WHOOP Podcast - Patrick Mahomes’ Road to the Super Bowl with his Personal Coach and Trainer Bobby Stroupe

Episode Date: February 8, 2023

On this week’s episode, Founder and CEO of WHOOP Will Ahmed is joined by training expert Bobby Stroupe. Bobby is the CEO and Founder of Athlete Performance Enhancement Center (APEC) and is the trainer of Super Bowl Champion Patrick Mahomes. Coach Stroupe and his team have worked with and supported over 300 professional athletes across 6 different sports including World Series Champions, Super Bowl Champions, and first-round picks in both the NFL and MLB. Ahead of this weekend’s Super Bowl, Will and Bobby discuss how Bobby works virtually with Patrick throughout the season (4:37), Patrick playing hurt in the AFC Championship game (6:27), Patrick getting injured in the Divisional Round (7:37), Patrick’s strain and recovery data during the week (10:07), tips on how to overcome an injury (12:12), gamifying the offseason training regimen (15:02), different recovery and therapy methods (16:10), how Patrick and Bobby use WHOOP (17:27), Patrick’s WHOOP data on gamedays and getting stronger throughout the season (18:15), Patrick’s weekly training program (25:17), course correcting throughout the week (34:09), talking with other trainers to compare styles (40:37), Patrick’s unique ability to throw the football (45:45), navigating the extra-long halftime during the Super Bowl (49:47), Bobby’s thoughts on the Super Bowl (53:18), and Bobby’s relationship with Eagles QB Jalen Hurts (55:17).Resources:Team APECSupport the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

What's up, folks? Welcome back to the Whoop podcast. I'm your host, Will Amid, founder and CEO of Whoop, and we are on a mission to unlock human performance. All right, it is Super Bowl week, and Patrick Mahomes is in the Super Bowl, longtime Whoop member, friend, investor, and we are going to talk about Patrick Mahom's training, and everything he's, he's, doing to get ready for the Super Bowl this Sunday with Bobby Strupe. Bobby is the CEO and founder of Athlete Performance Enhancement Center. That's APEC.

And he's the trainer, of course, of Super Bowl champion, potentially two-time champ, actually after Sunday, Patrick Mahomes. So Coach Troop and his team have worked with and supported over 300 professional athletes across six different sports, including World Series champions, Super Bowl champions, and first-round draft picks in both the NFL. an MLB. And so I sat down with Bobby to discuss the Mahomes injury in Jacksonville and some of the methods to recover quickly from that. We talked about Patrick's last two weeks of whoop data. So sleep, recovery, strain, how he's been balancing all of that. Bobby talked more

generally about the ABC method, which is his weekly training routine with Patrick Mahomes. Interestingly, they have a whole formula for how to get Patrick fitter over the course of the season, which I thought was really interesting. We talked about gamifying the offseason, some of the things that Bobby does with Woop data, how he'll really run Patrick down in the off season, unlike what he can sometimes do during the week for a big game. We looked at Patrick's WOOP data on games over the course of the season, which was quite interesting. So looking at how recovered he was going into a game. Spoiler, he does a really good job recovering for the day of games.

Bobby talked about learnings from other trainers. So learnings from athletes like Tom Brady, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, and some of the trainers who spoke to have worked with those athletes. We got a little bit into the Eagles, and what Bobby observes is special about the Eagles. And we also talked about Jalen Hertz, who Bobby had actually trained in the past and describes as a real freak athlete in his own right. So overall, a lot to learn from this conversation with Bobby. A quick reminder, if you're new to Whoop, you can use the code Will when you're checking out at WI-L. Get a $60 credit on WOOP accessories. You can go to whoop.com to get started.

Also, if you have a question, you want to see answered on the podcast, email us, podcast to whoop.com. Call us 508-443-4952. And before we dive in with Bobby, I got to say, good luck, Patrick. Good luck, Patrick, Bohomes, and the Chiefs this weekend. I can't wait to see what you're going to do on Sunday. I will be there in Arizona rooting you on. All right, here is Bobby Strupe.

Bobby, welcome to the Whoop podcast. Thanks for having me, Will. It's an honor to jump back on with you. You know, you're a hot guest this week because your man, Patrick Mahomes, is about to compete in the Super Bowl. We're recording this on a Monday. For you now having seen Patrick go through, I don't know how many big epic games, do you, do yourself have a little bit of jitters this week as you're helping him get ready for Sunday or is it business as usual? Oh, there's no question. I'd love to tell you that it's business as usual. but this is the Super Bowl and you know I get anxiety on a normal on a regular basis on game day just like anyone else would but this one it means something obviously so so yeah I'm more excited than nervous I'm sure I'll go back and forth before the game and during the game and all the

days but man it's an exciting week and I'm really really happy that we're at this opportunity you had in Arizona not yet I'll be out Thursday we doing some stuff virtually and and just communicating there. But I'll be out Thursday and try to bring this thing home Sunday night. So that's an interesting question, you know. I mean, obviously there's so much work that you can do with an athlete in person.

But what do you find is the best way to work with Patrick virtually and throughout the season? Talk about that process. Well, you know, we have a really good ecosystem when it comes to just his health performance and player development. You know, the chiefs have such a great support

staff between Rick Berkholder and his sports medicine team and the strength conditioning team and Julie Frymire heading up the rehab and therapy practices there. And then for me, in the off seasons and then filling in some of the things that we like to do during the season outside of those things. So the communication is such that we've got to prioritize football and football's got to be the main thing and keep the main thing, the main thing. So having good communication with all the important people in his life and around him that support his health performance in player development is key. And so right now it's about doing what you can do

and what you need to do to support without adding the stress. And obviously there are things that take priority during the season that are different than training with me. And so a lot of it is about communication. And when we get time to work and there's things we need to do, we absolutely nail that. I got to talk about the epic game over the Bengals. Yeah.

And in particular, the run at the, the end of the game that Patrick had to really get the team within field goal position and ultimately to the win. So I was reading some data on this and Patrick's top speed was like just over 18 miles an hour as he scrambled for that run and ultimately led to the, you know, the penalty that gave him all 15 extra yards. And he's doing that on an injured leg, which obviously you followed really closely. Like, how do you get an athlete in a week's time with a high ankle sprain to be able to run 18 miles an hour under those circumstances?

Well, first off, you have to work with a guy like Patrick Mahomes. So I think that, you know, all credit always goes back to the athlete. He's got an unbelievable pain tolerance. And Patrick is fast. You know, he's hit high 19s and 20 miles per hour in games before. he's one of the most prolific rushing quarterbacks in the history of the NFL. I mean, he's two away from the all-time rushing record for playoff football in touchdowns. Very few people know that his rushing statistics in the playoffs are the best of all time as far as average per rush.

This 18 mile an hour run was remarkable, not just from someone dealing with what he's dealing with. But for anybody to run off a curve and downhill at that point in the game and hit that miles per hour, and only a five-yard game is remarkable. And yes, it was about a 20-yard lead-in, but that's fast no matter what position you are on the field. It was truly remarkable that he was able to do that to basically ice the game. So let's go back to the Jacksonville game.

He gets injured. And at that point, what are you thinking to yourself? Bam. You know, when you're in the stands and you see a play, it's so much different than when you watch the replay because things become very clear exactly what you're dealing with. And as soon as I saw

the replay, I mean, it looked it looked bad. I mean, it looked like a very severe injury. And so immediately, you know, I'm thankful that we've got the support that we have within the Chief's organization and that people right there in real time.

And Julie's got some very well-deserved attention for being so on top of it. and for Julie and Rick to be right there and get on top of the situation immediately was just the best case scenario for Patrick. And being a pro, and I know it's been well documented that he was argumentative about, with Andy about even going to getting it looked at and all those things.

But I just can't, I can't say enough how impressive it was. What they were able to do in that moment and then immediately after the game. And then obviously, when something like that happens for me, I'm immediately thinking, okay, how are we going to change? change our plan, how are we still going to keep these human performance metrics, these strength residuals we know we need to have. Whether you're injured or not, you're still a human being that requires certain things. You need testosterone boost from your training. You need to be able to be strong in mobile and the ways that you have to be Patrick Marlowe. So we've got to

find a way to still be able to do those things with added responsibilities and in coordination with people that he's got to work with to make sure this thing's ready to go the next week. Yeah, it's interesting looking at his strain data through the week after the injury, and Patrick was willing to share some of his whoop data for this conversation. But, you know, he's got like a 12 strain on Tuesday. This is following the Jacksonville game leading up to the Bengals game, like a 4.6 strain on Wednesday. So like, you know, almost doing nothing. And then Thursday and Friday, like he does get it, get it up. They're 14 and a half, 14.6.

Throughout the week, his recovery is climbing. So he was in the red on Wednesday. And then sure enough, by the weekend, he's in the green with a high recovery. You know, how are you getting him to a 14 or a 14.6 strain for a guy that's, you know, got that kind of an injury? I think with Patrick, it's about setting priorities. and a lot of the things when he's in this type of situation have to do with a lot of acute therapy and different things that honestly were in his time with the chiefs.

And that stuff is very meticulous and time-consuming. And I think that instead of work, it's a pain towards thing. Not to speak directly to what they did because that's them. But I think that it was getting him ready to go. And I think it's important to practice at the highest level that you can at the end of the week. and I think he understood that and as a professional

and trying to make sure that he knows what he's dealing with going into the game. What you don't want is to go into the game and not know the state of your body or how to play with the state of your body and the current state that you're dealing with

especially if you have an injury. So I think they did a great job with that and, you know, what we do there in the season is mainly Monday, Tuesdays, and Fridays. And so, you know, on Wednesdays and Thursdays, it's priority for him to focus only on what's inside that building and only on football. Now, you add added responsibilities with therapy

and different things that they need to do to try to get this ankle ready to go, and it was a full work week. But Patrick is the consummate pro, and to be able to balance all this, and if you look at his sleep, he's been on top of it, especially in a week like that,

to be able to get the sleep that you need, get all the things in, you really have to be a professional and manage your term, and he absolutely nailed it. he and Julie and their team up there and then some of the nominal stuff we were able to do it was just really awesome to see him go do go do what he does and be himself and make that play at the what be what might be like one or two things that we all can learn from someone who can overcome an injury that quickly like are there little tips that uh I should know if I

ever find myself with a with some kind of an ankle sprain and I want to be uh I want to be able to get to work? You know, I wish I had simple solutions. I would tell you that a lot of it goes back to the off-season training. I mean, obviously, there's a ton that you can do right in that moment. Without giving too much away about the professional practices that they utilize with the Chiefs, I think that for us, it's about building that body in the off-season and then trying to make sure that we continue to do the things that we can do week to week during the season. And a lot of this has to do with your fascial system. And there's 12 facial lines. And what they found is it's mainly made at collagen. And these facial lines have more resiliency than Kevlar. And there's

been a lot of research come out about this. And so when you train the body, you've got muscles, tendons, ligaments, and fascia. And then there's all different types of tissues and soft tissue combinations and different things in the body that we look at. But really, all these things can be trained in different ways. And when Patrick trains in the off season, there's a lot of intent around making sure that we have development in the density and structure and pattern stability of these different tissues. You know, for instance, tendons and ligaments need to be trained differently. You want your ligaments tight. You want your tendons to have that variability to where you can have tension on one end and you can have

some flexibility and tissue extensibility on the other. Your muscles have to have different properties, obviously, tissue extensibility. But when it comes of fascia you want density and you want series elastic component and you want the ability to be able to load that spiral line and that lateral line and that deep frontal line because those are the game-breaking type of attributes that you have when you're when you're building a body well it's an interesting to see videos of you training Patrick and and uh even getting to spend some time when you guys were doing it together in person uh like one of one of the the exercises that I enjoyed watching was it was almost like a game of playing catch or your game of tag,

excuse me, where you're literally running around cones trying to tag one another. And for what it's worth, like Patrick in person is, I think feels even bigger than on TV. And seeing him do an exercise like that is pretty remarkable because he's a big person, but he's moving really quickly short distances and and scrambling around and it's obviously no surprise of them when you watch him on television that he's great at scrambling but as you were talking about you know this the sophisticated way of thinking about these different muscles especially in the lower body that's what it reminded me of was was this game of tag that I watched the two of you play and just like the the amazing combination of explosiveness but also power just in the size of his body then I felt watching it

Yeah, and that part of the offseason, we really have to gamify some things to kind of test our work, improve our work. And it's really important for him to see, you know, where he's at, because you can't go out there and play football in the off season, and you certainly shouldn't. But you've got to find ways to show examples of your work and see where you're at from a neurological and physiological standpoint. The game of tag, like you were able to see, Darren, some of our training is a really good example of me seeing him move how he moves in the game. And he's a very unorthodox mover, as you well know. But, and those things are fun, and they get a lot of attention, right? It's like the one, it gives someone like Patrick a little gamification, and it gets them a little more excited for the workouts,

and it helps with the intensity of it. And it allows him to see, you know, to see where he's at as far as in the context of the offseason towards the end season. In terms of ice treatment, stretching, you know, various tools like hyper ice, or is there anything that you feel like has been absolutely critical or that you've talked to Patrick about in the past five days or so or a week that you feel like's made a big difference? Honestly, year-round, we have some routines.

I mean, we use the high-briced gun. We use the stretch cage. We have some different things that are consistent year-round, really off-season and in-season. Heating vibration is a go-to for us. If there's a very acute spot, we will. love to use those those different devices that they have but the gun is an is an everyday thing we've got some different points that we hit really mainly to neurologically wake up the body but then also for

acute areas that need a little more work that we've got to break up some of those things and carry over and a lot of that comes from either sort general soreness or it could be just contact general soreness from the game contact injuries are so different because you want that ambulatory response you want blood flow you don't want want to stop the blood flow. You want blood flow in the body, especially early in the week, whether it's in season or off season, to try to get the body where it needs to be and improve and increase that heat with process. Totally. Makes a lot of sense. And obviously you both use WOOP as a tool, which I'm very grateful for. I love having you both on the platform.

Will you ever talk to Patrick about how he's sleeping and sort of check in on that side of things? Yeah, we've been on that. And I think this year, the data really shows, and maybe when the season's over, we can look at some of it a little more specifically and talk with him. But really, what I've noticed is him prioritizing his sleep and his rest more this year than he was able to last year. And I think that that has accounted for a lot of his ability to recover

and be more consistent on some of his scores. You know, he and I communicate on a pretty consistent basis about this. I'll often send him the green charged of battery. when he knows what he's where I really wanting to be and he's been in been really professional about his sleep and protecting his his rest this year he's just it's it's been a really good year when it comes to recovery scores in general in actual sleep duration it's been a lot better than than what we've had before so we were able to pull some numbers in terms of his sleep performance and recovery on average for game days and uh

This shows you that Patrick Mahomes is a gamer because it's really impressive. So for home games, on average, this is in 2022, 73% sleep, 78% recovery. And for away games, 75% recovery. So he's always in the green essentially on game day, which for an NFL season, frankly, is pretty fucking hard to do because you're getting banged up and you know

availability is one of the best skills there is and the fact that he's able to not just be in the game but have such high recoveries is a testament to what he's doing throughout the week what you guys are doing together he's clearly good at sleeping because that makes a difference no I think that's

a really good information because as far as his recovery scores you know when you look at the NFLC You've got what 21 weeks or it depends on how long you play and how much you're involved in the preseason, but you can't peak every week and you don't want to have these valleys where you underperform or you're at risk. And so if he's 95% recovery every single game day, then that means we're leaving a lot of physical development and neurological development on the table. In the course of a season, I believe that you want to get physically better. You want to improve your body. Not only need to deal with things in a real time, you've got a whole team.

people, most of people around him to do that, you've also got to continue to move up your strength numbers, to get better at mobility, to improve your shoulder girdle, to improve some of these things, your cervical mobility and different things to help you become a better player because when you switch that focus in the season and there's more skill development, you've got an opportunity to physically go to a different place than you would in the offseason with those things. And so for him in particular, it's important to try to find a way, just like a track athlete would in a European tour, you don't want to PR every single meet because you need that for the end, just like we need that for the playoffs in the Super Bowl. However, you can't go out there

and get dusted just because you're trying to train hard throughout the week. So I think he's done a really good job of managing that. And like the numbers show, he has been pretty consistent with his sleep. That's a great perspective. So you're essentially framing like it actually wouldn't be better if he had a 95% recovery every game day because that would almost be a signal that you didn't push his body hard enough maybe earlier in the week so that he's going to get as strong as possible come playoffs absolutely jimmy radcliffe with organ football taught me this a long time ago and if you go back and look at organ football jimmy radcliffe was the life lifeblood of that place he was a strength conditioning coach that was originally a professor that had a had a conversation with the

football coach and then ended up working with him but basically He would tell me that he kept a count of athletes and their attendance and workouts year-round. And he showed correlation between that and their health, like how many games they actually missed, and also their performance. And he trained the athletes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in season, year-round. And what he found is that if they were consistent with that, when they got to the end of the season and they got into the bowl games, their athletes were hitting PRs. And they were playing their best ball at the end of the season. and they were physically more healthy. And I took a lot from that.

And I think what I realized is, if we hit these Friday workouts year-round, you stack those Friday workouts, that's 21 workouts. He's going to be better for that 21 opportunities of work that he's done. And if you miss those opportunities, who knows, you might not make that run to win the game in the playoffs

if you physically haven't been working on your attributes. I think it's probably one of the things it's most underrated about professional athletes, sort of work ethic and sacrifice over the course of a season. As a fan, you're sort of thinking, oh, they're always just preparing for the game. But no, like, they actually have to keep getting much fitter over the course of a season, and there's the two a days. And even if you think about sports like Major League Baseball or NBA, like a lot of those athletes are doing workouts the morning of the game, right? And so Absolutely.

Because they're trying to get fitter along with competing on a night-to-night basis. One other thing I like in just looking at the last two weeks of data is the days where Patrick has a red recovery. So like on Wednesday after the Jacksonville game, you know, he was run down 24% recovery. But, you know, he had a strain of 4.6 that day. So it's like, okay, maybe I'm run down today, but I'm going to be resting pretty thoroughly. You know, you can definitely see the intelligence in the training strategy. And again, I love this story about you don't want to be at 95% every game because then you might be leaving some in the tank throughout the week. So you've kind of hit that on the nose.

78% recovery for home games this season, 75% recovery for away games this season. And also pretty similar sleep for both home and away. Sometimes you'll see athletes have materially worse sleep on the road. So that's also a good sign that, you know, Patrick and you guys have worked together on really good sleep routines. No, I think it's important to be consistent. I mean, he knows that. And I think his routines are, he's very much a routine and habit and superstitious type of athlete, which works to my advantage. Because if he's doing something to begin the year and it's effective and we're having success, he sticks with it.

And he is, I mean, he is consistent. He will do it the same every single week. And that has worked at our advantage. There's no doubt about it. Here's a fun stat the data science team pulled. Patrick Mahomes has not yet lost a regular season or playoff game, both in 21 and 22, after having 100% sleep performance. So if he gets all his sleep, watch out.

That's a pretty fun statistic. I'm going to ring that bell all year. Thank you for giving me that nugget, Will. I need that, I need that in writing. That's for sure. Hey, the number still alive. That's pretty amazing, though. That is amazing.

Man, so more or less, sir, you don't want to go up against a well-rusted, Patrick Bahams. What are certain things you can share about the Monday after a game? You know, obviously, you've taken a lot of hits. maybe there's a little bit of a nagging injury. What do you think is the best Monday routine? Yeah, for us, we have three days in the season that have different themes and different motives. Okay, so the day after the game is our A day.

A day is focused on trying to restore all the range of motion we need for every join the body and trying to make sure that we have a general game plan of where the body's at and what we want to get to before that Wednesday practice. So Monday is a lot of gymnastic routines, a lot of rolls and crawls on the ground, a lot of different squat variations, different foot positions to try to see where his feet and ankles and his lower body, what the joint order and the muscle order is.

Then also testing his upper body flexibility from fingers to wrist to everything else. And then there's a routine that we do for spinal mobility and flexibility and just checking the health of the spine, three-dimensional movement, sagittal plane, frontal plane, transverse plane. That's A day. And we also do a cage routine that's five different positions with rocks and reaches. And it's not far. That is a hard day because it is really counterintuitive to go the day after the game and look like you're training for college gymnastics.

I mean, it really is difficult for these guys and for Patrick. And I think it's a mark of a real pro that he is consistent with that. And he knows that every time he does that by Tuesday, he feels completely different. It's like taking the wrinkles out of the sheets, is what I would explain to someone is that you're trying to set the table for the week, and this is at work that is going to damage you. It should make you feel better

by the time you get to that Wednesday practice. Now, B-Day is a different experience, and it's a different story. B-Day would be two days after the game, and B-Day is really focused around hitting some strength residuals. And when I say strength residuals, maximal strength is going to stick around

as an athletic attribute for 15 to 25 days. Now there's genetic factors, trainability factors. So if you say that, that means basically you need to lift heavy on something at least once every two weeks or you're going to lose some of your maximum strength capabilities in that movement.

Now, we can't afford to do that. If you want to play the game like Patrick Mahomes plays the game, you better retain your strength or continue to move it up because he plays it in a physically imposing way. So B-Day is all about taking data from a day and saying we are healthy enough to do x y and z and we are going to do that tomorrow so we work on strength and then we work on power when i say power we're looking at 60 loads or a little bit higher all the way to 90 percent loads and we're trying to measure i'm measuring

on meters per second how fast he's moving the weight we have some different different machines that then measure some more three-dimensional movement we test meters per second there we test meters per second on different lists. We test inches on jumps. We test miles per hour on bat swings. But Tuesday's heavy, you know, or B day, rather is heavy. And we're working and he's training like an athlete, not just like a quarterback. And then you have C day. And C day is really about unloading the body. It's about neurological proficiency. So the goal on C day is to move faster than he's going to have to move in the game. It's almost like a trap me. It's a short workout. I don't want him, two things. I don't want him to sweat. I don't want him to be sore.

on Friday. So Friday is about hitting a PR. We've got 20 different med ball throws we do. I'm going to mile per hour gunning him on all those throws. We've got bat swings we're going to do. We're looking to hit a PR on our bat swing right, our bat swing left. We're going to run for miles per hour. We're going to do four to five sprits full speed and we're going to see where he's at. So that's fast Friday or C day on a regular Sunday to Sunday week. And this routine really helps him hit three different types of workouts and when you when you really look at the general plan we're trying to hit a few things one movement literacy force absorption which every athlete's got to have especially a quarterback okay force transmission how well can you transmit a force if you are in

contact or you need to okay pattern stability which brings in a lot of that different soft tissue development okay are you creating tension and density in those ligaments are your tendons healthy or your muscles strong, you know, do you have that facial stability you need? Are you working the different lines of different movements? And then targeted tissue resiliency. If you don't have targeted tissue resiliency and know what your quarterback is up against week to week, then I think that it's more difficult for them. So if we know we're playing a certain style of team, it might be a little more speed work.

We know we're playing another style of team. It might be just a little bit more strength work. And while it might not make a huge difference, you're talking about one to two percent of added benefit from those training sessions that could always be the difference and that that's our general plan in the season it's fascinating so just to just to make sure I understood it properly summarize the ABC days versus days of the week so A days would generally be the day after the game B days would generally be two days after the game and then C days are going to be two days before the game.

And here's why. Strength residuals, like I said, they're all different. So you look at speed, maximum speed, that no athlete in the world can retain maximal speed for longer than three days. Five days max. You have to be an Olympic-level athlete to retain that. Meaning, if you want to go out and swing your golf club and get a miles per hour on that,

go do that today and then wait seven days. you will likely lose a little bit okay now if you were to do it in the middle and you were to test it and then do it again so you did day one day three and in in day seven you will likely swing a little bit faster now if you were to do day one day three day six and day seven and you did minimal volume you will swing faster because the way the body works is its neurological proficiency if you can only maintain maximum speed for three days that's what that friday workout is about it's about running as fast as you can or not even running pulling a cable as fast as you can, swinging a bat as fast you can, trying to expose the body to at some level of neurological speed that's faster than what he's going to have to do in the game. If it's faster than what he's going to have to do in the game, now the game is slower physically and neurologically. And so that is the whole point behind it. Now, strength is different. You don't want to move slow right before the game. That's why we move slow on Mondays. The week should go like this. We move slow early in the week, and then we move faster as a week

goes over because I don't want to move I don't want to do anything that doesn't feel like the speed of the game later in the week and I want to make sure if we're moving heavy weight slow we're doing it on Tuesday why because I've got five full days for his body to make that adaptation and then the last thing we do is dust him off with as much speed as possible under loads less than 20% maxes jumps meters per second the whole bit on Friday everything is faster than what he's going to do it again and that's that's the general plan and it sounds like that's the general plan largely independent from who's who's on the schedule it is and you know there are challenges week to week and that's why it's so important to be able to communicate um and have professionals

around you and really you know everywhere he goes he's got he's got a lot of people and so being in communication Patrick being the great communicator that he is we don't ever want to overlap because someone like Patrick has so much going on in his life. He's got his family that he prioritizes his time with. He's got his relationship with Coach Reed. He's got his therapy and athletic training in the building. He's got his coaches at practice, his teammates. He's got me. He's got everything else. So at some point, you're doing too many things. Yeah. I mean, in the season, I have to do the least. He should not be doing too much. He's got to do just enough. Not too little, not too much.

And in the off season is a good time for me to be selfish and really try to build some tissues and have some long-term approaches. We don't have to play week-to-week. So if I want to trash him on a Friday, to where he's not going to be able to walk good on a golf course, it's not a problem for us, you know? But that's not the priority in the season. I'm not the priority in the season. I've just, it really is like tuning a radio and making sure he's good week to week. And what I'm looking at is in the course of his season, I really want us to do this and get better and physically peek in the point. playoffs that's that's what you're looking what might be a signal of a number or something that you

would see in in one of these ABC workouts during the week leading up to a game where you might see some results and and say to yourself okay you know what we're actually going to dial this back or I might need to course correct here that's a great question will and I'll tell you that really about four to five times during the season do we kind of want to hit a small peak during the week And so there's a few ways to look at this. You can look at strain scores and stress scores or recovery scores, rather, and look at the correlation between those. On Monday and Tuesday, there's not a lot of physical activity that he has to do at.

You know, like football practice is the most intense thing. Football practice and football games are the most intense thing during the season. And they very well should be, right? So from my standpoint, I always have to stay under that threshold as far as strain is concerned. And I've got to look at his recovery scores. If on Wednesdays he doesn't have gas or on Thursdays he doesn't have gas, that means I've got to do a better job of making sure he's available to be his best in those practices in Friday as well. Because Friday is the most important practice from my standpoint.

So what we're looking for is for him to make sure that he gets the work that he needs, but I don't need him to feel broken or beaten on these workouts because I've got to ride that line of doing what we need to do and making sure it isn't carrying over. Now, if it's a buy week, and it's going to be the hammer. We're going to be sore. We don't need to be great physically in a biweek, and those are some of our very few opportunities

to get some physical advancement and adaptations that those things build in the playoffs that ends up mattering if you put those feathers in your cap. So I don't know, I'm not sure if I answered your question, but we really have got to be careful. I mean, it's difficult. And it's, he'll tell me, man, I'm busted or, man, I feel good. Or, you know, I've got this, I've got two hours a day, or I've got 40 minutes.

And it's kind of like with any other professional sport, NBA is probably the hardest. Major League Baseball and Premier League right there behind it. And then football is a little more predictable because those are their sports. You talk about NBA, a guy could come in and be like, I got 18 minutes. And we got to get on the court. Like, I didn't like my shot last night. Like, what can we do in 18 minutes? And then for whatever plan you've got,

you've got to do something. What kind of value can you add? Ankle mobility, stability. Maybe you only do deadlift. It's a, maybe you're trying to do as much as you can. Maybe you do some type of bleed where you do heavy, one set, medium, and then light. I mean, it's just these things are, this is what you do. You make decisions.

You make the best decisions you can. And you listen to the guy that is your boss. And Patrick's a great communicator. He puts us in a good position to win. Well, you called out that NFL practice and NFL games are the hardest things on the body, you know, pretty amazing the strain numbers that Patrick gets for games. Most recently, 20.5 against the Bengals, I mean, for folks who are familiar, it's out of 21, and it gets exponentially hard to go up the scale. So 20.5 is about the equivalent of a marathon for, you know, an amateur or

serious runner. It just sort of speaks to what the intensity was for him on his body. And I I think, like, if you're a casual observer, you wouldn't necessarily realize that an NFL game for a quarterback is, like, the equivalent of you running a marathon. That's, like, a pretty amazing, I think, phenomenon. Well, probably not every quarterback does that. The last I checked from GPS numbers, he's a top three most active quarterback in the league on a consistent basis, meaning if you take the amount of yardage, she covers in a game, compared to other quarterbacks. Yeah, he just, he's a mover. I mean, he's never still, but the most efficient quarterback that no one's going to be surprised about would be Tom Brady. He hardly ever moves.

But that is a skill, right? Now, what Patrick does is a skill too, but it requires a high level of fitness and a high level of physical ability and straight and endurance to be able to do what he does. And he moves around. No one's played against Patrick. Watch Patrick player played with Patrick and not said, and this guy's, he's moving all over the place. He's a very active player. if his running back scores an 80-yard touchdown, Patrick's hopping and skipping and jumping and running around as well. Like, there are a few guys, and I don't want to get into giving other people's data away.

But when I look at these charts, when I look at these charts, it makes a lot of sense to me the guys that are moving the most and what they do. And it's no surprise Patrick's pretty much top three every week and yardage cover on the football field. Well, I definitely remember the last Super Bowl we played and we've got to think a stronger O line this time around. But the last Super Bowl is like, I think a record for. scrambling in the pocket, wasn't it? Yeah, he covered, I believe, 578 yards just in pressures, something along those lines. And, you know, that was a difficult situation.

Talking about, again, he had something that was keeping him from less than 100%, obviously, that we dealt with in the offseason for a full off season. And he went out there and still hit high levels of speed and was able to scramble and make a lot of throws. that day was a day I don't I don't I'm sure I've been more proud of him but I don't know when that was a hard day and I feel like he was an absolute warrior in that situation and had no excuses and put the whole thing on him in his performance and yeah I mean like I said I'm sure I've been prouder but I don't know when that was a that was a tough loss and it makes

it makes you grateful for this game and these opportunities and being able to go into this game in a situation where you feel like you're going to be able to give your best. Yeah, it's exciting. And we'll get to this game in a second. I wanted to ask you, though, you know, obviously there's other high-profile athletes who have had, you know, close relationships with their trainers and, you know, been able to manage recovery in a unique way. I think about LeBron James in the long-time relationship he's had with Mike Minceas as an example.

And I've gotten to know Mike well over the years because he's a big whoop guy. But even within the NFL, you know, obviously what Tom Brady's been able to do is pretty remarkable. I know he's worked closely with Alex Guero. Like, do you find that you're ever reaching out to other trainers and saying, hey, what's working for you? How do you think about this? Is that something that you look at? Yeah, I mean, look, a lot of these guys I've reached out to, I mean, Tom House with Brady, Alex Greo with Brady, Tim Grover with Jordan and Kobe.

These are guys that, you know, as a professional, I always feel like it's important to gain perspective. Find people that have done things you want to do. Find out what worked, what didn't, what were their experiences, what do they wish they would have done different? What did they learn about their athletes that surprise them that matter? What surprised them that didn't matter? How did they manage these relationships with the teams?

How did they manage these relationships with the family and the athletes? So to answer your question, that is a relentless pursuit that never ends. I mean, if we are not adding to our perspective and adding to the things that we're looking at on a year-to-year basis, and I'm not out there searching for what's better and what's different and challenging my beliefs, and I need to be fired because if Patrick Mahomes is who we believe he is, then he deserves the best and I got to go find out what's worked for the best in every sport in the world in every situation and figure out what's useful to us and we've got to we've got to continue to do that and we've got to continue to audit our systems and approaches and what better

way to do that than to talk to people that have been there at the highest level of sport no matter the sport and find out what what matters and what we can take from that what might be the one or two things that say you've learned from talking to the folks who work with, say, Tom Brady. I think with Tom, it was just his tactical approach of organizing his time in the week and things that he just would not be, would not negotiate on from a standpoint of this, I'm doing this no matter whatever, or just continuing to do things that, honestly, I didn't really know an athlete would do during the season. Tom is one of the most dedicated professionals from a time investment standpoint that I've ever heard of. And, you know, in just brief conversations with Alex and discussing a few things here and there. And then Tom House on throwing mechanics with these, we've worked with multiple athletes. And then obviously he's an advisor to Dato who works with 3DQB works with a ton of athletes as well.

And just listening to these guys and what they're doing off-season, focus-wise, in-season focus-wise. and what they're paying attention to week to week, I think is really, really ring a bell as far as like, hey, we might be missing out or this ability to continue this development in season and off season in this area, and in this area. And then challenging Patrick by saying, like, we got to be consistent here.

This is what guys are doing. And every time he's like, well, let's do it. Every time, it's, you know, let's do this. So, you know, I look at it like players in the NBA, will often self-scout any major league baseball and in major league baseball that may say

look the shift is working because I can't hit the ball to this quadrant of field I can't do that we've got to work on that this off season I've got to be able to pull the ball over here

or the ship is always going to work now I know the ship is changing and all this I'm just using that as example for an NBA player for an NBA player it's like hey the guys don't really cover me

when I'm over here because my shooting percentage is 14% like I've got to be able to make this shot or I've got to be a guy that hits this shot from the top of the key

I've got to develop a three-point shot. Jordan and Kobe were two guys that are great examples of, you know, I worked on my post-up game one off-season. I did this. And with Patrick, it's no different. We want to add things to his physical prowess, obviously. And then my job is to help him facilitate things that he wants to develop or change about his game in the off-season.

He did a lot of throwing this off-season, more throwing than he's probably ever done with his throwing coach, Jeff Christensen and Jay Christensen. and that was because of some of the things that he felt were a priority after watching himself last year and in the playoffs. And he did that. And I think it's reflected in his play this year and his consistency and his accuracy. And we knew that with Tyree being gone,

he was going to have to quarterback and be accurate, and he's going to have to be his very best. And he took that challenge on and I think we're all seeing the proof of it. Yeah, it's also cool for me just as more of a, a casual fan than a football expert, but to appreciate just the different ways in which he can release a football. And there's a few other guys that can do it too,

but he also seems to do it with his feet in a bunch of different positions as well. There was a throw they showed in the Bengals game where he had to walk forward. He sort of jumped up over the offensive line, sort of threw it somewhat sideways to get it around someone's arm. And then he also managed to land on just one foot, I think, because he didn't want the other foot, you know, do want to put pressure on his ankle.

Right. But the whole routine sort of looked like almost like a basketball move when you actually looked at it. Yeah, and you know, Patrick draws inspiration from all kinds of sports, and he's got a great, very diverse sport. Yeah, absolutely. But look, we got, we got 26 bones in our feet. You know, we've got 206 bones total, 640 muscles, 360 joints. 2,196 joint variations when you take into account

sagittal plane movement, frontal plane movement, transverse plane movement, real rotation, relative rotation. There's a lot of ways to move. And luckily for me, he is incredibly variable in his movements and his background, and he's super comfortable.

Now, he's got that genetic ability, right? And as coaches and traders, we've got two options when it comes to training athletes. We can try to attain new traits and attributes or we can nourish the ones that we have. So you're attaining or you're nourishing. And attaining is a wasted time at some point. You've got to nourish what you've got, and he's really good at that.

He's a variable person. So he's gotten the mobility in his shoulder. He's got the rotation of his humorous. He's got different natural slots in his arm. He's got different movements in every single week. That's what one of the things A-Day is. And even in the off-season, once a week, we're going to check mobility. and flexibility in every single foot position.

We've got 12 foot positions. We do squats it. We've got eight different angles that we lunge with every leg. Every week, we've got different crawl patterns. If something's not right, we've got to fix it. He knows his body can move in a number of ways. He knows he can produce power from 20 different med ball throws in different angles that you've never seen him throw a football.

And he knows exactly what miles per hour he can project power out from each one of these angles. So it's not like he doesn't know that these are his capabilities. And then what he does is he goes out there and he solves the problems that he's facing in real time with what he knows are his athletic attributes. And that is one of the reasons he's so special. Well, what an amazing summary, too, you just provided of the body and all the different ways to utilize our body. It just makes me grateful to have a body too, you know.

I'm not a professional athlete, but it's kind of exciting to just think about all the different ways you can use your body. and and I love that point about, you know, doing squats and eight different positions, if I heard that right. It just, you know, I don't know if I've ever even heard that before. Well, I was, you know, I was blessed. I was able to be mentored by someone named Gary Gray in the gift program. It's a fellowship for physical therapy. And he taught this SFT position, squat patterns that really to check for some

some movement discrepancies and look at chain reaction what we call chain reaction biomechanics and I took I took some of those concepts and really tried to apply them from a to a training standpoint instead of just a therapy standpoint and it's it's really opened up my eyes to to be able to use that as almost a litmus test for where are we at any like checking your oil if you will like you know you have oil but how much and what's the quality and then using that is not only a warm up it almost like a litmus test of here's where we're at and here's where I need to be before we get to practice, or here's where I need to be by the end of the off-season. And knowing the way that Patrick wants to play the game, it's a really good way for him to

be able to understand the state of his body on a day-to-day basis. I love that. You know, one thing that's interesting about the Super Bowl is in some ways it's almost like two individual games because half-time so long. Yeah, I know. And I remember listening to Tom Brady talk about that because he had played in enough of him at some point to realize to approach it almost like two games versus one game. And I thought it was just a really interesting insight.

And I'm curious if there's anything from a nutrition standpoint or a warm-up standpoint that you found my work for Patrick or Patrick's considering just knowing that it is kind of an unusual game in that of itself. That's a fantastic question, Will. And I think that Tom is showing what type of pro he is by. reflecting on that and it is it is true these guys are used to about a 12 minute half turn basically they go in and they you know if I'm honestly they use the bathroom and they come out like that's what's going on there was a great there was a great manning cast with

Peyton manning and Eli Manning uh doing Monday night football and Payton said something to Eli like you know the biggest myth is the halftime adjustment we go inside eat a few oranges go to the bathroom and come back out you know so I thought that was really important. Yeah, the halftime adjustment is a bowel adjustment, I think. Yeah. Like, that's what it is. But, but honestly, honestly, like, with this type of thing, it is different.

But these guys all played college, and college halftimes are forever. In high school, the high school is as well. And, yes, there is definitely a different approach you want to take. And when you talk about a warm up, there's a few different things you want to do. One, you need to warm your core temperature, which is not going to be a problem in Arizona. Two, you want to make sure that there's a joy-by-joy. kind of approach, get the dry hydraulic fluid going, get your formal system going, your adrenal factors back going. What you don't want to do is get out there in the third quarter and your

body still has some kind of systems awakening in your first or second drive, because big place can happen. And if you go back and look at the course of Super Bowls, in the third quarter, there is a lot of times a big place happen early in that third quarter. And I have to believe it has to do with where these people are at from the neurological readiness. standpoint, aerobic fitness standpoint, and some other things. If you are aerobically fit, and I know I'm wondering here, but if you're aerobically fit, your neurons stay warmer for longer period of time. Some of these players that aren't very aerobically fit or don't do a don't do a lot of work outside of practice or they don't do a lot of work as far as

sheer volume over the course of the season, like let's just say their focus is only like I want to stay healthy. Well, that means you're doing less work than guys that are actually trying to training outside of the parameters of just being healthy in practice. Well, then if you're not, your neurons are going to have a certain level of temperature or they're going to be able to keep warm. That's why some guys are really, really good, like backup running backs that come off the bench and just make it happen or like a sixth or seventh man in the NBA that comes off the bench and like immediately they're all and they're dominant. And then there's some guys that aren't good in their role. Like they've got to be a starter. And I think a lot of that has to do with their

neurological proficiency and their ability to maintain that that readiness and that it comes back to physical preparation and that comes back to some genetic factors but to loop this back into into what we originally talking about yes it matters and yes it is going to be a factor and there are people in place in these teams that that is their job to make sure the players are ready for that kind of break yeah and that's that's part of the reason i'm feeling good about sunday and that we can talk about the game for a second and I'm curious your take. But I think having played in multiple Super Bowls is such an advantage over having not played.

And I don't feel like that gets talked enough about by the sports talking heads as they make their predictions for the Super Bowl. But what do you think? What are some of, how are you feeling about this weekend? Do you have any predictions for us? Oh, I don't want to make a prediction per se, but I do think that both teams are really good,

and I think the Eagles have an amazing roster top to bottom. I've spent a lot of time with Jalen Hertz. I worked with him when he was coming out for the draft. Oh, cool. Yeah, and so Jalen's been around Patrick and trained at APEC as well, and got a great relationship with him, very happy and proud of him. And I respect the Eagles organization.

They've built their roster the right way. They've got great people in that organization, top to bottom, nothing but respect for, what they do, how they do it. And they're a formidable team. And it starts up front with their line. And obviously, I'm a believer in Jalen. But, you know, the Chiefs, in my opinion,

the Chiefs are the most improved team in the league, this second half of the season. And here's one. You've got five to seven rookies that have been contributing on a consistent basis. And now they're not rookies. Yeah, that's great. You make your biggest leap when you're a young player, that second half of the season.

And now they've got this third. season and you've got a lot of energy on that chief's roster and obviously the coach's resume speaks for itself what they've done as far as reinventing their offense and the defensive coordinator of the job the defensive coordinator is done in the postseason has not been talked about enough it's been remarkable and the young players like the george carloffes and then the secondary of basically all rookies and outside of the safeties is is something that should be looked at more when this offseason comes because it's been impressive

what the general manager of Brett Beach has done is basically hitting on every single pick and so man I'm excited I think it's going to be a good game you know obviously I want the Chiefs to win on with Patrick to be the MVP I want totally all these things right totally and what

what should we know about Jalen Hertz that we might not know as someone who's worked closely with him too Jalen is such a team guy he will do whatever it takes he's a workhorse he's one of these strongest athletes on the field any position if you were to take your top five strongest

athletes on the entire team he's going to be probably top five on any team regardless of position and when you say strongest you mean like physical strength as measured by lifting weight almost yeah so I'm not talking about some of these functional

labels like pattern stability or any of these other things that I mentioned, I'm talking about let's go get wrong and go in the weight room. And this guy is like, I mean, he can, whether we're deadlifting, squatting or doing anything else, he's going to be one of the guys that's going to be a bell cow. He is a truly physically imposing human being. And don't get me wrong, Patrick is a monster as well. Like you said it. When you see Patrick in person, you can.

really appreciate how big he is. And when I say big, the diameter of his arms. Yeah, he's big. The muscles in his back, his butt and his hips. I mean, this guy is a guy that if you're walking, if you're trying to figure out who you're going to mow, you're not picking Patrick. But also, with Jalen, I mean, the guy, the guy looks like, and he's built like Adrian Peterson.

He's built like some of these guys. I mean, he's a strong athlete. And if he wants to run the ball 20 times in this game, he's going to, physically be able to, and it's difficult for a linebacker, a defensive lineman, and especially a defense of back, to tackle him one-on-one if Jalen has decided that he's going to physically give his best to impose contact with that, because he's a monster. And people forget, he ran a four-five at the NFL Combine as well. He's not light. Wow. I mean, he's, they better, and I know they will. And I know there's respect on the highest level from the defense coordinator

and the defense of personnel. But he is going to require the same type of attention that you would give any NFL running back as far as how you have to tackle him. And he'll show that too. Anything else as a football expert that we should observe this weekend or keep an eye out for?

Oh gosh. I don't know if I'm a football expert, Will, but I appreciate that. I think you've got, one of the things that I want people to appreciate is the offensive and defensive line for the Eagles is truly two of the best units in the history of the game. We need to appreciate what we're seeing

as far as their offensive line and their defensive line. You've got some really unique personalities but really unbelievable players that you don't really get an opportunity to watch guys like that play together. And they were a big part of, that offensive line was a big part of why they won against the Patriots a few years ago,

some of the same guys. two of the best players in the league and Jason Kelsey and obviously Lane Johnson. You're talking about a guy that was a quarterback in high school in college, converted, tied in to tackle and now is, you know, obviously one of the best tackles of the league that held Bosa to almost nothing and this guy's got a torn groin. So, you know, you've got that. And then the other side of the ball, you've got a defensive line that had the most sacks in the league,

I believe, and was second pressure. to the Chiefs, which the metrics show they had a little bit harder schedule when it comes to offensive line play, supposedly, like, these guys are monsters. And then I think when you look a little closer, the Eagles receiving group is similar to the Bengals receiving group.

They've got way more playmakers in that receiving group than you would have on even a good roster. It's almost too much for them to be able to keep over the next few years because they're so good in so many different ways. and I think that the types of receivers they have

and how many they have is going to prove difficult for the Chiefs. And then in addition to that, I think you're going to see some young guys for the Chiefs on the whole fits really be given some opportunities to make some plays and have an impact on this game. And, you know, I want 15 to have one of the best games of his career,

but I really look for some of these young guys to be big-time playmakers as well. Well, it's a great summary, and I'm excited for the game. I think it's going to be a great game, and I'm proud of Patrick and you and excited for our partnership together, and hopefully we're celebrating a win Sunday night. But either way, this has been a lot of fun, Bobby. Thanks for giving me the rundown of everything that you do with Patrick and talking a little bit about WOOP data. And, again, you know, grateful to have you on Woop and be used.

it in your in your everyday life well i appreciate you very much for having me on and you know that whoop is a is a great tool for us that we use on a consistent basis and um it's it's been something that really helps us with our communication and this gamification of recovery is made patrick much more dedicated to that and competitive in that space um and it's been a huge tool for me to help to help him with that accountability and that continued focus so the thanks is to you my friend and uh yeah Come find me Sunday night. When, and if we win, let's make it.

Let's make a point to get together on that. Okay, well, I'd love that. Looking forward to it. And I will see you in Arizona, Bobby. Thank you. ENAZ. Thanks. All right.

See you, pal. Big thank you to Bobby Strip for talking all things, training, and recovery. And for offering a peek into the incredible season Patrick Mooms has had leading up to the Super Bowl. If you enjoyed this episode of the podcast, please leave us a reading or. review. Check us out on social at Woop at Will Ahmed. If you have a question you want to see answered on the podcast, email us, podcast at Woop.com. Call us 508-443-4952. Sign up for a Woop membership at Woop.com. Use the code, Will, get a $60 credit. And that's a wrap. We'll see you next time on the WOOP podcast. Stay healthy. Stay in the green.

Thank you.