see, with technology, what Travis is doing, you're quantifying practice loads. I know most coaches are experiencing this as well.

[00:30:54.53] And what you'll see, at first, coaches don't like it. What they don't like about it is, it's just, initially, they don't know what they've got a hold of. It's a new language. It's a new way of doing things. So it's very frustrating at first. And you get a lot of conflict with it at first, push back.

[00:31:14.90] But over time, what you'll see, that once they get a little familiar with it and you start figuring out, oh, these are what we want to keep a close eye on with athlete monitoring and fatigue monitoring. It helps you. You're still doing what you normally would do, but it allows you to adjust the path that you're on to make some course corrections or interventions that you normally may keep going off the cliff, so to speak.

[00:31:42.02] And so I think it's just been, I can always use the word. It's been more evolutionary, not revolutionary. So small changes over time, educating, being patient, understanding, giving a little bit more at the first, and then just being patient with the process, the frustration of that. So it does pay off. It does make a difference. And you're just, ultimately, you just want that 1% advantage over your competition. So that's what you've got to do to get there, but that's how it's changed us big time, just quantifying practice loads. It's been huge.

[00:32:17.05] Yeah, we're seeing that a lot. NSCA has a new certified performance and sports science certification, which really focuses on those scientific processes of performance. And I get to speak a lot to just how integrated the performance world has become across-- we've seen it with nutrition at the college level. We've seen it, obviously, strength and conditioning. But just the collaborative conversation with athletic trainers, now with sports science, performance departments.

[00:32:49.27] It really has ballooned. It's grown. And I think the real big challenge is, us all coming together to have this common language that helps the athlete, helps the institution, and takes us forward. Yeah, I want you to get your crystal ball out for a second here. You've seen a lot over the years, spoke a little to maybe where we're going on the technology front. But where do you see the field going in the next 5 to 10 years? And what are some of the new things that you see on the horizon?

[00:33:22.47] Now, I really feel like with technology it's I think that that's the future. You're going to see more and more roles of these directors of-- I don't know if sports scientists are right, but you're going to see more and more of those roles popping up. It's going to be the norm.

[00:33:47.20] I feel like the other piece of this is going to be just the athlete wellness. I think we're going to have a lot more understanding here coming like within the next, probably, two to five years of just, what stress does to these athletes bodies from the academic, to practice, to the social.

[00:34:08.00] And I think there's going to be a big change in just how practices are done. How we stress the athletes out. There's going to be-- I don't know. I just see these, it's starting to happen now, but these big recovery wellness centers because athletes are not getting better mentally. And just sprinkling it in there is not going to get it done.

[00:34:33.04] So just like I think you can track fatigue with force plates, you're going to be able to check mental health and stuff like that, wellness, here in the very near future, on the brain waves and sleep and all that's going to be able to be monitored. And I think that there'll be a bigger push towards building your rhythms, your rituals, and practices around how athletes are responding to that, dosing, things like that.

[00:34:57.68] So because you can measure it now. Before you had to always guess, and just say, hey, you've got to be tough and get over it. So I think that's going to be the future. I really do.

[00:35:06.19] Yeah, no, the science has been around for a while. We keep publishing, and there's new articles all the time. But the technology has really made this information more accessible to us on a daily basis in our weight room settings. And yeah, I appreciate that insight. For anyone listening in, what's the best way to get in touch with you if they have questions?

[00:35:30.02] If you want to you can always reach out to me social media. I'm pretty decent about responding. My Instagram is just Donnie Maib, D-O-N-N M-A-I-B @donniemaib and then I think my Twitter is-- Coach, I can't remember. I think it's @coachdonnie. So I think it's a little different, but those are usually the best. Yeah, @coachdonnie, that's correct.

[00:35:59.20] And those are the best ways.

[00:36:02.27] That's awesome.

[00:36:03.43] Reach out any time. We'd love to connect for sure.

[00:36:08.26] Coach Maib, I appreciate you taking the time today. I think this episode really speaks to the value of strength and conditioning coaches at various stages in their career, and the skill set that we have, and what we provide our institutions. And I really appreciate you taking the time today.

[00:36:28.57] Oh, my pleasure, Coach, and appreciate what you guys are doing there at the NSCA and this awesome conference you put on. We appreciate you guys.

[00:36:37.36] Thank you, and to everyone listening in, We appreciate it. We also appreciate Sorinex exercise equipment. We appreciate their support.

[00:36:45.89] From the NSCA, thank you for listening to The NSCA Coaching Podcast. We serve you the coaching community. So follow, subscribe, and download for future episodes. We look forward to connecting with you again soon, and hope you'll join us at an upcoming NSCA event or in one of our special interest groups.

[00:37:04.85] For more information, go to nsca.com.

[00:37:07.75] [MUSIC PLAYING]

[00:37:08.41] 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.

Reporting Errors: To report errors in a podcast episode requiring correction or clarification, email the editor at publications@nsca.com or write to NSCA, attn: Publications Dept., 1885 Bob Johnson Dr., Colorado Springs, CO 80906. Your letter should be clearly marked as a letter of complaint. Please (a) identify in writing the precise factual errors in the published podcast episode (every false, factual assertion allegedly contained therein), (b) explain with specificity what the true facts are, and (c) include your full name and contact information.