Barbell Shrugged - Using Technology to Monitor Athletes w/ Phoenix Coyote’s High Performance Director Devan McConnell, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Coach Travis Mash Barbell Shrugged #627

Episode Date: February 2, 2022

Devan McConnell is the Phoenix Coyote’s High Performance Director responsible for maximizing performance, minimizing injury risk, optimizing fitness and nutrition levels and executing comprehensive training regiments for all Coyotes and Roadrunners players and club prospects.   Devan McConnell joins the Coyotes from the New Jersey Devils where he served as their Director of Performance Science and Reconditioning. In this role, he oversaw the integration and application of sport and performance science technologies, systems and practices. McConnell also assisted with the day-to-day performance training of all NHL athletes in the Devils organization, the return-to-play training of injured athletes and the organizational vision and directive of the Performance department at both the NHL and AHL levels.    Prior to his time in New Jersey, the Lake Stevens, Washington native previously served as the Head of Hockey Performance and Sport Science at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He was responsible for the oversight and development of all aspects of physical development for the ice hockey team.     McConnell also previously served as the Sports Performance Coordinator at Stanford University from 2008-11 where he worked closely with the women's basketball team as well as the men's and women's volleyball programs. All these teams were regulars in the NCAA tournament. During his time at Stanford, women's basketball competed in three consecutive Final Fours while the women's volleyball team competed in two Final Fours and the men's volleyball program won the 2010 NCAA Championship.   In this Episode of Barbell Shrugged:   What technology is used to monitor athletes  What metrics matter for optimal performance How to optimize performance with in season and offseason periodization Can you predict injury before it happens Sleep, recovery, and maximizing performance   Connect with our guests:   Connect with Devan McConnell   Anders Varner on Instagram   Doug Larson on Instagram   Coach Travis Mash on Instagram   ————————————————   Diesel Dad Mentorship Application: https://bit.ly/DDMentorshipApp   Diesel Dad Training Programs: http://barbellshrugged.com/dieseldad   Training Programs to Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/34zcGVw   Nutrition Programs to Lose Fat and Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/3eiW8FF   Nutrition and Training Bundles to Save 67%: https://bit.ly/2yaxQxa   Please Support Our Sponsors   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged BiOptimizers Probitotics - Save 10% at bioptimizers.com/shrugged

Shrugged family, this week on Barbell Shrugged, we are hanging out with Devin McConnell, the head strength coach for the Phoenix Coyotes NHL team. We talk a lot about athlete monitoring, a lot of to talk to a strength coach that has been coaching athletes at the very highest level in their specific sport, there's a ton to learn. And I think it's a really good insight into how you can start to monitor how you're feeling, the amount of volume and work you're putting in at the gym,

the results you're getting out of it, and how you can start to pay more attention to data to help you in your pursuit of strength, weight loss, whatever the goal is. But using raw data is a big key to getting you from where you're at to where you're going. Before we get into the show, I want to thank our sponsors. There's so many benefits to having good fat in your diet, but there's just one little problem with all this healthy fat. If you can't properly digest the fat in your diet, you won't feel good.

And a lot of people lack the one key nutrient needed to digest fat. To really get the best results from any diet, whether it's paleo, keto, or even vegan, I've found there are three things that can really help optimize your results. First, enhance your digestion and elimination. Second, boost your cellular energy. And third, rev up your fat burning metabolism. Now, can you do all that without any extra nutrients or nutritional supplements? Of course. But in my experience, the right supplements certainly can help. And one of the best diet aids I've ever found comes from my friends over at Bioptimizers, and it's called Capex. What Capex does is three things. First, it breaks down the fats you eat

into fatty acids using a proprietary lipase and dandelion extract blend. Most people are eating a lot more good fat in their diet these days. This means you're breaking down the dietary fat into usable energy and not storing it, body fat. Second, they transport those fatty acids into muscles and in the liver, and they have several ingredients that dramatically increase the fatty acid oxidation inside your mitochondria, both in your muscle and liver. In other words, it's more fuel into your motor and more horsepower for your motor. If you take three to five capsules of Capex in the morning on an empty stomach, the energy is incredible. It feels like a cup of coffee and it lasts six to 10 hours and there's

no nervous system stimulation. It's really incredible pre-workout, but without the caffeine. And again, no matter what diet you're on, KPEX can help you enhance fat loss, assuming you're in a caloric deficit of course. It won't make up for a bad diet or eating lots of excess calories, but the research behind it shows that it can raise metabolic rate and boost other fat loss hormones. I highly suggest trying it for yourself when you go to kennergize.com forward slash shrug. That's kennergize, K-E-N-E-R-G-I-Z-E.com forward slash shrug. You'll automatically get 10% off any package of K-Pax with coupon code shrugged10. Shrugged10, all one word. That's kenergize.com forward slash shrugged. Get there now. Organifi.com

forward slash shrugged, your spot to get all the green, red, and gold micronutrients that you need in your life to have a stronger, healthier, leaner life. It's very, very challenging at today's age for us to get high quality nutrition loaded with the vitamins and minerals that you need to optimize hormone function as well as get the performance and aesthetic goals that you are desiring in the gym and with your nutrition protocols. So make sure you head over to Organifi.com. The green juice is delicious. And let me tell you something, pumpkin spice season is here. And before you miss out, make sure you get over to Organifi.com forward slash drug because the pumpkin spice is the most delicious organic superfood that exists on this planet.

Follow closely by the green. I love it. I take it every single morning. Organifi.com forward slash shrug. The green, the red, and the gold, and the pumpkin spice. Now that it is in season, make sure you get over there, friends. Organifi.com forward slash shrug. Save 20% on all of the juices.

Make sure you're getting the vitamins and minerals you need to stay healthy. I recently received a question from my listener. She wanted to know if it was possible to avoid digestive problems by eating only healthy organic food. It's a nice thought, but unfortunately, it's just not possible. You see, your natural ability to digest food declines with age. This is because your body produces fewer enzymes, which are the proteins responsible for digesting food. Fewer enzymes means more difficulty digesting food. Even organic foods won't provide enough enzymes to properly digest them. This is especially true if you cook your food because cooking kills enzymes. This is why you may have digestion problems even after a healthy meal.

Your body just can't produce enough enzymes to get the job done. This is where supplementing with a high quality enzyme supplement can be a huge help. I personally recommend Mastzymes from Bioptimizers. It is a best in class supplement loaded with a full spectrum of enzymes for digesting protein, starches, sugars, fibers, and fats. Taking mass enzymes daily helps top off your enzyme levels and replace the enzymes your body is no longer producing, which means you'll be able to eat all sorts of delicious foods and digest them quickly and effortlessly. After you start taking mass enzymes, you may notice that you no longer feel bloated after meals and that your belly feels flatter.

If you have a leaky gut, Mastzymes could reduce gut irritation and help you absorb more nutrients. Verified buyer Mike C gave Mastzymes a 5 star rating saying, it has definitely helped me address digestion and health issues. Listen, life is too short to suffer digestion problems. If you want freedom from food, especially during the holiday season, try Masszymes risk-free and experience for yourself the magic of high-quality enzymes. For an exclusive offer for Barbell Shrugged listeners, go to masszymes.com forward slash shrugged and use the code shrugged for 10% off. That's masszymes.com, M-A-S-S-Z-Y-M-E-S.com forward slash shrugged, M-A-S-S-Z-Y-M-E-S.com forward slash shrugged. That's masszymes.com forward slash shrugged and use the code shrugged to save 10%. Again, massimes.com forward slash shrugged.

Use the code shrugged to save 10%. Shrugged family, some very cool news coming out of Walmart. You didn't expect to hear that, I bet. Ageless male protein was selected as one of the very few products in the entire performance nutrition category. So the entire shelf with all of the supplements, Ageless Male Protein, the Zone, the Pump, and the Shred were chosen to have rollback pricing to begin the new year. What that means is Walmart pretty much never does sales, but they do

these things called rollbacks and they select a very, very few products in each category. Pretty much the ones that they think are going to absolutely crush in the new year and the hot time. And they chose us, which is super, super cool. So 2,200 stores, Walmart nationwide, the Walmart near me, I don't have it. And that's annoying. That means it's a whack Walmart. But the Walmart near you probably has it because we're in over half of them. So you can get over, get to the performance nutrition section in the pharmacy, Aegis Mail, Pro-T, Zone, Pump, and Shred. Make sure you get over there. Look for my face on the box. Pick up some supplements and get your new year kickstarted, right? And friends, I'm so stoked. We have rollback pricing. Whoever knew that that was going

to be a thing at Barbell Shrugged? Age of Smell, Pro-T. Friends, let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner. Doug Larson. Devin McConnell, the strength and performance coach for the Phoenix Coyotes. Dude, we almost had you recording in the same day that we did the show with Corey Schlesinger. And I feel like the city of Phoenix should have paid us for all the marketing that we were doing for their sports teams that week. It's really cool that we can have you on the show here. Just so you know why I'm so geeked out about this. I am like a very below average lifetime hockey player.

So having some of the strength coach of an NHL team and coming on the show is like, I get to learn all the things that I should have been doing to become slightly above average. Well, I'm, I'm very, I'm a very below average hockey player myself. So, uh, even though i know some things it certainly didn't help me out very much yeah i uh and kind of reading through your bio so the way that i found uh and and reached out you actually commented on one of mike boils um who we've had on the show if you want to go back and uh people want to go back and listen it's actually an awesome two-hour show that we did with him um he posted something and your name

popped up, saw that you were the strength coach and I was like, damn, I need to have an NHL guy on the show to hang out. And then reading through your bio, a lot of the things that you were hired for at Phoenix comes into this realm of performance science and then bringing like a science-based approach. What's a little bit of the background of your career, the teams you've worked with, and then how has that progressed into why some – like the performance science and what exactly that means? Yeah, yeah, for sure.

So you mentioned Mike Boyle. I mean that's kind of where my career started. I went to school in Massachusetts. Where at? Small school called Fitchburg state. Um, I was there for hockey. They just happened to have an exercise science program. And, um, I was sort of thought maybe I was interested in physical therapy. And then I realized as I went through things that I was interested in, in strength and conditioning, and then I got connected with coach Boyle and then I interned for him and then I worked for him. So it's kind of that path early on. And then my first kind of real job out of college in the field was at Stanford University. So I was in California for a couple of years. I worked primarily with women's basketball and men's women's volleyball.

And we had some really, really good teams there and just a great uh great atmosphere and a great kind of time to be out in that part of the world and and um kind of cutting my teeth and then um i got myself back to new england uh at a school called um uh university of massachusetts lowell uh where they had hockey and so they have a great hockey program yeah i always wanted to get back to hockey. And my wife was from the New England area from Massachusetts. And so when that opportunity arose

and I was able to get back to New England and to UMass Lowell and work there. So I was there for about nine years before then kind of jumping ship to the National Hockey League, where I moved on to, I spent some time with New Jersey Devils as the director of performance science and reconditioning. And then hopped over to Arizona here with the Coyotes, and I'm currently the high performance director.

And so my kind of career path from a, I guess a title standpoint or sort of a role standpoint, you know, started out very much as, as a strength and conditioning coach. I found myself interested in kind of the sports science part of that, um, along the way. Um, and I guess I sort of became known in the hockey world as one of the people that was doing strength and conditioning with a connection of sports science, you know, using tools and technology, heart rate monitoring, GPS and force plates and things like that. And to me, those were always just tools in the strength coaches toolbox. It wasn't a separate thing. Yeah.

But when I got an opportunity to go to New Jersey and the national hockey league you know, one of the big differences in between college hockey and professional hockey from a staffing standpoint is just have more people, when i worked in college i was the everything i was a strength coach sports scientist nutritionist travel coordinator you know you name it um you wear a lot of hats and then in the nhl um there's more people to wear different hats so we had a head strength coach uh we had physical therapists on staff, you know, obviously our medical staff. My role was a little bit more boxed into the sports science and reconditioning or return to play area. And then here in Arizona, I kind of sit on top of the umbrella. So we have two strength

coaches, we have nutritionists, we have holistic medicine doctor. I operate kind of the sports science piece still, but now I have more of a managerial role where I operate kind of the sports science piece still, but now I have more of a managerial role where I oversee kind of the whole operation. So that's kind of the, from start to finish, that's where my career has kind of gone and sort of the pathway I've followed. Yeah. Many people that follow the show likely want to be some type of strength conditioning specialist in the future if they're not a coach already. There's only so many NHL teams. There's only so many positions available as a strength coach or performance director. Like how competitive is it to, to kind of get into those, those top tier roles? Yeah. I mean, it's, it's really hard.

You're right. There's only 32 teams. Um, every team, you know, at this point, every team's got a head strength coach. Most teams have an assistant strength coach. Everybody's minor league team. There's usually one American hockey league team. So in a, in an organization, you've got, you know, probably two to three positions out of 32 organizations. So there's not a lot of, there's not a lot of jobs and, and there's not a ton of turnover. Obviously they're, they're, they're usually pretty sought after roles and jobs. And, you know, the people that get to those roles often want to stay there. So it's tough. It's tough to get into those spots. And there's a lot of really good strength coaches and sports scientists and people of the like that are outside of the NHL that, you know, are fantastic coaches, and it's just a matter of time to find those positions.

But yeah, it's tough to get up there. Yeah, the level of athleticism, I feel like from the beginning, when did you enter into the NHL? I've been in the NHL for about three years. Gotcha. The level of athlete I feel like that is in the NHL right now is at a level that is just so freaky. Um, like the, the size of the players, the, the physicality plus just the skill level. Like every time I turn on a game, I cannot believe that they, it, it really,

I feel like it's like a professional soccer player just, but on skates, like they're, they're insane athletes. Have you noticed in kind of like the progression of even from your college days to where you're at now that your system has had to change or the way that you coach people has had to change because there aren't as many like just big bruisers. Like even the, the, the larger players are super high skilled and just the quality of athlete has changed so much. And the game's changed as well with the speed. Have you noticed that you've had to really adjust the way that you're coaching people to,

to meet what is required in the game today? Yeah. I mean, I think from a philosophy standpoint, I don't think a lot has changed in how I look at things. But for sure, from a methodology standpoint, you talked about speed. The game has gotten so much faster, even just over the last five to ten years, that really a big point of emphasis from our training perspective in our system really revolves around speed development.

And speed and acceleration has always been something that's been important in the game something we've trained for but um it's a bigger piece now than it ever has been i mean the game is so fast it's we routinely you know have players skate 25 miles an hour um and there's 10 of them out there on the ice and they're all trying to kill each other and so it's it's a pretty wild thing to see um but yeah from a training perspective like we've definitely shifted further and further into emphasizing prioritizing speed development just as a as a kind of big yeah how do you guys do that i'd love to hear just kind of uh what that plan of attack looks like yeah i mean i think it's multifaceted right like there's a level of just basic strength development that's necessary and we kind

of have that's where some of the sports science ties in um from our programming standpoint is understanding kind of how strong is strong enough to improve speed and then beyond that is it do we need to continue to to trace uh chase raw strength um for that goal so if we get players to a certain level then we start to look at you know know, power development and, and force velocity profiling and, and where they are. And, you know, honestly, it's, um, it comes down to getting guys, uh, you know, appropriately strong and then prioritizing speed. So we do in the off season, we do a lot of, um, you know, obviously land-based sprint and speed development work. Um, we do land training. That's what we used to call it. Yeah. Dry land. I mean, we do a lot of sprinting. Um, you know,

we have, whether it's just basic tools, sleds and speed sacks, or we use a 10 80 sprint, we translate that onto the ice. So we do resist sprinting on the ice. Um, we time sprinting a lot. Um, this is kind of a big sort of key component for us. So yeah, all those things that, you know, you'd look at from a speed development standpoint that any other athlete, a football player, soccer player, those things that would be important, that's what we're focusing on as well. Yeah. What other differences are there between the in-season versus off-season training? You kind of touched on speed mostly, but what about the rest of the totality of the programming? Yeah, I mean, the in-season in the NHL is pretty wild.

I mean, you play probably four games a week on average, you know, almost every other day. Play 82 games in, you know, something like 170 nights or something like that. So the offseason training is, you know, is pretty robust. It's four or five days a week. It's, you know, depending on how far our team goes into the playoffs or whatnot, you know, you've got between two and kind of three and a half months, four months, maybe from a development standpoint. But in the in-season, it's very much a micro dosing approach for us because again, you have very little, very little time to do much training because of the

schedule. So we do a lot of post-game, very short post-game lifts. We take advantage of pre-practice prep time to get speed and power development in. And these are super low volumes. Like our post game lift might be two sets of two of a rear foot elevated split squat, um, and some kind of, you know, upper body, uh, pulling action, a row or chin up, something like that. And, but you're touching on that, you know, two, three, maybe four times a week, uh, over the course of the year. So you just try to get little touches in as much as possible, but it's, it's definitely tough that we have. I heard, I believe I heard Boyyle say it was like 10 or 15 years ago so i might have some of the details mixed up at this point but he basically was saying that if you're an nhl player you're gonna play a large chunk of your career with a groin injury of some types like it's very

very common you mentioned that you were kind of on the prehab rehab side of things like what are the most common injuries and how do you how do you buffer against those injuries cropping up and, and, or rehab people from those injuries? Yeah. I mean, from an injury standpoint, the most common things that are sort of out of our control, you know, you get a lot of broken fingers, um, broken feet, um, from blocking shots, things like that. Um, separated shoulders, um, obviously knee injuries, unfortunately, from a contact standpoint. But from a preventable perspective, I guess, if you want to kind of, you know, you can't really prevent anything, but the things that

we can have a big impact on are, you know, basically hip core growing stuff like groin injuries, hip flexor strains, lower abdominal issues. Um, the nature of the skating stride is, is really, um, the human body's not really built to do that. Um, the way that the, the way that the, the leg has to move in the, um, to propel, propel yourself on the ice, it's not a good movement for the hip and the groin. Um, so you get a lot of soft tissue injuries in that area. Um, what do we do to try to buffer those things? I mean, I, I think we do a lot of soft tissue injuries in that area. What do we do to try to buffer those things? I mean, I think we do a lot of single leg strength development, I think is really important because you get a lot of sort of tri-planar stability and strength that way versus more

traditional bilateral lower body strength. Sprinting again in the off season and when we can touch on it in the in season is really important because you get the highest velocity movement patterns when you sprint so if you're if we're able to sort of you know kind of vaccinate those areas by touching on high velocity movements as much as possible I think that that's really beneficial to limiting the scope and the nature of those types of injuries. They're going to crop up. You're going to have guys, you know, especially training camp time are always going to be sore. They're always going to be dinged up a little bit, but trying to take advantage of those things, I think can be really

helpful. Would you mentioned earlier the GPS and kind of like more or less like a an athlete monitoring system can you dig into that a little bit on just kind of like what you're tracking i imagine um like the total volume when you get when you have guys getting on the ice one two maybe even three times a day whether it's for just sticks and pucks an actual practice and then a game at night however that works out um what are you guys tracking, and what are the key pieces that you look at to make sure the volume numbers are right, and then how you're matching the strength programs up to that? Yeah, so we look at a bunch of different stuff

from an on-ice loading standpoint with essentially GPS. We use a system called Catapult. They provide information called player load, which is sort of a general single number that encompasses kind of how much how much motion has happened, right? So that's a basic workload metric that we look at. So how much movement has that athlete done? And then you can break that up into different types of intensities. So you can see, you know, very, very high intensity movements and speeds versus, you know, how much volume are they accumulating at lower loads, player load per minute is sort of a density or an intensity standpoint, metric standpoint that we look at. And then we can look at all kinds of things from velocities and accelerations and

decelerations. And we really try to get a holistic picture of from a physical standpoint, like what is the athlete having to do? We try to work backwards and say, okay, if we kind of have an idea of what happens in a game, we want to look backwards and start to plan out what needs to happen in a practice, what the volumes and intensities need to be very much like we would in strength and conditioning. You know, we're trying to periodize our volumes and intensities to create an adaptation. So if we kind of have an idea at the end of the day, like what, what game loads look like, what game speeds look like, and we're not,

we're not able to use wearable technology and games in the national hockey league. But the, the league does have a system that, that all the teams use that gives us some, some pretty interesting information about speeds and velocities and all of those things. So we can kind of track backwards and understand, okay, if this is what a game looks like, what do we need to do to prepare for a game? How much volume and intensity over the course of a week or a month do we need to try to stay, you know, quote unquote, in the sweet spot, not do too much, not do too little. And it's honestly, it's always a moving target.

There is no exact answer to that question. There's a little bit of art to it. There's a little bit of science to it. You just try to merge them and then try to understand kind of where guys are at and plan ahead to where they need to be. Yeah. What's the kind of, I guess, a little bit of the difference when you have somebody that's 22 years old

that's just breaking into the league and then someone that's 32, 35 towards the end of their career. How much are you paying attention to, like, just total workload and volume? It sounds like kind of like during the in-season, it's just a longer maintenance program to keep people strong and healthy. but when, when you get somebody that's been in the league for 10 years and dealt with 10 years of just the, the nightly beating versus some brand new kid coming out of juniors or, or out of college and needs to be developed. How much different do those programs look like? And, and just a little bit of your thought process and working with somebody that's

brand new versus, versus a seasoned veteran? Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, the way that we try to look at it is, is this player at a stage in their career where the focus is more on development? Or are they at a spot where the focus is more on optimization, right? And that can shift and that can change. And that can, you can have a young guy that's more about optimization because and that can shift and that can change and that can you can have a young guy that's more about optimization because of who they are and where they are on the roster and you know whatever expectations yeah you have an older older player that's still trying to hold on and

still wants to try to get better or or get a step faster at least not a step slower so maybe they're a little more developmental than you would be but in general yeah your older guys that have gone through gone through the grinder and they're beat up and they're um they're at little more developmental than you would be. But in general, yeah, your older guys that have gone through, gone through the grinder and they're beat up and they're, they're at a stage of their career where they've, you know, again, they've, they're strong enough that we've gotten to that point. It's more about optimization. Like what do we need to do to help you maintain where you're at, keep you running smoothly. And there's a lot more give and take in those scenarios. Guys will have specific things that they like to do in training or don't like to do in training. And I think that you have to be a little more

cognizant and flexible with those guys. They've earned the right after 10 years or whatever to have more say and more autonomy in what they're doing. So you're there more in a support sense with those guys, with your younger guys that are more developmental. It's more about figuring out, okay, what are the weak links? What do we need to improve? The, the optimization is about optimizing their strengths and the development is more about improving their weaknesses a lot of times. Um, and so it's really, it's, again, it's sort of a moving target, uh, depending on who those players are, um, and kind of where they fall into those stages. But as a general rule of thumb, those younger guys are going to be,

we're going to push them harder. We're going to have more of a traditional strength and conditioning look to what they're doing off the ice, where the older guys, we're going to have a little bit more flexibility and autonomy to what they're doing. And we're going to let them lead a little more and we're going to be there to support. How do you train a goalie?

Like what that that's, that seems like a completely different program profile, the flexibility, the mobility, like the speed at which those guys have. Like, are they even on, like, even remotely the same program that, especially kind of like a backup goalie that gets, you know, one touch to the ice every week to give the starter a break. You can kind of train them a little bit harder than everyone else on the team. What does their program look like?

Yeah, it's interesting. And it's interesting when you talk about backup goalies too because depending on the role, like if you have a true starting goalie and backup goalie, that backup goalie actually gets a tremendous amount of work because the the starting goalie will have a much lower workload for practices and the backup goalie ends up taking the brunt of that so even though they're not playing in as many games they're on the ice a lot longer a lot more and they're the ones that are they have to stay out for if guys

want to do extra work on the ice they they stay out and take shots so yeah you're actually balancing somewhat similar workloads in a lot of ways it's just whether it's a game or whether it's a practice. Um, if there's sort of a one, a one B and they, and they rotate more, that can be a little bit different, but from a general training perspective, um, the training's not completely different. Uh, goalies actually need to be extremely explosive and, uh, sort of their, their position is very a lactically driven. So what we're doing from a training perspective in the weight room is, is very similar because we're always trying to produce explosive,

fast athletes. Now a fast forward and a fast goalie do different things on the ice, but we still want explosiveness for both of those guys. But it's really going to come back down to kind of volumes and intensities that the level of strength you know how strong is strong enough for goalie is probably a little bit lower than it is for a power forward um but at the end of the day you know especially in season you're still there's only there's only so much training time right so you're still just touching on um kind of the the minimal effective dose which ends up being pretty similar for a lot of those guys.

Yeah, I'm super happy you mentioned kind of like the energy system side of things. There's no way that the general public understands how painful, like a minute and 15 seconds all out while some dude's dragging you down the ice or you're dragging some dude down the ice. What does the conditioning program look like? I mean, there's gotta be a ton of just interval work and a lot of time spent on an air dine just to build that threshold so that you're not dying every 45

seconds. You gotta, it's for people that may not understand the sport. It's like 45 seconds of all out a hundred percent effort, maybe two minutes of rest. And you have to do that for three 20 minute blocks. It's a wildly demanding, like the amount of burn that goes on in your legs after 45 seconds is, it's really painful to be a hockey player.

Yeah, it's the conditioning demands are pretty wild. In season, we don't do much at all from a conditioning standpoint unless it's a player that is what we would call a healthy scratch. So if they're not going to play in the game, we carry a few more players than would be on the game day roster. So we'll have three or four extra guys or an injured player. Those players will do some supplementary conditioning on a game day. Players that don't play a lot of minutes, perhaps, you know, they ended up being a fourth line winger and the fourth line didn't get a lot

of ice time that game. They might do a little extra conditioning post game. And yeah, that would be, you know, something like some airdyne intervals, some, some, you know, 2010, something like that. Not a high, a high volume, but try to get some, some anaerobic capacity done. In the off season, we really kind of span the globe from kind of low-end aerobic capacity work all the way up to, you know, very high-intensity, alactic, you know, speed sprint power work.

And at different times throughout the off season, we're going to touch on those things because the demands of the position, especially as a Florida defenseman, um, like you said, it's a, it's 45 seconds to a minute of basically, you know, a three second burst or sprint followed by a three second coast followed by a three second, you know, for 45 seconds. Um, so it, it, the shift itself becomes very anaerobic, very, um, very lactic, but you need a pretty robust, um, aerobic system to be able to recover in that two

minutes of rest where you're sitting on the bench and you've got to go do it again. So there's, it's, it's a, we kind of touch on all three kind of primary energy systems throughout the, the off season, because you really need, uh, you, you need to be well developed across the spectrum. Yeah. What is the, what does that aerobic work look like? Is that mostly on a bike? I, I would imagine with the amount of like time they already spend on their legs or not going out for a run. Like, how do you,

how do you kind of create those off season aerobic programs? Yeah. You know, you know the the early early off-season is um might be a little bit of time spent on the bike just your standard you know steady state work but for us that would only be for a couple of weeks at most um we're we're going to try to develop some aerobic capacity via sort of lower intensity circuit movement circuit type stuff yeah we're trying to check a lot of different boxes from a mobility standpoint from a uh you know a frontal transverse plane movement standpoint but at the same time developing some of that aerobic capacity yeah um how often are you guys

implementing like some the velocity side of things um do you guys i imagine there's some sort of um technology you're using in the gym to track velocity. Are you guys doing Olympic lifting? Is it mainly done with bilateral squats or split squats? What are you guys tracking, and how do you implement the velocity side of things? Yeah, so our primary lower body strength lift is usually a hand-supported, rear-foot elevated split squat with a safety bar. We will use a velocity based training with that and prescribe different sort of speed zones,

depending on, you know, a, where we are in the training program, is this more of a max strength or an accelerated strength, speed strength, kind of part of the off season. And then within that, with individuals, you know, what are their, if we're, you know, developing versus optimizing where they fall into that. So we'll use velocity for, for those types of lifts. Um, we'll do, we don't Olympic lift unless a player is really proficient. Um, just from the standpoint of, we don't have a lot of time to teach and develop. Uh, and so if, if we need to develop or we're going to train for power, which we, we will, um, we're going to train for power, which we, we will, um, we're going to do simpler exercises, trap bar jump ends up being something that we use

a lot. And obviously plyometrics sled, resisted sled, um, sprinting and bounding things like that. Um, and we'll use sometimes velocity based training with, with our different jumps, uh, or even just basic, we use like a jump mat with the the trap bar jump and we'll we'll auto regulate a little bit off of jump height and things yeah so those are some of the ways we do that yeah i'd love to transition a little bit into kind of the nutrition side of things and if you're kind of managing the top and you've got nutritionists and strength coaches underneath you what is like the how does that even how does that look because obviously you guys have more resources than like

a college team that kind of just stops along the road to get food. Um, but how do you guys handle nutrition? Is there like a specific protocol? Like how, how attentive are athletes to total macronutrient breakdowns and how do you guys kind of start to build those habits with people? Yeah. Some athletes are really, really dialed in and some are very, you know, kind of. They've just been the best athlete they've known. Yeah, exactly. It kind of spans the spectrum, right? But the way that we kind of operate, so we have, I guess there's three pieces to our

kind of nutrition department. We have a team chef, an in-house chef. So he cooks all of our meals at home. We have a head nutritionist who sort of coordinates, manages meal planning on a big, you know, kind of a macro level. So what's the, you know, the pregame meal going to consist of, and then he'll dial in with guys individually and specifically, and then he also kind of oversees any supplementation strategies. And then we have a holistic medicine doctor that, um, does a lot of, uh, blood work analysis, um, and things like that, that helps again, from an individual standpoint, he'll work,

uh, in conjunction with our nutritionist, um, to dial things in for specific needs, whether it's food allergies, whether it's specific supplementation strategies around whatever an issue a guy might have. So there's kind of layers to it. There's sort of a team-based program of, you know, we're going to have, you know, on a given day, like today, where we have practice, we're going to have a breakfast, we're going to have a lunch. We're flying out today for a game for tomorrow. So on the plane, there'll be like a

lunch or late lunch meal. And then when players get in tonight, where we're going in Anaheim, tonight, they'll be on their own. Sometimes we'll have a team meal just depending on schedules. And so the nutritionist sort of coordinates all of that and make sure that the general, you know, macronutrient ratios and what's kind of available is, you know, appropriate and healthy. And then again, within that sort of layers on an individual basis, then it's sort of dialing things in kind of one by one, as far as what guys need and how much and how much they really, how much help they really want, right? Again, you might have a veteran 10 years in the league, they're dialed, they know what they they're doing they know exactly what they need to eat they have a family at home they cook for themselves or you have a 22

year old rookie that's you know never lived on his own two totally different scenarios right so it's being able to kind of manage all of those different people and personalities yeah how much influence do you have on this stuff say ahl echl West Coast Leagues, like whatever the system is to actually getting up into the NHL. How much control do you have kind of as that degree of separation gets larger and larger into the lower leagues? Yeah, a lot at our American Hockey League. So the AHL is, you know, the AAA, the farm club level for the National Hockey League.

So we're fortunate that our American Hockey League team is in Tucson, which is about an hour club level for the National Hockey League. So we're fortunate that our American Hockey League team is in Tucson, which is about an hour and a half from where we're at. So our staff down there is very much part of our staff here. Our nutritionist bounces back and forth between the two organizations and spends a lot of time down there. We have a head strength coach down there. And so what we really strive to do is have the systems in place in the American Hockey League be as seamless as they are here. So if a player, you know, the example is if a player does get called up from Tucson to come up and play a game or practice with us, the, you know, the post-practice nutrition that they're used to, right, that they have the same type of shake ready for them. They have the same supplements available to them. They're training the same way, even though our

schedules might be a little bit different. You know, they're, they're going to be familiar with the split squat that we're going to do or trap our jumps or however we're going to warm up. So while our coaches and our team in Tucson have autonomy, it's still within the same system. So that we're, we're trying to be as seamless as possible between the two teams within the same organization. Yeah. If I were to change this to going back to the early days over at MBSC, how – if there's a coach coming up and finding a mentor,

did you go through the internship program with Boyle? Yeah. Man, I feel like all of the NCAA strength coaches and most of the professional strength coaches came through that program. Just in your journey and getting to the NHL and having some sustainability and keeping your job there, which likely isn't the easiest thing in the world, considering it's such a high and high demand for every strength coach. How much of like just finding a mentor, finding a system, something that's reputable in that coming up process, like how instrumental has that been over the course of time to just have somebody

like Boyle that you can, you can look back on an experience and know that you have like a really solid mentor slash friend slash system that you grew up in to, to have the confidence to, to move forward. It's, it's everything to be honest with you. I mean, I, I wholeheartedly owe coach Boyle uh every every job I've gotten every step of my career um he's been instrumental from you know day one walking in you know being offered an internship being able to to learn there and start there and you know even to this role here you know in the hockey world specifically coach Boyle is very influential it's you know 30 years at boston university um

10 years with the boston bruins um he's very much a you know in he's a trainer now he went to boston college okay like you're a hockey it's a hockey center so it's it's interesting he'll talk about how you know he had players that he trained who are now general managers and coaches in the national hockey league and my gm my GM is no exception to that. So when this role was on the table and there was an interview process and et cetera, et cetera, I mean, my GM contacted Coach Boyle to look for candidates. And so having a mentor like that is super influential.

But it's also, I can't stress enough how, how helpful it was to have a system, a reputable system, like the one that is performed at MBSC to learn in as a young coach, because one of the things that that allows you to do allowed me to do is learn how to coach. I didn't have to at the early stage, I wasn't learning how to write programs or I was learning how to, but I wasn't responsible for that. I was responsible for implementing the program, learn how to coach. And at the end of the day, if you can't relate to the athlete, can't communicate, um, can't build trust, you can't coach. So learning how to do that in a system that, you know, was going to run really well, whether or not I was there, um, was really helpful because

then I could lean on that as having, um, having a, um, a foundation to my coaching style. And although what I do now is probably, um, you know, not exactly what MBSC is going to look like. Um, you'd probably be able to look back and look at my program and look at their program and see a lot of similarities. And so I've branched off and learned how to do my own thing and over the last 15 years and, and, uh, you know, but coming from that scenario where I could learn the nuts and bolts and I knew what worked and I just had to implement it and coach it and learn how to coach it and then start to learn how to program and how, how to change things and how to manipulate things and how to adjust. Um, so yeah, hugely influential to my career. Can you expand on that on, on what's, what's different

with your, the current version of yourself compared to 15 years ago? Like what, what did you keep that's very similar and what has like radically changed over the years? Yeah. I don't know that anything has radically changed, but there's, there's little pieces, right? Just the, the formatting of my off season training week, right. Is, uh, you know, typically I'm going to have a, all things considered a Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday split with a Wednesday regen day, you know, MBSC would typically run a Monday through Thursday and my upper and lower body kind of emphasis days would be different. And I will probably implement more isometric and eccentric, uh, training blocks than, you know, maybe they would, uh, or Mike would, um, I think they still Olympic lift quite

a bit. Um, I, we don't anymore. Um, I did for a really long time again, still really like Olympic lifting. Think it's really beneficial. Doesn't fit in my scenario really well. Um, we're both big proponents of unilateral strength and, you know, the rear foot elevated split squat being a kind of a standard, but I've pushed the envelope a lot harder from a loading standpoint with the

safety bar where we'll routinely have guys at, you know, 400 pounds. I had guys when I worked in the college setting, well over 500 pounds in that exercise. I don't think coach Boyle would totally agree. And you certainly wouldn't see anything like that in his setting. So those are things that are, you know, they are things that are cousins of each other, right? Similar movement patterns, but the way we're going about them are probably a little bit different.

Well, you said you have a guy doing 500-pound rear foot elevated split squats. Is that what you just said? Oh, yeah. I've never seen anyone do a 500-pound rear foot elevated. That's incredible. 500-pound back squats, weird enough. Yeah. Yeah. i've got

some good videos of guys when i worked in college and so the college setting college hockey is fantastic from a development standpoint because you play friday saturday night so you've got all week and i was really lucky where i was at umass lowell that training was a really big component of who we were we were as a as a program the coach valued it very highly I had a lot of autonomy I could really really put and I had kids that wanted to work like it was a culture where the kids that we had at that school like they wanted to work so we did some wild stuff in the weight room back then the things that I you know you can't do in the NHL and certainly wouldn't I wouldn't put that much load on a guy that makes $9 million a year. That would be a quick recipe for me to lose my job if something went wrong. But in the college

setting, you could really push the envelope. And, but even here, I mean, you know, we, I think we do a good job of towing that line between, you know, pushing the envelope from a development standpoint and maybe getting outside the box a little bit from what's traditionally been done in hockey at this level um but but also trying to be smart about it like yeah intelligent about what we're doing and you know we had a guy just yesterday rfe 335 for four sets of two like no big deal um and no need to go heavier than that for that player that that's strong enough as he's on sort of a rehab kind of continuum. But again, we've got guys that train and want to work. The rehab program of the 430-pound rear foot elevated split squat.

I like that. If you're wondering what the freaks in the NHL look like. Yeah, exactly. I'd imagine the strongest, strong enough differs from lower body to upper body like lower body and hockey is much more important than upper body strength certainly you need to be a well-rounded athlete and be strong everywhere etc etc but um what do you consider to be strong enough for the most part for lower body versus strong enough for the most part for the upper body on average yeah so again i'll especially for the lower body since we are prioritizing speed

development as sort of a layer number one in our programming um and what we're looking at for us if you're the way we measure so we don't ever like one rep max guys but we'll use uh gym aware to do velocity force velocity profile and estimate one r. So with our system, if guys can split squat 2.3 times their body weight, then we find that to be strong enough from the standpoint of stronger than that, um, doesn't influence speed development. It might still be necessary for a player, depending on what they need. If they're a big, heavy physical defenseman, stronger might be better for that piece. But for speed, it's about two to 2.3 times your body weight as an estimated one RM. Upper body is a little bit more cut and dry. Like we like to see bench press over 1.2

times your body weight, which is, is nothing that's extraordinary, but it's a relatively strong upper body for these guys. It's not a, there's less of an upper body strength component to ice hockey, especially in today's game where it's very much more speed and skill dominated. We like to see upper body pulling. So chin up be equal to, or better than their whatever their estimated one RM from a bench press standpoint.

So those are some of the kind of the thresholds that we look for from a strength standpoint that's body weight plus hanging weight off you so you're 200 pounds and you bench 240 you got to hang 40 pounds from you to do a pull-up is that what you basically said yeah total yeah total weight in the pull-up versus you know the just the bar weight one rm on the bench press yo that's all i'm curious about i'm not i'm not familiar with hockey never played hockey etc when you said broken feet earlier that caught me off guard broken fingers i could kind of see is that like from like hitting sticks or that type of thing like slamming into each other but where did the broken feet come from yeah blocking shots a lot of times um you'll get you'll get broken

broken toes or um yeah, different things like that. The puck only weighs, you know, I think it's six ounces, but it's frozen. And when guys can shoot 100 miles an hour and, you know, a big part of the game is trying to not let the puck get to your goalie, so blocking shots can be an important piece. But unfortunately, even as good as all the equipment is, a puck coming off a frozen piece of rubber at 100 miles an hour can do it's a bullet it's a bullet it's a bullet yeah it's an actual bullet weighs ounces it'll kill you uh um yeah that's uh it's really painful yeah

i don't know why i was a goalie and I always thought my, my players that would block the shots were idiots. I'm like, I have all this equipment. We're doing you a favor. Yeah. I mean, it's, I appreciate it, but, um, when you, a couple of times you've mentioned in the beginning of the show, kind of in your, in your, um, your, your history of coaching, the, the idea of performance and then reconditioning and getting people out of whatever, you know, off the injured reserve list or off whatever injuries they have and getting them back on the ice. Can you kind of dig through some of the things that you're thinking about when you're in that reconditioning piece? I feel like those, the idea of performance and then injury prevention

slash rehab are kind of on the opposite ends of the spectrum. Can you, can you dig into that? Yeah. And that's really, that's really how I look at, you know, from, from rehab to performance training, they're just different. They're the same. They're just different ends of the spectrum, the same spectrum. Right. So if a player is, you know, has a, you know, an ACL tear, they're on a rehab from ACL, their early stage rehab might just be, you know, literally passive flexion extension, you know, range of motion of the knee with the physical therapist, you know, physically moving them through range of motion. And you go all the way down the spectrum and we're doing, you know, power development work and it's, it's, you know, trap bar deadlift jumps, um, with, you know, whatever, a hundred, you know, a hundred pounds on the bar or something like that. And it's still flexion extension of the

knee joint, right? It's just different loads, different velocity. So rehab to training to me is just different points on a continuum. So that, that reconditioning piece that um that you know when i was in new jersey was a specific you know role that i oversaw um it's really just the it's kind of the middle area of that continuum it's bridging the gap it's the player is now you know sort of beyond early stage rehabilitation but they're not physically prepared yet um for. So that some gray area in the middle where you're sort of, it's really kind of a collaboration with the medical group, medical staff, physical therapists into, you know, strengthening, conditioning, and then onto the ice from a practice standpoint. And it's just filling the gaps and wherever they're at. And sometimes it's early on in that process. It's

really just about, you know, um, the, the medical staff is still working from a rehab standpoint on the specific injury and my role or that person's role or that area of the program is, is sort of train everything else and keep them as fit and as strong, or even spend some time developmentally while they can't play a practice. Well, let's get some better upper body strength to train. And then as it, it shifts towards, you know, from a timeframe towards, um, getting closer to returning to on ice, you know, it's, it's, it's almost becomes more of like a, uh, late off season sort of programming standpoint. And now we're starting to reincorporate what, you know,

performance training would kind of traditionally look like as we led up to, you know, training camp. And then basically that player's training camp is now returned to on the ice and returned to practice. And then those types of things. Especially during the playoffs, but even during the regular season, hockey players are very much known for just dealing with absurd injuries and then taping it up and heading back out there. Um,

how much of a role do you have in walking up to coach, athletic trainer, physical therapist, whoever it isn't going, look, the dude's got a broken leg. He's not supposed to be out there. He's not supposed to be playing anymore.

Like he just went knee on knee and tours ACL. And of course he wants to go play, but taping, this is not a good idea. Um, that I feel like in your role, as much as your job is to, you know, get people healthy, get them out there. Like it's not easy to tell a hockey player to sit on the bench. Yeah, no question. I currently in, in my current role here, uh, thankfully I'm not the one that has to, has to pull those reins a lot of times the medical staff's, uh, side of things and the head athletic trainer, who's really kind of the, the, the one responsible for, for managing acute injury and making the decision really around those things

and pulling the plug and, you know, pulling a player off or not allowing them back on and those types of things. Fortunately, you know, I think in the National Hockey League, like those, those lines of communication are very set in stone. So when the athletic trainer makes a decision, they have the, you know, the basically the legal autonomy to say that and, and there's, you know, there can't be any sort of, there can be pushback, I'm sure from the coaching staff or management or whoever, or the player. But at the end of the day, they, they have that level of authority that they get to call that. So which is,

which is a really important piece to keep people safe and healthy because you're right. Players want to play and they're going to push through things and some things can be pushed through, you know, in certain scenarios and some things can't and having somebody that has that that ultimate you know kind of light switch is yeah yeah i can just see them coming to be like look coach i just did some rear foot elevated split squats i'm good send me out it's like you don't have an acl right now no stop we know it's the playoffs, but you're done. You got to sit down. How do you, like, I guess, how does that relationship work? If you're kind of sitting

at the top of the strength conditioning side and you have a medical director and you've got, you know, the multitude of other positions, how does the communications work, um, kind of between all the people sitting really at the top of their own, um, division and then, you know, creating a very successful program, uh, to keep people healthy, keep them strong, keep them fast. Yeah. I mean, you know, from an organizational flow chart perspective, I guess, you know, I sit on top of kind of the performance group and our, our head athletic trainers sits on top of the medical group. Um, and so, you know, again, from a flow chart standpoint, you know, he and I communicate back and forth and, and, um, then communicate up the chain to the coaching staff

and management ownership, um, on a day-to-day basis. I mean, we work in collaboration together. We're all one group behind the scenes, you know, whatever our roles and titles are. So it's a very collaborative approach. And there's some times where I lead and I'm sort of leading the charge or my department is, and there's other times where the medical side is leading the charge. And so it's just about communication and knowing sort of, you know, who's, who's on deck, uh, in what scenario and at what time and kind of who gets to make the ultimate kind of call in whatever that scenario is. But it's, it's really just about communication. Yeah. Um, one of my favorite questions to ask people that hang out with the freakiest athletes in the world is what is the freakiest thing you've ever seen on the ice or in the weight room? Um, besides a 500 pound rear

foot elevated split split squat. That's about as freaky as I've, I've heard. That's really, that's really strong. That was, that was freaky seeing some guys do that. And, and honestly, that the craziest thing about that was, um, and it was like multiple guys. When I worked in the college settings, we had some settings we had some we had some freaks there but they they would like they would do it and then walk out of the rack and it was like like nothing like yeah just front squatted 135 like you just warmed up like it was like crazy um i i've seen i have seen uh i've seen players throw uh inadvertently throw the safety bar off their back doing that because they're able to create so much power,

which is both freaky and terrifying to think. Back legs back there. Back leg is over if this goes south. So again, yeah, that was freaky seeing that once or twice. Definitely made corrections around that problem. On the ice, man, you see stuff. Yeah, I bet in practice there's some real freaky stuff. Really, like, some of the best players in the game that are so fast and explosive,

but can also, like, if you don't know hockey, if you're not a hockey person, you wouldn't be able to appreciate the the the stick skills that these players have and that the technical ability that they have on the ice it's just wild yeah and then to see that you know up close to to be able to stand or sit you know in the corner right along the glass and see the game be played at 25 miles an hour and and these guys be able to do the things they can do with the puck is just it's it's yeah every day to be honest i feel like there was a big transition in the league like three or four years ago where i started to notice like a large chunk of the game is played like six inches off the ice now like guys are their hand-eye coordination and and the speed at which they

play at is so uh skilled that they're just they're playing the game off the ice now. It's like, if it's on the ice, it's not, you're not going to score a goal because the goalies are too big. And I think the second one really, you know, it's like a testament to the strength and conditioning programs that everyone's on. But also it's terrifying

because they're playing the game so fast. And I feel like every day I turn on YouTube and it's like, guy gets hit on boards and his whole body collapses. Like they're so big, they're so fast. They've outgrown the rink, in my opinion, that we need to move to an Olympic sized rink and like give the guys the extra three feet on each side because they're just so big and so fast. And it's your fault you're doing a great job but also like there's people's lives out there it's terrifying to me yeah no you're right i mean the game has gotten faster and bigger um especially over the last you know

10 or 15 years it's really changed you know strength and conditioning in ice hockey um it's it's come a long ways in the last 30 years 30 years ago it probably didn't really exist i mean that's when you know you go back to coach boyle is one of the very very first hockey strength coaches it was just it was like bruisers they were just went out and fought everybody and yeah whoever was the meanest one it was a very different game it's just so much faster and so much more skilled now. And guys are just – you're right. Guys are just bigger. You've got just bigger humans out there.

Yeah. I mean, like, you've got a guy like Char out there. Of course, he's 6'7 or something like that, and you can't get around him. But then, like, he's just – he's so big and so strong. And, like, he just – and he's obviously at the highest end of impossible to get around but you're just like dude ryan reeves like that guy should not be able to skate as fast as he does and beat people up the way that he does he shouldn't be able to score goals and be that size it's it's terrifying to me like to to think that somebody like that could take a run at you and just

be as powerful and as strong as he is. Yeah. It's pretty wild. Um, dude, I'm so stoked. We got to make this happen and, we got to get out to Phoenix.

Now we got to go hang out with the hockey players, Doug. Come on out, guys. Come on out. We'll get some tickets for you. There you go. Um,

dude, where can people find you? And, uh, is there anything that you, you do outside of, uh, like programs, products, coaching resources coaching resources yes all the people oh um typical social media i'm on uh twitter and instagram

at d mcconnell 29 for both twitter is probably more of a strength and conditioning professional piece uh instagram's got more pictures of my kids and things like that. And then LinkedIn, same kind of thing professionally. I do have a book that I co-wrote a couple of years ago around sports science. It's called Intent. You can get it at Amazon or kind of wherever. So if you look up my name and the book Intent, if you're interested in kind of the sports science angle of things. So yeah, that's kind of where you can, where you can find me and what I've got. Very cool. How's the team look this year? We're good. We're it's early in the year. We're, we're in a rebuilding process.

So we've got a handful of young up and coming guys. We've got a handful of older vets trying to, you know, help lead and teach guys along the way. So yeah, it's we've got our growing pains, but guys are working hard and we're moving in the right direction. I love it. Doug Larson. You bet. On Instagram,

Douglas C. Larson. Devin, appreciate you coming on the show, dude. That was fun. Awesome. Travis MASH is in Ecuador right now,

but you can go ahead over to mashleet.com or mashleetperformance.com. I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We are barbell shrugged at barbell underscore shrug. Make sure you head over to diesel dad,performance.com. I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner. We are Barbell Shrugged at barbell underscore shrugged. Make sure you head over to dieseldadmentorship.com where all the busy dads are getting strong, lean, and athletic. And get over to Walmart. We are in the performance nutrition section

in 2,200 plus stores. We have three products on the shelf. We partner with New Vitality. You can download the Pro-T Challenge by heading over to proteachallenge.com and get into Walmart. We've got three products in the performance nutrition section. That's right next to the Pharmacy.

2,200 stores. So if you're out of Walmart and you don't see my face on a box, that means you need to go to a cooler Walmart and support your boy. Pro-TChallenge.com. Friends, we'll see you guys next week.