FOSBURY FLOP

Víctor López Ros trains coaches and teachers, coaches Olympic champions, and has worked at the elite level of team sports. I appreciate that he embodies the very thing he argues is essential for training the professionals of the future: debating and questioning what we so often take for granted… among other things. Now the conversation begins in Catalan. You have the English version in the YouTube...

Ted Kroeten is the founder of Joy of the People, a non-profit organization that promotes free play as a way to build healthier kids and stronger communities. By simply watching children play, he began to notice what had been lost in the transition from street play to private academies. He discovered the value of free play, how to build sports talent and the secret not of “overload” but of its oppo...

Andreu Enrich returns to Fosbury Flop, keeping the bar as high as he left it: connecting genuine ideas and philosophers such as Nietzsche, Heidegger, or Foucault with the figure of the coach. Now, the chapter in Catalan begins; in English, you have the YouTube video of the episode . Notes of the episode Unpopular opinion of Andreu Enrich | @martict99 The art of coaching: a matter of walls and slop...

From the very first moment I read about design, I was captivated. Moholy-Nagy said that “designing is not a profession but an attitude of resourcefulness and inventiveness”. Miguel Milá, that it “consists of fulfilling a function while maintaining emotion”. Bruno Munari called it “a method centered around problem-solving”. And Don Norman stated that “the goal is to produce a great product, one tha...

After our first conversation, the authenticity of Albert Batalla led me to define him as the “Michael Johnson of motor skills learning, training... and life”. We met again for a second conversation about the advice he would give to his younger self at the start of his journey as a coach and professor. Next, he shares his answer —in Catalan. You can also know it in English in the YouTube video of t...

Josep Vicenç Mestre masters the art of communication in environments that, at first glance, seem to have little in common. Next, I try to see, in Catalan, what I can learn to apply to my own context. As always, if you would like the English version, you have the YouTube video of the episode . Notes of the episode Jakobson’s functions of language | Wikipedia Paraules de president. Nació i Estat als...

The great designer Miguel Milá often said that, during his years of learning, his father would repeat to him: “Be useful and you will be used.” This, I sense, is what Sergi Oliva embodies: someone who took off in Catalonia and landed in the NBA, where he has taken on roles in data analysis, strategy, assistant coach, head coach, and assistant general manager. What follows is my attempt —in Catalan...

On the conception of error. Go to https://www.fosburyflop.blog/ to check the written version of the episode, its notes and much more content. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.fosburyflop.blog/subscribe

The labels “coach”, “researcher”, “professor”, “co-designer”… fall short when it comes to describing Maricarmen Almarcha, who was born in Murcia, graduated in Barcelona, and now living in Australia. Aligned with her authenticity: last year, she published not one, but two (!) disruptive PhDs that challenge the status quo of the education field and the one of health and exercise promotion; two field...

The power of the interaction with what surrounds us. Go to https://www.fosburyflop.blog/ to check the written version of the episode, its notes and much more content. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.fosburyflop.blog/subscribe

Gerard Encuentra is the coach of Hiopos Lleida of the Spanish Endesa League. The saying goes that the “whole” is more than the sum of its “parts”. Gerard Encuentra is the perfect example: season after season, he continues to show that he can make the interaction of the “parts” —his players— come together to form a “whole” —the team—… that few could have imagined. Now, you will hear Gerard’s lesson...

The rules state that, in football, there are only two positions: those who can touch the ball with their hands and those who cannot. Training, however, often focuses on the latter, while the former, the goalkeepers, are separated from the group with a coach that some call “trainer” and others “entertainer”. With Lluís, Diego, and Manu, we aim to integrate a player that has continuously been isolat...

In defense of the intervention of the coach. Go to https://www.fosburyflop.blog/ to check the written version of the episode, its notes and much more content. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.fosburyflop.blog/subscribe

There are coaches who seek empty forms devoid of meaning, and others who pursue functions full of purpose. Some work on “ideal” decontextualized patterns, while others encourage uncertain and adaptive behaviors. Some memorize, store, and implement drills and models mechanistically, while others explore and adapt efficiently to the uniqueness of each context they encounter. The same applies to thos...

Jorge Sanz is the Sports Director of the Cycling Movistar Team. When he was young, he went to study in Barcelona, where he was greatly impacted by a trainer of football players —not a physical coach— named Paco Seirul·lo. With Jorge, we discuss in Spanish the integration of training in a sport where fragmentation reigns. You know you have to English version in the YouTube video of the episode . Ch...

Óscar Cano is not a football coach: he is an incredibly sharp person who happens to have chosen to make a positive impact on football teams. Óscar is one of the few who elevates our profession. The beloved Taleb says you should never read a book that can be summarized. Because then, it is not a book. This is exactly how I feel about my conversation with Óscar: it is impossible to describe it. Up n...

Adaptation wits from the sideline. Go to https://www.fosburyflop.blog/ to check the written version of the episode, its notes and much more content. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.fosburyflop.blog/subscribe

Andreu Enrich has understood it perfectly: he is a COACH, in all caps, with every letter. It does not matter the sport. Because Andreu knows that, both on and off the field, it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, that what is essential is invisible to the eye... or to the whiteboard where many draw technical-tactical arrows. Up next, Andreu shares his authentic perspective to us in Ca...

Alex Sarama, Director of Player Development for the Cleveland Cavaliers, invited me to the Transforming Basketball Camp. There, I was able to know how Alex thinks about basketball performance and how Transforming Basketball, the company he leads, helps players, coaches, and organizations make sense of an evidence-based approach: the CLA, Constraints-Led Approach. What I liked the most, however, wa...

Pau Casassa is the technical director of the Barça Academy in Catalonia and around the world. They don’t coach football players, they coach kids who play football. And they do it with a playing idea that does not seek the results at any cost. The Barça idea is the one that brings a team closer to victory exciting the people who practice it, the spectators who observe it. An idea to train football...

Tactics do not exist. Go to https://www.fosburyflop.blog/ to check the written version of the episode, its notes and much more content. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.fosburyflop.blog/subscribe

Shawn Myszka started training players of the National Football League trying to make them bigger, leaner and stronger. Everything changed the day he asked himself: Are the players performing because of me or in spite of me?  He didn’t like the answer and led him to become a Skill Acquisition Specialist for NFL players. In a sport where training is based on dribbling cones and running ladders as fa...

My lighthouse. Go to https://www.fosburyflop.blog/ to check the written version of the episode, its notes and much more content. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.fosburyflop.blog/subscribe

In training, we have increasingly accepted that we will never find the perfect technique, because it will depend on the characteristics of the player who executes it in the environment she is in; we are beginning to assume that there will never be a universal collective game model, but that its perfection will depend on the individual and emerging qualities of those who make up the group. Why, the...

Ferran Adrià is one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He was the chef at elBulli, 5 times chosen best restaurant in the world. In sporting terms, it is as if Barça had won 10 Champions Leagues in a row and he was the head coach. We met one evening to talk about it at a hotel in Barcelona... the rest is history. It is in Spanish. If you prefer the English version, you can watch the Y...