366: Andy Ryland on Intuitive Development of Skill and Athleticism in Sport

Today’s podcast features USA Football senior manager of education and training, Andy Ryland. Andy has been with USA Football since 2010, has consulted with programs at every level of competition, and is widely recognized as a foremost expert on developing the fundamentals necessary for a successful shoulder tackle, as well as the developmental, and skill building process for athletes. He previously appeared on episode 170 speaking on a “humans first”, “athletes second”, “specialists third” approach to athlete development. In the process of developing athletes, it is easy to compartmentalize training components, ultimately to a fault in the overall process. If we are working in a sport or skill building capacity with athletes, we should have a basic understanding of their physical capacities and capabilities, as well as how training adaptation and specificity work. If we are working on strength and more base level movement components with athletes, we should have a handle on their needed skills and tactics on the field. Ultimately, the more situations we can coach in, the more ages, and sports we work with, the better our overall intuition gets on the process of teaching skills, and guiding athletes to their highest potential. Andy Ryland has a deep understanding the developmental process that players need to succeed in their sport. On today’s episode, Andy digs into key points on the art of athletic skill building. A primary part of this is how he runs the “whole-part-whole” system, which can be adapted to more global, or strength based skills. Andy discussing how to integrate “prescriptive extra’s”, or “work-on’s”, as well as micro skill development in sport and S&C. He also covers key aspects of improving agility, teaching concepts in athletics, creativity in coaching, Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs and Exogen wearable resistance gear. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 3:54 – The original “failed” games in American Gladiators, and the evolution of “powerball” into what it eventually became 8:57 – Andy’s take on practice plans, creativity, intuition and thoughts on changing the practice plan 17:53 – Thoughts on mixing in various micro-doses of skill and movement into gym-based training 28:06 – Alternating between working the “outer game” of more external strategizing, or outputs, and the “inner game” of the subtle nuance of skill performance, in training 34:53 – The integration of roughhousing into youth football 43:29 – How to use a game-based iterations of a drill, to better prepare for the actual skill execution 48:09 – The need for constant 1 on 1s, tracking and evasion-based work in sport, and how it’s not typically trained enough in sport 52:58 – The role of the “instant activity”, or “welcome game” in a sport practice or training situation 58:10 – The maximal “line length” Andy sees being viable in sport/skill practice Andy Ryland Quotes “I’m a huge whole-part-whole guy. I’ll be the first to tell you, the part aspect is never scripted” “If our arms are terrible, if our legs are terrible, if our strike accuracy is terrible, that’s going to be our “part” (in whole-part-whole)” “If I’m doing a good job, my coaching intervention “part” aspect is not going to be some super stereotyped, copy and paste drill that’s been done since the dawn of time. It’s who are my athletes, what are they struggling, what is the situation where they struggle, and how can I replicate that before going back into the whole thing” “My mentor Richie Grays, worked in professional international rugby for ages, they had prescriptive extras, every athlete had “work on’s” that fit their game. They had a set of bags that was at the entrance to the field, and their rule was you can’t pass the bags, and every athlete had to get 5-10 reps every day of their particular weaknesses” “Within the contact space, one of the most valuable things is feel. Very little is visual, a lot is feel. How I brace and fight is based, not just if your hands are on me, but feeling which way you are trying to put me” “That roughhousing is such a robust stimulus; you need to interact with another human being, you need to learn to be strong with an outside force” “Even if I do a great job teaching it, there is going to be this phase of you needing to learn it in your own body” “Coaches now have to manufacture, some of the free play opportunities that athletes had in the past” “Kids have lost those free play opportunities, and when we get to sport (and play) people will say “that’s not specific”, but if they don’t have the movement foundations and database that past generations had, then it’s very specific to their development” “In our official USA practice plans, there is a 5-minute period every day we called athlete development, where it’s jumping, tumbling, it’s cutting, it’s landing, it’s grappling, it’s rolling, it’s investing time in those qualities so they can learn better later on because they have those movement capacities” “In contact sports, two of the traits that are most important that aren’t talked about are spinal awareness, and postural manipulation” “Any push pull game is going to be massive for kids… before we go into our tackle work we are going to do a push-pull battle game” “When I get into this push-pull-grapple, I’m getting to some other components that light my body up (than simply doing a linear, drill-based progression)” “I could actually feel, like the turf was bunching behind my turf in the acceleration phase… it was in the midst of conditioning, it wasn’t even a sprint day, people have told me this for 6 years, and now it was a huge lightbulb moment for me” “Most sports, at the end of the day, can I evade you, and can you track me down and stay in front of me…. But that’s the thing we probably train the least… the only way to learn that is experiential” “Measurement-wise, this is an elite athlete with speed and change of direction… but he can’t read the play and his timing is terrible… how do we fix that? We have to get him open field opportunities and a lot of 1 on 1’s and 2 on 1’s” “Is there a time and place for a slow warmup, absolutely, but I love that instant activity, or pickup games, or moderately ruled game, that allows for a lot of creativity; it’s amazing when you use that to start your practice, what the rest of that looks like” “3 people is the most I’d ever have in a line” “I expect the first couple reps to be bad; my coaching cues are “see if you can find it”” “I’ve heard “ABC, always be coaching” but if you had a teacher like that, you would hate it!” About Andy Ryland Andy Ryland is USA Football’s senior manager of education and training and has been with USA Football since 2010. He has consulted with programs at every level of competition, and is widely recognized as a foremost expert on developing the fundamentals necessary for a successful shoulder tackle. He is a former Penn State linebacker and member of the U.S. Men’s Rugby team and is a primary instructor in the Advanced Tackling System. Ryland previously served as a Division 1 American Football coach as well as working as a Fitness Coach in rugby. During his tenure with USA Football Ryland became the lead clinician for USA Footballs in-person coach training events including Coaching Certification and its Football Development Model. Key initiatives spearheaded by Ryland throughout his time at USA Football include developing the Heads Up Football Program, trainings its Master Trainer Coach Educators and the development of the Rookie Tackle game type that serves the FDM.”