Mick Unplugged - Andrew Spruill | Elevating Athletic Performance - Mick Unplugged [EP 12]

Episode Date: May 2, 2024

In this enlightening conversation, Mick Hunt delves into Andrew Spruill's journey from military service to becoming a trailblazer in sports performance training. Andrew shares his unique perspective on training, emphasizing the critical aspects of consistency, nutritional focus, and mental well-being. His approach enhances athletic performance and fosters personal growth and resilience in athletes, setting a new standard in the field.Andrew Spruill's Background: He transitioned from Air Force discipline to becoming a pivotal figure in athletic training, shaping the future of numerous athletes across various sports.Defining Moments: Andrew's approach to training underscores the importance of dedication, adaptability, and a holistic view of athlete development.Discussion Topics:The influence of military discipline on Andrew's training philosophy.Key insights into developing athletic prowess, emphasizing the importance of consistency, nutrition, and mental health.Innovative training methodologies, including velocity-based training and specific speed work tailored to individual sports.Key Quotes:"Being reliable and willing to learn can set you apart in any field.""Specialization in sports is a double-edged sword; developing a broad athletic foundation is essential."Next Steps:Connect: Follow Andrew Spruill on social media and explore his website for cutting-edge training insights.Reflect: Consider how discipline, consistency, and mental focus can elevate your performance in any area of life.Engage: Share your thoughts on the episode using #MickUnplugged and discuss how you can apply Andrew's principles to your athletic or personal development journey. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Are you ready to change your habits, sculpt your destiny, and light up your path to greatness? Welcome to the epicenter of transformation. This is Mic Unplugged. We'll help you identify your because, so you can create a routine that's not just productive, but powerful. You'll embrace the art of evolution, adapt strategies to stay ahead of the game, and take a step toward the extraordinary. So let's unleash your potential. Now, here's Mick. Welcome to another exciting episode of Mick Unplugged, where we dive deeper into your why to really get fueled by your because. And today we have a very special episode.

From serving our country in the Air Force to shaping the future of athletes across why to really get fueled by your because. And today we have a very special episode. From serving our country in the Air Force to shaping the future of athletes across multiple sports. Today's guest has transformed dedication and knowledge into unparalleled success. Training over 300 NFL combine prospects, including 51 first round picks and guiding hundreds of high school athletes to achieve their D1 dreams. He's not just a coach, but a pivotal force in the athletic world. He set a new standard in sports training. We're about to dive deep into the world of athletic and mental preparation

with my guests, none other than Mr. Andrew Sproul. Andrew, welcome to the show, my brother. How are you? Good. That was a crazy intro. That was good. It's you, man. That is what Andrew Sproul. Andrew, welcome to the show, my brother. How are you? Good. That was a crazy intro. That was good. It's you, man. That is what Andrew Sproul is all about. I could do it no other justice than to do it that way. That was great. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me. That is awesome. I'm glad that you were here, man. First and foremost, thank you for your service. I know that a lot of people sometimes take that for granted, man. But like, I really appreciate the sacrifices that you personally made and that everyone that surrounds you has made for our safety and for us to do the things that we do. So, again, thank you for your service.

I appreciate it, man. We'll dive into that part of my life. But that was definitely a necessary chapter that I need. Let's do it. So you needed it. Talk to me about why you needed that part of your life. Why did that help shape who you are today? Man, I was right out of high school. I was enrolled in college, didn't take school nearly as serious as I should have when I was in high school, just kind of floated by, stayed eligible to play sports. And then after that, it's like, oh shoot, I probably should have done a little bit more because I'm just like out here not knowing what the heck I want to do.

The real world is touching the face kind of hard. Hey, quick, fast. It doesn't wait for anybody. You know, I talked to my dad. I was like, dude, I got to do something. I can't do college. I just can't do it. I'm just going to be honest with you.

And he was in the Navy for four years. And he's like, I mean, you can look into the military. But if you do, he's like, you got to go Air Force. I'm not letting you go in the other branch. Air Force is kind of known for having the best bases, best jobs, best quality of life. So I went to recruiter, pretty much joined within a week. And I left three months later. I mean, it helped me a lot. It shaped me, responsibility, accountability, being on time. All those things are non-negotiable in the military. You have to do it. You got to be on time. You have to learn your job in a timely manner or there's serious consequences. You can't just quit. You can't quit the military. You're in. They literally make you adapt to those things. That's what I needed. and did four years of that

kind of found my love for working out and fitness while I was in I kind of wanted to you know make a life in that industry so if my four years was up I decided to get out and pursue that and then that's when I met Tony Vellani I came to FAU down in Boca to do my exercise science degree and that's what I met Tony who owns XP Sports. And I did an internship with him and I ended up working with him for 10 years. Wow. So making that leap from the Air Force to interning with Tony must have been a significant thing in your life. What core principles or core skills from your military background helped you

the most with that transition? And that's what it was too. I mean, I couldn't have, if I met Tony when I was 19 out of high school, I wouldn't have grabbed that opportunity. There's no way. I knew nothing about performance industry or the training industry. I taught myself how to lift weights and I did a pretty good job of doing that when I was in the Air Force. I didn't realize there was a whole world of athlete training outside of the team. I didn't realize that. So I'm looking at him training these guys in the off season. And I was like, man, this is definitely something I want to do. For me, it was just showing up every day, you know, and I was on volunteer internship status.

I wasn't really getting paid. Just being there. He was giving the times and days they were training. I'd show up as much as possible and just kind of being reliable, showing a willingness to learn and things like that. I've had kids that I train come up to me and ask me when they get done playing sports, they're like, what did you do to start your business? Or what did you do to get hired? And I'm like, just show up on time and just show some sort of willingness to learn and be consistent. And you'll be surprised just how much the people who you work for will keep you around and retain you if you just do that. You don't have to be necessarily the best worker or the smartest one there, but if you can be reliable and show up

every day on time, they'll probably keep you around. That's awesome. And you've trained thousands of people, not just athletes, but also I know in the military, that was a part of your job function as well too. And I always say this, great people, I don't care if you're an athlete, if you're a business leader, if you're the everyday person at your job, mindset is usually the biggest separator because everyone wants to be great, but very few people actually take the action to get there. From your viewpoint in training thousands of athletes, right, or thousands of people, what do you see as like the top two things that great people do that average people don't do? It's a good question. The great ones that I've been around, and it goes back to the willingness to learn, never acted like they knew everything. Never. Never. We were talking about 10 to 12 year

pro athletes who are sitting there listening and learning and doing basic drills like everybody else. Not once ever asked hey, what are we doing tomorrow? If we're doing this, I'm probably not going to show up. Never a conversation. Showing up

every day. No matter what the workout is, no matter what we're doing, doesn't matter if it's the basic drills, if we're doing some more advanced stuff, they're in it. They're in the mix every day. No questions asked. And, you know, that's not to say that nobody can ask questions. Anyone's more than welcome to say, Hey, what's this drill for? What are we working on? How does this help? No problem. You know, we can explain that, but the greatest ones with the most athletic ability and the most talent still came into training. Like it was their first day. They had something to prove. Yeah. Always that, that chip never ends. What are some attributes of average people that you see

showing up every other day, being late, going a week or two hard looking like, all right, this guy, I think this guy's finally going to turn a corner. Boom, disappears for a week. Where's this guy at? No one knows. Okay. Drop it in every now and then. Not really having that attentiveness during training, just kind of floating through it. Like I said, the great ones are there every day, willing to learn, no questions asked, never miss. If they do miss, they tell you, okay, taking the fam on vacation for a week. I'll be back next Mondayay all right fine they don't just disappear like hey where's this guy at i don't know nobody knows down in miami i think he was in miami for a party and he stays down there for three or four days just hung over you know

like the legendary guys don't you don't hear that from them they're coming back they go down for that party in miami they're driving right back up they're gonna make the session that next day but uh yeah it's just but like in general it just, there's no consistency in the average ones, you know, floating through workouts, stuff like that, you know, stuff that everybody knows. Everyone knows what average people do and everyone knows what it takes to get above average. We all know it. It's just a matter of if you want to do it or not. And that's the same thing for people. Again, I don't care if you're a salesperson. I don't care if you're an accountant, if you're a leader, if you're not consistent, if you can't make the mundane, almost boring and in routine, if you can't make that routine,

it's going to be hard because there are days you don't want to do it, but you got to get your butt up and go do it. The training that your sales leader wants you to go to that you decide, eh, I'm just going to half butt it today. It's going to show in the results, but yet everyone wants to be a millionaire. Everyone wants to be a first round pick. Everyone wants to be the next one in the line of promotion, but you don't want to do the same things that have to be done every single day. And that goes for all levels too. You know, I'm talking about high school kids too. I've got kids that train almost year-round, in-season, off-season, spring break, winter break. They make it happen as much as they can. They're a little different because they've got a lot more going on, school, social life, stuff like that than a pro athlete might. I've got kids that show up all the time. Then I've

got ones that just kind of drop in. They're not really on a consistent plan. They just come in every couple of weeks. Yeah. I was going to say, so, so for some of the high school kids and athletes listening, you're saying, Andrew, I can't just show up like every other Sunday with a group of my buddies when it's cool to be there because we have a 7-7 next week. I hate it. I hate it when I've got these kids that I know and I like them and they'll message me, hey, I'm coming in this Saturday. I'll see you then and I'll see you in three months. What are we doing? There's got to be, you can't, if you're listening, you can't just pick and choose when you want to do these things. If you're going to commit to, this goes for anything, but I'm talking about our student athlete performance training, but it goes for anything.

If you're going to do something to do it, like you can't just have your toes in the water and then out for a month. Like it's gotta be like, you really want results. You got to really commit to it. And I had a parent text me one time. I'd seen that I hadn't seen the kid in forever. She was like, Hey, uh, so-and-so's off this Friday for a holiday. We were thinking about coming in for a workout. Are you available? And I just said, no. My workouts aren't something you just drop into to burn some calories. It's offensive when people text me shit like that. You drop into an Orange Theory class. You drop into kickboxing. You drop into spin classes. You

don't drop into sports performance classes. There's progressions to what we do. If you're doing private sessions with me, I need you to commit to a certain amount of sessions up front. We're going to go through the progressions. It just isn't like I hate it when I'm getting worse and worse as I get older. Not worse, but I'm getting better at telling those people no. I'm just not doing it. We're just wasting both of our time. I wonder if this parallels to you, Andrew, because I own a consulting firm and a executive coaching firm. When a prospect or someone's interviewing for me to be their coach, when they're a little too gung ho and they're telling me what I, what they think I want to hear, I can pick that up really quick versus the one

that comes in and they ask a lot of questions. They have a notebook and they want to know a plan and they want to know, you know, the why behind the why and the science behind certain things. Those are the ones that I know I'm going to work with. I can filter through the fluff really quick when you're a little too overly excited to work with me. And it's like you see the success or you want to be a part of something.

But when I start asking you about commitment and when I start asking you about what are you doing behind the scenes and you start stuttering a little bit, I already know really quickly, you're not my kind of person. Do you see that on your end too? Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty evident typically upfront what kind of commitment and what kind of client and athlete they're going to be. With student athletes, it's sometimes can be, some of them are a little unassuming sometimes because they're so young, you know, 13, 14, 15, 16 years old. So, you know, you kind of, obviously you want to give them, you give them a chance to show who they are, but it doesn't take that long for someone to show who they are. It happens pretty quick.

If you get a kid that says, all right, I'm coming to train Monday, and I think this is something I want to do. If they want to do it, they come Monday, they'll be back Tuesday. Or they'll be back Wednesday, Thursday. They'll be back a couple times that week. If they do it on Monday and I don't hear from them again until the next week, it's like, okay, you're going to be one of those that's going to be every other week. I get it now. It's quickly evident who you are. I just started with a girl.

She's committed to the University of Miami for soccer. And she leaves this summer. She's going to start getting ready for her preseason. And she showed up last Tuesday just to check it out. She had a showcase this weekend. So she was going to do kind of her trial session. And then she was going to start training this week after her showcase. Or dad texted me right after the Tuesday session.

He's like, hey, she's coming back tomorrow. She doesn't want to wait till next week to get another session. And even though she has a showcase this weekend, I know she starts tomorrow for good. She's going to be here every day. I already know. I can tell. They make it pretty apparent pretty quick who they're going to be. I love it.

And so I want to dive deep into that a little bit because, you know, we talked about NFL, we talked about high school sports, but you train in like 20 different sports, right? Probably 20 plus sports. How do you adapt your approach to meet the diverse needs of all of the athletes that you're working with? Because they're all not the same, right? You know, as far as the speed and the agility and the strength goes, for the most part, it's all pretty relative. If you're talking about general speed work, agility, strength, especially that middle school, high school age, any sort of strength and sprinting work is going to go a long way, whether you play football, basketball, soccer, lacrosse, tennis, volleyball.

Now, at some point, the more advanced and the more you grow as in levels, college, especially pro, you probably have to dial back and be like, all right, we need to do a little extra of this on the side because you play this sport. If you're a pro and, you know, I got like a couple of pro basketball players that play overseas, they'll be back in May. They'll train together. So straight, straight basketball specific speed and agility, vertical jump, stuff like that. But for the most part, I mean, working with just all the different types of athletes and personalities, that's something that I kind of had to get better at quickly when I started, you know, 14 years ago. That was never something I ever had to deal with, you know. So that's something I just learned over the years to, you know, kind of just learn how to get along with all kinds of different people and parents. One, a long time ago, I read when a trainer had posted something about going into every session with the mindset that I'm going to like this person and that this is going to be a good client.

And I started doing that and actually really started helping, you know, because sometimes you don't know what they're going to be like. And you start telling yourself, oh, man, I hope this is a good kid. I hope they work hard. I hope I like them. Maybe you start to doubt it. But then if you say, hey, you're going to like this person. They're going to be a good athlete for you. It's going to work out.

I started doing that more often, going into every intro and new clientele session. And that really started helping me, I think, get along better with the athletes. Good stuff. So you talked about these parents, man. What are parents doing wrong in 2024? Some of it isn't all their fault, but the first thing that always comes to my mind when we talk about this is like the club sports and the AAU and the seven on sevens. It's just like, it's too much. Club volleyball, club soccer, probably travel baseball, probably the worst, probably the top three worst.

Really? Yeah, because you're talking about travel baseball, they're playing year-round. Club volleyball, they're playing year-round. Club soccer, they're playing year-round. They don't stop. And it's like pro soccer players don't even play year-round. Pro baseball players don't play year-round. They can't.

Why are we making these kids, I'm talking like seven, eight years old, up to all the way through 17, 18. And it's like, they don't have to do it, but if they don't, they're going to find someone else just to take their spot on that club and they're not going to be able to come back to it. So then if you really want to be a high-end soccer player, what are you supposed to do? Not do it when everyone around you is playing. So it's a hard thing to juggle. I don't even know what the answer is to it. I read that there's some, I think it was like Norway or Finland or something like that, doesn't even allow those things to happen. Like club sports aren't allowed to operate year-round. It's mandatory to have like two to three month breaks at some point. That's

probably the only solution because I mean, these clubs are really just money grabs. Obviously, these coaches know these kids don't need to play year round. But if you're going to get three to 400 soccer girls to pay for your club year round, why wouldn't you do it? But two things happen when that's the case, right? Number one, you can't give your body time to develop and be the body it's supposed to be, right? one you can't give your body time to develop and and be the body it's supposed to be right like you can't train and work on something when you're continuously doing your sport year round and then the second thing that i see and we're starting to see this especially in the nba folks can't play a full season anymore because for 15 years prior to

them becoming an athlete a professional, they were playing 300 days out of the year. And it doesn't allow them to play other sports either, which, I mean, you look at some of the best athletes played lots of sports. LeBron James did. Patrick Mahomes did. Travis Kelsey did. All those guys were like all state in like three different sports all through high school. And you find out what you're really good at, right? You find out, yeah, I've been on this basketball track forever, but I'm a pretty doggone good football player. And then, but you know, when you're playing the same sport for your whole life year round, it's not good to just move because you're only moving in certain ways in that sport. You know, if you're only playing tennis, you know, it would be great for you to also go play soccer or something so you can get more of that that long field running and tennis. You're just you're in that little box, just little things like that. Your body gets to be opened up to so many different movements and different athletic abilities. You're really limiting yourself when you only play one sport. But, you know, what are you going to do? It's the specialization era, everyone's specializing. So I've got kids that played soccer all year round

in these clubs since they were seven, eight years old that ended up getting division one scholarship. So there's, there are a lot of success stories to it, but I mean, ideally we wouldn't be playing year round, but I just don't know what the solution is. Question for you as the advancement of technology influence how you train. Oh yeah. I do a lot of what the solution is. Question for you, has the advancement of technology influenced how you train? Oh yeah. I do a lot of velocity-based training now with the bar speeds. So instead of, this is just one example, instead of just lifting weight to lift it, we're measuring how fast you're moving it now. That's a big thing I think in the sports performance industry is how fast you're moving a particular

weight kind of determines how much weight you should be lifting. You know, it's like they measure in meters per second. So if you're moving something over one meter per second, that's, that's a fast movement. So that's a speed, that's a speed session. If you really want to go heavy in strength, you should be moving something like under 0.5 meters per second. And so that's, yeah, it's a big velocity based is what it's called based on how fast you move something. Also with sprinting, we measure our sprints in 10 yard increments with different head starts. So five yard head start into a 10 yard fly, 15 yard head start into a 10 yard fly, 25 yard head start into a 10 yard fly. that's measured in every aspect of your sprint. So we know where you're deficient and where you're good. If you got a bad start,

that five-yard head start into a 10-yard fly is going to be bad. But if you have good backhand speed, that 25-yard head start into your 10 is going to be good. So that's a big thing that we started doing at XPE probably about 10 years ago. Instead of having to run a 40 every single day, we measure their different areas of their 40-yard dash, and we know which ones they need to work on to get faster. That's freaking impressive. So I'm going to get you out here on two questions. Number one, looking ahead, what do you see as the biggest opportunities or challenges in the athletic training? Oh, I would say at some point, I think right now is everybody is really learning how to train straight ahead speed. It's kind of like the blueprints out there. I'm not saying it's not hard, but there's a lot of trainers out there that offer a lot of free stuff on Instagram and things like that. Good ones that you can really, really learn how to train that straight ahead speed and really get explosive and fast. Now the challenge is in team sports, you're not ever moving in a straight line very often.

So how do you train to be so fast, but also be able to train someone to know how to harness it during a game? And that's where I think a lot of trainers get challenged is, okay, we call it game speed. How do you train for game speed? We're doing, you know, we're doing all this explosive and fast sprinting. Okay. But what are they going to do? And they get in the game when you're not just running in a straight line. So I think that's, that's a big thing right now is that game speed training that everyone's starting to talk about. So I would say that's like the biggest thing that everyone's starting to talk about. And then getting you out of here on this, if you could give three pieces of advice to the listeners, whether they're a high school athlete, college athlete, business owner, salesperson, what's three things that people should start doing right now to either mentally or physically get better, be better?

As an athlete, you know, to get better, you need to focus on, I'm going to put these two things together. Your nutrition and sleep, because those are probably the two things that high school and college athletes are the worst at. Absolutely terrible. Diet and sleep. I mean, if you get your diet and sleep on lock, I mean, it just helps you so much in life. Not even your sport, but your social life, your classes, your homework, your grades will probably

turn out better, stuff like that. Start looking at your diet and sleep, how you can help that. I would start, if you're not, as an athlete, if you're not doing it, I would, especially these high school kids, I would start looking at a strength program to get stronger. At that age, just getting stronger in general, and I have this conversation with parents all the time, just getting stronger in general will help you get faster. It'll help you get quicker. It'll help you get more explosive. You don't even – you should, but you don't even have to do a lot of speed work. If you just get stronger, you will become better on the field.

Now, with that being said, nutrition, sleep, strength, conditioning, and I would start looking into how you can be better mentally. This generation of high school kids now and college kids now talk about this mental health thing. It's a big topic amongst that age group. They talk about it all the time. They post about it on social media all the time, but I don't think a lot of them even knows what it is. It's a real thing, but I think it's a trendy topic for them. And I tell them all the time, I'm like, look, all you guys post about how mental health is important for athletes, especially in college, because they get jerked around so much. And a lot of them just feel like they're not even looked at as people. They're just looked at as a number. I get it. I think that's, there's some

truth to that, but you're posting about it, but like, what are you doing outside of the post? Just because you put it on your story doesn't mean you affected somebody. So what does it mean to help someone with their mental health? What does that mean? So I think that's probably the other thing I would say to start looking into as a young athlete, because it's such a hot topic now and it's a real thing. But instead of just posting about it, you need to know what it means. What does it mean to check in on somebody and notice if someone looks like they're struggling? What are you supposed to do? Ladies and gentlemen, my man, Andrew dropped a lot of dimes today. Andrew, I appreciate you more than you know my man. And again, thank you so much for your service. Andrew, where can people find you?

You find me on Instagram, Andrew Spruill underscore my website, gamespeedtrainer.com. Those are probably the best two sources to get ahold of me. Very active on Instagram and I reply quick to the website. So either of those works. Good stuff. Everybody reach out to my man, Andrew, especially if you're in the South Florida area, he is the best. I'm just going to go ahead and put it out there. He is the best of the best, none other than Mr. Andrew Sproul. And remember everyone, your because is your superpower. I'm Lisa. Thanks for listening to Mick Unplugged. We hope this episode helps you take the next step toward the extraordinary and launches a revolution in your life. Don't forget to rate and review the podcast and be sure to check us out on YouTube at Mick Unplugged.

Remember, stay empowered, stay inspired, and stay unplugged.